Tag Archives: love

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What if…?

What if the world operated in the way we teach our children?

Since my wife and I have become parents to our daughter, I have often asked myself this question, and as I was paging through my book for the first time in a few years recently, stopping at random pages, reading little bits here and there, I also came across the part where the bird talks exactly about this. How we teach our children to be honest and authentic, to be kind, not to lie, not to hit, not to hurt other people’s feeling, to apologize when we do.

We tell them that everyone is unique and should be treated with kindness and respect. We tell them that they are safe. I have not met a parent who does not have love overflowing while watching their children play with others in this way, knowing that they are seen for who they are, and that the other children are treated the same. No parent would ever wish harm upon their own or anyone else’s child, no matter who that parent is or where they are from. It is innate. The love we feel for our children is innate and beyond the limitations of this world.

The love that children express, exude, in fact are, is transcendent and that is why they will extend it to anyone freely. Everyone is always invited to the love fest that life is to them. They don’t think in categories of worthiness, they do not see difference, they are truly present to what is and their fresh egos are simply there to do their job, to store experiences and to aid in navigating this material world.

I wish everyday that my daughter and all other children would be able to stay in that experience, that state of unbridled curiosity and being. A place where kindness rules, where love and encouragement are the main attraction and sharing experiences is the main activity.

But now that she is getting ready to go to Kindergarten in the fall, I see how different things will become, how more of the ‘real world’ will begin to creep into her consciousness. How the older kids’ ego identification is setting her up to walk a similar path, and a part of me is deeply saddened by this, because I keep asking myself the ‘what if…?’

What if we as adults behaved more childlike? What if we were more authentic? What if we didn’t spread around our own judgments about everything, peddling them as ‘being honest,’ when we all deep down know that it is simply our judgment, and that it will add nothing to the world and hurt someone else’s feelings? What if we honestly tried our best to see the light in the person next to us? What if we sought out to connect with others, share a kind moment with them every single day, every single moment, to the best of our ability? What if we let ourselves be happy for others and let them know? What if we spread kindness and love to everyone we meet through a laugh, a kind word, a compliment, an encouragement? What if we sought to help others to become their best self? What if we stopped comparadging all the time? What if we allowed the world around us to be filled with love? What if we stopped taking life and other people so personally? What if we looked at life and everything in it as the miracle it truly is? What if we spoke up when we witness an injustice, no matter how small or insignificant it may seem? What if we assumed the best about each other?

What if we were all more childlike and aimed to create a world that reflected that, a world in which the love, joy and freedom we all remember from our own childhood was not limited to the first few years of our lives? What if we had a world in which all children get to have a childhood like this to begin with? To paraphrase L.R. Knost: Maybe it shouldn’t be our job to toughen our children up to face a cruel and heartless world – our job should be to make the world less cruel and heartless.

What if we never had to utter the words: ‘Welcome to the real world.’

I am acting on my ‘what ifs’ as much as I can every day. I invite you to think of your own ‘what ifs,’ act on them, and see what happens in your life as a result.

Cheers,

Ralf

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Comparadging

We do this, as a matter of fact we do it so much, we hardly notice it. This new word describes the ego’s way of constantly running a comparison between the ‘me’ it claims to be and someone or something else. And to judge the result of this comparison.

This is a nasty little habit that we form early on in our lives, when we are taught the very helpful habit of differentiating between things. It is not until a few weeks into our human form that we actually begin to realize that we are in fact a being separate from our environment, that we are not part of everything that surrounds us. Think about that for a moment – we don’t see ourselves as separate from the world, we are (in) it. Watch a baby that is only a few days or weeks old and you will see very quickly that they have no idea that the hands and feet attached to them are theirs. This has to be discovered. Once this awareness of our own body as separate from everything else emerges, the idea of differentiation enters.

This is obviously a natural and important process. Without it, we couldn’t lead a human life. So differentiation is a good thing, but when we take it to the level of ego id, it goes sideways. Then we start the comparison game. It begins with small things like ‘the other kid is bigger/smaller than me, has more/less toys than me,’ then grows into ‘he/she is smarter/dumber or prettier/uglier or more popular/less popular than me.’ Eventually we end up with at worst ‘I am less than others, and there is nothing I can do about that’ or at best ‘I am better than others and have to keep it that way.’ And this creates more separation between us than we realize. It doesn’t matter if it’s positive or negative, it simply separates us.

