Ātman.

Ātman. - The Self; one's own nature; the individual soul. 

'Excellent were the sacrifices and the invocation of the gods- but was that everything? Did the sacrifices offer happiness? And what was all that talk about the gods? Was it really Prajapati who had created the world? Was it not the Atman, He, the Only One, the All-One?' ... 'To whom else should one sacrifice, to whom was reverence to be offered, but to Him, the Only One, the Atman?'

(SIDDHARTHA - Hermann Hesse)

Hesse brings up a really interesting belief here, and it is something that Tanya and I were discussing late last night, sat out on our balcony under the stars... If the soul of the world is within ourselves, if all the answers and results we need are already within us; everything that happens along the way is just lessons in descovering that, in finding our potential, in descovering the great strengths we are actually capable of, the understanding we all have but don't always see, the knowledge capable of knowing but not yet learnt... 

And when you have seen great sadness, great sorrow or struggle, and I don't just mean a bad day, or being dumped or loosing your Pandora.. when life is pulled like a rug from beneath you and you find yourself, as my dear friend so eloquently put it; 'thrown off the metaphorical cliff'.. That is really when you really learn to fly, to fight, to win... And that is when you see that no small jerk off course after that can really make your innermost being allow itself to fall. You learn that strength, that greatness that is capable within each of us. You learn to fly when you think you can never face even crawling again.. you learn you can dance when there's no music, sing without a tune, smile without a cause... Life becomes wholly more bearable, enjoyable even.. And gradually it becomes greater than you have ever known; because you can see that Ātman is where the world of worlds reside.. Everything we need is right inside of us.

Nothing can really ever break you more than your own mind; and when you have power over that you have power beyond belief... You can see each event in life, each person you meet, each hurdle you cross is all part of this journey, part of this voyage of life discovery. 

I often am told, and feel sometimes too.. That I am old beyond my years. And I don't mean physically, not always mentally, (we certainly couldn't believe that if you had seen me 'wave-surfing' on my belly in the seaholding my best friends hand at the weekend!) ...but spiritually. Spiritually sometimes I see far beyond myself, I see Ātman is where it all resides; I see that Hesse is right.. That what is all of life but a series of events all leading to what is already our destiny. What will be will be; we can't try to change that. Trust in it and nothing can break you, trust in the process, trust that everything happens for a reason... It all teaches us to unleash our true potential. 

I take great comfort in this and it provides me immense calm... So when a 'bad day' comes, or we wake out of bed on the wrong side, when people disappoint, or life is less kind; I remember that these days teach us the enjoyment in the the good days, each hurdle we learn to jump higher.. And eventually it all comes back to ourselves; happiness and greatness all come from within, we create our own destiny.. Everything else are just steps along the way. 

To Ātman, with love x