"If I am a spiritual being and not just a body, why am I here in this body?" "What am I supposed to be doing in this physical experience?" "How do I do that?"

These are the big questions man has pondered (when he wasn't too busy just trying to survive) since the beginning of his physical existence. We are told that the answers are all around us, but we just don't seem to understand. We can philosophize, but just how can we relate the philosophy to our actual day-to-day existence? I can't say that I have it all down pat yet, but I am definitely starting to see that I must be doing something right, for I am HAPPY!!! I feel Love, and Joy, and Peace.

And so my pragmatic, intellectual side says "Why? Let's analyze this and see if we can logically reach a conclusive answer."

We can start with the answer in A Course In Miracles, which says "The only purpose for the world is the healing of God's son". It further explains that means overcoming the mistaken belief in separation.

I conclude that means we must reach a state of "At-One-Ment", in which we know our Oneness with everyone and everything in the world.

The Bible tells us to "Love your neighbor as yourself", to "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you", to "Have no gods before Me", to let God's "Will be done on earth", and that "God is Love".

We must then learn what Love is. Again, the Bible gives us many examples and definitions, one of the best being "Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful, it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way, it is not irritable or resentful. It does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends." (I Corinthians 13:4-8)

From this we can conclude that the acceptance of life is Love, and the acceptance of our brother "as yourself" is Love. A wonderful teacher, Burt Hotchkiss, put it beautifully and succinctly: "Love is unconditional positive acceptance." I shortened that somewhat, to "IS".

Burt Hotchkiss said in a seminar one evening, "let us decide, just for tonight, that our function is to increase our awareness of Love's presence. We do that through forgiveness and gratitude". That is a pretty good function for life, and it is a conscious DECISION. And so, we are here to decide to increase our awareness of Love.

If Love is "unconditional acceptance", then forgiveness is the knowing that there is nothing to forgive, for nothing could ever happen that was "wrong" and therefore unacceptable. Everything just IS. And therefore nothing can be judged, for judgment is to see something as right or wrong, good or bad, the way I want it or not.

And when we actually make the decision to practice that acceptance, to consciously refrain from judging our brothers for what they do or don't do, we begin to see them for what they are, the Son of God. And then we feel Love for them, and happiness at feeling that Love.

And then we know that we are the same, for as we forgive their actions, their doing or not doing, we forgive our own, and begin to Love ourselves, no matter what silly things we do. And then we do less silly things, and know more Love.

And then we realize that God's will for us is that Love, and that we are actually doing His will no matter what we previously thought. That we are actually human "BE-ings", rather than "DO-ings".

And then we realize that is the process of Life, that it cannot be otherwise, for that is what we were created for.

And so it just IS.