Ampersand Gazette #42
Welcome to the Ampersand Gazette, a metaphysical take on some of the news of the day. If you know others like us, who want to create a world that includes and works for everyone, please feel free to share this newsletter. The sign-up is here. And now, on with the latest …
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“His Holiness the Dalai Lama had a theory that elegantly exposed the false binary between selfishness and selflessness. He called it ‘wise selfishness.”’We all have an inborn penchant for self-interest. It is natural, and nothing to be ashamed of. But, he said, a truly enlightened self-interest also means recognizing that acting in generous and altruistic ways makes you happier than solely being out for yourself does.
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Warmth and compassion are omnidirectional. You can’t leave yourself out.
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Science tells us that being generous benefits both the recipient and the giver.
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I have come to see that there’s nothing wrong with deriving pleasure from selfish gratification, especially when it fuels other-oriented work. Why can’t selfishness and selflessness exist in a beneficial double helix?”
from the Mind column in The New York Times
“The Benefits of Being Selfish”
July 25, 2023
Humans love to make distinctions between things. In fact, a lot of our world, because it’s based in every single way on the Principle of Polarity, is experienced via contrast. Think of going to have an eye test: Is this better? Or this? This? Or this? Ad infinitum.
Often, by the time the eye tech is through, I can’t tell which is better anymore. I suppose that’s why I liked this article about the Spectrum of Selfishness. According to Dan Harris, and really via him, according to the Dalai Lama, there is a sweet spot on that spectrum between selfishness and selflessness known by some as wise selfishness. His Holiness might have called it kind selfishness as well.
I want to go behind the scenes on selfishness for a moment to draw our attention to something vital to the discussion; namely, one must have a self, and in the case of humanity this means having a sense of self, in order even to be selfish or selfless. Huh.
So the first place to start in evaluating your own self tendencies is with that self. How are you with your self? Do you witness your self? Do you like your self? We are not taught to think of self as separate from our bodies, but in fact, it is.
Self is a function of two metaphysical concepts combined. They are: spirit and soul. Now most of us behave as though we know what these words mean, but in my more than forty years of counseling folks, we don’t. In fact, few people can articulate the difference between the two. And, believe me, there is a major one.
Spirit is the whole, perfect, complete, unadulterated part of you. In all my years of working with people, I’ve only met two whose spirits were damaged, and that was due to extreme abusive circumstances during the pre-verbal stage of life.
Soul is the personality unique to you. It’s comprised of mind and heart.
Spirit and Soul live in your Body is better said, Spirit, Mind, and Heart live in your Body. Which why I am constantly saying we are fourfold beings: Body, Heart, Mind, Spirit—in order of density (and alphabet).
A sense of Self comes from the combination of spirit and soul. They are inextricable one from the other. It is that Self which generates Ego. Wait, wait, wait … ego gets a bum rap. Slow it down.
First, ego is a Greek word that means simply, I. It is the sense of self, separate from others. Ego is VITAL (yes, all caps, yes, yelling). Without an ego, you can’t know your own sovereignty, your own wholeness. Without ego, you couldn’t know the needs of your self. Ego is a must.
Now, we can use our egos as selfish battering rams, or we can use them as selfish instruments of spirit. That’s our choice. Which, bring me back to wise selfishness.
There is a whole lot of convolution around selfishness. Most of it is a gross misinterpretation of The Golden Rule, and the notion that it is more blessed to give than to receive. Bunk. It is not. And it is especially not if your tendency is to self-abnegate.
Learn to be selfish, Beloved. Please. There’s a good reason, I promise. That doesn’t mean you always get the biggest piece of cake, but it does mean you’ll get it sometimes. What it actually means is that you include your Self and those needs in and amongst the needs of all beings.
Go back to the basic principle of our reality. Polarity. If you aren’t selfish sometimes, then you won’t be selfless sometimes—because you can’t be. The balance of the poles here is indestructible. It must be honored. Must.
You see, the Dalai Lama is right. Self-interest is part of being human, a necessary part, a very real part, and one that deserves honoring. When we gratify ourselves, we are so very much better at gratifying others. It’s a balance. In the exact same way a double helix is a balance. We’re made that way. Just consider this … DNA, anyone?
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Here is more wisdom from my Kabbalistic friend, Orna Ben-Shoshan … she asks,
“What are low frequency words?
“Complaints, criticism, plagiarism, intimidation, incitement, hate speech, swearing, slander, insults, malicious gossip, abusive words, lies, threats, and more. Notice how much ‘negative talk’ exists around us, and how rare are the words that express love, support, and empowerment.”
Metaphysical prosperity teacher Edwene Gaines used to tell a story about her spiritual teacher. He recommended she spend 21 days not complaining, and further, that if she happened to fall into complaint, she had to start over till she had 21 days in a row under her belt.
