Joy is your birthright and the channel of your spirit. Like a radio, when you tune into this station, you experience your nature. If nothing were wrong in your life, you would be happy. If you didn’t judge what you should or shouldn’t be doing, if you didn’t judge what others are doing or what life presents to you, you would feel good. When you stop running to the future and holding on to the past, you’ll feel good. There is only ever joy in the present. Be here and joyful here.

We often think that when we get more things done and accomplish bigger feats, we’ll feel better about ourselves. The truth is when you do less, you feel joy more. I’m not saying that doing more is bad; I’m saying the compulsive need to do more is the wrong mindset to have. You don’t ever have to do “more,” you have to do “good.” It’s the spiritual quality of what you do that truly matters.

In Ecclesiastes, King Solomon said, “Everything is vanity,” meaning every “thing” is empty on its own. No thing, no title, nothing that you garner on this physical plane is going to give you the joy and fulfillment you are truly looking for. Only finding your true self will bring you joy. We have to collectively change our definition of success from accomplishment and achievement to alignment, being in a state of joy, and loving our life as we journey toward our goals and desires.

Spirit Principle #2: You don’t have to search for happiness.You just need to see the barriers to it and remove them.

After I tell people that nothing can make them happy, the response I usually get is “Well, then, what will make me happy? How do I get it?” The problem is the question. The question implies you have to go out and get happiness. But remember, joy isn’t something you find; it’s something you reveal because it’s something that you are. When you stop living in everything that you’re not, the result is joy.Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Interestingly, the pursuit of happiness is what holds us from our natural wellspring of joy. It doesn’t mean you can’t have pursuits, goals, and desires—no, not at all. But instead of pursuing happiness, pursue what you love from a place of happiness, which is your inner light.

When Michelangelo was asked how he made such a beautiful sculpture of a horse, he said, “I didn’t. I just cut away everything that wasn’t a horse.” Similarly, you can find your natural state by cutting away everything that isn’t you. You don’t need to find happiness. The search is over. All you have to do is go up to the wall that has been keeping it out and start taking it down. What is the wall? What is the barrier?

Spirit Principle #3: When we trade our faith for fear, we trade in our joy for pain.

What’s keeping us unhappy? What is blocking us off from our joy? We’re now going to come full circle. What blocks us off is fear. At a certain point in our life, we started fearing more than loving. That was an important part of our development because there is healthy fear as well. It’s important to know that when there is an armed robber, you should run and protect yourself. Fear is important to keep us from falling off the edge of a cliff or running through a red light. But the human mind has distorted the essence of fear and turned it into the background soundtrack of our lives without us even realizing it.

There is a fear of not living fully as your Self, about the need to be in control, fearing the outcomes of your life’s experiences. Fear, my friend, is what influences you to make decisions that deny the Truth of who you really are, leading you to experience the pain of not being the True you. We feel pain when we’re not being ourselves. We feel pain when we think we’re in control. We feel pain when we fall out of alignment with Truth.

There’s a proverb that says, “It’s better to be a living dog than a dead lion,” meaning it is better to be a living version of yourself (even if it’s a dog) than a dried-up dead version of someone or something that you’re not (even if it’s seemingly the king of the jungle). If it’s not really you, then it’s not real.

Spirit Principle #4: When you restore your faith in love, you will return to joy.

The root of all our fears is that we’ve fallen out of love with life. Life is a magical dance when you are in love. We fall out of love when we lose the conditions of Intention and Certainty and forget who we are and what life is all about. When we lose ourselves and our connection to the infinite source of light, love, and perfection, we feel fear, weak, and alone. This is spiritual unconsciousness.Remember that your Inner Being never leaves you. You are always being held. You don’t have to live in fear of what other people think, and you don’t need to have anything to feel worthy. The truth is you have to be true to yourself, true to your soul, and true to the source of all good. You are meant to be happy. You are meant to enjoy your life!

It all begins with awareness. It all begins with seeing. The seeing is freeing. What I mean is that until you begin to pick up on the subtle and yet deeply entrenched belief system you’re living with, it will be very hard to change anything. But this is not just about change. It’s more about letting go of your mask. The mask is a belief you decided to agree with, and it has become the lens through which you see the world. It shapes the entire paradigm of your life. Seen in this light, a belief is an agreement we have each made with reality. Through conditioning we’ve signed a contract between us and ourselves about how we perceive the universe.

Where did this belief system come from? Every belief is really just a thought, but one you’ve had so many times that it has become your automatic-response thinking. It happens so fast, you are not even always aware that you are living this way. Thus you take it to be true without question, and it remains subconscious. It then becomes very hard to discern if you’re not looking for it. Because of this, it is easier to start by noticing your speech patterns. The tongue is the quill of the heart, and you can trace what you say back to your thoughts. You can become a witness and begin to notice when you are not experiencing Hishtavus.

THE SEEING IS FREEING.

BECOME THE WITNESS OF YOUR MIND.

Catch yourself using the language of the ego. Remember, beneath the surface, your soul sees the sameness, the Oneness, and the innate good in all people, places, and things. It is aware of the Divine purpose in all that is and the Infinite Intelligence guiding and directing life. The ego, however, speaks in a language that reflects disbelief in this loving presence. It speaks in a way that separates, compares, and judges.

Through the lens of Kabbalah we learn that there are a hierarchy of dimensions to reality. There’s the most external material and physical world, there are some energetic levels in between, finally there’s a level called connection to the source.

