Children see everything as new, everything is mysterious and they're curious. Adults jump to conclusions, and we're certain, and we already know everything. So to get back to that childlike wonder, we have to focus on the cause of that, which is our comparative mindset. We compare this moment to the last. We compare this thing to the same thing we saw yesterday. But every moment is different. The light…
I think the first step on the path to enlightenment, the 10,000-step path, should be called false enlightenment. Because we have these little glimpses of awakening, and we feel like we’re enlightened, and then someone who is cruel or unkind or unthoughtful pulls us right back down to reality, makes us mad and furious. And instead of realizing we’re not so enlightened after all, we try to cut out everyone…
The more obsessed, committed, and certain we become, the further we get from peace, love, and truth. In reality, there are no sides to be taken. There is no good side and bad side. There are no good people and bad people. These are just our minds striving to create mental models of the world. They are illusions. These mental models can be helpful, like when they tell us that…
We are killing the present moment every time we relive a memory, wishing it were now. When we are stuck in the past, when we are reliving our childhoods in our minds over and over again, longing for those simple, better days, this is common when we had an idyllic childhood and maybe our lives turned out differently than we expected. Or we just long for those days that were…
The first step to becoming happy is realizing how we are making ourselves unhappy. This is very hard to see because we are certain that something outside of us is making us unhappy, that some event from our past is preventing us from being happy, that there is some defect within us that prevents us from allowing ourselves to smile, to love.If we were in a constant state of loving…
We often notice that when people are faking positivity and pressuring positivity, we tend to find that this is really a desperate cry for help. Because they are unable to face reality. They want to face a fantasy. And it’s a fragile and unstable happiness. I’m going to say something a little controversial — but it’s true: toxic positivity doesn’t actually exist. What we usually mean when we say “toxic…
Contentment and satisfaction are the opposite of suffering. When we are fully content, we feel fully fulfilled. And when we are in that state, there is no longing, no craving, no trying to find meaning in life or wondering about our purpose. There is only peace and clarity. And that is the state we're all trying to reach, that lasting happiness.A lot of people think that the answer to contentment…
You’re making yourself suffer because of the expectations you placed on the world. We rarely want to look inward. We rarely want to accept that we are fully responsible for our own state of mind, our well-being, our peace, and our contentment.Everything man-made in this world was first imagined. Someone saw it in their mind, drew it out, gathered the resources, and others joined in that vision, and it became…
Nature can be our greatest teacher if we learn how to listen correctly. It can teach us patience, its beauty can inspire, and we can understand its (and ours) nurturing, loving way. We don't have to go off and meditate in a cave for 30 years to become aware of our place in the cosmos, either. Our nature, our true nature beyond all our societal programming and upbringing, can be seen…
There are no wrong turns on your path if your intuition and instincts are your guides. Be careful about letting others take away your inner voice and your inner power. This path is about liberation and freedom, not freeing ourselves from our own ego only for it to be replaced by someone else’s ego. No enlightened being would charge huge sums of money for their “secret.” Retreats in beautiful places will…
If something here helped you feel less alone, would you help me keep it alive?
Even the smallest support matters.
Weekly Writings from the Desk of Todd Perelmuter
