A lot of people act selfishly, but many of them are
unhappy.
How can this be? They should
be feeling good! After all, that is what being selfish
means, doesn't it -
looking out for your happiness?
Of course, most people would
say the reason selfish people are unhappy is BECAUSE they
are acting selfishly. By acting selfishly, it is said, we
give in to our baser nature, commonly called 'human
nature.' Human nature is supposed to be a condition that
can't be altered -
it's just a part of life. We have to fight against our baser
nature, it is said, in order to get to a place of balance.
The common wisdom goes: if you are selfish, you will
probably be unhappy because you care little for anyone but
yourself.
But perhaps this statement is
the exact opposite of the truth; perhaps the me-me
selfishness people often display is an inversion of a
true, divine impulse.
Those who sacrifice their own
needs for the good of others are admired and respected.
Society also believes that allowing people to follow their
inner desires will inevitably lead to chaos or, at the very
least, imbalance. “If we allowed children to study what they
wanted, there’d be a million artists and no engineers,” a
teacher said to me once. But this is nonsense! Although the
parameters of our culture might change, we’d have a highly
motivated and productive population who loved their work,
instead of a struggling and stressed-out one.
By the time a significant
section of the population finishes school, we have
regurgitated so much data on so many subjects that we have
either been bored to death, or lost our direction. The
standard educational curriculum exercises our intellectual
muscles and teaches students to disregard their feelings
which, unfortunately, suppresses the subtle inner voice.
Intuition is no help on a math test or an engineering
problem of course, but losing touch with your feelings is a
bad idea, for it disconnects you from the Universal
Operating System, like a ship in the water without a rudder.
Now you are subject to the whims of weather, tides, and
water conditions and life looks like a series of
coincidences and probabilities. A variety of other factors,
especially the economic necessity to “make money” or “get a
good job” supersedes living our dream. Sadly, by the time
we reach adulthood many of us don’t even know what we are
passionate about. We’re just trying to make our way as best
we can in a world of scarce resources and in our confusion,
we try to grab onto as much as we can.
The problem isn’t being too
selfish, it’s not being Self-ish enough!
The guy who bulls his way to
the front of the line is somewhere in the lower range of the
emotional/vibrational tone scale, and even if he gets what
he wants, he doesn’t feel much better. Me-first behavior is
an attempt to find happiness through the accumulation of
physical objects, but that is a poor substitute for the life
giving qualities that lie within.
True Self-ishness always
leads to joy, because it is motivated always by the desire
to feel as good as possible. It is only when we are Self-ish
enough to be, do and act in accordance with our desires (not
someone else’s) that it is possible to stay balanced.
Energetically speaking, a desire is a rush of life force
energy, a connection to the divine inner self, which can
never result in actions that are harmful. It is only when
true desires are blocked that they become twisted and ugly.
This statement goes against the common wisdom that human
nature is greedy, violent and primitive. Human nature is
precisely the opposite: we are born knowing ourselves as
powerful, eternal, spiritual beings. Petty, competitive,
churlish and violent behavior must be taught. It must be
beaten into the heads of every one of us. Observe your
family, friends and coworkers. Almost all of them are good
people, trying to do the best they can. It would simply not
be possible to build a sophisticated society if human nature
was so base. All successful societies are based upon
cooperation, not competition. Competition works not because
it is adversarial, but because it inspires teamwork. Ask two
angry guys to get something constructive done –– it ain’t
never going to happen. All success is based upon
cooperation. That is because we live in an attraction–based
universe.
It is only when desires are
blocked that they become twisted and ugly. Take Joe for
example. Joe is a little child and is very eager and curious
about life. His soul purpose is to be an architect, and he
wants to find out how to build things. And so he is
constantly pulling stuff off of shelves, getting into
drawers, and trying to take things apart. These are very
joyful actions to Joe, but irritating to everyone else in
the family. As a consequence, he is constantly told by his
parents and siblings that his conduct is inappropriate, and
is disciplined accordingly. Eventually Joe learns to simply
damp himself down in order to get along with the rest of the
family. Of course by doing this he also shuts off the flow
of life force energy, for that is what desire is. Eventually
he begins to lash out, for he has learned that the creative
expression of his desire is unacceptable. Joe becomes
cynical about people and unhelpful to others, which just
magnifies the difficulty, and grows up to be unmanageable in
school and at work.
All of this flows from a lack
of true Self-ishness. In his desire to get along, he has
mistakenly shut down his desire, and thus his own life
force. Joe may, of course, re-connect to his desires at any
time. But when you are a child it's pretty hard if all of
the big people are telling you otherwise, as many of us
have experienced.
Because Joe thinks his needs
can’t be met, he insists upon his fair share at every
opportunity. To Joe, helping others is a joke. “Nobody ever
gave me anything,” he says. “Why should I give a bleep about
them?”
