Hello and welcome back to practicing human the podcast where every day we're getting a little better at life.

I'm your host Corey Muscarra and in today's episode we're going to talk about not delaying your happiness and enlightenment.

More to come on that in a moment.

First, let's settle in together with the sound of the bells. The I'd like to start this episode by sharing a poem by Dana Falls called Awakening Now.

Why wait for your awakening?

Do you value your reasons for staying small more than the light shining through the open door?

Forgive yourself.

Forgive yourself. Now is the only time you have to be whole now.

Now is the sole moment that exists to live in the light of your true nature.

Perfection is not a prerequisite for anything but pain.

Perfection is not a prerequisite for anything but pain.

Please, oh please, don't continue to believe in your stories of deficiency and failure.

This is the day of your awakening. You know, a big part of my practice these days is not getting caught up in the goal-centric method of practice,

which is common in certain meditation traditions,

including the one that I practice in Burma.

There's an idea that you are working toward

Enlightenment, wholeness, integration, whatever you want to call it, awakening, freedom.

And that when you do the practice over a period of time, you're eventually moving closer to that state at something you're developing.

And on one level there's obvious truth to that.

We're building, we're growing into something. But there's

another perspective that could be taken that's equally valid, which is that your fundamental nature is inherently whole, inherently

awake, enlightened, free, and we just need to practice remembering that, connecting back into that moment by moment.

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