To become literate in love, we must learn how to reduce our lifelong preoccupation with our own needs and feelings. -- Eknath Easwaran, "Word to Live By," January 11
According to me, a great deal of our self-induced suffering is caused by our want to have one iron-clad rule to guide us that ensures our happiness.
The big oh-no surprise is that our happiness is not of God. God is of love and love alone. It is entirely up to us how we choose to incorporate love in our life. The rest of that surprise is that our own personal happiness is ego's only goal which very simply is Me First.
To realize the prayer of Saint Francis is to get our first glimpse that your happiness must needs be more important to me personally than my happiness. Else why would we seek to understand rather than to be understood...that alone makes the other desires secondary. To love rather than to be loved is covered if we're willing to understand rather than holding out to be understood.
There is no one iron-clad rule...there are two: First, love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind, and, second, love your neighbor as yourself.
Face it, those two are only iron-clad if we choose to use them. I'm guessing for the majority of us that will not fully happen in this lifetime or unto infinity. That's why my go-to rule is try not to be as nasty as you want to be.
Thank you.
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