It still shocks me how much I do this unconsciously and when I do notice, how harsh it feels. The resulting judgment is always absolute and quite condemning. My ego is either better or worse than, and there is no arguing this. And once we have arrived at this absolute conclusion, we operate from it. The result is either arrogance or humiliation in some form. So I am then stuck with either continuing to do what I have been doing, so that I may continue to be ‘better than,’ or fighting to change the ‘less than’ to a ‘better than.’ At worst I resign to the fact that I am ‘less than,’ and there is nothing I can do about it.

Operating from a comparadging state of mind is very exhausting and always results in limited options in our lives. This is the ego id way of life. This is what keeps us from making choices that may move our lives into a different space, keeps us from even considering that anything different may be possible. And when we are in ego id, the very idea that we could achieve something that someone else has achieved, seems absurd. ‘There is no way I could own a business, get a degree, get that job, have a mate, love or success in my life’ we say to ourselves after the results of our comparadging are in. So we don’t even try.

Every ‘successful’ person in the world will tell you that one day they simply started acting on their idea or inspiration, that the thought of comparing themselves to others was of no interest or consequence to them. They stepped out of comparadging into inspiration. Once they made that choice, possibilities presented themselves, people and circumstances began to show up seemingly out of the blue, propelling them forward. Things began to unfold and work out. And the people who reached their success through happiness never play the comparadging game. It doesn’t occur to them. They are simply following their inspiration and are happy to have others come along for the ride. Differentiation and appreciation of differences is their life blood. They are inspired by differences and diversity and as a result include others.

Inspiration is the inoculation to comparadging and lets us appreciate differences. We have all met people in our lives that we comparadged ourselves to and thought of them as ‘less than’ us. Then for some reason we got to know them, forming a friendship and appreciating how different they are from us. They ended up teaching and showing us things we would otherwise not have experienced. They enriched our lives as we did theirs. These encounters and friendships inspire us. That is the power of seeing and appreciating differentiation. That is where love lives.

As always I invite you to play with this. Pay attention to those thoughts throughout the day, when you hear your inner judge comparadging. When you see it, notice how it feels, and see how you experience the object of your comparadging and yourself. Then challenge yourself to turn it onto its head and instead of comparadging, appreciate the difference. You may end up feeling very different…

Cheers,

Ralf

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The Light

I have had a couple of rough weeks by my standards. It started a little while ago when I was sitting in the bathtub (great place for reflection, right?!), when I realized out-of-the-blue that I had to let go. Not sure of what, not sure how, but that it was time to let go in a big way – once again. I have been through a life changing experience a few years back that was a tough one to say the least, and my life did change in a big way as a result of this experience. After seeing my own manipulative and controlling ways that had been my entire life, they began to untangle and eventually fade away, and a new way to be with myself and the world settled in. And I am beginning to see how that is the challenge, the settling in part.

I certainly am not the same person I was for all those years before and know that I am different, but another kind of mental routine has set up shop in me, and that is now catching up with me. First I began to feel ‘stuck’ and uncomfortable in my life, nothing to pin down, nothing in particular, but it was there, in the background, like a shadow, haunting me. A newborn and general life kept me busy and distracted enough to ignore it, until that night in the bathtub. So, I had to let go, but what on earth that meant I had no clue.

Then I began to feel depressed, I got sick and very tired, which intensified those feelings and last week one evening I was home alone with the other love of my life, my daughter, and something strange happened. She was sitting in my lap, eating her dinner, I was smelling her hair and contentedly looking out the window at the trees when I was broadsided by the deepest feeling of sadness I have ever felt in my life; it was as though the entirety of humanity’s dread, torture, pain and suffering was coming at me and through me all at once. I almost lost it, the sheer magnitude of feeling this feeling was almost too much. I barely could hold it together, I did not want the little one to freak out. I felt so distraught and disillusioned about the state of humanity and the level of pain we are experiencing with each other, and with ourselves. I couldn’t believe that we live on this beautiful planet, and the best we can come up with is the current state of affairs. I don’t know why stuff like that happens to me, maybe I am mental, I know for sure that I am making it up in some way, but why on earth do I?

