Does anyone really know the answer to the question, “What is the meaning of life?”

I am going to imagine you are asking. You, yes you, the one reading these words.

The purpose of life is to become utterly aware of the source of your life, of all lives, and in fact, of all of creation. I believe the source of your life is love. It is the same love that moves the mountains, that moves you, and that it is inherent in everything. Some people would call this love God, others, the creative field of intelligence, some, the field of love, or your true nature. It doesn’t matter what you call it. What matters is that you have the direct experience of it and come to realize this love is inside you and all around you.

For a moment, turn your attention to that which is looking through your eyes, and reading these words. What is there? What is that? Now listen to the sounds in the room you are in. Who is it who is listening, what is this “you” that is attending to and aware of these sounds?

As you just experienced, you have the power to focus your attention where and how you want. And, we know from physics, that there is an observer effect. Your gentle, natural attention has an effect on the world around you.

Once you begin to become aware of your attention, you inevitably will become more intimate with its source.

Consider the question again, who is it who was reading, and listening? Consider from what/where this attention arises.

Your attention arises from your awareness — a field of love and light. You can think of your attention as a currency. And a valuable one. It is the currency of love, and you can use it like a flashlight, shining its beam onto what you wanted illuminate.

What happens to that which you truly give your natural attention to, whether it’s your body, your plants, your education, your environment, your pets, your partner, or your kids? I imagine your attention nourishes the relationship. What does it feel like to be paid kind attention? Does it feel like love? Perhaps your attention is love. Knowing this, you just might start to become more in charge of to what and to whom you “pay” your attention.

You can’t think your way to this realization. In fact, the more you think about what I am writing about, the less you will realize it.

The way I, and many people before me, have been able to awaken to this reality is through meditation. Meditation, when practiced correctly, without preconceived ideas, allows you to become intimate with your interior. Meditation is a practice that settles the fluctuations of the mind—thought is transcended. With mediation you then can have the direct experience of the source of your awareness. And this realization changes everything.

I hope you too realize the source of your life—the field of love—the creative intelligence that infuses all that is. You will always find what you are looking for, and you will come to realize that what you are seeking is in fact seeking you. My prayer for everyone is this: may you awaken to the love that lives through you as you. May you realize your true nature.

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~Sarah McLean is a global go-to teacher for contemporary meditation and mindfulness who has been teaching mediation for over 20 years. She began her personal practice while working at a TM Center in Massachusetts where she met Deepak Chopra. She worked with him for eight years, and served as the Program Director for the Chopra Center for Wellbeing in California. Sarah then took a sabbatical to travel the world exploring and practicing various types of meditation techniques, she spent time with the Dalai Lamas and his senior monks in North India, lived in a traditional ashram in South India, and was a two-year resident at a remote Zen Buddhist Monastery.

Sarah founded the McLean Meditation Institute in Sedona, Arizona in 2006, a community meditation center which offers drop in meditations and classes in meditation and mindfulness practices. MMI is also the home of the Meditation Teacher Academy®, a licensed, post-secondary educational facility that trains meditation teachers worldwide.

Sarah’s best-seller, Soul-Centered: Transform Your Life in 8 Weeks with Meditation (Hay House) inspires study groups worldwide. Her upcoming book, Love & the Power of Attention (Hay House) is being released on Valentine’s Day 2017. Access free meditations and discussions here: www.McLeanMeditation.com.

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