The Assignment

You understand the assignment!

If this is the beginning of the new, perfect age, my work is to quiet my mind, open my heart, and relieve suffering.

Or if this is Armageddon, the end of the world, my work is to quiet my mind, open my heart, and relieve suffering.

~ Ram Dass

No matter the storyline, whether we are entering a golden age or facing unraveling, awakening or collapse, a new earth or the burning away of old patterns, the assignment does not change. Quiet the mind, open the heart, and relieve suffering. Not someday, not when things finally make sense, and not when the world settles, but now. Presence is not dependent on conditions; it is the ground beneath them. So wherever you find yourself today, in hope, joy, grief, or uncertainty, come back to the work that never changes.

Breathe, soften, and serve. That is the path.

As an aside, I got to meet him once… he drove up in a red convertible at my summer camp in California and taught us some Mantras about letting go of attachments… The convertible was to help us let go of our assumption about guru’s…. and poverty being virtuous…. or maybe he just liked cars…