Be Nobody by Lama Marut

Author:Lama Marut
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Atria Books/Beyond Words

PLAYING FOR BIG STAKES

There is a very helpful spiritual maxim—perhaps the most effective of all the tools we can employ in our laborious undertaking of self-improvement:

If you can’t do it for yourself, then do it for others.

There’s a tremendous power in altruism. I’m reminded here of news stories that tell of a small child pinned under a car. The child’s mother, filled with adrenaline due to her panic and desperate wish to rescue her beloved offspring, just lifts up the car by the bumper, snatches the kid out of harm’s way, and then drops the two tons of steel back on the ground.

In the next section of this book, we’ll learn more about both the power and joy of self-forgetfulness. But even in our quest for self-improvement, thinking about others and not just ourselves is ultimately our greatest resource.

Creating a better “somebody self” involves understanding how karma really works in order to gradually give one’s self-image a makeover. And our self-conception begins to change immediately upon making the shift from ignorant self-indulgence to informed self-rehabilitation. We start to think of ourselves as someone trying to be a better somebody rather than as someone addicted to becoming more of a somebody. We begin turning our attention to others and how we can help rather than hurt them.

We focus on our ethical behavior and wage war against our mental afflictions, our true enemies who both destroy our current happiness and plant the seeds for an unhappy “somebody self” in the future. We hone and deploy the weapons of recognition, understanding, de-identification, and determination in our internal battle with our demons, and we do not get discouraged with the setbacks and failures that will inevitably be part of our path. We remember our mantra—it’s like this now—and we play the hand we’ve been dealt with wisdom and skill, remembering that self-improvement is possible and knowing how it will be effectuated.

We try to play our cards smartly, but we should also recognize that the stakes are high. We are in every moment creating the causes for who we will be in the future. For our future happiness, or its opposite, depends on what we do, say, or think in the ongoing present.

But here’s the real rub. Here’s how high the stakes really are. Your world, and all the people in it, will change when you change.

Change you, change the world.

• • •

This, I fully acknowledge, is extremely hard for any of us to believe. It is virtually inconceivable to think that we as individuals have this kind of power, as it is sort of overwhelming to be laden with this kind of heavy responsibility.

It’s one thing to think that we can change and improve ourselves. While most of us assume this is possible, it seems far-fetched indeed that there’s any correlation between an inner transformation and a change in the outer world.

But what we make of our lives has repercussions far beyond what we ordinarily believe. What we do, say, and think defines not only who we are but also what kind of world we live in and what sort of people we encounter.

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