Allow me to ask you: What do you see when you look out on the world you’ve made?  Can you see that there is beauty, that there is such a thing as unconditional love, as true compassion? You see that these wondrous things exist all around you, and then you look at the world you’ve made — what do you see there?

You must not turn away from the canvas that is your consciousness, although that’s what we want to do. The first thing we want to do is convince ourselves that there is some missing color, something else that we’re going to do to that ugliness before us that’s going to somehow transform it so that when we look at it we won’t feel the pain, the emptiness, or loneliness.

Every man, woman, and even child, at a certain age, looks out and says, “I don’t like the world I’ve made for myself. Look at me. I’m so many years old, I’ve got this many things, I’ve got so many plans, but no matter how much I add to the canvas of my life, it doesn’t change what I see.” Of course it doesn’t change. It can’t. Here’s why.

The world that you look out on — and so often see all turned upside down — that world is within you.That person who you don’t like running into, that strained relationship in any unwanted moment,is not outside of you. The reason that you can’t get along with other people has nothing to do with the other people. Sure, they’re rude. Sure, they’re cruel, spiritually asleep, aggressive, all those things — but so are you. Your feelings about the world you see, with all of its confusing colors and schemes, are all reflections of your own internal life. You meet and see yourself wherever you go. Nothing else. And that’s such an important lesson. Can you handle looking at the world that you’ve made? Will you let it strike you? As the truth of your finding strikes home, so will its transforming power.