A New Year's Message From the Boys

Happy New Year from the Boys. I wish you the inestimable grace of Being who you Are. Remember that each inhalation contains atoms breathed by everyone on earth; atoms breathed by Jesus, Buddha, Mohammed; atoms breathed by Atilla the Hun and Genghis Khan. There are no races, only persons. You are my mother. I am your father. We carry each other’s graces, and each other’s wounds. Seventy per cent of our DNA we share with a fruit fly. “Vasudhaiva kutumbakam: the world is one family.”

And I would remind you in this auspicious year that you don't need to be a rose-soft new-age angel in order to meditate. You don't need to sip liquified kale or live in an ashram in order to tap the infinite Source. You don't need to be higher, purer, more enlightened, or sit lotus posture pretending your knees don't hurt. Here's the heresy: there's no one "else" for you to be. The fundamental dis-ease that cripples our culture is the toxic compulsion to be someone better than you are. The sign of progress is that you're not as perfect as you were yesterday.

May you find the courage to be incomparable. You are not a fraction trying to reach One. You already are One. Call off the search. The beginning and end of spiritual practice is to rest the mind in its own broken heart. Align with your jagged edges. Tune into your rough, unpolished, sparkling joy, and be you-nique. Leave room for your wrinkles and tears.

Without the piercing singularity of your love-note, this symphony of creation would not resonate with quite the same harmony. You'll never know how many trillions of creatures gather to the hum of your tuning-fork, the crystal of your self-forgiving. This earth doesn't need another Gandhi or Jesus: it needs You. I bless you with a new paradigm: enlightenment is more like falling than ascending, more like collapsing than getting it all together. Stop clinging to the raft of someone else’s teaching. Sink into your own wave to become the sea. That is perfect stillness. Stumble into the grace at the heart of your own chaos. That is perfect peace.

I did not learn this from the Gods. I learned it from the Dogs.

Photo: The boys, Emerson and Finn