Our Careers Are Our Avenues for Life’s Highest Pleasures

             Have you ever bought a brand new car and been so excited about it…for the first week? Have you ever cued up your favorite song and then realized that the song is over and you didn’t even enjoy it fully because your mind was somewhere else? Have you ever wondered why personal pleasure is great in theory but short-lived in practice?

            On the surface, reality certainly looks like its set up for us to achieve our pleasures, but the real story is very different. Individual pleasures are based on the assumption that we are just individuals. In actuality we are the totality of our experience and everyone in it.

            Have you ever told a lie and felt uneasy afterward? Have you ever stepped up and told the difficult truth and felt relieved? Ever heard the saying “the truth will set you free”?

            When we are aligned with the truth we are aligned with the reality of unfolding nature. This is how Tai Chi and Aikido masters generate inhuman power in their movements: they align themselves with the larger forces of nature. Similarly you can imagine that someone misaligned with the larger forces of nature would be proportionately weak. This is why you felt uneasy after lying: your nervous system knew you were in a weakened state.

            Science used to tell us that first the big bang happened, then galaxies and solar systems were formed, then planets were formed, then we were formed. We are a distinct product of that process. We were created by it yet we are separate from it.

            Now scientists look at things like the human heart and are at a loss. The human heart is such a finely calibrated instrument, calling it a random creation from a blindly happenstance universe would be like calling a Ferrari a toothpick.

            The reality is that the universe, the solar system, the planet, and you and I are all part of one big finely calibrated instrument. This is how an astrologer can look at the positions of the planets and know so much about you and your future. That astrologer is looking at you when they are looking at those planetary positions, because you includes everything around you. The astrologer is looking at you with a wider lens that includes the larger finely calibrated instrument that comprises you.

            Remember that weakened state you felt after lying?

            Now think of the joy inherent in the phrase, “I just gotta be me!”

            When we are in line with the truth of reality we are in line with the power of nature that is larger than us and at the same time is our birth right. When we cut ourselves off from the truth of reality we are weakened; this is a suffering state.

            This is why personal pleasure is short lived and contributing to others is so deeply satisfying. The one who has the most pleasure and enjoys it only individually is actually the one who is the most cut off from the truth of his or her existence, and thus is suffering. The one who gains pleasure from contributing to others is the one who is able to intuit that they are something bigger than just their individual self. Paradoxically their individual self feels empowered and deeply fulfilled by aligning with something so much larger than itself.