I have heard it said time and time again that life is a mystery; that there is just something so elusive and incomprehensible about why birth and death occur or why and how creation comes to be at all.

I myself have spent many moments pondering such questions, devouring the works of many authors and spiritual leaders on these same subjects.

With time, what I have come to understand is that each and every thing in creation has a reason for it’s existence and that, as it matures, is better able to fulfill it’s ultimate purpose. Consider, for example, something as basic as a little seed that has just been planted; its destiny, given the proper conditions, is to sprout, and when it does, it nourishes and sustains the entire earth and all of it’s inhabitants.

We, too, gain wisdom and virtue as we age—or, at least, that is what should happen after so many decades of copious experience.

The problem with human beings, however, is that we are a species prone to creating all kinds of biases and distortions through our imaginations, and these biases and distortions inhibit us from cultivating a clearer perception of other people and situations.

In addition, we also form attachments and aversions to people, places, and things that prevent us from, in the case of aversions, either allowing them to show us whatever they need to about ourselves, others, and life in general for the purpose of our own expansion, or, in the case of attachments, letting them come and go without pain or suffering.

Verse 10 of Lao Tzu’s classic manual for life, entitled, The Tao Te Ching (translated as “the Book of the Way”), written somewhere in the fourth to third century BCE, talks about the so-called “supreme virtue” according to ancient eastern philosophical teachings.

Simply put, cultivating the “supreme virtue,” according to Lao Tzu, involves selfless action—that is, doing things without an agenda—letting things unfold as they’re meant to, and teaching and nourishing without the common tendency to exert control.

It reads:

“Can you coax your mind from it’s wandering

and keep to the original oneness?

Can you let your your body become supple as a newborn child’s?

Can you cleanse your inner vision

until you see nothing but the light?

Can you love people without imposing your will?

Can you deal with the most vital matters

by letting events take their course?

Can you step back from your own mind

and thus understand all things?

Giving birth and nourishing,

having without possessing,

acting with no expectations,

leading and not trying to control.

This is the supreme virtue.” (Stephen Mitchell, Tao Te Ching: A New English Version)

For the overwhelming majority of us, developing the supreme virtue seems, at best, incredibly challenging, and at worst, downright impossible. In fact, some might even argue that we are not even meant to live this way, accusing Lao Tzu of being lofty and totally unrealistic, especially in today’s increasingly goal-oriented, greedy, and complex world.

However, along my own path, I have slowly but surely come to discover that the cultivation of these virtues is the only sane way to live.

Nothing, after all, is 100 percent within our control; even things as mundane as getting in your car and driving to work, the store, or even getting hired for a job is incumbent upon several vital factors and functions. First of all, to get to work or to the store, your engine must be running in ship shape, and the elements must support safe and seamless travel. In terms of applying for a job, you must be able to stand out among hundreds of other applicants and appeal to the scrutiny of the hiring manager on any given day, and as we know, people often make decisions based on subjectivity or how they happen to be feeling at any particular point in time, for whatever reason.

If our innate sense of peace, happiness, love, and self-worth are based on such volatile circumstances and the subjective opinions of others, we are undoubtedly in for a lifetime of undue suffering, and of course, no one consciously wants to suffer—in fact, we spend a good portion of our life avoiding this kind of suffering.

Therefore, after enduring so much pain at the whims of life, we may eventually come to realize that the only thing left to do that makes any sense is to stop attempting to control people and circumstances, drop our needs and preferences, and become selfless. Becoming selfless, in this case, means to relinquish our opinions, judgments, attachments, and aversions, and allow life to express itself as it will. When we allow life to express itself as it is inclined to, we use people and circumstances to become more wise, humble, resilient, and unconditionally loving. When we use life in this way, we can more easily access that deeper and higher part of us all that reflects the unconditionally loving nature of God, or Spirit, something that the Hindus called the “Atman,” which is the part of us that mirrors in likeness to a Supreme Creator.

Yes, we are human, but we are also so much more than that; within us lies a seed of potential that with the proper mindset and intent can blossom, illumining a greatness beyond the smaller version of ourselves with all it’s biases, judgments, and prejudices. These biases, judgments, prejudices, attachments, and aversions keep us small-minded, petty, and chronically dissatisfied.

In that higher state, however, we are free to become our finest selves because our peace and love are no longer conditional and dependent upon people and circumstances acting in alignment with our preferences, which only creates more pain, suffering, and animosity for ourselves and others.

A large part of my own awakening involved letting go of my preferences regarding a specific person and whether or not she remained in my life or not.

When I met this person, I felt as though I had come face-to-face with everything I thought I ever wanted or needed in a partner. For the first time in my life, I felt whole, complete, vital, and inspired—something I had never felt quite as strongly with anyone else, despite the fact that I had already been married to someone else. However, when this person eventually disappeared from my life, I was left devastated beyond what I’d previously experienced in prior breakups or through my divorce.

With no way at all to reach her, I was forced to come to a radical state of acceptance and surrender, and eventually, to find everything I was seeking in her in myself.

The blessing, among others, was that I developed grace, humility, resilience, and emotional self-sufficiency. These are qualities I might not otherwise have cultivated if she hadn’t let me down. More importantly, I also realized that the love I was searching for through her was something I could feel within me every day, and that feeling whole and complete wasn’t contingent upon whether or not she was by my side. That, I have since come to understand, was the blessing, however painful it initially felt to me.

In the final analysis, life isn’t meant to to make us happy or comfortable; rather, it is meant to help us become more self-aware, wise, resilient, and unconditionally loving. It is, in essence, here to help us become more inwardly free, without a heavy myriad of expectations, judgments, and preferences that block us from evolving and tasting it’s fullness. When we are free of our baggage, we can become the embodiment of peace, and perhaps even co-create a more wise and loving world.

It begins within us.

~