The Virtue of Selfishness ...

Y'know, if I had a dollar for every time I've been accused of being selfish ... well, I wouldn't have to worry about money ...!

I remember, when I was a very small child (I have memories that go back to my first birthday), when someone told me I was being selfish ... my thought was, "well, of course I'm selfish -- aren't I supposed to be?"

Honestly, it seemed so very self-evident to me then ... and now, I've come full circle. Imagine my delight, to read this, written by Osho:

Only a very deeply selfish person can be unselfish. But this has to be understood because it looks like a paradox.

What is the meaning of being selfish? the first basic thing is to be self-centered. The second basic thing is always to look for one's blissfulness. If you are self-centered, you will be selfish whatsoever you do. You may go and serve people but you will do it only because you enjoy it, because you love doing it,you feel happy and blissful doing it -- you feel yourself doing it. You are not doing any duty; you are no serving humanity. You are not a great martyr; you are not sacrificing. These are all nonsensical terms. You are simply being happy in your own way -- it feels good to you. You go to the hospital and serve the ill people there, or you go to the poor and serve them, but yo love it. It is how you grow. Deep down you feel blissful and silent, happy about yourself.

A self-centered person is always seeking his happiness. and this is the beauty of it, that the more you seek your happiness the more you will help others to be happy.

You have to create the atmosphere of happiness around you. Blissfulness is as infectious as any disease ... if in the world everybody is taught to be selfish, the whole world will be happy. There will be no possibility for misery.

YES! This rings so true for me, and matches my experience! Duty does not bring happiness ... it only makes the dutiful feel smugly superior and self-righteous, for having done "the right thing"...! Selfishness ... loving one's self first and foremost ... making bliss a priority ... THAT is what makes people happy, and becomes both a contagious element, AND gives others permission to pursue happiness, too...!

When you have happiness you can share it; when you you don't have it, how can you share it? To share, in the first place one must have it. An unselfish person is always serious, deep down ill, in anguish. He has missed his own life. Misery is destructive; happiness is creative.

You are just here for a few years to BE. Enjoy, delight, be happy, dance, and love; and out of your love and dancing, out of your deep selfishness will start an overflowing of energy. You will be able to share with others.

Love, I say, is one of the most selfish things.

I want to giggle with delight ... at the wonderful truthful-absurdity of this ... and the sheer astonishment that we have been DUPED yet-again ... but that we don't have to remain in our shackles of duped-ness ...!

How fun to discover that it's all been topsy-turvy, upside-down, and inside-out ... and that we can learn to live, really live, once we see that the apparent paradoxes are true ...!

Yeah, go for it -- be selfish, be happy, be radically loving...!

Shalom & Namaste ~
Dena