I don't say this often enough but I want to both thank you and congratulate you
for being here.

Thank you because if it weren't for you there would, of course, be no Ordinary
Life Gathering. Though it may seem to you that you benefit from being here -
and, I sincerely hope you do - the person who really is benefited is me. I teach
what I need to learn or what I need to keep learning at deeper and deeper levels.

Thank you for making this possible. And thank you for the roles you play in
making the Ordinary Life Gathering embody some of the principles that are
taught in here.

Second, and don't let this go to your head - that, by the way, is something my
mother would say - congratulations for showing the gumption for being here.

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I heard someone say recently this sentence: If God were alive today she would
be an atheist.
I love lines like that. They get us ­ at least they get me ­ to have a smidgen of a
transcendent moment. That is to say, if I can stay non­reactive and non­
judgmental, they stop me i n my tracks and get me to consider or reconsider the
usual assumptions by whi ch I construct my world.
"If God were ali ve today" ­ well , is God alive? How do you know? Where is the
evi dence?
"she would be" ­ She? Let me ask you: what comes first to your mind when you
hear the word "God"? I remember aski ng one of my most important spiritual
teachers that question and his first answer was "A man i n a long robe with a
whi te beard off out in space somewhere." Then he added other definitions.

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People have asked me why this gathering is called "Ordinary Life." Because it
is for "ordinary people" who are seeking to find happiness and peace in this life -
right here, right now - by following a spiritual path.

One of the ways we cause ourselves so much difficulty and so much
unhappiness in life is by believing and then living the belief that we are not just
"ordinary people." Living a life of freedom and love is not just for a special few. A
life of freedom, love and compassion is for anyone who, with patience and
persistence, practices what is called in the Judeo-Christian tradition "the
presence of God." All we have to do is do the work that allows our true nature to
emerge.

I'm not meaning to imply that this work is necessarily easy. But it is natural.
And, it is simple. It is simple in that all we have to do is simply get out of our own
way and usual way of being.

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