“You are too selfish, Joe,”
people say to him. “You should learn to open your heart and
help others. Then you would feel a lot better.” This is very
good advice, if only Joe could do it! He has already tried
that, without very good results. Joe has simply not been
taught to be appropriately Self-ish
- in fact, he has
been taught to deny his natural impulses. These natural
impulses are supposed to be dangerous because they stem from
a primitive survival instinct. After all, just look around
at the mess the world is in! But that is a delusional
assertion, a denial of the basic nature of consciousness
itself. The natural impulses of human nature stem from a
connection to life force, and it is resistance to this
divine impulse which causes the selfish behavior people
object to.
If you observe people you
will quickly see that those persons who are most alive are
full of desire, and those who look lifeless have little or
no desire. Desire = life force. Shut off desire = selfish
behavior. It's ironic that selfish behavior actually
results from self-denial.
So the most dangerous thing
you can do to yourself is 'go along to get along.' The
denial of your natural, divine impulses is like strangling
your true self. But in this society (United States)
following these impulses can lead to embarrassment. What
would happen if you woke up one day feeling so good that you
just had to tell everyone you met that you loved them? Well,
I’m sure you’d get a lot of strange looks, and probably a
punch in the nose! It is, however, your denial of these
feelings which causes you to be unhappy. Most of us
practice self-denial so much that by the time we’re adults,
we no longer feel the joy of living. We are just getting
along. Then many of us try to substitute for true
Selfishness by the accumulation of things, or the
acquisition of power, or perhaps in a relationship where we
hope that wonderful other can provide for us the joy and
love that we have denied to ourselves.
Many relationships break down
because each partner is looking for the other to supply the
missing pieces in themselves. “Mr. Right” may come along one
day and cause blissful happiness, filling in your psychic
and emotional gaps. But what if he begins to change? Now
you’re in trouble! Now it is necessary to change him so that
he fits comfortably within your space again, and we know
what kind of messes that can lead to.
“What about the pervert who
wants to satisfy his desires to abuse children? Or the
murderer who needs to satisfy his blood lust? That's not so
divine.” True enough, but this twisted desire is just the
result of a true desire that has been distorted or
suppressed for a long time, like Joe in our previous
example. If you are allowing your desires without
resistance, you will always be in balance. It isn’t possible
for a warped impulse to suddenly spring forth, despite what
we see in the movies and read in novels. Like a stream
diverted to a new course, it takes a lot of time and hard
work to dig the new waterbed.
When a person is truly acting
Selfishly, it is possible to be far more helpful to others.
I have noticed that people who, as the song says, “live the
life I love, and love the life I live” are very giving
persons. But this giving stems not from a societal
obligation to do the right thing, but from their own divine
connection to source. When your cup runneth over, you
naturally feel the impulse to give to others with an open
heart. Again, this is ironic. True Selfishness leads
inevitably to unselfishness.
Selfishness in the way I’m
defining it doesn’t mean hogging more than your fair share.
It means always making sure you are thinking and acting in
ways that really float your boat. And if that means
violating a few of society’s “Now I’m supposed to’s” and
“Now I have to’s”, then so be it.
“I've always wanted to paint and do photography full time,”
says a friend of mine. “But my computer job takes up so much
of my day. By the time I get home I'm too tired.”
“Oh, if only I could only
start that organic farm,” says another friend. “But I have
to run the dry cleaning business to make ends meet.”
If you do what makes you feel
good in every moment, your life will fall into place just
like you always wanted. Order will prevail, not
chaos! Does this mean you should quit your job and pursue
that acting career full time? The answer to that is, how do
you feel about it? If you feel an inner excitement and
energy bursting forth from within you, then submit your
resignation tomorrow. But if you feel hesitant, or worried,
or any negative emotion, you’ve still got a lot of resistant
beliefs that are contaminating your vibration. With a point
of attraction like that, you better not quit your job just
yet!
Does that mean you should
give up? Of course not! If you feel you have to keep working
then do so, but find as much time in your life as you can
for the things you love. The more time you devote to the
things you love, the more time you will have for them.
To sum up, human nature is
not a primitive, biological instinct based on survival of
the fittest, it’s a pure connection to source energy. It is
divine. It's only when that connection is closed off that
selfish behavior is demonstrated. Every one of your desires
is, in its non-resisted state, joyful and balanced, because
that is an inherent property of consciousness itself.
True selfishness requires
personal integrity. It requires you to stay true to your
inner vision of yourself. When you do this you stay whole,
and when you don’t, you lose yourself, and joy gradually
dies. When you BE yourself, people will like you, do you
know why? Because by being YOU, you acknowledge the spirit
within them. Because you remind them of their divine nature,
which all of us share as spiritual beings temporarily
incarnated within these human bodies. Because you share a
common bond of joy with all life everywhere.
True selfishness is
allowance of desire, without resistance, and results in the
impulse to give freely to others. But it is first necessary
to allow that impulse within yourself.
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