110. When you don’t need dating to meet your expectations you can freely relax and have fun

As we date, in the hope of finding a relationship for the rest of our lives, many of us have a sense of an incomplete me hoping to find completion. There’s a hole in our lives and we want to fill it. So there’s a real attachment to the desire to find a mate that will make us always happy. But the truth is that never happens. Why? Because the ego-me always has conflicting desires and impulses. It’s the nature of the mind to divide all things into their opposites: good/bad, happy/sad, right/wrong, together/separate, complete/incomplete, fulfilled/unfulfilled, worthy/unworthy. The mind is all about judging, pitting one thing against another

So once we find the right partner it probably won’t be long before we realize we also want independence, or maybe there’s a desire to be with a different person. Then we want togetherness again. Perhaps there’s a spat between us and we again want to be alone. So dissatisfaction is built into the very game of relationship, as it is with life. We get a new car or TV and it satisfies us for a short time. But then that longing for something new, better, different shows up again. We start comparing and judging and we’re off on another search to satisfy our unhappiness. It’s never-ending.

Basically our sense of longing is always born out of the deep realization that this isn’t it. At this age we might have begun to realize that nothing seems to be it. Nothing is deeply satisfying and we know from having tried all kinds of things all our lives that we’re not going to get there, though we keep trying for something – anything – that will ease that quiet desperation. All the ways make us more comfortable for a short time but they don’t make us ultimately peaceful.

So is there a solution? Good news -- yes there is! The solution is the one spiritually enlightened masters have pointed out for eons. The solution is to see that the little me that thinks it needs more, bigger, better, faster is just a thought. Me is nothing more than an idea. It’s not real. After all, where do you find this me? Is it your body? It couldn’t be, because your body is nothing without that Essence that gives it life. Besides, it’s always changing.

Is it your mind or thoughts? No, what you call me isn’t there either because those thoughts couldn’t even exist if it weren’t for the livingness or Life Essence. Besides our beliefs and even our image of ourselves as me is always changing. So how real could it be?

So where is me? The truth is there isn’t an independent “someone” we can call me. What we call me has no independent nature at all. It’s just an expression of the Life Essence or Spirit or the One, like everything else is. Me is just an idea, a thought that we’ve been conditioned to believe.

So what is this thing I call me? It must be that sense of beingness, of present awareness that we’ve always known and that has never changed. That sense that allows us to say I am. No one can deny that they are. We know we exist, and that knowing has never changed from the time we can first remember until now. It’s the only constant that we can know without thinking and without relying on anyone for confirmation.

Just by looking we see that we are that Life Force, that Presence, that Beingness that everything else is. A tree is that Essence being a tree. A rose is that Essence being a rose. A human is that Essence being a human. It’s all the same being. We must actually be that Life Essence, that Oneness that gives life and beingness to all that exists. That’s what the sages have said through all the centuries and from every corner of the earth. It was the message of Christ and the Buddha. The one thing we can be certain of is that "knowing" that we are, that we exist. Everything else we think about ourselves is just thought, including the thought that I'm a separate, limited entity that has to struggle to survive and make life work. Christ obviously knew that when he said, "Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit to his stature?" He went on to talk about how the flowers and birds are taken care of without strain and worry.

And Buddha is quoted as having said, "The deed there is but no doer thereof." We think we’re the doers of life but a close inspection shows that isn’t true. We don’t need the thought, “I want to see” before seeing happens, or “I want to hear” before hearing happens, or “I want to think” before thinking happens. These all happen by themselves, just like our digestion and heart beating and breathing. We don’t start it and we can’t stop it. If you think you can, try to switch off your thoughts when you’re in turmoil and want to give yourself a rest.

As radical as it sounds, we’re “being lived” and when you see this, life simply becomes a matter of relaxing into what is, just as it is. Thoughts of improving and having a better life seem to happen to a me. But actually they just show up out of nowhere, like bubbles in soda, and we don’t need to pay attention to them at all when we see that there’s no me to get attached to them. They promise a hope and fulfillment that’s not real because the world “out there” can never bring lasting contentment. The world, in fact, is only energy vibrating in different patterns that take different apparent forms. But it’s all just One stuff, pretending to be different.

Seeing that we’re being lived just like everything in the universe is being lived will bring us the relaxing, no-problem, happy life we’re seeking. Then dating is something that happens naturally; it's what this character you call me is moved to do, just as you’re moved to eat spaghetti or salmon for supper tonight. Watching life move as it does means your dating can be lighthearted fun as you witness the One play out this game. Dating doesn’t have to meet your goals or conform to your expectations when you see there is no me to have goals and expectations. The “doing” of life happens through an instrument we call me. Have no attachment to preferences and you’ll have no problems.

Copyright © 2006 Chuck Custer