After that night I got worse, save for my wife and daughter I lost my joy, all I began to envision was to remove myself from the world as much as possible and stay away from it, that crazy place full of crazy people, who in the best of circumstances hate each other for different political views, and at worst behave like they do in the IS in the name of a religion. Not a pretty picture. I had lost my faith in humanity and did not want to be part of it anymore. It sucked.

Today is different. A phone call with a dear friend and a video changed it.

The phone call was with a friend who is very dear and close to my heart, and who is much better than me at getting his ideas around similar themes as the ones on my blog out into the world. For the past sixteen years he has been tirelessly and with utter resolve bringing his version of peace into the world. And it is bearing fruit. He has had an HBR article published, was on the radio this week, and will be doing a TED talk soon. I was so happy for him, because he is one of the most kindhearted and smartest people I know. He then asked me how I had been, and I told him the above. He went silent for a moment, told me he understood. Then he tells me that he wakes up almost everyday with a similar feeling about the state of things and knows that he is going to get up and do what he can to help change it. He will not quit. Ever. Trust me, I know the guy. I definitely felt better after hanging up.

Then I saw this video and was blown away by it, because I realized it was showing me the light. I am talking about the light that is in every thing in form on this planet, but is particularly strong and maybe even condensed in human beings. It is the light of being, the light of existence, the light that is on in us, the light that shines through so clearly when people are kind to others without any expectation of return, when a child laughs and looks at you with love, when a dying husband or wife looks in their partner’s eyes with more than just their eyes, when you meet someone and for some reason they are so familiar to you, the light we see when we watch videos about acts of kindness, the light we see in each other when we see beyond the physical, the light that shows us that underneath we are all from the same place. And eventually return to it. The light that erases differences, hatred, judgment, arrogance, and the ability to do harm to another. For every moment we are in its presence, we leave our ego behind and become beings, we are no longer human-have-been’s or human-will-be’s, we are human.

This is waking me up. I don’t know what that means yet, but I do know that I forgot to see or at least look for the light, because it is in everybody at all times, sometimes it’s harder to find than others, but it is there without fail. For a while after my experience I saw it all around and in almost everyone, but I got lost in something else, and so the light was lost too, first around me, and finally I couldn’t see it in myself anymore either. Wow. As I just wrote that, this became clear. So it is time to get up and get going, time to become a light(er) again. First with me, and then, who knows… I still don’t have a clue what I have to let go of, but I will and it will be fine, and I will participate again in my own little way, and if because of my participation one other person will see the light as well, in them and others, that will be enough.

Go look for the light. It is there. It shows itself in the oddest and most unexpected places. And when we see it, we know it, we recognize it, and we feel it, and it feels good. I challenge you to find some light today, and tomorrow and the day after. It will make the world brighter.

Cheers,

Ralf

 

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The Unknown

Somehow that word has gotten a bad rap. Most people shudder at the unknown. It’s the space in life no one likes to go to, or have to deal with. And most certainly won’t invite into their lives.

It reminds us of our childhood fears maybe, remember when we stood at the top of the basement stairs, maybe at the Grandparents’ house, and were looking into the dark abyss below? It was a scary and dark place with odd smells and weird sounds. It was the great unknown. Then there was the first summer camp or overnight stay at someone’s house, so many unknowns in that as well. When we start out on this planet as babies, we do not fear the unknown, because we are unknown. We literally know nothing. We are a blank and filled bundle of focused consciousness shoved into a human body. We don’t even know that we have a body in the very beginning. We do not know where we end and something else begins. Nothing is known to us. But that’s not an issue then, because we are a simply (a) being. In being there is nothing but the unknown. Think about this for a moment. Whenever we are completely present in a moment, we are not thinking about the future or the past, we are here and now, now here or nowhere. If you have ever looked into someone’s eyes with utter and complete love, you know that sense of momentness. Nothing matters and nothing in particular is on our minds, there is no room for anything to distract us. We know nothing, except that we are here. We are in the unknown.

