Do you really want to find what you are searching for or does the thought of actually finding it, terrify you?
On the spiritual path we spend so much energy searching… waiting… wanting… hoping… dreaming… So much energy goes into the feeling that something is missing. ‘If only something were different, then I would feel better’. ‘If only I had no more thoughts’. ‘If only I had a permanent sense of peace’. ‘If only I no longer suffered’. We have various ideas of what it is that would make all the difference. And perhaps we have glimpses or temporary experiences of these things, but inevitably the experiences fade and then the search for the next experience goes on. None of these experiences are permanent, or if they do stay for a long time, they require constant effort and vigilance. Exhausted, we continue to search for something to fill the emptiness and meaninglessness that we feel. We continue to run from death, believing that there must be some final and permanent experience that will make it all feel meaningful. But it seems that we are never able to hold on to any experience and the feeling of something missing keeps returning. It can be endlessly frustrating.
Do you really want to find what you are looking for? If you have been searching for so long, perhaps you have lost sight of what it is that you are actually searching for. Perhaps the possibility of actually finding it is assumed to be so remote that if it came and hit you in the face, you wouldn’t even notice!
You may have heard of words like enlightenment or awakening but do you really know what these words mean? Is that really what you want anyway? Have you ever truly and honestly asked yourself what you are searching for? Peace, freedom, love, silence, the end of suffering, no more sense of separation, no more struggling, a resting place... are just some of the concepts that various people have suggested. Perhaps they resonate…
All of these suggestions indicate a longing to rest and to relax all boundaries and restrictions. To lay down all burdens and disappear. In fact, it seems that what we truly long for is death. We long for it, and yet we spend so much energy and effort running from it in terror. We spend so much time being busy, looking for another experience, another practice – anything to avoid feeling the emptiness of right now. It seems we have the idea that emptiness or nothing happening, is boring, depressing or frightening. Perhaps we assume that it is just too simple. So we continue running and searching for something better or more complicated to fill the bottomless pit of emptiness and meaninglessness that we feel right now.
But although we are terrified of it, we long to just simply let go and fall into the emptiness. We long for it all to just stop. What peace, what relaxation that would be…
And then the thought comes up ‘But how can I do that?’ You don’t need to do that. This emptiness is already right now. Just let-go and peace is already here, right now. It always has been, even when you were running from it or longing for it. It has all already stopped and in fact it never started! You have simply identified with all the movement, instead of seeing that who you really are, never moves. You have identified with the person who seems to be living a life in time. Who you really are has never been born and does not live a life.
Who you really are is the timeless death that is right now. This is the death that you run from, but the death that you long for. It is the end of everything that you know and everything that you believe. All that knowing and belief is the restriction and burden that you have been carrying for so long. It is the sense of separation that makes you feel like you are in a prison. Right now, none of that has any meaning or relevance. Right now nothing means anything. Right now you do not know anything. Right now there is no one living a life. There is only Life itself. Life breathing. Life looking. Life thinking. Life speaking, Life sitting…
Right now there is nothing to be afraid of and nothing to search for. Falling into death, there is only Life…