You want to heal your life you say? You want to experience the happiness only enlightenment can bring? Okay, are you ready for the change this is going to take?

If you live your life like everyone else – you will get the kind of life everyone else has. And what kind of life is this?

Well, how many people do you know who are deeply happy and fulfilled most, if not all of the time?

If you said “None” you have the experience most people have. And that’s my point: we live on a pretty unhappy planet.

Let’s change that, and let’s start with you!

Now here is the trick: everyone wants to be more happy and fulfilled. To get there is quite possible, but YOU MUST ACT on this desire. To be able to act with the determination and the power that will allow you to succeed you must have a burning yearning for change.

And not only must you act, you must also have the right skills because unhappiness and suffering tends to stick to us like gooey, old, unhealthy habits. That’s because that’s exactly what they are.

Now to act you must have INTENTION. Intention is more than a nice idea that says “Yeah, I’d like to be happy. Pass the potatoes please…” – see how this totally lacks power?

I’m sad to tell you that I see so many wonderful people who distract themselves with nice things, a nice way of life and don’t change. Yes I am talking especially about fairly conscious people, many in the yoga community for instance. There is great intention, but little power there.

Yes, you can make your life very nice for a while without creating real, deep change. You can play on inside your dream of how wonderful you are until your good karma runs out. Then – ouch – your yearning for true change will become more acute.

Yes, true change becomes possible when you either:

• get serious by a decision from deep in your heart to follow your highest calling and do whatever it takes to remove the obstacles to the true happiness only enlightenment can bring, or
• when you suffer enough, and get serious because you just can’t stand the pain any longer.

One of these two things has to happen so true deep-level transformation can begin (or get more on track) in your life. Of course I hope for your sake that it can be the decision to follow your yearning without much pain, but the truth is that most people travel the second road.

And that’s why I am writing this: I hope to be able to save you some pain.

As the Buddha taught: there is an inevitability here in this world of old age, sickness and death. In other words: suffering is inevitable in the state of mind we have inherited simply by being born in this world. And this suffering can go on for countless life times. Pretty grim, eh?

Grim enough for me to to decide very early in my life to become serious about real change. Well, I also had the benefit of much suffering, so I had a double advantage.

And then, once I got serious about wanting true change – no matter what it took, no matter what the cost or the effort – then I was able to find my way to some really great teachers.

To attract a good teacher becomes possible only once this deep yearning for freedom is awakened in you. Without it you can be sitting next to the most enlightened being on earth and you won’t notice. You’ll be too busy with your own agenda.

So I found teachers and they told me what I didn’t want to hear: that in order to become enlightened I had to put in a lot of work. That I would get out of this search exactly what I put into it.

Yes, grace abounds all around us, that’s not the issue. The issue is: how can I make myself into a worthy vessel to receive this grace.

This takes purification, commitment, serious inner work, repetition of practice, and great inner joy. The joy comes through practice and grace.

And whenever we slip, suffering will remind us again where the true path is.

So it is all about kindness, you see? The love and support we receive is kindness because they make us strong. And the inevitable challenges are also grace because they can shake us awake from our slumber, give us the yearning to be free of pain, the ability to listen to the teachings and the determination to keep going.

And the magical thing is that right now, right this second as you read this, you can say to yourself from deep in your heart: “I am serious. I am committing myself to change no matter what it takes.”

If you say that deep in your heart, like a prayer, you will be heard. Doors will open for you, where you didn’t even know doors existed.

You will be guided. You will be loved and nurtured, and given everything, yes EVERYTHING at all you need on this grand adventure, the journey to yourself.