There are many ways to live and die. We can pass through in a daze or in endless confusion or we can dedicate this time to something that we deem worthwhile. Nowadays there are many people whose lives have never been grabbed by anything. This may, in a certain sense, be due to having it too easy. Somebody who has had a big tragedy or setback may be completely broken by it and waste the rest of their life or they might rise to the challenge of it and take it as the sign that gives their life meaning. Many of the greatest 'achievers' have experienced such reverses and had their forty days in the wilderness - usually rather more than forty.
Getting to heaven is not necessarily the most profitable course, because in heaven there are no challenges. Perhaps the best heaven is actually a place where there is a mixture of beauty and goodness on the one hand and pain and trouble on the other, where there are plenty of opportunities to grow and develop if you put your mind to it. Perhaps we already live in such a place.
Some people put their mind to it and some don't. Some do so in one way and some in another. There are many ways to practice, many 'paths' to walk. Whichever one you choose, it is best to make the most of it and that means to enter fully into it and to let it fully enter into you. Then what you do will be wholehearted. If we just dither, unsure which path to take, we may just get into a 'waiting for Godot' mentality or into the tragic condition of Hamlet, unsure whether to act or not.
The important thing is not so much to get everything right or do the most good or accomplish this or that, but to have one's heart rightly directed. When one has a sense of being in receipt of the love and wisdom of all the great sages down through the ages, one naturally wants to pass on that life, peace, blessing and truth. It is not a truth in the sense of information, it is more a feeling of love and cherishing. When one's heart is thus, then one might well get some things right, do some good, and accomplish a few things, but, in a way, this is a spin off. When the wheel is turning fast there can be lots of spin-offs. A person with a big heart loves many people and in each of those relationships something different happens. It is not just a matter of having the right formula. Formulas are useful sometimes, but it is how you use them that counts.
The spiritual path, therefore, is not a matter of perfecting some technique or other as a means of getting rid of the symptoms generated by living in a crazy way. It is, rather, a spacious kind of love in which whatever comes along can be turned to the purpose and is so because of the goodwill in one's heart, which itself is only a gift that one has received from those other great beings who have radiated it upon us since time immemorial.
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