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I am grateful to offer my perspective on the pathway to a meaningful life. I hope that these insights assist you on your journey. I have found these to be the basic principles of a well lived life:

  • Know we are life itself
  • Express life with passionate loving intent
  • Experience the privilege of forgiving others and accept forgiveness graciously
  • Celebrate daily
  • Live life a moment at a time

When we understand that we are life itself, it frees us from the unconscious terror of feeling alone. We become aware that we are the very breath that sustains the bodies we inhabit. We can sing our particular note in the symphony of life’s sounds and consciously hear the music of the entire orchestra. There is an acceptance of life as it is, with all its imperfections and glorious moments. This acceptance releases us from attachment to outcome. Life itself restores us and gives us succor when we grieve.

The willingness to intend, passionately, can be viewed as the compass of life. It is always true north. It reminds us of our purpose. Viewing life from the perch of loving intention broadens our vision and frees us from the need to make others wrong in order to be right. By living our intent in the present moment, we create the probability of future based upon our conscious desire.

One of the most extra-ordinary experiences in life is the offering and accepting of forgiveness. Forgiveness is a restorative process of reclaiming our innocence. In an intimate loving interchange of forgiveness, the voice of condemnation is silenced as we accept responsibility for our actions. In that sacred interchange, shame loses its power to keep us prisoner in the fortress of our own guilt. We are set free to love and be loved once more. It is a privilege to offer forgiveness to another because in the giving we share the joy of liberation from judgment and guilt.

The universe celebrates every wayfarer who has returned from the self imposed exile of judgment. As forgiven beings, we become participants in that celebration. The more we celebrate, the more joyful we become.

We have made life very complicated. The task of remembering we are life itself, with the creative energy to intend miracles or heartache, may seem daunting. It is important to take this restorative process of reclaiming our innocence one moment at a time. Remember to celebrate each step along the way.

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John Chupka, LCSW

Founder and Director of The Forgiveness Center in Troy, New York, John has taught the Course In Miracles, for more than 25 years. The Forgiveness Center is a spiritually based practice of psychotherapy and transpersonal education. John founded it to provide opportunities for clients to release painful past experiences, be fully present in the moment and create powerful futures. He treats clients of all ages, including preschool students in inner-city day care centers.

A psychotherapist in private practice for 35 years, John was a co-founder of an innovative, private mental health clinic, which utilized the pioneering principles of Brief Strategic therapy.

Certified in Brief Strategic Therapy and Ericksonian Hypnosis, John conducts seminars, workshops and retreats based in spiritual teachings of both the Eastern and Western disciplines he has studied, including transactional analysis, gestalt therapy, and kundalini yoga.

A creative humorist, John is a musician, singer-songwriter who’s CDs of healing mediations, Transcending for Men and Transcending for Women produce dramatic results.

John, with his wife Joyce, is a leader in the transformation of the City of Troy, a demonstration project in how to actively transform communities, one neighborhood at a time. Together with their daughter, they have just completed their soon to be released novel, IT Went Without Saying. The book is a personal story told through conversation of the power of Love, Life, and Forgiveness in the face of Addition.

Please feel free to contact John at forgivenesscenter.org or [email protected].

For more information, please visit forgivenesscenter.org

This Post Has 9 Comments

  1. Nicely written and inspiring. 🙂 In your sentiment that we are life itself, I find myself thinking of the idea of our dual physical bodies – that is, we have our personal bodies, but that the world and nature is itself another extended physical body that is also ours. And, that extended physical body is no less ours than our personal bodies.

  2. Thank you John. Simply and beautifully articulated. Powerful life philosophy and consciousness. If every individual brings this awareness to her consciousness and beingness, we will have the respect, love, harmony, communication, collaboration and unity that each and everyone of us from around the world deeply desire and deserve. With love and transformation, Jocelyne at womenbeempowered.com

    1. Thanks John, I realised in a very simple way what I have been trying to define in long complex and at times confusing terms, “that I am life itself”. A lot of perspectives fell into place easily. I will certainly be getting in touch. Duncan

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