Most people come to magic because they want something.
Better health. More money. A hot lover. A one-way ticket somewhere warm and beautiful. They want to close the gap between where they are and where they want to be. Of course they wanna have what they want, I mean, don’t we all?
So they come to me and I teach them magic, which is the craft of transforming reality, and they go from a state of not having what they want, to having what they want. Voila!
That part, the wanting and the working and the receiving, is actually not that hard once you know how.
The more interesting piece is about wanting what you have.
Because most of us are not really ready to accept that as the foundation for liberation and happiness. We think that when we have shit that we don't want, that's a bad thing, and we need to somehow get rid of it or change things so we don't have to be in that situation anymore.
But anything that needs to be changed has to be accepted first.
I'm not gonna be able to get the thing that I want if I'm not okay with not having it yet.
I know… It's kind of like a total mindfuck.
In order to really have what you want, you gotta want what you have. What I mean by that is that until you accept your current situation, until you make peace with the fact that you don't have what you want, you're not gonna be able to get it.
Because the reality is that paradox is the organizing principle of life.
And so the paradox here is that in order to get to the state where you can get what you want, you need to first accept that you don't have it. If you're in denial about reality, you can't change reality.
Pain is mandatory. Suffering is optional.
I saw that on a T-shirt the other day and it was so brilliant.
The way I read that is that pain is actually mandatory in life. The human experience, amongst all the awe and beauty and amazing experiences and pleasure and joy that we get to have as part of the deal, we also get to have a bunch of crap that is really unpleasant. And we cannot have one without the other.
So the trick then becomes: when we're having the shitty bits, if we are in acceptance of it, it's gonna suck.
But if we are fighting it, it's gonna suck extra hard.
When you're having an experience that's not your preference, to the best of your ability, practice trying to accept it. Because the reality is that you don't have control over everything. In fact, we have control over so little.
The quicker you allow the shitty experience to be real, to be present, the quicker you're actually gonna get through it. And the longer you fight it, the longer you don't want it to be the way it is, the longer it's gonna be that way.
Wanting what you have is actually a key to liberation.
Having what you want is spirituality 101. It's not that hard to have what you want. (There’s a method, you can follow it).
It's wanting what you have where we really, really get tested, that’s the advanced course. That's what spiritual liberation actually looks like in practice. On any given day, when nothing is working out, and you get to choose whether you just want the pain, or you want to add suffering to your mix.
The paradox hiding inside all of it: the more willing you are to be with what is, the more power you have to change it.
Notice where you're at war with your own reality this week. Notice where you're fighting what is instead of working with it. And see if you can, even for a moment, let what is just be.
That's where the magic starts.