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#3560 - Thursday, June 10, 2009 - Editor: Jerry Katz
The Nonduality Highlights - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NDhighlights
From Choosing Love: How to Find True Love and
Keep It Alive by
You can read a free chapter from it at www.radicalhappiness.com.
.
The ego doesn’t want to commit to anything—a place, a
relationship, a career—because it believes that something
better may be possible, and it’s willing to forgo what is
present for the possibility of something better that isn’t
present. Essence, on the other hand, is committed to whatever is.
It doesn’t commit into the future because all that exists is
the present, so it commits itself to that.
This is the essential difference between the ego and
Essence: The ego dreams of something better in the midst of
whatever is, while Essence simply enjoys and commits attention
and love to whatever is. In fact, committing attention to
anything that is present results in enjoyment. This is why the
ego enjoys so little—it commits attention to what isn’t
present and to what it doesn’t have, and suffers over that,
rather than committing attention to whatever is. It loves its
fantasies, dreams, and desires more than it loves reality.
To love, we have to fall in love with reality—with
what’s true right now, not with what might be true in the
future or with what we want to be true in the future. Love
happens in the now (like everything, really). That’s why the
ego doesn’t know about love—because love is the
experience of being in the now, or the present moment, and as
soon as the ego experiences the now, it runs from it. Commitment
takes a willingness to fall in love with reality—with the
real partner who is in front of you—rather than seek
something else, either actually or through fantasy. What you
commit to is what’s here right now. Who knows what will be
here next? All you ever really have is what’s here right
now, so it makes sense to commit to that, in other words, to give
your full attention—your love—to that.
Those who have difficulty committing to a relationship often have
difficulty committing to other things as well because they have
an underlying belief, or misunderstanding, that what’s here
isn’t good enough and what’s somewhere else is better.
This is the ego’s basic assumption about life: Whatever is
happening now isn’t it. It is somewhere else, with it being
ultimate happiness and contentment. The ego assumes that because
it perceives whatever is happening as not good enough, it is, in
fact, not good enough, and it concludes that must mean
there’s something else that will be good enough. It imagines
one day it will find peace and happiness because life will
finally line up correctly. Those who can’t commit are
waiting for life to line up, fall into place, and they’re
quite sure that doesn’t look like whatever life looks like
now.
The funny thing (or not so funny thing) is that life never does
line up for anyone, simply because the ego won’t perceive it
as ever “lining up.” It has a habit of perceiving life
as imperfect, even when it’s quite ideal. In any event, life
isn’t meant to be perfect or to fulfill the ego’s
dreams and desires. It serves a higher purpose, one that has very
little to do with the ego’s fantasies. Life is essentially
about learning to love and learning a lot of other things too,
and for this, life is likely to look less than perfect to the
ego.
Life brings people into our lives for various reasons, and
sometimes we have to be willing to stretch ourselves to gain what
can be gained from a relationship or tap the love that is
possible. Relationships, like life, aren’t meant to be easy,
although they can be deeply rewarding. Commitment makes it
possible to tap the potential of a relationship. If you give up
on a relationship after the first blush is gone, you may never
realize this potential. Sexual union often becomes the glue that
keeps people together long enough to begin to experience true
love or learn what they need to learn from each other. Nature has
a way of bringing about spiritual lessons and spiritual growth.
Sexual attraction is one of the ways Essence brings people
together and keeps them together long enough to benefit from each
other and grow.
The ego doesn’t appreciate growth, and it’s not in
relationship for that, or for love really. Its unwillingness to
commit and to grow often prevents a relationship that could be a
very good one from becoming that. It is forever chasing after the
perfect “10,” which doesn’t exist. But it’s
difficult to convince the ego of that. It believes in its
fantasies. To the ego, it’s only a matter of time before
“the one” shows up. Hope springs eternal.
Essence experiences “the one” in whomever is showing
up, and that’s the difference between Essence and the ego.
It’s possible to love whoever shows up in your life. In
fact, it’s very wise to do that if you want to be happy. If
you don’t want to be happy, you will reject whoever shows up
in your life. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be
discriminating. Loving and saying yes to those who show up in
your life doesn’t mean getting sexually involved with them
unless you want to. Essence says yes to them—is open to
them—because it is curious. And then it is very wise about
getting more involved with them. Essence commits itself to
someone only when love is flowing in both directions and the
relationship is rewarding on many levels. The ego, on the other
hand, may commit out of sexual attraction or because some other
need is met through that relationship, which is not a good basis
for commitment.
Commitment naturally flows from love and appreciation of another.
It’s the natural outcome of love. And this love is often
enough to overcome conditioning and other difficulties that might
arise in the relationship. Without love, commitment is hollow; it
has no basis. Without love, the foundation for the relationship
won’t be strong enough to weather conditioning and other
difficulties.
Commitment only makes sense when there is love, but the ego
isn’t capable of love. It forms relationships based on
needs, and that’s when commitment falters. As soon as
someone’s needs aren’t getting met, then the commitment
is questioned. Those who are identified with the ego much of the
time have a very difficult time committing, while those who are
identified with Essence are able to love and therefore able to
commit. Eventually everyone learns to love, but relationships can
be pretty volatile when egos are in charge. Even so, because
relationships provide the ego with many of the practical things
it values—sex, security, affection, companionship, support,
and help—people who are in relationships for egoic reasons
often end up discovering love. This is how life draws people out
of the ego and into Essence.
Choosing Love will be published by Hampton Roads in 2010.