How do we live a limitless life? Meet every moment awake to what it wants to give to us: a life essentially limitless in its newness.
Live a Limitless Life
It’s safe to say that most of us wrestle with some frustration daily. This kind of dissatisfaction can be with ourselves, over what we can or can’t get done—or with others, who may deny us our wish or otherwise disappoint our expectations. Accordingly, we can feel as though we are blocked, incapable, unable, not strong, or wise enough to move ahead as we would.
The more we feel the unwanted presence of this limitation—accompanied as it always is by a host of painful dark thoughts and emotions—the more our attention is diverted to wrestle with them.
Without seeing it, our struggle is no longer with wanting to understand the actual cause of our situation, but it is now with these negative states that we don’t want. For example, feeling resentment over what we regret about ourselves only makes sense to the mind that believes soaking in a mud bath is the best way to get clean!
To some extent, we know that negative states limit our freedom because, in their dark presence, even our natural power of making proper choices is put to the test. And if these self-limiting states partly produce our choices in such moments, how can we limit our help to free us of anything? It’s obvious: it cannot. So what are we to do?
We need a full new and true understanding of what “living without limits” and “limitless life” really mean. It does not mean the power to manifest endless possessions or to access instant pleasures on demand. Even if we could achieve such ends, our lives would still be fearfully empty for having to refill them continually. What is limitless in life—without end within us—is our God-given potential to transcend limitations. Let’s take a simple example:
Those of us who have ever done any work on strengthening our physical body know that at one point or another, it will tell us, “Enough! No more! I can’t go any further!” So we know, by this pain or discomfort, we feel—especially when it comes to conditioning workouts—that our body is saying it has reached a certain limit beyond which it does not want to go.
But, in the same moment, our experience knows the body always “complains” when it doesn’t want to go further than it’s used to going. So, knowing this pain is just part of what must be paid to grow stronger, we ignore the “warning” and push on to achieve the higher result we seek. Why do we make this choice? Because we understand, ahead of time, that this limit we have reached is only a temporary one; it is not the end of what is possible for us to do.
Now, can we see that this same reality must hold regardless of whatever “body” it is in which we encounter such limitation—be it physical, psychological, or spiritual? When we reach the point where parts of us start to feel some pain, some discomfort, it’s not that there isn’t more we could do; no, what limits us here is what we are afraid to go through in that moment.
What is it about this kind of fear that makes it so powerful? The answer may be hard to believe: fear’s power over us is nothing more than the way it causes us to forget the truth of ourselves, which is this: we are created to eternally transcend the limits of our present nature, to transform who and what we have been in the very moment it ceases to serve the good of us.
But, because we have forgotten this or—more accurately—because we are asleep to its power in us, we are compelled to search for, find, and then believe in “powers” outside of ourselves that always betray us in our hour of need.
Actualizing our spiritual right to live without the frustration of fearful limitations is not a question of achieving something new; it begins with choosing to end a relationship with that which has never been true. So, it isn’t a question of “What do I do?” but “What must I bring an end to?”
Whenever we consider striking a long-overdue blow for our freedom—whether it’s to walk away from an abusive relationship, start a new career, or maybe spend more time by ourselves—these fears only grant us their consent to move ahead after they’ve considered our proposed action in the light of what may become of us should we take it.
But the truth is, the more we prepare to be fearless, the more afraid we become! So here’s the new action to find the fearless life: Meet every moment awake to what it wants to give to us: a life essentially limitless in its newness. At the same time, detect and reject any fearful imagining about what might be lost should we step into the unknown moment before us.
