The universe placed in my path the book: “Siddhartha”, a tale of a young meditative prodigy living in the Middle East . The boy was respected by all the men in his village, all the women fancied him, and his wisdom and capacity to think, wait, and fast surpassed even that of the elders who all adored him . He was loved by all, and yet Siddhartha was tormented . Siddhartha sought nothing more than to abandon the Self: the throes of emotion, the sweet poison of desire, and his connection to the world of illusion . He sought nothing more but to abandon himself, in order to achieve inner peace; in order to achieve Nirvana . This novel was gifted to me by the Universe at the perfect time, because never had I felt more like Siddhartha than in the recent past .

Within the novel, Siddhartha takes on many faces and assumes many lives in his desire to rid himself of the Self, meeting many teachers along the way and continually being disillusioned and “dying” throughout his journey . One tale after another, I felt as if I were Siddhartha, seeking Inner Peace beyond knowledge and doctrine - the absolute death of the Ego . I, too, was seeking as Siddhartha, still a slave to desire, still a slave to that very human-like pull . Once I reached the end, I had received the answer I was looking for . The answer was “Om”, the answer was “hallelujah” . The answer was: All is good .

Like a body of water that must run its course, there is no pain or suffering or illusion that does not lead back to the source - and the source is unconditional love . The way a river returns to the ocean, all of our joy and hatred returns to the open door within us all . The river laughs when we despair, because it remembers that all is good . That all is for our good . All worlds, dimensions, and modes of consciousness are all roads that lead us back home . The world around us permeates within us and is us . Thus, the world outside cannot be an illusion, because it would simply make us a dream ourselves .

We are all united in this journey: this pulsing, throbbing, seeking, and suffering . When I remembered that all things done in the Universe are good, and that we are all an unique facet of the Universe, I never felt more unified with the Universe . I walked around the house at my job during the noc shift, peeked into the rooms of the slumbering clients that I cared for, and I saw that they were good . Outside of rightdoing and wrongdoing, they were good . They would be led to the source through journeys I could not protect them from, just as no one could protect me from my destiny - and I saw that this was good . I texted all those I cared for and reminded them that they were good . I looked at where I was on the path toward Inner Peace and discovered I had found it . That it was always here . That time was naught and I was all at once everything: enlightened, struggling, seeking, desiring, suffering, joyous, and gracious; just as the rest of the world, every being returning to the source - and that it was good .

It is hard to communicate such wisdom with words and thoughts, because seeing everything as joyous is the ending to suffering . When yer rid of such suffering and tension, you feel the Self disappear and an emptiness remains . For a long time, I was struggling within that fog, falling into endless . Where was I to go? What was I to fight for? Nothing . I had returned to nothingness . Emptiness . The womb . The very essence of spirituality . I had simply had to rediscover that life isn’t just necessarily dualistic, but that there was no duality . I had to rediscover that life was beautiful . I want to scream it from the mountaintops, share it with my Tribe, and sing it to passerbys . I want to sing it down wells and sing it in caves . Not to preach, but to confess: that amidst the confusion, I, too, have to remember that we are all light - and light we shall remain .