you are not the wanter; the wanter is not you

That wasn't a very long silence, was it? Here's a little tip that some of you may find helpful.

We try to focus our attention on the good things we want, and to eschew negative thoughts. We believe we understand the laws of attraction. If we want more money, we focus on the feeling of abundance. If we need a job, we imagine that we already have a job. If we feel unloved and desire a mate, we focus on the feeling of being just fine on our own.

This is all well and good and these mental maneuvers are steps in the right direction. But more powerful than these types of affirmations is this understanding:

The sensation of wanting something other that what you have/are right now, and identifying with it, is completely delusional. The wanter... the being within you who wants more money, more recognition, more love... that being is not real, and more importantly, that being is not you. The wanter is not who you are. Who you are, right here, right now, does not experience lack.

The wanter is a product—an effect. It's a product of a bundle of thoughts, feelings and sensations which combine to create a vibration of incompleteness and a feeling of being vulnerable, alone and in danger—sometimes known as separateness.

This wanter is the usual feeling of "me." What we normally think of as me, is not actually a me at all. It's an experience of confusion and misidentification. This happens when you are in a body and identified with the body. It's part of the territory. When you are identifying with the wanter, you are feeling as though something will eventually come along in your life that will fix your present situation. You are looking at the future, hoping it will bring you the remedy that will eliminate the want, the emptiness, the feeling of lack.

So, more effective than saying "I have plenty of abundance right now" in an effort to appease the anxieties of the wanter, is to look directly at the wanter and question not only its motivations but its very existence. It's not a matter of ceasing to desire anything but what you have (because you want inner peace)—it's more a matter of seeing that the wanter is not real. Not only is it not real, but it does not have your best interests at heart.

When you identify with the wanter and say "I" to it—when you say "I do not have enough money, enough prestige, enough health, enough love, enough enlightenment," you are engaging with a psychic liar. There is no end to what the wanter wants, because to end the cycle of wanting would mean to end its very existence. So it has no intention of leading you to relief. It only wants you to keep wanting, so it can stay alive.

When you experience yourself wanting something in the future, instead of trying not to want it, or to become present in the moment, or to come out of the thought (all of which are effective to some degree), it is even more effective to recognize what is happening.

When you experience the wanter you can just see it, just say, ah—there's my old friend, the wanter, whose very nature is to lie. Awareness is all it takes to break the spell of believing that right here, right now, is not good enough.

There are benefits to recognizing the wanter and breaking that spell, but wanting the benefits is enough to engage the wanter all over again, as it becomes the spiritual seeker. So I won't talk about the benefits. Suffice it to say that you can't have it both ways. 

So the next time you feel some grievance arising about something in your life and you feel that you want to hurry up and get to a future in which this annoying, or painful, or unenlightened state won't be occurring—see the wanter in action. Just see it. That's all that is required to realize that the pain the wanter is trying to relieve is the sensation of identifying with it in the first place. It creates the pain, and then tries to get you to run from it. There is no end to that cycle until it is seen.

Comments

[Leslie]

Phew…it’s seems that you awakened Folks can’t help but help others and, man, that’s got to be one helluva job! Actually…even if there was clarity here I’d still enjoy reading your posts for their sparkling, down-to-earth quality.
"Awareness is all it takes to break the spell of believing that right here, right now, is not good enough." I always thought that ‘seen once…seen for an eternity’ but that seems not to be the case. More wanting. Thanks for this dear reminder and for making that break short.
Love,
-Leslie

[Simon]

I'm actually proud of myself for knowing where you were going with this after the first few sentences. And being very appreciative of your going there. This is a reminder I benefit from every time I hear it or read it or experience it, in whatever incarnation happens to be present at the time.

Thank you!

[Aileen]

During your silence I caught myself wondering where you were and 'wanting' to hear. It was well worth the wait ;o). I have to say that I've been fine for a while now with questioning the wanter's wants, but I am increasingly aware of how much I don't want to question the existence of the wanter. As you often say, awareness is key.

[Leslie]

Boy, oh, boy did I have resistance to that post!
Well...I thought to myself...what if you're in some weird circumstance where there are just too many wants -- too many things lacking -- yap, yap, yap. With such clear instruction I find sometimes that the Truth of it seems to work its way through the layers of the mind, somehow. Each successive layer is like a fine sifter until just the clear meaning speaks to your heart.
Thanks (again - a couple layers down)Marian.

[Peter]

Marian,
a lovely, and deeply challenging/helpful post! And, nicely bookend-ed by Gina Lake here: http://www.radicalhappiness.com/, where her post about the same day as this was intitled "Waiting". Maybe you both tuned in to the same station that day! It's quite astonishing how pervasive is this wanting, and yet, also such a gentle and friendly pointer-always available, or so it seems. It led me to a small practice last night while drifting to sleep-how many times can I say a quiet "thank you" in the course of a day-for each breath, and for all else that is. Not much room for wanting when the heart is filled with gratitude. Thanks for the sharing,
In joy, Peter