174. If we can’t direct our next thought can we know how our dating should go?

As we’ve matured and aged over the years we’ve picked up the idea that we’re somehow the center of the universe. We think life should revolve around our desires. We want it to be the way we think it should be.

If we look for the cause of all our problems it’s the self-centered “me” idea isn’t it? Every problem we have starts with “I” or “me”. When we’re in deep sleep and there’s no idea of a me, we don’t have a problem in the world. Yet we show up on this planet, live for 40 or 80 years, and think the universe should conform to our will. The problem with that is that the universe doesn’t care what we think so we suffer while we sputter and struggle to force things to go our way.

Look at a gnat. It’s born in the morning, mates in the afternoon and dies by nightfall. Could it even begin to imagine our life span? Can we, in turn, begin to imagine the life span of history, even as we hear about it being billions of years? In fact, when we came here did we come with an independent nature that can decide what’s right and wrong in our world? Does “me” have its own self-powered existence? Can we even have the thought of a “me” without that Life Force that props us up and breathes us?

“Me” and “my life” is just a thought, a concept. It has no independent nature and no actual substance. If we step back a few billion years how important are the desires and needs we think we have? Yet we pin them to this me-idea and often suffer mightily. Love relationships can highlight our suffering more than almost anything in life. Romantic love is deeply personal and intense so its pain can be immense.

But all that pain dissolves when the me-idea is seen through and we realize there is no independent “person” here who has to have life be a certain way. What if, instead, we lived life as a small child or an animal, simply seeing it and allowing it to be what it is. Then we could lighten up and see mature dating as an adventure, full of joy when we watch the show instead of trying to direct it. After all, in reality we can’t even direct our next thought. Doesn’t that give us a clue?

Copyright © 2007 Chuck Custer