Never Not Here

I’ve written extensively in this column over the last year about my well-intentioned yet feckless efforts in search of spiritual awakening. I would imagine that many of you can relate to the frustration inherent in such a “seek but not find” experience. I know from my decades on the seeker path and as a spiritual teacher that it may be the most common dilemma of all who are looking for that higher ground of well-being that is promised by the great teachings, seers, and sages of all time.

There is an inherent truth that seems to be seeded in us, motivating us to redeem the covenant so profoundly professed by those who have seen the “promised land." This inclination toward a deeper reality manifests itself as a deep yearning and impulse within us, drawing us towards its fulfillment in our lifetime. That we have this inherent pull toward realizing our true nature is good news as it keeps the pursuit alive.

However, what operates alongside this impulse is a “binary operating system” that we humans have innately been blessed/cursed with from birth and deepened through cultural conditioning. This is our default perspective, a way of making sense of the world by dividing the field into subject and object, inside and outside, which has us seeing opposites, distinctions, and a world of separation. While this subject/object dualism is necessary and appropriate to navigate the manifest world, it is antithetical to spiritual understanding.

The consequences of this inner pull of the heart and our default approach to looking outside for answers is why our seeking fails time and time again. Even when we listen to the masters’ words that implore us to look within, we fall into the rut of dualism, simply exchanging an outer goal for an inner goal. The dualistic perspective is so deeply ingrained in us that even when we are repeatedly admonished to unify our perception and embrace the reality of wholeness, we look for some objective experience to assuage our discomfort.

As A.H. Almass says, “You perpetuate your suffering by the very activity you think is going to release you from suffering.” What dooms our search is the search itself. Seeking is the problem and yet we think it’s the way to finding what we most desperately desire. This nuance of understanding, and I mean when I really got it, is what opened the door to the clear seeing of Truth that had remained obscured for, and by, decades of seeking.

Finding the Truth of your essential being is not like finding misplaced car keys. We err when we apply the same seeking approach, thinking that we’ll stop looking once we’ve found it. The reality is quite the opposite and paradoxical, i.e., the finding can happen only when the search stops. This can only be logically understood if we embrace and accept what seems so doubtful---that what we are looking for is already fully present. But that’s the premise, isn’t it? The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand…within you. When we are seeking, we are deepening the opposite perspective, anchoring a sense of what’s missing; a deficiency that needs to be filled.

We might nod our head and say we totally believe what we are seeking is within us, but we mistakenly believe it's some quality or attribute that is obscure and rarely found that takes intense inward focus or years of meditation to finally penetrate its obscuring veil. Again, our common assumption is that the Truth has some objective quality that is either hidden, yet to be developed, or discerned. This is what keeps us on the hamster wheel of looking for, hoping, and expecting that someday we will find it. Of course, we substitute spiritual means with worldly efforts to find peace and happiness. In either direction, we just can’t fathom that what we are looking for is really at hand. What compounds our frustration is that the very act of seeking separates us from ourselves. This means we are not present, so even if we get something we want, the satisfaction is tainted by our absence. It may take many years of suffering for us to finally succumb to the heretofore implausible reality that indeed it is here and now. OMG!

Awakening is nothing more than awareness of our true self. What does awareness require of us? Certainly, no seeking. What effort does it take to be aware of your own existence? When or where matters not either. You are always you! At any given moment you can look away from thought activity, and ask the question, Am I? Not even, who or what am I? Just, Am I? No matter what is happening or who or what you think you are, you must admit that you are! Simply get a sense of that I am-ness, and you're home. Just as God told Moses when he wanted to know the nature of the Divine. I am that I am is the great revelation, hiding in plain sight, the very alpha and omega of the spiritual journey. The truth is you are never not here. So, call off the search, stay home, and behold the kingdom at hand.

Namaste

Rev. Larry