167. When you’re a victim of experiences mature dating often isn’t happy

There’s a spate of articles and books lately on how to find happiness. I just read a piece today from the New York Times online, titled Happiness 101. Daniel Gilbert, the Harvard psychologist, has studied happiness for years and written a book called Stumbling on Happiness. Some researchers report that certain exercises increase happiness, such as thinking about all the good things of your day before turning in for the night. Gilbert says his studies show people aren’t nearly as happy as they thought they’d be when they eventually reach the goals they had hoped for.

What all these psychological studies focus on is experiences. Not that there’s anything wrong with experiences, especially what we’d call good experiences. But the common attribute in all experiences is that they come and they go. We all know that experiences repeat themselves endlessly without ever bringing any lasting happiness. No matter how good they may be at some time, they all fade away. When we’re tied to those experiences we feel good when we judge them to be good experiences and we feel bad when we interpret them as bad.

In this blog the articles try to point to another way of being happy – in this case being happy while dating as a mature woman or man. What I’ve tried to share is what I’ve seen clearly about how life works. It’s what ancient teachers from all cultures and all centuries have shared in different ways but pointing to the same thing. In a nutshell what they teach is that when you look at your own life you see that life has never paid any attention to what you think “should be”. I’m not asking you to replace your old beliefs with this new idea. I’m suggesting you really look carefully and honestly at how life actually works.

Life doesn’t ask your opinion and it doesn’t allow you to vote. Life simply is what it is and we – you and I – are part of that isness. It can be a big pill to swallow when you first hear it but the ultimate knowing that can finally occur when you look deep enough is that the idea of a “me” running “my” life is really false. You and I don’t beat our hearts, breathe our lungs, create our own thoughts or choose our own life.

If we really had control of “our” so-called lives we’d have a mighty problem. Would there even be time to think of anything else with the burden of remembering to beat our hearts and breathe ourselves every few seconds, not to mention circulating our lymph system and digesting our food? If we chose our own thoughts would we ever choose to think unhappy, painful thoughts? If you control your thoughts do you know where the “off” switch is when you want peace and quiet? Seeing all this you might recognize that the reason we’re not running our lives is that there’s really no “me” here. The idea of me is just that, an idea, a thought among the endless thoughts that show up from who knows where. No one has ever been able to actually find something they can point to and say, “This is me” except for that thought.

The way this all fits into dating may seem obscure but it’s simple when we realize that truly seeing life as it is, without deciding how it “should be” – according to me, of course – results in nothing but ease, happiness, and love. When we see (it would be more accurate to say “when it is seen”) that there could only be one power (call it Source, the Absolute, God or whatever you choose) then we may also see that that Power is obviously infinitely more intelligent and loving than this phantom “me” I think I am.

Whether we think so or not It (the power) seems to know what It’s doing. After all, the planets are still in place after eons, and the apparent chaos in the world, seen from a Little Me perspective with “my” wants and beliefs, seems perfectly organized and harmonious when you look at a history of centuries. Or when you see the earth, stars and planets from outer space.

If this is all starting to sound a bit too heavy and confusing let’s put it in simple language. Bottom line, what the sages have taught and are teaching today is that when we take our hands off the kiddy car steering wheel and let Life take its course, all of a sudden there’s peace and happiness. We see that dating is happening for us because that’s how we’re being lived. When the Little Me doesn’t get its way and life doesn’t go the way we think it should we’re in a world of pain. That pain is simply the result of our resisting what is. Reality is always what’s happening and has nothing to do with what we think should be happening.

How do you know it’s meant to be raining outside? It is. How do you know your date should have stood you up? She did. Stop arguing with reality and you’ll find you have a happiness that doesn’t come and go. It’s not based on experiences. It’s based on the still, silent Source that allows all experiences to be. It’s the natural beingness you see in very small children. And it’s the natural beingness you already are once you see through the “me” idea with its right/wrong opinions and judgments.

You just relax into seeing the world the way it really is. It’s a steady seeing of life that operates like a mirror, not affected in any way by what’s reflected in it. That pure awareness never comes and goes but is the background on which all experiences come and go. When we live as the mirror rather than the drama reflected in it, suddenly life has no problems. That ease and peacefulness is happiness without cause and without end. It’s our natural state. Happy dating!

Copyright © 2007 Chuck Custer