The first time I tried this experiment, it took me 8 months, yes, you read that right, months to get to 21 days in a row. It shocked me then, and it shocks me still. Face it, a whole lot of our lives is spent complaining.
Now look at the rest of Orna’s list: “criticism, plagiarism, intimidation, incitement, hate speech, swearing, slander, insults, malicious gossip, abusive words, lies, threats, and more.” Ouch, right? Well, at least, ouch for me. I won’t claim that for you.
May I, however, make a suggestion? Try it. Try 21 days of not engaging in just one of the things on her list. Every time you do, mark it down, and start over. See how long it takes you to train yourself out of what’s probably become an unwitting unconscious habit.
See if you can move the needle on that image above from the low frequency of red to the higher frequency of blue. You’ll be healthier, happier, and even perhaps, richer and wiser.
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And in publishing news …
Tony, my editor (and if you need a good one, find him here), and I are doing our level best to read two chapters of Jasmine Increscent aloud every day. We’re up to Chapter 57 as I write. Only 17 more to go!
Honestly, for someone who has written as many books as I have—and that’s 34 finished ones to date—I am still always surprised at what we catch when we read aloud proof that neither of us noted when reading to edit on our own. It’s extraordinary what the eye fills in on the page when one reads silently.
We’re hoping for an August release, and it looks like we’ll make it. I’ll keep you posted.
If you haven’t yet read Jezebel Rising, put it on the top of your TBR (to-be-read) pile. It’ll make Jasmine that much richer when you get to read her story. And for those who missed it …
Here’s the blurb (to whet your appetite)—
A wedding. Increasing. And it’s time to start her vicety … it’s a three-ring circus—oh, my.
Jasmine Bailey is the second eldest of the Bailey siblings, yes, those Baileys. Known for being much more in the present than the future, years earlier she’d begun a one-woman mission to serve mothers who’d been abandoned by their spouses in the worst slum ever to darken New York City: Five Points. Universally recognized by her honorific, Lady Jasmine, throughout Gilded Age society, the wealthy take their checkbooks in hand whenever they see her strawberry blonde braid and her lissome figure coming.
Now it’s time for Jasmine’s vicety—the second of four the sibs had planned upon the death of their beloved father four years earlier. Since then, Jezebel’s pair of viceties—The Obstreperous Trumpet, a saloon, and The Salacious Sundae, an ice cream parlor—were going great guns. Jasmine had originally intended to create a high-end gambling hell. Except ... her wedding is scheduled in less than a month, and she’s increasing. There’s, uh, a lot on her plate.
Jasmine’s research takes her from the lowest of the low policy shops in Mulberry Bend to an outré visit to the most elite gambling institution in town. Still, she’s struggling with what is in her heart about starting this vicety. A chance sentence, if you believe in that sort of thing, overheard whilst at breakfast one morning changes everything.
Will her struggle with gambling resolve to her satisfaction, or will Jasmine have to scrap every idea she ever had about it to start over again? Sure, no doubt she could, but does she want to, and how will that affect her siblings and their nefariously well-meant agenda in Chelsea Towers?
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I’m still writing over a thousand words a day on Gemma Eclipsing, which is rolling along nicely. The process for this one has been completely different than for the previous two. When will I learn?! Each book comes with its own rhythm, cadence, timing, process and any one of a number of things that keep me fascinated.
Thirty-four books in, you’d think I’d know this by now!
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On an entirely different note, a next, new speculative fiction series is beginning to pull its threads together in the rabbit warren of my interior creative labyrinth. In the past two weeks, more and more pieces of it are coming to me. I’m still in the cast-a-wide-net phase, which means by the end of a day, my desk is covered in open research books! It’s one of my favorite parts of the process.
One of the best things to happen is that I received a working title for the series, so here it is for inquiring minds:
For the moment, I’m sure about the word Phoenix but am thinking that there’s something … more apt in lieu of Ordination. As always, my books are an evolving, inside-out process. Let’s see what my intuition cooks up within the next two weeks. More next time …
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The usual lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer feel far, far away to me this year. I’m not completely sure why, but what I do know is that the further and further away I feel from the mainstream, the better and better I feel. This is a time of deep listening, Beloved, and a need to reclaim our sovereignty from the negative is rising abruptly, and inexorably.
One of the ways to do that is to appreciate beauty—from the smallest violet to the sunset over the Alps. Once we include ourselves in that, it’s a mere scootch to live in an ampersand way—choosing to help create a world that works for everyone. No exceptions.
Please appreciate with me the collage work by Rev. Dr. Angela Yarber, who calls herself a scholartivist—a scholar, artist, and activist. Find her artwork, teaching, and writing here.