Feels pretty great, doesn’t it? And then we go and limit our ability to experience this feeling, because we thrust ourselves back into ‘reality’ and start up our good ole ego identification to get back to the busyness of thinking about the future or the past. That is what we know. To plan, to prepare, to anticipate, to plot, to assume, to hope, to worry, to fear, to wonder, and on and on it goes. It is such a hard existence. We spend almost the entirety of our lives doing this, and by doing so are so desperately trying to hide from the unknown. It freaks us out and scares us to no end. The cosmic joke is on us though. While we spend all this time and energy to try and avoid the unknown, the Universe, God, Allah, the Great Nothing or whatever you choose to believe in is laughing heartily. They are laughing because we are always living in the unknown, whether we believe it or not, and there is nothing to fear. Truly.

We are all made of the same wonderful and mysterious stuff, we are all swimming in the same quantum soup, making ourselves up as we go along. And then we go and keep repeating the same thoughts and patterns endlessly to feel as though we know who we are and what we are doing. This way we may have a sense of control and know who we are. But what do we really know? If we look at it we quickly discover that all we know are our own thoughts and their repetitious patterns. It’s known, it’s reliable and most of all, very comfortable. Especially in opposite to the unknown. But we are always living in the unknown. Our habitual thoughts simply give us the illusion of knowing of what’s to come. We wake up and know what we are going to do, we go through our days with the idea that we know what’s next. And if we ever even feel a sense of the unknown ahead, we try to get as much information as possible on what may lie ahead so that we can regain a sense of knowing. The truth of the matter is of course that we never know what lies ahead. We cannot and we will never be able to. Period.

So what to do then? Take a look at it. We never know what lies ahead, we only believe that we do. And we like to believe that, because we are scared shitless otherwise. Why? Because in ego identification we have to try and know as much as possible about everything – in the past, the present and the future. The ego exists only in the concept of our lives as a time horizon event, we are born, we do some shit and we die. Within that short time frame the ego would like to do two things: Be in total control and hide from the fact that it is temporary. This way, the unknown becomes the most fearful experience. Conversely, the unknown is the space where control and permanence go out the window. It’s like the antidote to the ego id life. Once we are willing to step out of the ego, the unknown becomes a natural way of living. And it becomes the preferred way to live. Everyday I marvel at the fact that I have no clue what is going to happen, ever. I wake up and have no idea what will happen, or rather, all I have is an idea, and that can change at a moment’s notice. I plan for things I want to do, and I try to organize for what I have planned, but always knowing that in fact none of it may happen, that every moment of my life is an unknown. It is a lot of fun. Nothing is set, all can happen and you never know what that may be, but that we can know. Knowing that our lives are unknown is deeply reassuring. At first it’s like jumping into the pool on a hot summer’s day, a bit jarring and then immediately refreshing and comfortable, and then we simply float in the cool water and let it carry us. Much like the unknown. And then we realize that there is nothing to fear.

So go ahead and give it a shot. Start your day, plan and anticipate, but keep an expectant smile in the back of your mind that you really have no clue what is actually going to happen. That you are walking into the unknown. That everything could work out the way you anticipated or planned, or not at all. You never know …

Cheers,

Ralf

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Marriage

I once believed that my future wife and I would have a loving, peaceful, kind and drama-free relationship. And then I got married …

We were young and in love, and we were both addicted to our drama, which was completely based in our full blown ego identification. This lead to what we would think of as a fairly happy and normal marriage. We had our ‘differences,’ we had our fights, but you got to have make up sex for those. We would gladly take breaks from each other by hanging out with girlfriends or best buddies, and we would try to communicate the needs we each had as best we could. We would try to fight fairly. I knew when my wife was in a good, bad or indifferent mood, and I would know exactly how our (my) day or evening would go as a result. Fights had a clear structure, we would know who would start it, how it would go, how dramatic it would get, and where we would end up as a result. It sometimes felt as though it was completely scripted, and completely predictable as a result. But this was also normal, and in certain ways comfortable, because it was so predictable. There was such a familiarity with it that it also felt certain and safe in a way.

We kept tabs, too. On all kinds of things. We would remember who did what last, how many times, who had messed up how badly in how many ways, who had disappointed, hurt, forgotten something, broken a promise or not delivered on something. And based on that emotional list of errors, trespasses and wrongdoings, we would know in our own minds who had more to make up for. This was marriage after all, and marriage takes work and commitment. It also means give and take. And that’s what those lists were helpful for. So when the other made up for something on the list, it would feel good, we would feel closer and love(d). For a while things would go well. Only it didn’t last. We both figured out that this was not working for us, and we got very amicably divorced. We are much better friends than spouses.

