If what we truly are and what we seek already is – if our true nature is already the liberated Self – then why do we ‘need’ to do anything – why are we always seeking?
Does this question sound familiar to you?
It certainly is a question that I have heard on many occasions – and it is a question worth exploring and understanding more deeply. It is a question that may lead us to a greater embrace of what it means to be spiritual.
Typically each seeker is on the quest to attain awakening – a quest to arrive at the place that is one of absolute being: freedom – love – oneness. The effort to GET somewhere else implies we are trying to get away from what we are. It points to the erroneous belief that we, our self, are not what we are seeking: that somehow we need to become something else. We perceive our self and what we seek to be as separate realities. We are stuck in a mind of subjective perspectives. While we are immersed in this subjective field, all we can see is contrasting reflections –a polarized view of the world – so it feels and looks as if that separation is real. This is what drives the notion that we must somehow get to or return to oneness.
But the ironic truth is this: we are ‘oneness’ already! Therefore, we cannot attain what already is. What is the seeker supposed to think now? If this is so, why are we not truly knowing and experiencing that oneness in each and every moment? Why are we so driven by all this seeking?
Existence and truth are indeed absolute. But we only experience life subjectively and relatively. Truth is considered to be something transcendent – beyond our realm. It is thought that we must become something other to be enlightened – or to attain the gift of oneness and divinity. We mistakenly believe that our subjective experience is devoid of the divine or somehow tainted and separated from wholeness and perfection. Consequently we are forever trying to fix everything in our subjective world. We are bound to our erroneous beliefs and along with it the pain and suffering of our fears and judgments.
Yet this perceived subjective realm is produced by the absolute as a field of context representing the experience of all that IS. It IS the manifesting nature of the absolute. As a manifest experience we perceive life through polarities. Our experiences are born from this dynamic state of contrasts. Without these contrasts there IS no experience. And without this apparition of duality the infinite potential of the universe cannot be fulfilled or experienced; this includes the wonder of living and feeling love, freedom, joy and oneness. If we look deeply enough we can see that we are meant to be having the subjective experience – not attempting to transcend it. This IS the tool of God. This is the very dynamic through which God is made alive.
Understanding this turns the direction of our seeking on its head. It means that instead of trying to get somewhere else – somewhere beyond – we can stop right where we are. We can surrender into deep presence with what IS – right here!
By surrendering with deep presence to what is simply here, we enter the state of being. And along with this ‘beingness’ is a ‘seeingness’ of our true nature – a seeing of the light and divinity that is already here within us – within each moment. That God – the Divine – is imminent.
As we begin to witness again the true nature of our self – of life – we open up a state of acceptance, which allows that which IS to emerge from within us. The love, peace and wholeness that is our being radiates through us and emanates into the world around us. Through being present with what IS we begin to infuse the world with divinity. This is what it means to be spiritual.
THIS is the quest – to infuse our life with the qualities of our true nature; to bring joy to each moment; to give love to every living thing; to feel peace with all that is; to be truly in our power; and to know all IS one.
Through our seeking we are driven to be consciously present and aligned with our true nature – we regain attunement with our transcendent Self. But not somewhere else – not in a place beyond us. Instead we make it alive, in our here and now. In each of these moments we bring the gift of true joy into the world. We fill our subjective experience with something that IS unconditional – something that has transcended our usual limited perceptions of polarized happiness and sorrow – the pervasive wheel of suffering – and instead we awaken to the game of divinity within our life. As such it is not that the field of context is erased. Pain versus joy does not disappear – but rather we see it for what it truly is – the field of experience. Each appearing aspect IS the ONE. And in order to experience life as it is, what appears as contrasting is ESSENTIAL. When we see it in this way we are no longer in conflict with it. We release our self from our attachments and aversions and we live in a state of oneness with all as it IS. We discover that the transcendent is already present in the subjective realm of experience.
Sorather than trying to get out of the subjective world to get to some apparent transcendent realm, it is our opportunity to enter ever more deeply into what appears subjective in order to make the transcendent an imminent experience.We are born and created to feel the power of God – our infinite consciousness as something which is alive. We are born to feel. We are born to experience and pursue the smorgasbord of feelings – to partake from the bounty of endless experiences that is our very self – our infinite self – making itself alive in the subjective world of form.
This – the dance of the subjective world –is the very tool of the eternal self. For this which appears subjective is never ending. Each moment emerges from the previous and falls into the next – forever enfolded in the absolute presence of the ever constant now. It is through this that we can fulfill the experience of love that never ends. This is the gift: to be able to reach for our self – to touch our self – to meet and see our self from every possible angle. When we realize this we truly enter the game. We enter the mystery. We surrender the fight – the delusional attempts to explain the mystery – to fix it or solve it. We simply become the dance. We are transfixed as a lover of the beloved. Transfixed by the magic, the wonder, the miracle that is our Self – alive – alight and imminent in every moment!