RECONNECTING TO YOURSELF

When people complain that life is unfair, what they are really saying is that there is a mismatch between inner events (hopes, wishes, expectations, ambitions, goals) and the response of the outer world.

In our society we constantly reinforce the idea that we should follow our dreams, but what about the millions of people whose dreams have faded? In some way the chain that leads from being to feeling to thinking and then to doing has been broken.

Restoring the sequence isn’t difficult, but you must move things in the right direction. Pure being leads to the highest level of feeling, and the highest level of feeling creates the highest level of thinking and doing. Now we see the solution to being a loving person in an unloving world.

You don’t struggle to be loving; you don’t oppose those who are unloving. Instead, you establish yourself in pure being, which is loving by nature, and then inner and outer reality cannot help but reflect who you are.

This picture of reality streaming from one source creates a radical transformation at every level. Take thinking. As we saw, most of the time the mind is occupied with distractions, unable to focus on the present moment. Habits of worrying, fretting, planning, and dwelling in fantasy are by-products of disconnection from pure being.

The highest level of thinking is a constant flow of creativity from the source that is accompanied by feelings of joy and compassion. The final result is doing. No one has to be told what it’s like to act out of conflict, stress anxiety, indecision, and doubt.

We know that all of these are mental obstacles to right action. The highest level of doing is completely clear. Since it comes from a level beyond personality, such action reaches beyond personal benefit. It benefits everything around you, beginning with your family and extending to the entire world.

Adapted from The Ultimate Happiness Prescription, by Deepak Chopra (Harmony Books, 2009).