Peace requires us to surrender our illusions of control.

When our identity expands to include everything, we find a peace with the dance of the world. The ocean of life rises and falls within us - birth and death, joy and pain, it is all ours, and our heart is full and empty, large enough to embrace it all.

Ours is a society of denial that conditions us to protect ourselves from any direct difficulty and discomfort. We expend enormous energy denying our insecurity, fighting pain, death and loss and hiding from the basic truths of the natural world and of our own nature.

In this there is no judgment and no blame, for we seek not to perfect the world but to perfect our love for what is on this earth.

As we learn to bow, we discover that the heart holds more freedom and compassion than we could imagine.

Whatever your difficulties - a devastated heart, financial loss, feeling assaulted by the conflicts around you, or a seemingly hopeless illness - you can always remember that you are free in every moment to set the compass of your heart to your highest intentions. In fact, the two things that you are always free to do - despite your circumstances - are to be present and to be willing to love.

Without being aware of it, you take many things as being your identity: your body, your race, your beliefs, your thoughts.