142. You are your own answer to happiness and peace in dating and life

I read a statement the other day where a guy said, “In most cases a well-cared-for dog is happier than its owner. All a dog needs is food, shelter and some loving. Look at our list of needs: love, money, power, recognition, and on and on and on. It never stops.” Of course, he’s right. If you just zoom in on one of the needs he mentions, love, our dating can take a couple of paths.

We can date with the idea that we want to share love, and then whatever happens we’ll be happy with. Or we can date with the idea that we need to have the love we’re seeking. In that case we’ll often be suffering and miserable because dating doesn’t usually give us exactly what we think we want. Understanding life clearly, in an enlightened way, means nothing more than realizing that life is just what it is. Some power and infinite intelligence expresses itself as universes and eternity and infinitude and it’s way beyond any intelligence we’ve been given.

Yet we think we know how things should be and we don’t easily accept them as they are. Dogs don’t have that ego-driven idea – that they know. They simply are. And they’re happy. Throughout the centuries awakened individuals have also seen that just by realizing life is they can be happy. Actually, we all have moments of just being every day. Those are the moments when we’re so fully engaged in something that we totally lose track of the idea of a ‘me’ who needs something. It can happen when we’re engrossed in a project we find fascinating, watching a humming bird or taking a walk. In short, it happens every time we have no judgments and opinions about anyone or anything.

How do you live that all the time? Just give some attention to your judgments. They’re easy to see; you never feel fully open and alive and peaceful when you’re judging. When that little “suffer bell” rings just ask yourself, “Do I know I’m right? Is it possible this should be just the way it is?” We haven’t learned to question life so we can see reality. Instead, we so often act on childish habits we picked up that just don’t work. How do we know they’re not working? We suffer – needlessly. All emotional suffering is only thought. Do you want proof of that? In dreamless sleep you have no thought and no suffering. You are your own answer.

Copyright © 2006 Chuck Custer