Falling In Love With What Is

Meditation, to me, means choosing to rest in a state of contentment with the way things are. There are two primary ways to attain this conscious contentment as a sustained way of being. One is to arrange your life so that everything in it contributes to your peace. The other is to cultivate the capacity to be content with things exactly as they are.

On one hand, we can attain conscious contentment by shaping our lives so that nothing disturbs us. On the other, we can train ourselves to remain content regardless of circumstance. For most of us, a combination of the two is necessary. It's difficult—perhaps impossible—to arrange life so completely that nothing ever disrupts our peace. It's also rare to build the fortitude to remain steady in contentment under all conditions. Somewhere in between, we find our perfect balance point: where life is arranged just well enough that we can meet what arises with grace.

It is in meditation that we build the capacity to remain content in all conditions. The first true milestone of spiritual growth is attaining a steady state of conscious contentment. This often requires both spiritual practice and an intentional shaping of our outer lives. Our lives don’t need to be perfect, but they must be stable enough to accommodate peace. If we are surrounded by chaos, conflict, and crisis, no amount of meditation can generate the fortitude required to remain centered. And even then, our capacity for conscious contentment will likely never be perfect—but it can be strong enough.

The attainment of conscious contentment is, in itself, miraculous. We move through life immune to the normal stresses and hardships that swirl around us. We are, as the saying goes, in the world, but not of it. Yet even this extraordinary inner attainment is only the beginning of a more profound spiritual life.
Because once you are content in the life you are living—what then?

The initial stage of meditation is about finding inner peace. The next stage is about falling in love. What awakens in you once you're no longer seeking relief? What draws you in? What begins to consume you? What will you fall in love with then?

This universe was born of love. Our yearning for spiritual fulfillment is an expression of that love—an extension of it, and a call toward its realization. Love is what we feel when we discover something worth devoting our lives to. It gives life depth, meaning, and the feeling of truly being at home in the world.

We awaken into a world that often feels harsh and foreign. It’s unpredictable and beyond our control. We suffer, and we learn to protect ourselves. Whether our hardship is great or small, none of us escapes the difficulties of life entirely.

Pain makes us question whether we even belong here. The spiritual search begins as a longing to find where we truly belong. We feel exiled, and we are compelled to find our way home. We have fallen out of love—and we yearn to fall back in.

When we discover the profound peace of conscious contentment, we begin to fall in love with existence itself. A new spiritual journey begins—one in which we are drawn ever deeper into the mystery of creation by the magnetic pull of love. At this point, meditation becomes a practice not of escape, but of falling in love with what is.