There is a part of us that is always trying to figure out what we have to do to be with what we love, instead of seeing that what we love is always with us now. If what we love is not with us now, then it is never with us. The sensation of longing has nothing to do with the love for which we long. Part of spiritual maturity is gradually outgrowing the need we have to be identified with things outside of ourselves that lend us a sense of self.

Longing for the presence of God is like standing on the beach and wishing that we could be nearer to the ocean. One of the great paradoxes of the true spiritual life is that trying to answer this tremendous longing from ourselves is actually what keeps us from being present to this moment in which God makes Himself known.

In an orchestra each instrument serves to create a certain kind of tone; a sound is formed by it that is a limited reflection of some aspect of the ""music of the spheres"". It is our longing to share in these celestial vibrations that lead us to create musical instruments in the first place. This heavenly music is endlessly being played out in everything that we see. The problem is that we have selective hearing, partial seeing. Could it be that the reason we ignore the sounds that human beings make is because we are not interested in dealing with anything other than the notes that we want to hear in us? If we really want a life that is free of painful longing, then we need to learn what it means to let everything within the present moment sound in us. If we will let the moment sound purely, as it is intended, within that sound is the One who writes all the music.