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What You Seek, You Already Are
Seeking is a word often applied to the spiritual path, and many people are proud to call themselves seekers. Often, they are the same people who once chased too hard after money, sex, alcohol, or work. With the same addictive intensity they now hope to find God, the soul, the higher self. The problem is that seeking begins with a false assumption. I don’t mean the assumption that materialism is corrupt and spirituality is pure. Yes, materialism can become all-consuming, but that’s not the really important point. Seeking is doomed because it is a chase that takes you outside yourself.
Whether the object is God or money makes no real difference. Productive seeking requires that you throw out all assumptions that there is a prize to be won. This means acting without hope of rising to some ideal self, hope being a wish that you’ll get somewhere better than the place you started from. You are starting from yourself, and it’s the self that contains all the answers. So you have to give up on the idea that you must go from A to B.
There is no linear path when the goal isn’t somewhere else. You must also discard fixed judgments about high and low, good and evil, holy and profane. The one reality includes everything in its tangle of experiences, and what we are trying to find is the experiencer who is present no matter what experience you are having.
Adapted from The Book of Secrets, by Deepak Chopra (Harmony Books, 2004).
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11 comments
add your comment »What you seek is already what you are but we want others to be that too.
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This is what I know........I am all there is. All there is , is everything. Everything is all there is. Iam everything.
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Looking within to find that which one seeks is truly the road to Peace; do not be deceived by outwardly appearances, they lie. Truth is found in the quiet place within each of us!
You know there really is still a chance for peace and that chance will definitely increase if we each do our piece. So let’s make peace -- in our homes, in our own hearts, in our relationships, in our communities, in all of our dealings and in the world. Peace be with us all.
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Thank you Deepak.
Even though we may instingtivly know that home is where the heart is, we still need to be reminded that seekng outside of ourselves is like following a dream gone past.
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Dear Deepak,
Thank You for sharing the light!
Love
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While it's true that ultimately there is nothing "out there" to seek, most of us have not been born in an enlightened state. For us, we have to seek "out there" for clues about the ultimate reality ... that's it's all within us.
Much of the great literature of the ages dramatizes this. In Homer's Odyssey, Odyseus travels the world, facing numerous challenges, before he can return home. In Dante's Divine Comedy, Virgil travels to hell for self discovery before he can ascend to Paradise. There are many, many more tales of self discovery. Personally I have had to search and search for more meaningful ways of living than those I was given by my family of origin. It's my belief that the search is part of a genuine spiritual life.
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I needed these comments today! Thank you for bringing me back to the true acceptance of seeking.
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Thank You
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Thank You Deepak, your wonderful advice and words are a dear comfort everyday, being a intense time in my life I have to say
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So true and deep. Thank you :)
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