AND IN THE SEA THERE IS A FISH, A FISH WHO HAS A SECRET WISH

(Okay, the title is just so someone ELSE can have a song going through HER head for the night!)

I am reading an amazing book that someone in my book club recommended. And I honestly don’t know why it is so amazing; I have KNOWN this stuff for years and years. I just seem to have to relearn it over and over and over and over….

The book is "A New Earth" by Eckhart Toole, which is one of those on the Oprah list (and always is right out front in the Target book section, so I have to admit this is not the first time). And I was kinda yawning over the first chapter…. But then this guy gets into ego, and (here’s the mind-blowing part - which I have known forever but seem to forget just about every single day) he says such wonderful, albeit basic, and REAL things like:

- The quicker you are in attaching labels to people or situation, the more shallow and lifeless your reality becomes

- Life isn’t as serious as mind makes it out to be

- You can value and care for things, but whenever you get attached to them, you will know it’s ego.

- Life will give you whatever experience is most helpful for the evolution of your consciousness. How do you know this is the experience you need? Because this is the experience you are having at this moment (doesn’t that sound a whole lot like a General Conference talk?)

- As long as you don’t recognize those thought forms within yourself, as long as they remain unconscious,, you will believe in what they say

- You may then think and speak of yourself as a “sufferer” of this or that chronic illness or disability. You receive a great deal of attention from doctors and others who constantly confirm to you your conceptual identify as a sufferer or a patient. You then unconsciously cling to the illness because it has become the most important past of who you perceive yourself to be (remind you of anyone? I mean, other than ME)

And last but not least,

- Non-reaction to the ego in others is one of the most effective ways not only of going beyond ego in yourself but also of dissolving the collective human ego - if you can recognize someone’s behavior as coming from the ego….when you realize IT’S NOT PERSONAL, there is no longer a compulsion to react as if it were… ANOTHER WORD FOR NON-REACTION IS FORGIVENESS (emphasis added by me - and isn’t it cool?)

Wow.

I just somehow wish I didn’t have to keep relearning this.