Most of us spend the majority of our time running out in the physical world and frantically looking for that fulfillment. Naturally, we start looking where we are. The problem is that if our view of where we are is distorted by our own ego, we can’t accurately evaluate where we are, or how to know if we arrive where we want to be. If we’re living our lives in a foggy distortion, we can almost be assured that we are primed for undesirable levels of pain.

Instead of looking out to find our wholeness, perhaps we should be looking in to find our fulfillment. Perhaps we should be looking up. We are looking for a higher mode of consciousness. The higher we climb on the ladder of consciousness, the closer we come to Truth. But what is Truth? How do we get there? How do we get to shleimus, that wholeness, that completion, that level of joy in meaning that we’re yearning for?

So, here’s the truth, and please hear me all the way out before you stop reading and walk away. The truth is, at the deepest level, everything is fine. You and I are fine. Actually, we’re more than fine. We’re good, whole, pure, and perfect. Right here, right now. And so is the world around us. The world is good. The world is on a powerful course in the right direction. Beyond all physical reality, there is a non-physical reality, a spiritual reality.

When we try to fill our spiritual desires with physical manifestations, our inner needs without our externalities, we’re always going to find the mismatch. You cannot fill your stomach with spiritual pursuits, and you cannot find inner peace in your outer world. The truth is, if you go all the way up and connect to what’s true inside of you, you’ll find a place that’s already whole, a place that’s already full, and the place that’s already inspired and alive. When you find that internal space, you open up the doorway for powerful positive energy to come into you and in turn, into your life.

I completely understand that so many of us feel that things aren’t okay. “Have you turned on the news? Look around! Life doesn’t always go the way I want it to go! People are suffering! People are dying!” I do not want to take away from the realness that people feel in their pain. However, if we’re only judging life by physical manifestations, and by physical things that are or are not happening in the world, we are going to miss the truth behind life.

There is always more going on in the non-physical world. The lack of ability to know that there is a non-physical reality and that we’re limited to the physical realm is what gives rise to all the fear in our life. If you know that you are part of something that’s immeasurable, indestructible, eternal, indivisible, infinite, if you know that you’re a part of this amazing experience called the oneness of life, in you know that you have a soul and that there’s an All-Loving and All-Good Higher Power that you’re a part of, it is this greater truth, when that knowledge is true for you that it sinks into every fiber of your being, then, at that moment there is nothing to fear.

If you don’t know that as true, and you experience yourself as separate, not connected, alone, you feel small instead of big. You feel fragile instead of indestructible. If that’s the life that we live then we’re starting from a place where we feel weak, disconnected, and lacking. When I feel lacking, I see the world as lacking. I scramble for beliefs that have some chance to help me feel better. From my vantage point of lack, the way that I experience myself and the world around me is that things are bad, lacking, broken, and separate. We don’t see the world as it is. We see the world as we are. It’s coming into alignment with this deeper dimension of reality, which we step into by becoming present, that we start to surrender our opinions about the surface. There is a depth of love and peace that exists beneath and is available when we let go of the past and future, let go of attachments to things and conditions for our happiness, and allow life to guide us in the direction of our higher Truth.

Life is abundant. Abraham understood that the Universe is not lacking; it is abundant. There is an infinite source of whatever we could possibly need, and life is always working for you. When I say “life is abundant,” I mean that it’s not here today and gone tomorrow; rather, it’s here today and more tomorrow. It’s like sitting at a table with seven other people and the pie is finally served for dessert, it’s the certainty and knowing that each person who takes a slice isn’t taking your slice because there is always enough.

Shifting out of a scarcity mentality, where you think there is never enough, and therefore, you have to do whatever you can to take care of yourself, allows you to embrace that the world is abundant. In every area be that health, wealth, relationships, clarity, wellbeing, inner peace, and spiritual connection. There is always enough. We are all being taken care of. Things are good and okay right now. That means you can surrender your ego to a higher power, knowing that the Universe will take care of you. You will get whatever you need for your life’s unique journey and purpose. What you have is what you need, and what you don’t have, you don’t need. Life is supportive. Life is good. Life is abundant.

Life is eternal. The next layer of understanding is knowing that life doesn’t end after death, knowing that you’re going to live on beyond this physical plane. Therefore, if there is abundance in this world, there must be infinite and eternal abundance for a world beyond this physical plane. We are on this journey heading toward an even higher good than we could even imagine. There is eternal meaning and purpose to what we are doing here, and we will experience even greater love after this life.

Life is a partnership.Co-creation: that is our journey. This is the big aha moment for Abraham when he realizes that not only is the world abundant and that we are working toward an everlasting love, but that we ourselves are part of this loving force. We have the opportunity to choose love at every moment. We can choose life. Choose to collaborate with the loving force of the world and be the good for God. You are an instrument of love. You are an instrument of peace. You are an instrument of goodness. There is no greater experience than being Godly.

The rewards of this certainty are inner peace, happiness, mental clarity, and confidence. The peace of feeling taken care of and being in good hands. Your body somehow feels lighter. You carry a deep sense of belonging. Life seems to flow easily, and serendipitous events happen all around you. With this peace, you’re not stressed out, anxious, or upset, and you have access to creative thinking and insights that you just couldn’t have reached without it. You’ll experience an inner strength and confidence to unapologetically be true to yourself, to live with intention. With this knowing, we end the fear cycle. We live with trust that everything is fine right now and is moving in the right direction.