154. Hope keeps us forever spinning, its opposite is effortless and peaceful

Hope. The meaning behind that word is what drives most people to date in their mature or senior years. We hope that we can find the right lover or partner and life will be better than it is. We’re trying to get something we think we don’t have.

Haven’t we been doing that all our lives, though? Can you remember a time when you didn’t think, “This isn’t it, but over there and in the future will be it and then I’ll be happy.” So we look forward to Christmas, to being seven when we’re five, to dating that right boy in high school, to graduation, to marriage, to having children and on and on it goes. Happiness is always in the future. And the future never comes, have you noticed? Hope can never lead to “this is it” because all the time we’re thinking “this is not it” it is. Reality never lies. It just is what is.

“Well,” you might be saying, “if I think that way then everything is totally hopeless.” But isn’t that idea of hope based on the idea that we need something? And is that true? Nisargadatta Maharaj, the late, esteemed spiritual teacher of East India, sometimes said, “I don’t understand wanting what you don’t have. Why not want what you do have and be happy?” And doesn’t that make sense… except that it seems so, well, hopeless?

In many ways, life is like playing the slot machines. If we play long enough we’re bound to win sometimes. Usually it’s just enough to keep us playing. If we never won we’d quit. But sometimes we hit it right and that’s enough to make us forget all the many more times we didn’t hit it right.

In life it’s the same. Once in awhile life happens the way we wanted it to. So we think we did it, and all we have to do is try harder and work harder and we can make it happen our way again. But what’s the reality? Does it usually happen our way, or does it just happen? Look at just today, for example. Did it really turn out the way you thought it would? Doesn’t life just live itself without our input?

When we can’t even say that we create the thoughts that come to us, how can we say we create “our” life? When you look you can’t find any separate, independent individual inside that owns “my” body. Yes this false “me” idea wants dating to turn out a certain way and provide the right circumstances and partner.

There is awareness of life and there’s existence, certainly. But somehow “we” decided that a person exists that’s independent of the rest of nature. It’s a radical thought but have you considered that “we” are simply an expression of that Infinite Intelligence (God) just as is everything else? Does a tree think, or a flower? Yet they function perfectly don’t they, blooming when they’re meant to, sending out perfume and blossoms right on time. “We” function in the same way; we’re being functioned.

There is existence, and that existence is aware of life happening, without an opinion, without judgment, without comparison, without dividing everything into right and wrong, good and bad. In that pure awareness life is just seeing life unfold. The perfect example of that is a small child. A tiny child doesn’t need hope because there’s nothing she wants. She wants what is and that happens to be what she’s always got.

Can we really know we’d be better off having a partner, a lover, a husband or wife, a mate? What’s true instead (remember, reality reigns) is that we don’t need a husband or wife if we don’t have one because life is always exactly the way it should be. The One Intelligence can’t make a mistake because there’s nothing to compare it to since there is no second. There is just the One, showing up in all forms and as all circumstances.

“Then why do you date?” you could ask me. And the answer is, because that’s the way I’m being lived. To me, dating is a great adventure, usually interesting and fun. It would seem nice to have a partner, but I know that’s just a thought. Other times I have the thought that it’s nice to have the peace and contentment of being alone. Do I know what I need? Of course not. So I’m just happy with what is and I find life is contented and peaceful. Nothing can be wrong because there is no right. There is only this… only this, happening right now and in every moment. That’s it and that’s all there ever has been.
Without hope there’s no hopelessness. The only problem is, it’s too simple!

Copyright © 2006 Chuck Custer

153. Thoughts cause suffering, whether it’s losing a daughter or a relationship

I have a friend I don’t see or talk to very often whose oldest daughter died about three weeks ago. This woman, in her early 40’s, had Lupus and other ailments and had been sickly most of her life. My friend, I’ll call her Lola, called to talk about ways to handle her grief. Most of the time she was doing well, she said. But other times she wallowed in suffering and pain. “I don’t know how to stay out of that pain when it comes,” she said.

Whether we’re dealing with the death of someone close or the loss of a relationship, the suffering can seem unbearable at times. Lola had done some questioning of life before this, and wasn’t new to seeing life honestly. But she got stuck sometimes, she realized. So basically I simply reminded her of what she appeared to have forgotten - that thought is always the cause of our suffering. When you’re in dreamless sleep at night there’s no pain. That’s simple proof.

What Lola noticed, as we talked, was that most of the time when she hurt it was when she thought about how her daughter was too young to die, and that she should have had a healthy life. Questions would come like, “Why did this happen to her? How could I have been more caring and helpful?”

But those are all thoughts that argue with reality. Reality is just what is. In this case, what is, is that her daughter lived exactly as long as she was meant to live. Her life wasn’t cut short unless we say so. Without that thought her life was just what it was, as is true for all of us. Lola felt it was helpful to be reminded that it was only her thoughts that were bringing her pain. None of her pain, she realized, was helping anyone, so why not live in reality instead?

