hell is the gap between expectation and reality
September 16, 2014
It’s your expectations of your own mind that are creating your hell. “I expected you to be…”
When you get frustrated because something isn’t the way you thought, examine your thinking, not just the thing that frustrates you.
You will see that a lot of your suffering is created by your models about how the Universe ought to be, and your inability to allow it to be as it is.
If I meet somebody that is a liar and a cheat, they are like an elm tree. They are the essence of lying and cheating. If I have a model in which people shouldn’t lie and cheat, then I am immediately in opposition to that person.
But, I don’t have to play games with them. I may say “In the future, you and I can’t play together, because you are a liar and a cheat and I can’t play with you”.
But, at least I can appreciate and allow them their lyingness and cheatingness. That’s their problem, not mine. My problem was my expectations.
If you have a model that everybody is good and then somebody isn’t, then you end up hating the world and being all upset about the world because it isn’t the way you expected it to be.
~ Ram Dass
