You can’t find spiritual enlightenment or salvation by seeking it. I realize this seems ironic but it’s true. Seeking requires a form of attachment. We have to use our consciousness to imagine our future in order to pursue a goal. There is a finish line. An objective. There is winning and losing. So we know we’re functioning in ego because spirit doesn’t recognize any of those concepts. Winning and losing are mental constructs, as are finishing, goals and objectives. We know this because it’s possible for two people to both feel they have won—or both feel they have lost—in a competition with each other. This is a demonstration of how flexible human consciousness and ergo reality is.
I’m not sure if it’s apocryphal or not, but I heard a story when visiting NASA as a kid, that the reason astronauts sleep with the lights on and blindfolds on is because during the first missions when the astronauts slept in the dark, their arms would float out in front of them. They would awaken and see something floating in front of them and their brain would tell their arm and hand to move out to that spot to see what was floating there. But because the arm and the hand was what was floating out there, moving to there was impossible. Are you catching my drift? Something can’t go to where it already is. You can’t be found if you’ve never been lost.
Every soul is born a Buddha. And then you get confused. Or lost. At least it feels that way. In reality your spirit is on an adventure. You’ve lived all the easy silly fun lives. You’re bored. Do the movies you watch have no tense or sad or horrific scenes? Why do you watch those? You don’t only watch comedies. You like action movies and dramas and horrors and maybe even the odd tear jerker. So if you’ll do that for entertainment why won’t you do it for salvation?
Let things be. Including yourself. Don’t create a world where everything’s right. Live rightly in the world. Allow it to unfold in its magnificent grace. And go whichever direction your nature takes you. For your nature is not leading to somewhere. It’s the verb of you moving through experiences. It exists in the present moment. And it is always fine with whatever happens.
Okay, can you mix those ideas together so that the opening quote makes perfect sense? If you’re seeking enlightenment you’re assuming you’re not already enlightened, and so you’re trying to get where you already are. So you don’t become healthier by changing yourself some way. You realize health by coming to know the truth about how your daily experience is formed.
You don’t try to be mentally healthy because that’s an outside-looking-in perspective. You allow yourself to already be healthy by not thinking that the way you are is wrong. Because your true contentment does not come from outside sources like things or approval. It is born out of the richness of a complete and utter lack of need. The person who lacks nothing is the richest person indeed. And the person who is most spiritual the one who no longer seeks God because they have found a way to become One with God.
Now stop thinking that you need to be anything other than what you are. And use that confidence and value and love and go make yourself rich with happiness. 😉
peace. s
I help people achieve better mental health by teaching them about reality.
