In my last entry, I explored how fatalism affects the way we perceive ourselves and others. The concept of fatalism can be 
unsettling as it challenges our belief in the importance of making moral choices.
However, on closer inspection, it also highlights how we foster a sense of spontaneity. I like to think that everything that has ever existed is within us, simply taking on a different identity or form.
The universe, or cosmos, isn’t some distant realm—it’s here with us, existing within and around everyone and everything. In viewing through the Hubble telescope there is a lot of life forming, life creating cosmic dust throughout multiple galaxies that serve to create new planets, even new life. We should take a moment to reflect on who or what in nature we’re connecting with today, as we acknowledge the spirit present in all living things.
Even in the Bible there are over a hundred reference referring to “from dust we came and to dust we shall return”. Cosmic dust… we have always been connected and a part of the vast universe and one among the ten thousand wonders of nature.
I’m reminding to think of the Nezperce Indians of America’s northwest and Chief Joseph who said “We live, we die, and like the grass and trees, renew ourselves from the soft earth of the grave. Stones crumble and decay, faiths grow old, and they are forgotten, but new beliefs are born. The faith of the villages is dust now… but it will grow again… like the trees.”
What really matters is discovering our own inner reality, which, once understood, guides our growth and actions in life naturally, without relying on external rules, allowing us to live spontaneously beyond conscious thought to who we are yet to become.
Returning to the silence, everything resonates within us, as if calling us home. 
Entering this realm becomes the greatest gift we can offer ourselves, far more valuable than any earthly acclaim, material wealth, or recognition. These fleeting moments of the present lose meaning if we fail to honor our past, embrace the present, and recognize the importance of our future.
They say we need a guru or gifted teacher to guide us. Over the past thirty-some-odd years, I’ve been fortunate to have many guides, especially the wisdom of Chuang, Lao, and Lieh Tzu.
What I’ve realized is that when we allow a steady flow of thought, virtue, and wisdom to fill our hearts and minds, a constant presence or opportunity often reveals itself, as if it had always been there. I’ve never quite grasped how someone could feel lonely. When what we truly seek is the source of our own inner reality. The paradox is our own deficiencies and lack of discipline that holds back our spiritual awakening.
A teacher can only give as much as he has learned or realized himself. The ultimate is for them to awaken others who may have been friends from the past that are destined to rejoin him. It is the giving or transmitting of his own experience that the teacher renews his own path. 
As there is always more to an eternal story waiting to be added to and retold.
Connecting to the cosmos, or universe, happens by reaching out to mentors, often poetically described as sages riding the wind like dragons. By channeling profound spiritual energy and embodying the qualities they aim to pass on, teachers can inspire and guide their students toward awakening.
The student to be awakened in consciousness must purify his/her mind through actions denoted as virtue towards others and through meditation, and direct their attention to teachings, ideas, and aims that will further his own bliss, sense of well-being, and enlightenment.
The true Taoist sage clears their mind of all subjective thoughts, letting go of excessive focus on personal moods, attitudes, opinions, and principles. They fully concentrate on the external situation, responding to it effortlessly without seeking alternatives. Living spontaneously, beyond conscious thought, they travel as though riding the wind to places they have been before.
My travels with Lieh Tzu / Interpolations along the Way
Chapter Six – Endeavor and Destiny
93. The ride of your Life
As there are no victims of fate only fate less victims, how can endeavor and destiny ever come together as one? Which can have greater importance and can either be as important as they would be made out to be?
Throughout time and over a multitude of generations, beyond our ability to count, each has argued its greater value over the other. Destiny verses endeavor, endeavor verses destiny. Each one forever locked in a battle of one-upmanship. Endeavor scoffing that nothing destiny could accomplish would have as great an impact as it.
Endeavor arguing that whether a man lives or dies young, has high rank or low, is rich or poor, all this remains within his reach. What could be more important? Destiny responded that if the above were true then why should endeavor grant long life to one and early death to another. Why should the sage be allowed to fail and the villain to succeed, demean an able man and exalt a fool, impoverish good men and enrich a bad man?
If, as we say something is destined to occur, then how can it be directed by one’s endeavors? Does not long life and short, failure and success, high rank and low, wealth and poverty come about without one’s prompting? Are they not just allowed to occur? Therefore, how could someone become a victim of fate?
If as Lieh Tzu says, there can be no conscious choice, then do we not simply develop the capacity to respond spontaneously to life’s events with little or no concern for end results.
If you have transcended the personality that becomes you and allowed yourself to flow through life’s events as you would meandering down a stream letting the current push you along, then have not your endeavors been allowed to simply occur? Should not your true destiny be found following along beside you? 6/2/95
Number ninety-three of one hundred fifty-eight entries.
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