My wife Sundara has created a series of screen savers for us both, with pithy quotes from spiritual teachers we like, set against beautiful images. It’s nice to have my workflow interrupted by these reminders to stay present to the beauty of life. I gasped with delight, however, when the latest one flashed up on my screen recently. It read, “Unveil your inherent pleasure in the infinite.”

I love that. Pleasure has had a bad rap over the centuries, but it can be a powerful ally. We tend to repeat those activities that bring us pleasure. If there is any goal we desire in our lives, we are more likely to succeed if we can discover how to find it pleasurable.

So to “unveil your inherent pleasure in the infinite” is a wonderful strategy for anyone on the spiritual path. Once the pleasure has been discovered, your spiritual practice won’t feel like hard work any more.

This “unveiling” can happen with any of our deepest desires, if we dig deep enough. Beneath our longing for love, or truth, or beauty, is the call to return to something that has existed since before we were born, and will exist long after we have died, and exists right now in our experience of life.

Our deepest desires are, in essence, calls from our deeper selves to return to this truth. Pleasure is what we feel as we return.

What if it needn’t be a struggle?

I took all this to my story altar recently. I came not so much with a question as with a sense of wonder at this whole phenomenon; at how the path to inner congruence needn’t be a fight.

I received a story about a knight who throws down his armour and vows to find that which is beyond price and yet cannot be fought over. What he discovers changes the course of that war, and affects the whole kingdom.

This 16 minute story will draw you into the place inside from which you have never moved, where you rest forever “in the crook of the arm of the softness of the sky”. You can find it below.

Best wishes,

Leo.

A Story for You

Would you like to receive a story on something that you are fascinated by? Or something that is blocking your path, or that you want to understand better? Check out my Story for You offering, wherein I tell a story just for you, on whatever it is that’s up for you now.

Performance in Devon

If you live near Devon, you might want to catch our show “Stories and Songs of Reunion” that we will be performing at Jellyfish, our arts hub in Buckfastleigh, on July 14th. More details here.