I only love myself.
Sounds rather selfish, but when the king and queen in the old age tale that Goenka tells ask themselves, “Who do you love the most?”
They realize, “I only love myself.”
When they go to the Buddha he replies, “Sadhu, sadhu, sadhu.”
It’s been an increasing fascination that I control my life.
That everything is one hundred percent my doing.
Whether I’m happy, sad, content or miserable, it was my choice, my response.
Whether my life is a comedy or a tragedy, I’m doing it.
I wrote a line recently that shocked me.
“In all that you do, you are the first to know.”
Simple enough, but we don’t like to admit it.
We want to blame others or the situation we’re in, but that actually has nothing to do with our response to it.
Instead of selfish, I’d like to call it self-sustaining.
You only love yourself because you are the only person who gives and receives this love, but everyone else is too.
It’s something called the dream paradox.
For me, I am the only person in my life and everyone else is a character in it.
For you, you are the only person in your life and everyone else is a character in it.
This puts everything in your hands.
“You must fight out your own battle.”
When you admit that to yourself, you get tremendous energy.
You’re no longer giving it away to another source, be it a God, your higher self, or your neighbor.
All of these things are simply characters in your dream of life. Versions of yourself. Everyone’s energy is filtered through yours. This means you are the world and the world is you.
That’s a lot of power. You might start to feel you have power OVER people.
You don’t, because EVERYONE is YOU.
At the same time that you’re a character in their dream, you are one in theirs.
So we’re all responsible.
“With great power comes great responsibility.”
This ability to respond does have great power. Reacting has less. The more aware and equanimous you are, the more power you have. The most powerful power is to love yourself and your life. That includes everyone in it.
