For some reason a question began to form in my mind as I woke up this morning and consciousness began to return. The question is: “What am I most thankful for as I look at my life?”

Just for fun, here’s my answer.

I am thankful for the meaninglessness I felt as a young man

While I wasn’t thankful for it at the time, God knows, I am very thankful now for the profound sense of meaninglessness and alienation that I felt as a young man.

I had a sense that something hugely important was missing from my life — and from the world around me too, come to that — but what was it?

After all, I had nothing to complain about in an outer sense. I was healthy. I had loving parents. I had a good job as a reporter on a big London daily newspaper. I even had a small sailboat, and a nice girlfriend.

Something huge and unknown was calling to me

But something huge and unknown and unprecedented was calling to me and I had to make a decision. Was I going to follow this inner urge even though I didn’t know what it was or where it would lead? Even though I might never find it or it might destroy me?

Or was I going to push it down out of sight and out of mind and live a “normal” life like my parents expected, pretending to myself I never heard this inner call coming from I knew not where?

It was my own true Self calling to me

I know now that it was my own true Self calling to me and it had its own agenda and intentions for me. It was the truth of my own being calling to me, and its message was: “Be free.”

I was a confused, naïve young man grappling with feelings and compulsions I could hardly begin to understand and I was being called to the greatest gift that life has to offer any of us — the gift of true freedom.

So I gave up my familiar life — my parents and my girlfriend too — and traveled to a far off country called British Columbia where I didn’t know a soul and had no particular prospects at all that I knew of.

But what joy I felt as I honored the impulse of my own spirit and boarded a ship called the ss Homeric, which took me from Southamption to Quebec, after which I rode a train across Canada to BC.

Life in a “new world” hasn’t always been comfortable, of course. But I have found that life is trustworthy.

I have discovered that if you trust the truth at the core of your own being,  in its own way and in its own time it will reveal to you a new world of true meaning and happiness that I believe is our true destiny in this world.

As you look at your own life what are you most thankful for?

If you wish why not try answering this question for yourself? Perhaps it would help open new possibilities for you. I’d love to share any thoughts you may have on this theme.

You can create a new life at any age

In a way this post ties in with the online course I’m working on, entitled “How to look (and feel) 10 years younger in four weeks: The true promise and potential of aging.” 

Because the truth is you can create a new life for yourself at any age – whether you are 21 or 91 as my friend Steven Aitchison put it in a recent email.

I’m happy to say I’m coming along very well with this course and expect to offer it in just a few weeks. 

Meanwhile what are your thoughts or concerns about aging? What questions would you ask a loving deity if you had the chance? I’d love to hear from you on this theme and your input would be most helpful to me. Bye for now and blesssings to you.

Picture credit:

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4026/4399140037_92dc54372d.jpg

What are you most thankful for when you look at your life? is a post from: The Happy Seeker - Living with grace at any age

“The eye must be something like the sun, otherwise no sunlight could be seen; God’s own power must be inside us, how else could godly things delight us?” — Goethe

I love these words of the great German philosopher, Wolfgang Goethe. They stir my body and my soul. I lived for 34 years in a spiritual community in the interior of British Columbia, and I have never forgotten one of the things my mentor said during a presentation: “There is no god external to ourselves.”

Everything changes when we begin to listen to our own divine presence.

This presence is very practical. “What is the right thing in this situation?” It is concerned with what is useful and creative in the present moment just as it is. It’s not lost in communion with the Angels –though there may be some of that going on, I’m sure.

This morning, as I was eating breakfast, I happened to look out the window and saw our neighbors across the street loading up their SUV, obviously getting ready for a trip.

“You need to go over right now and let them know about our coming move to Denver,” truth said. I put down my knife and fork, called JoAnn and we went over together to tell them.

I was a young man of 23 working as a reporter on a large daily newspaper in London, when one day — out of nowhere, it seemed — the notion came to me: “You want to find the meaning of life – leave everything and go to British Columbia.”

What? Give up a promising career, say goodbye to my girlfriend, and abandon my family simply because a vague compulsion rose within me to go to Canada?

But how thankful I am that I followed that whisper within.

Sometimes people are frightened of stillness, or they think, “Why, stillness isn’t anything. God preserve me from such emptiness and boredom.”

But unless we are still we will probably miss the impulse of that divine presence that alone knows what is truly wise, what will truly bless our own life or the lives of others.

The belief that God, or Being is separate from us is a myth deeply entrenched in all of us. Perhaps it was inevitable back along the way. But truth is crying out in a loud voice these days for the myth to be ended.

Listened to your inner voice lately? is a post from: The Happy Seeker - Living with grace at any age

Hi. Welcome to my blog.  At the age of 23, to the dismay of my parents – I was an only child — I gave up a promising job as a reporter on the London Daily Express and moved to British Columbia. I didn’t know a soul there. But there was a longing in my heart to know the Truth – to find a deeper meaning and purpose in life – and the longing said this was what I should do.

I got a job as a reporter on the Daily Colonist in Victoria, British Columbia. It is a beautiful city with beautiful ocean vistas all around, and since I love the water, I soon bought a small sailboat. I named the boat Vision. What else was I going to call it?

When a vacation came up, I decided to go on a short cruise. I had never done any coastal sailing, and my navigational skills were zero. The weather was nice when I left Victoria, but in the afternoon a storm moved in. What had been a pleasant, exhilarating sail quickly changed character. The shore seemed a long way away as I struggled against a fierce headwind, not sure how much progress I was making — or if I was making any progress at all.

After a difficult, challenging time I finally reached the safety of a secluded cove. With no other boat in sight, I left the open sea behind and entered a magic realm where the water was smooth and calm as velvet. The contrast was incredible. It was like being in a cathedral. With stars peeping out, and with barely a whisper of wind, I ghosted across the velvet surface enfolded in a cocoon of peace unlike anything I had ever experienced before. I felt at one with everything — with God, with the water all around me, with the tree-lined shores of the cove and with the beautiful sky above.

It was wonderful to find refuge from a storm long ago in a remote cove on the British Columbia Coast. But I have learned, as the winds of change have gusted through my life, often in fierce, totally unpredictable ways that I do not have to go anywhere to find inner peace.

God is not separate from me, as I was brought up to believe. Quite the opposite. When I am still, in mind and heart, I feel the presence of Infinite Love permeating every part of my body. How could that Love be any closer? I feel its presence in every cell — in my arms and legs, my chest and feet. It is the great organizing intelligence which animates all form everywhere — and look, it finds time to repair my damaged finger.

Said the great Persian poet Rumi: “Out beyond ideas of right and wrong there is a field – I’ll meet you there.”

This is the invitation, I believe, that Life, or Being, or God is extending to each of us in this time of violent upheaval and change. Things do look pretty bleak from one perspective, that’s true. But from another perspective, what an extraordinary opportunity is being unveiled in these times.  It is the opportunity, I submit, to claim our true spiritual heritage — to know ourselves at last as the beautiful, timeless, unconquerable Being we truly are.

I reach out my hand to you in friendship.  I hope you will find some inspiration and assurance, perhaps even comfort, on this site, and at the same time, I look forward to any comments or thoughts you may wish to share.  Poems are welcome also. I plan to put up new posts Tuesdays and Fridays, to start with.  Thank you for stopping by, and I hope you will visit “The Happy Seeker” again — Christopher Foster.

Welcome to my blog is a post from: The Happy Seeker - Living with grace at any age