78. Mature dating is an enchanting escapade when you see it without judgment

Nature is a great teacher. By nature I mean to include animals also. And we, as humans – human nature. We can learn a lot about living a happy, peaceful life by just watching the carefree, spontaneous unfolding of nature. You can bring that natural view of life into your dating world and more likely find dating to be an interesting adventure instead of what may have been a scary, painful experience for you.

Consider the ease of nature. For one thing, nature never fights itself. There’s an incoming and an outgoing tide, for example, never in argument or conflict with itself. Day and night follow each other, changing in length with the seasons, with never a clash. As the human aspect of nature, we never argue with the rising of the sun every day, with how gravity works, or when it rains or the wind blows. Unless we’re insane, that is.

Animals are a different facet of nature because they have senses, as do humans. They don’t have intellect, however, so they don’t have the capacity to think in the way humans do. They simply go along with life. If there’s danger their natural reaction is to run or fight but when the danger is over they’re back to living life again. They live in the moment and don’t regret the past or worry about the future. They never judge anything as good or bad, right or wrong. For animals, life just is. That’s obvious as we watch even our pets at home. There’s no emotional suffering for them.

We, as the human part of nature, have been gifted with intelligence, and it’s a great gift. The mind is an incredible servant and tool. The problem is, most of the time we’ve allowed the mind to become master instead of servant. It chatters away judgmentally and critically, dividing nearly everything into yes and no, or "I like" and "I don’t like".

A Chinese spiritual saying goes like this: When we understand, we are at the center of the circle. And there we sit while yes and no chase each other around the circumference. What the author, Chuang Tzu, means is that when we understand, or see the reality of life, we see that without our judgmental yes/no opinions life is smooth. Life, just as it is. That's all that can be said about it. It just is.

A modern-day East Indian spiritual teacher, Ramesh Balsekar, is the former president of one of the largest banks in India. He says all our problems would be gone if we simply lived life with acceptance and surrender. Or to put it in Christian terms, he says, “Not my will, O Lord, but thine.” Instead we nearly always have opinions. Most of us could feel quite happy and righteous writing a book titled: HOW LIFE SHOULD BE – ACCORDING TO ME! But what makes us think we know how life should be – even in personal matters and dealings with other people, including the folks we date, our relatives and our friends? Do we absolutely know they should be different from who they are? Do we know the relationship we counted on shouldn’t end when we want it to continue?

As one spiritual teacher from England said in a talk I heard, “Who are we to be so arrogant as to think we can tell That which created us how our lives should run?” You can call “That which created us” God or the Absolute or the Source or whatever words you want. We all know it as the Power that animates our lives – the Intelligent Energy that gives us life and keeps the stars in place.

When you have dating turmoil, confusion or pain you can look to see where your mind is dividing something into should and shouldn’t and where you’ve made a judgment. If you’re in emotional pain it’s a sure sign you’re resisting something. You think something that is shouldn’t be. You’re interpreting life your way, not accepting it as it is.

It’s tough I know. Maybe you were lied to, maybe you were deceived, maybe the object of your love just isn’t in love with you. But investigate your thoughts. Does the world sometimes function in the way it’s happening to you? Is that what sometimes happens to people? Is that reality? If you say yes, then maybe you can also see that perhaps you don’t have the big picture. Maybe you could just allow everything to be the way it is. You might be surprised at the stillness and serenity you instantly feel.

Copyright © 2006 Chuck Custer