I promised myself that there would only be a next time if it could be like the first sentence at the top. I thought that was a long shot. And then I met my second wife.

We have been together for almost seven years, married for four, and I can honestly say that we have not once raised our voices to each other in anger in that time. We have had three fights exactly, and to an outsider they would have not looked like much. I have not once had a disrespectful or mean thought about my wife in all this time. Not a single day goes by that I am not grateful for having her in my life. She tells me that she feels the same. We love to hang out with each other, and we literally are sad when one of us has to go on a trip for a few days or weeks and will not be around. We talk a lot, and we are also quiet with each other a lot. We just really enjoy each others’ company. In the beginning, when people asked how things were going with us, I almost didn’t know how to answer that, because I felt strange about having such a loving, peaceful, kind and drama-free relationship. It was eerie. As though there was no way it could last. It did and it still does.

Now sometimes people ask us how we do it, they think we are extremely lucky, they think it can’t last, or that we are lying. We laugh and wonder how we would answer the question, and here it is:

We do not have any expectations of each other. None. Zero. Zilch. Seriously, none.

We love and accept ourselves the way we are, at all times. We ask things of each other, but always free of any expectation. We say what we see when we need to, but we have no expectation of the other to have to see it too, or to have to change as a result. We each get to do what we choose, because we both cherish the freedom to choose above all else. We choose to be with the other every moment, and we know it. We don’t expect to be loved or to be together forever, but in doing so that is exactly what happens. There is a tremendous freedom and joy in being with another person without any expectation. There is no room for ego identification in this. Once that sneaks in, it feels like dirt dropping into pristine water.

No expectations. Try it out in your relationship with yourself first, and see what happens. You may just like it. Then try it with a loved one. You may just love it.

Cheers,

Ralf

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Fear

Fear is a sneaky little bastard.

What has amazed me over the past couple of years is that it shows up in ways and places that I would have never thought of as fear. I remember reading about the idea that there are only two emotions we as human beings can feel, love or fear. I liked that. It made sense. One was the ‘good’ feeling, the other the ‘bad’ feeling, but both were part of the deal and of essential nature. This whole notion has changed for me, because these two emotions only exist in the realm of ego. Let me explain.

In the writing of my book, I was often confused and left in disbelief with what came out. One of these was the idea that love and fear as we talk about them are actually an illusion which only exists in a world of duality. Within the realm of ego, duality is necessary, because without it, there would be no ‘me’ to experience. Beyond that duality, there only is love. A love basically beyond human understanding, but not experience. That love is the real deal, it’s the space where all exists, before, in, and after time that is. Not that I understand that, but I can feel it.

Love and fear as opposites makes perfect sense, but the love in this case is actually fear in sheep’s clothing. We think of fear as this emotion that is frightening, upsetting, or in some way negative. Since love feels the opposite of this, it certainly does not feel connected to fear. But it is. This love is always attached to some thing, be it a person, idea or circumstance, it does not matter what the focus of my love is, it is attached to it. When this attachment is lost or no longer available, the love is lost as well. Deep down we know this, which is why we will often go to absurd lengths to keep around that to which our love is attached. And we are thus constantly afraid of losing it. What if my partner won’t love me anymore? What if I can’t do/have my favorite thing in the world anymore? That is some scary shit.

This is also why fear is so sneaky. It shows up in both of these ways, and when it comes dressed up as love, it really fools us. This is a very limited way to experience life to say the least. It never lets up, because if we are in fear, we try to get away from it as much as we can, or try to face and overcome it, and when we feel that attached love, we’ve got to make sure that we keep it around.

The other love is not attached to anything. It is simply a deep feeling that arises in us regardless of our life situation. It is utterly reassuring and puts us at instant ease. With it we are thrust into the present moment, and in the present there is nothing to fear, because fear needs the past and future to exist. With the real thing, we are (in) love, period. That is fearless, because there is nothing to lose, nothing to hold on to. It is freedom.

So here’s to catching on to that pesky and sneaky fear in our lives.

Cheers,

Ralf