It’s the same with the end of a relationship. You may have had plans to spend your life with someone you’re dating. And then it ends. We customarily tell ourselves it shouldn’t have ended. But can we really live clearly when we’re arguing with the facts? Besides the hurt and pain we cause ourselves, we can’t effectively move on with that kind of thinking. There’s no clarity because we’re starting with a muddled assumption. The assumption is that “I know how it should be”. And we say this staring in the face of how it is.

Always, always, always it’s our resistance to what is that brings on our suffering. No resistance, no pain. If you’re hurting in any way because of relationship turmoil ask yourself, “Do I really want to argue with what’s happening or do I want to simply see it as Life, unfolding as it does?” Which feels more peaceful? Isn’t that a clue as to which view is truthful and which is a lie we’ve created?

Copyright © 2006 Chuck Custer

152. Which is it, keeping your word or living spontaneously and authentically?

Most of us have been taught to tell the truth and to live by our commitments. But have you ever thought that those two statements can easily be in opposition to each other? “If you say you’re going to do something, then do it,” is the message we’ve gotten. But is that always telling the truth? What if you change your mind? I knew a woman from Oregon once who said she married her first husband because she was at a party with him when they were dating, and suddenly he announced to the room that they were getting married.

This was a bright, educated woman, not given to stretching the truth. But what she said was that after he told everyone they were getting married, and she hadn’t denied it because she didn’t know what to say, she felt she’d made a tacit commitment. “I honestly didn’t know what to say or how to get out of it without hurting his feelings, so the marriage took place,” she told me. She had made a commitment she thought.

But what about this idea of always doing what you said you’d do? Can you always do that and still be true to yourself and honest? Probably not. No one I know can predict the future, including what they may feel like doing in the future. Let’s say you say you’ll go dancing with someone Saturday night, and later realize that that doesn’t really feel right for you at all. Do you call him and say you’re not going? What happens if you go and you really don’t want to be there? Do you think you or your partner will have a good time?

“But,” you say, “that doesn’t seem fair and I don’t want to hurt someone’s feelings.” I agree, you probably wouldn’t want to do that often because your dating friend would likely stop dating you. But is it true that you can really hurt someone’s feelings? They decide whether your words or actions hurt them don’t they? Instead of doing what you don’t want to do maybe letting yourself know your truth and then living that is more important.

The truth is always right now. For example, maybe you love chocolate ice cream. Then you and your friend order ice cream and you ask for strawberry. Are you being inconsistent? No, you’re really just being spontaneously honest. That moment you want strawberry.

Rather than feel trapped by a commitment you’ve made, you might find dating a lot less stressful and more fun if you just operate from the truth. It just isn’t true that you have to forecast what you’re going to want to do in the future and then stick with your forecast when it doesn’t feel right. Spontaneous living is just letting Life live through us as it will, without trying to control outcomes or make predictions.

Copyright © 2006 Chuck Custer

151. Is being “too nice” really being kind?

I read an interesting article recently about men who are always “too nice”. But the same thing applies to some women. And it applies in virtually any kind of relationship, from romance to relatives.

Since we’re talking about senior or mature dating here, however, let’s take a look at it from this perspective. Dating in these years can often take on a different flavor than it did in earlier years. There can be the feeling that life is passing me by and I’m not getting any younger. So a sense of desperation can set in. And that can easily lead to trying too hard to please a potential partner, or being too nice.

But is that kind of behavior really being nice? Or is it being dishonest and manipulative? Have you ever noticed that you’re angry when the person you’re dating doesn’t do what you want? What’s that anger about? Isn’t that manipulation, a childish way to try to get her to change? Being “too nice” is exactly the same thing – manipulation that shows up in a different form. Whether it’s anger or being extra nice, the aim is to get the other person to do what you want. You want to manipulate him so you can control the outcome of your relationship.

If you notice yourself being extra nice in your dating just notice your phoniness and see if you really do want to manipulate the other person. In the long run will this work? Will your date eventually see through it, especially when you start demanding things in return for all you’ve done? Have you ever heard someone say – or maybe you’ve said it yourself – “Why would you do that? I would never do that!” Or “That’s not fair; after all, look at all I’ve done for you.” Aren’t those words expecting that your partner should be giving back to you for all you’ve given?

If so, did you really give freely, without strings? Or were you being “extra nice” because you wanted something? We can live in that kind of manipulation if we want, but it usually had two painful consequences. One is that it feels stressful and phony, and the other is that it’s guaranteed not to work and you’ll hurt further in the long run. After all, how can you keep giving inauthentically and not begin to resent the other person? And when your resentment shows up, won’t the other person feel used and deceived?

Copyright © 2006 Chuck Custer