There are many directions you can take in life, many different ideas or beliefs you can pursue. In the search to find yourself and to express yourself in the world, there are both difficult situations and easy situations that arise, things that draw you to them, and things that repel you. But many times, due to the reactions of mind to past experience, or Samskaras formed in this life or others, you are drawn to different circumstances and situations in your life, and some of those situations can turn out to be very difficult for you. Some of them lead you into avenues which do not develop your inner being. Other avenues which you are led to help you, bring you closer to your own divine nature, to truth, knowledge, wisdom, and love.
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How to know the difference between those situations and circumstances in life that will draw you to deepen and become the most aware, most loving, most conscious person that you can be, and which ones lead you away from truth, away from love, and engage you in power, money, influence, and the fulfillment of worldly desires?

Sometimes situations that are even very difficult will bring you towards your innermost self, and situations that appear pleasant and satisfying may be distractions; or it can be the opposite. So, how to know, how to know what leads you towards your innermost self—what is an expression of Dharma, and what leads you away? How to discriminate in your life between the two? How to find your path to truth, your path to love unconditional?

When you engage in actions, actions are either towards the truth, towards the light, or they pull you away, they pull you into illusion and delusion. The same action can have two different results. Part depends on the relationship to the act and to the situation. Part depends on the action itself, and what you are drawn to do, or not to do. When you live in Dharma, you, you are attuned to the natural state of all that is. You become connected to the rhythms and harmonies of life. And in that connection, love grows, wisdom expands, truth is known. For Dharma is the way, the way to essential being, the way to the truth within you, the truth of all beings and all things. That which moves away from that truth, that is a-Dharma, not Dharma.

If you go within yourself, connect with your own heart core, connect with the deep self within you, in the stillness of the mind, in the silence of meditation, there there is the knowledge to discriminate between that which leads away from truth and that which leads towards truth. This knowledge lies within you, in the quietness of your own heart. For if something goes against your own heart, and you feel that hesitance, where your heart is constricted, then you must look at that situation. Is it really helping you? Is it really leading you towards the light? Is it really giving you your heartfelt expansion to express yourself, to be yourself fully? If you feel that constriction, examine the situation, use your discriminative mind, see—does this lead towards the light?

And when you feel your heart open in a situation, with certain actions, in certain circumstances, notice, notice that heart opening, notice that feeling of connection, that you are alive, expanded, connected. Notice that your vitality increases, and when that happens, observe. See what it is that opens your heart, that makes you whole, that gives you truth and love. When you are connected to the divinity within you, there is a sense of harmony, of rhythm, of coming home to your natural state of being, where you are completely safe, accepted, and loved. To find that in the world is sometimes a challenge, to find those situations which are in harmony with your being, the types of work that lighten your spirit, the friendships and connections that allow you to grow and expand.

Notice, be aware of your own reactions, what is true to your heart and what is not. That way you can use your own inner discrimination to determine what is truth and the way forward to light, to love, and to wisdom. What is the way forward to open your heart and express yourself in the world? And what closes that down, what leads you away from that truth, engages you where your heart is covered, not free? Notice, and find in that the path of awakening, the path of truth for you. Each person must walk their own path. No two people’s path is identical. Each and every one of you is a unique flower in the garden of this world, a unique expression of the divinity that permeates all being, of the one eternal Self that is incarnate in all beings and all life. Each of you is a unique expression, and you have your unique journey to truth, and your way home.

Love is an essential, core element of this divine eternal Self of all. There is a natural yearning for union, for wholeness. It is natural to your soul to long to return to wholeness, but the mind becomes confused as to how to do that, and sometimes in activities of the world, in things that you hold to in the world, you hope that you will find that wholeness; but in activities of the world, relationships of the world, you find it perhaps for a moment, and then it is elusive, it fades, until finally you realize it’s something you must find in yourself. And when you find it and it’s yourself, it is all around you in the world. For those who are blind, there is no divine presence. It seems a wasteland. For those with eyes to see, all is divine. In the song of the bird, the love of your heart sings. In the sun rising in the east, your heart soars. You are one with that sunrise. In the mountains, in the sea, in the eternal sense of being in every molecule of existence, the beloved of your heart exists. The eternal one is everywhere if you have eyes to see and ears to hear.

 As you follow the Dharma, as you find your way through the illusions and confusions of the world and your mind, you find your way to the arms of love, to the truth that has always been, to the eternal nature of being. And this is the journey of spirit, the reason you meditate—to clear the mind of all the cobwebs so that in the clear, still mind you can connect with your eternal nature, and find the way of truth.