Image at A Separate Peace.
I said I would follow up my last post with a post about some actions we may take in helping someone realize and live from their natural state of happiness. I will! In the meantime, however, I thought I would share with you my response to another question I received. I feel it might help others!
“My problem is that my mind is constantly directed towards self-improvement , thinking how I can be better than others and gain more praise and boost my ego.
Though I am friendly, help everybody , am understanding to everyone, there’s one person who I envy a lot and I don’t want that person to get better than me in any aspect .
Wherever I go , I think of improving myself .
I feel restless . I have a big ego and don’t think that God is important in our lives. I only think of him when I need something .
I have this attitude and I want inner peace but at the same time I want to keep moving forward and be more knowledgeable than others. This is an inextinguishable fire in me!
I am not able to change my attitude what should I do ?
Is there any meditation or advice you can give me ?
Hi Daniel!
What you have described is such a common experience for so many people although most believe that it is unique to them :-)!
If you examine it carefully, you will see that within what you have described as a ‘problem’ are some really ‘good’ and beautiful desires, such as wanting to improve, wanting peace and wanting to keep learning. However, as I think you yourself can see, it is the ‘motivation‘ behind these desires that does not seem to be quite so ‘good’ and beautiful.
From what you have said, it would seem that your motivation for wanting to improve, to learn more and to constantly strive for excellence is driven by wanting to do better than others, to ‘gain more praise’ and to perhaps feel superior. Would you agree? And this type of motivation does not leave a good feeling within you. On the contrary, it makes you feel restless, dissatisfied and envious. True?
So here are some things that I would like to offer for your consideration. I suggest that you take some time to reflect on each of these points in a meditative way until you can really feel the ‘weight’ of their truth! Try to keep a light and humorous attitude while you do this…if we didn’t take ourselves so seriously, we would be a lot happier :). Alright, here they are:
*We feel most at peace when we are at peace with other people and things around us
*We feel least fear and anxiety when we are open and free, allowing ourselves to enjoy everything and everyone
*We feel restless, dissatisfied, competitive and needing praise when we feel that how and what we are is ‘not (good/great) enough’.
Now, I would like you to further reflect on this question:
If, indeed, I am capable of outdoing someone such that everyone else praises me and tells me what a great person I am, what does that prove? Does it prove that I am indeed better?
I think that when you examine this, you will discover the following beliefs:
1. My sense of who I am and my true worth/value depends on peoples’ opinions of me.
2. I myself do not have a great sense of self-worth which is reflected by the fact that I need other peoples’ good opinion and praise.
3. Effectively, I have given over control of my happiness and peace to other people.
Once again, I ask you to reflect on each of the above. Let this whole process that I have taken you through be your meditation. Sit quietly and go through it. Remember, there are no ‘right’ answers. The only ‘right’ answers are your honest answers.
Having done that, consider the following for further reflection:
* We are by nature, creative, free, limitless. That is the nature of god/Buddha/Brahman/Allah within each one of us. We are all created in god’s nature. We exist within god/ultimate reality, as god, in the particular form that each of us is. There is nothing outside god/ultimate reality.
* Our creative, limitless nature is such that we will keep creating, keep expanding, keep exploring, keep experiencing. This is how we naturally are.
* We are naturally peaceful and joyous and our creative, limitless nature naturally expresses that peace and joy.
* We can experience this natural peace and joy when we sit still and let our thoughts and feelings simply rise and fall without getting engaged with them.
* There is not a single thing that is not created in god, as god, including the person you wish to outdo. That person, just like you is, the creative, limitless expression of god.
* To envy someone is to want what you believe they have and you don’t. In truth, as expressions of god (the ultimate reality, source and power of all life), there is nothing that we don’t already have.
* It is possible to want something that someone has without wanting them to be denied of the same thing! For instance, if your brother has a beautiful partner, it is possible for you too to want a beautiful partner without wanting your brother to be denied of his!
Again, we are in, and of, the limitless nature of god and there is enough for everyone! But we will not see this if we believe in limitation. Likewise, if you see your brother as having a great mind, you too may seek to have a great mind without wanting your brother to be denied of his AND you may seek to have a great mind not to win praise but to express more and more your true/godly nature!
We are all aspects of the same ultimate reality (god) and we are reflections of this reality/god to one another. When we see something beautiful in someone else, it is an aspect of god that we see and it is an aspect that we too possess but which, perhaps, we have not yet learned to express (or, more accurately, which we have learned not to express)! So, go ahead, seek to express that aspect/quality (and so many other aspects/qualities as well), remembering that you can do this without wanting the other person to stop reflecting it! When you do this, you will experience the peace and joy that you seek.
Because we are all of the one reality/god, competition serves to try and break up this oneness, to tear it apart. It goes against our very nature, which is why we are never peaceful when we are competitive. In truth, no matter how much we compete, we can never break up the oneness of god that we are. However, we will suffer the effects of struggling to do so!
Daniel, I hope you will find something of use here. Remember, as an aspect of ultimate reality (and there is nothing beyond ultimate reality/god), you are a limitless, powerful, perfect being. As Rumi, the Sufi mystic, said, we don’t need to seek love or greatness because this is what we naturally are! We just have to remove the barriers we have constructed in its/our path!
Blessings! Lucy
