It's Eastertime. Which carries different connotations depending on one's spiritual tradition. For some, it represents a deeply contemplative journey into surrender and solace. For others, an ending of winter's harsh grip. And for many, it signals the perfect moment for that annual ritual of spring cleaning. A time to declutter the mess and impose order on all our accumulated possessions. We reach for storage bins, donation bags, and organizational systems, certain that peace will surely follow purging.
But what if we've misunderstood the entire concept of decluttering?
I'd like to discuss a form of spring cleaning that isn't about objects but rather our relationship with everything we perceive. The chaos we experience isn't in our closets or calendars—it's in the meaning we've assigned to the world around us.
When we believe our wellbeing depends on arranging circumstances just so, we've fallen for the ego's most persuasive illusion: that happiness is conditional, existing somewhere beyond this moment, waiting for the world to fulfill certain prerequisites.
Yet perfection isn't achieved through addition or subtraction of forms. Perfection is our natural state, momentarily obscured by attachment to meanings we've projected outward.
To truly declutter is to gently witness these interpretations without judgment. We don't need to banish emotions or maintain pristine environments. We simply recognize that nothing in the phenomenal world determines our inner state.
The most fruitful spring cleaning occurs when we look with kindness on our projections. By releasing our grip on the belief that circumstance conditions peace, we discover that serenity was never missing - only temporarily forgotten in our fascination with form.
As we read in A Course in Miracles, by "letting go of self-deceptions" we are "returned to wholeness and joy. We are at peace again, for fear has gone and only love remains." We experience the spaciousness that has always been our true nature—uncluttered, unbounded, and eternally unblemished.
Join me in Thursday's class where we'll explore practices for inner decluttering and the blissful condition that follows. I look forward to seeing you then.