Most people in today’s world want to have a special relationship.  It seems to fill up a void of emptiness and boredom within.  People marry for this purpose, pick a career or job, buy the latest electronics and gadgets, seek and think they have found a religious form that becomes special to them, the one! 

Actually, such special relationships tend to destroy Love, Peace, and Joy.  Why?  Because in finding a special relationship, we think of finding love, peace and joy outside of ourselves.  This is so common in marriages.  People feel attracted to another, and for awhile, can’t seem to live apart.  In order to make the special relationship work, they become willing to give up their self for the self of the other, or some idea of forming a “joint self.”  As we all witness, however, these relationships don’t last long, at least in the love and peace department.  Such relationships become like a yo-yo between love and hate, fulfillment and loss, fun and fear.

In order to have peace and joy in life, I have learned to discover it begins within ourselves but becoming aware of our True Self, our God-Self, as its often termed.  This Self is timeless and beyond bodies, forms, and time/space limitations.  It is God, Creator, Baha-ulah, or whatever you might want to name it.  Such an understanding can aid one in seeing him or herself simply as the observer of the world and life about them.  That which is eternal observers that nothing outside in form can last and to seek for it in someone or something as special just doesn’t work.  Indeed, to seek fulfillment in a special relationship only serves to further hide and even destroy the True Self. 

In the Christian tradition, Jesus is said to have taught, “The Kingdom (or Presence) is within you.”  It was his own words in ancient times seeking to explain that it’s not necessarily to be found in synagogues, churches, temples and mosques, in special countries, in special forms or words, in special people, but in awareness and an opened consciousness. 

Give yourself a break with your marriage, your “religion,” your favorite team, community, country, or world; God is Everywhere as Spirit, as our Creator, our Source.  Give it your own name.  Everything about us in form is not eternal but short-lived and temporary.  To put our hopes into that which is not real only creates deeper fear, hatred, and anger.  In awakening, we can experience freedom, peace, joy, and the happiness we always deeply wanted, but felt we missed.  We haven’t missed it, we just lost the awareness of where it was.  Seek and find this first, and everything else you ever wanted or needed, will be simply given.  Life can become quiet delicious, despite what’s going on outside.