When I observe the world and its characters, it seems everyone is after something. Even those who seem to have moved beyond the superficial goals of the common culture are still in pursuit. Contributing, creating, expressing, manifesting … becoming. Seeking. Call it by any name you want, it ultimately begins and ends with the same conclusion. This isn’t it.
Eventually, we may come to realize the bankruptcy of our ways and begin to question the need for seeking altogether. We conclude that seeking would best be dropped, and thus we make silent vows to ourselves to let go, and may even fool ourselves into thinking we’ve succeeded. But sooner or later we realize our folly. We notice ourselves grasping at our goal, seeking non-seeking. What a cosmic joke this movement becomes!
All the while, a curious thing happens beneath the surface. Some kind of mysterious physical manifestation takes root, and begins to burn the seeker away through a process of internal combustion. This slow death is paradoxically painful, agonizing, and frustrating, as well as blissful and beautiful. Right down the the last cell of the body. Many have tried putting the experience into words, but it cannot possibly be explained. Each surrender seems so final, and yet the barely detectable remnants of the seeker remain, maintaining some identification of the me in all of this, the continuity holding it all together.
More and more, the fatigue of failure and holding on begin to wear us down, to erode us ever so slowly, like a rock at the bottom of a flowing river. One day, finally we give up, realizing that we are helplessly and hopelessly lost.
Now what?!?
This is where the real mystery begins …
I’ve looked under chairs
I’ve looked under tables
I’ve tried to find the key
To fifty million fablesThey call me The Seeker
I’ve been searching low and high
I won’t get to get what I’m after
Till the day I die-Pete Townshend
lifeplay | 10-Feb-09 at 9:39 am | Permalink
oh, i’m so glad i found your blog. beautifully written.
“Each surrender seems so final, and yet the barely detectable remnants of the seeker remain, maintaining some identification of the me in all of this, the continuity holding it all together.”
I love this line. The separate “me” has to remain of course, within the context of time-space, but I’m trying not to get frustrated with the “me”, and rather enjoy this dance between the separate “me” and the All. Maybe, in this push-pull between separation and Oneness, Life expands?
Mike | 10-Feb-09 at 9:30 pm | Permalink
I would say so, yes. Or looking at it from the other direction, the expansion you refer to is precisely the expansion of the “middle ground” between separation and Oneness, samsara and nirvana.
2Da1 | 11-Feb-09 at 7:35 am | Permalink
Very well put. “This isn’t it” is a delusion which can be found on one level or another in most every individual.
The global paranoia about what is, the convincement indeed that this is not it : where on Earth does it come from?
While it should be so perfectly clear that of course, THIS IS IT. Tathata, right? What else could there be?
Why, surrounded by bliss every given hour, is it so hard to let go into this divine reality ? Step back into awareness and see, be, that what is ?
And then in comes the thinking and judging about THAT. And the delusion again, that one day, I’ll get THERE.
As long as it is not thoroughly felt and acknowledged, that “I” equals Awareness, there seems no escape from the striving towards anything else than what is, here and now. All else is delusion.
Reminds me of this quote in “St. Elmo’s Fire” (1985) where Rob Low (Billy) says :
Billy: “Jules, y’know, honey… this isn’t real. You know what it is? It’s St. Elmo’s Fire. Electric flashes of light that appear in dark skies out of nowhere. Sailors would guide entire journeys by it, but the joke was on them… there was no fire. There wasn’t even a St. Elmo. They made it up. They made it up because they thought they needed it to keep them going when times got tough, just like you’re making up all of this. We’re all going through this. It’s our time at the edge.”
Peace. Much enjoyed reading. Again.
2Da1
Mike | 11-Feb-09 at 10:26 pm | Permalink
Peace to you, too, and thanks again very much for your contribution.
Love,
Mike
P.S. St. Elmo’s Fire … gosh, that brings back some really OLD memories!
Anmol Mehta | 12-Feb-09 at 6:25 pm | Permalink
Hi Mike,
Always good to come by and check out the road signs… only of course to be told that it’s best to be lost :-D.
Cheers,
Anmol
Mike | 12-Feb-09 at 9:03 pm | Permalink
Extremely well put, I must say! Good to “see” you again, Anmol.