Nothing

"I expect nothing. I demand nothing. I refuse nothing."

-- Nisargadatta Maharaj

Imagine living your life without expectations, without demands, and with total acceptance. Can you do it? Not the living -- just the imagining. Even imagining such a life is hard for me to do because our expectations, demands and refusals are so subtle and insidious.

We enter each day with expectations, be they grand, catastrophic, or somewhere in between. We may not think of ourselves as demanding, but all our wishes are just wimpy demands. Everytime we think that reality "should" be different than it is, we are being psychologically demanding, even if we don't manifest those demands verbally. And don't even get me started on refusal! Not only do we refuse so much of what life offers us -- from free drinks to life lessons, form laughter to the beauties of nature -- we refuse to even notice the opportunities placed before us daily, and instead complain about the economy, the weather, our partners, or the ineptitude of our favorite sports teams.

Imagining a life sans expectations, demands and refusals is the first step. Then make one day, perhaps today, a day to gather data. Keep count of exactly the times throughout the day you find yourself expecting, demanding and refusing. Don't try and change your behavior one iota, just keep track of those three things. This will give you a baseline reading, show you the scope of the challenge that Maharaj's nine small words represent.

Finally, let go! Let go of E, D & R. See what life is like when you accept it on its own terms rather than compel it to remake itself in your image. You may be surprised. You may find letting go of these three powerful patterns damn near impossible to do. At least at first.

But then, if you keep at it, you may discover that reality is not such a bad thing after all, and that you have much more energy to enjoy it when you are no longer in a battle with it. First be E, D, & R free, then just see.