by Charles "Tom" Brown
This prison experience of being without many of the things I took for granted has made me aware of the hypnotic spell of the world. How alluring, enticing, and bewitching this world is!
The world's hypnotic spell convinces us that there is something out there that will add to our lives, that we are missing out on a lot, that other people are getting or enjoying something that is passing us by. We tend to believe that whatever we're longing for - a raise in our salary, a relationship, a clear medical report - can actually make us happy. Of course these things are great and worthwhile, but can they truly make us happy? Perhaps momentarily, but not for long.
When I look back on what was most important to me during various phases of my life, I am mystified. Now it is difficult to understand what was important about these things or how they ever managed to catch my attention. Many things and events were satisfying for awhile, but nothing had any permanence. The drama of this world has been going on for centuries, but everything in this world is eventually forgotten, no matter how important or tragic it seems in the moment.
Yet there is a happiness that is effortlessly present at all times. This happiness comes from relaxing with things exactly as they are. When all efforts to get something we think we must have fall away, what remains is the listening presence, the empty space in which it is all happening, awareness itself: the simplicity and wonder of what is. The hypnotic spell is broken.
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