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The alte ative to rejecting something about the way things are, which is what the ego does, is finding something to love about it. There is always something to love in every moment. Can you find a sensation, something of beauty, or a sound that is loveable? Is peace here, even just a sliver? Is love? Is contentment? Is the universe holding together?
One of the ego’s strongest desires is to know the future. It wants to know the future very badly, so badly that it often resorts to making it up, if not in a full-blown fantasy, at least in thoughts and beliefs about the future that constantly change. Sometimes such fantasies are negative and depict the ego’s fears about the future. The likelihood of events actually occurring in the often dramatic way the mind imagines is miniscule; and yet our thoughts about the future grab our attention, stir up our emotions, and can even cause us to act in certain ways.
If you notice, you will see that happiness is already here. Still, no matter how good life may be, the ego says no to it: “It would be better if….” “I will be happy when….” As long as we don’t follow those thoughts, we will be happy. But usually we give our attention to the ego’s rejection of what is instead of to what is. We give that no the power to steer our actions: We jump from one idea to the next, trying to make life and ourselves better.
The Now is the only reality. It’s all that really exists. The past is a memory, the future is a fantasy, and memories and fantasies are just ideas, and quite inaccurate ones at that. Thoughts arise in the Now, but they are only a small part of it. However, because we are programmed to pay attention to the egoic mind, thoughts often take the place of experience: We think about life and think about what we are experiencing rather than experiencing life purely, without thought. Experience colored by thought and experience uncolored by thought are very different experiences.
Meditation is the most common spiritual practice used to still the mind. In meditation, you give your full attention to something, such as the breath or a mantra. A kind of meditation also takes place when you give yourself fully to any activity, such as hiking, running, making music, or creating art.
Many people would define a successful life as a happy one, so we go about trying to be happy in many ways. Some people try to attain happiness through accomplishments and material things, while others use spiritual means. The problem is that happiness isn’t something to attain or achieve, but something to notice. If you are busy trying to achieve happiness, you are probably overlooking it. The ego tries to get happiness from doing, having, or being someone, while the spiritual ego tries to get it from transcending all of that.
When we are identified with the ego, we feel lacking, life feels lacking, and others feel lacking. The state of ego-identification is a state of never having enough, of discontentment, judgment, fear, doubt, and other negative emotions. When we are identified with the ego, the world revolves around "me," "my problems," and "my life." This state is a one of contraction and suffering.
Love naturally flows out of the present moment, which is the only moment that exists. The present moment is what is real. When we bring a memory from the past, a fantasy of the future, a fear, a judgment, or any other self-centered thought into the present moment, those thoughts draw us out of the present-moment reality, where love and the potential for happiness exist, and into the ego's world, which is a world of discontentment, judgment, striving, and desiring. All of the pain in the world is created by identifying with such thoughts.
The egoic mind is the cause of suffering. Nothing more. Suffering only happens in response to a thought. We suffer because we think something about what is happening, what happened, or what might happen. We create a story about what is, what was, or what will be; then we suffer over it. We particularly suffer over fears, which are negative ideas about the future, although any idea can cause suffering if it is believed.
• Think about all the things you have to do. Do this as you are going about your day. Go over your to-do list mentally many times a day, especially in the midst of doing something. Then talk about how much you have to do and how busy you are with everyone. • Keep checking the time, and think about time a lot: how much time something took, how much time something takes, how much time something will take, how much time you have left. Tell yourself you don't have enough time, or worry that you don't.
I was listening to a song the other day, and some of the words were "Love is gentle, and love is kind." The truth of that really touched me. We think of love as being a feeling—an emotion—but true love is more of a doing. Love touches, love gives, love is gentle, and it is kind. That's how we know it. We know love by its fruits. Love acts: It listens, it caresses, it nourishes, it nurtures. It does whatever is needed of it. Love naturally responds to life as it presents itself.
Change feels like tossing a coin up in the air—you don't know which way it will land, good or bad for the ego? The ego is deeply conce ed it will turn out badly. The ego considers the worst case scenarios and fears the worst. It attaches a story to what's going on: "My life is going downhill."
How we look is so important in this culture. How we look becomes how we see ourselves. The image in the mirror seems like who we are. We carry that image around with us inside our heads, and when we think of me, we think of that image. We have many self-images, and our inner image of what we look like is perhaps the strongest. We are most identified with that self-image because identification with the body is so strong and because the mind needs something to pin the idea of me on.
Love isn't something that someone causes us to feel, but a state of being that we experience whenever we are fully present in the moment to whatever or whomever is showing up. Love is our natural state, and we experience our natural state whenever the chattering mind is quiet or simply ignored. This state of being is one of peace, acceptance, and love. The only thing that can interfere with experiencing the love of our true nature is absorption in our thoughts and any feelings generated by those thoughts.
Some things matter too much to the ego, and this is a source of unhappiness, things like performing perfectly, looking a certain way, having certain things, and so on. The flip side of this is that many of the little things that actually turn out to matter, especially to true happiness, are overlooked and underrated by the ego.
Nearly everyone is in the grip of at least one desire, sometimes many. Desire is a natural part of the human condition. It comes from a sense of lack that is created by the ego, the false self. It comes from the belief that we need something outside of ourselves to be happy, which is the lie that makes the world go round. What would we do and what would our lives look like if we didn't believe we needed something else to make us happy or fulfill us?