The experience of peace and joy is just not that complicated, nor does it cost anything.

That does not mean it is not difficult at times, it just isn’t complicated or expensive.  Simple does not mean easy.

In our world, we become used to the idea of being able to achieve anything by learning as much as we can then applying ourselves as intensely as we can, and sometimes spending a lot of money in the process.  Sometimes it even works.

The path to peace, luckily, does not work that way.

Sometimes our quest for peace and joy turns into an insatiable appetite for information; books upon books, self-help videos and internet programs, expensive retreats, and sometimes even paying individuals thousands of dollars in the hope that “this time I’ll get it”.

We think that the more we know, the more likely it will be that we can reach whatever it is we hope to achieve.

Sadly this rarely, if ever, works.  The moment we make our journey towards greater loving into a quest for knowledge we have lost the way.

I recently completed a few very complicated books, theorizing linkages between consciousness, enlightenment, and quantum theory.  What little I could actually grasp was very interesting.  The theories and concepts, however, were a direct path away from that which it tried to explain.  Putting labels and intellectual ideas onto that which can only be experienced removes us further from the direct possibility of that experience.

A simple example, used by others, entails sitting in a garden or other natural place, becoming very present, and letting go of any labels we attach to anything- and simply experience the essence of the surrounding nature and beauty.  There is a profound depth to that experience.  The second we begin to label everything “tree”, “daisy”, and so forth, we are back in our thinking mind.  Peace, joy, and bliss does not reside in the thinking mind.

After all, one bite of the fruit from the “Tree of Knowledge” was all it took to banish us from the Garden of Eden.  This is, of course, a metaphor for this exact idea.

We access great peace when we let go of our thoughts, when we surrender ourselves and all of our stories and judgments totally to the present moment.  There is no thinking, no doing, no analytics, and no complicated schematics or diagrams or concepts to apply.  It is a state of simply being- being present, being open, and being at one, and filled with, the pure essence of who we Are.  It is a remembering, really.

And it doesn’t cost a dime.