We already have what we are looking for!

Meditation is just describing what is already happening. This insight cuts thru our human predicament of running behind happiness seeking fulfillment and completion ending up exhausted and frustrated! What if we are open to the possibility that we are already full and we already have what we are looking for? Not in terms of physical but in terms of what the objects and events will "allegedly" provide us with viz. peace and happiness? This talk explores this possibility!

Transcript

I heard my teacher say today something very beautiful,

Simple.

He said meditation is only a description of what is already happening.

What is going to happen is a figment of our imagination.

There is nothing that we will achieve in the future that is important.

If something is important,

It should be present even now.

Otherwise,

What brought it to us will take it back from us and that's not the kind of happiness and peace we are looking for.

So in that context,

The sentence meditation is only a description of what is already happening is something that pierced my heart.

Normally,

We are taught to escape what is present and to dream of what it can be like in the future.

Across the board in all cultures,

This is encouraged,

Especially now.

So in this age of misinformation,

This comes as a beautiful respite.

That just means that whatever we are now,

Whatever is happening now is just perfect and whatever is there now is what is going to be there even in future.

So there's nothing to run behind and we have all run behind things.

We have gotten things,

We have been disappointed when we don't get something.

But even when we have gotten things,

The happiness hasn't lasted,

Has it?

Then we worry about keeping it the way we got it.

And then at some point of time,

We fall in,

Fall out of love with that thing.

It's true about relationships.

It's true about things.

It's true about clothes.

It's true about vacations.

It's true about jobs and tasks within our jobs.

The next thing will be the best is what we hypnotize ourselves into believing.

And I don't even think we need that much of an effort to hypnotize ourselves.

We have already been hypnotized by our culture to accept it without even questioning.

And that's the beauty that lets us communicate as well.

Like if I was talking about something that is not already present and that you don't already have it,

How could you even relate to it?

How could you even understand it?

Some of us may not like what we are hearing because at some level we don't want things to be that simple.

There is pride in striving.

Some of us even take pride in suffering because of a romantic idea that at the end of this struggle there is peace.

But don't we want to live the peace?

Even if what I just described was true that there is peace at the end,

Even if that were true,

Don't we want to live the peace?

Don't we want to enjoy living that peace?

And who's found that peace at the end of that struggle?

You know when as a sports person or rather anyone,

When they achieve a great feat,

You will see them being interviewed all over and everyone asks this question,

How did you do it?

There are people who are finding something after a lifelong struggle.

Can't we interview them?

Shouldn't someone have interviewed them by now so that we would all know that yes,

We know what we are working toward,

This struggle.

And I'm not talking about the physical struggle,

I'm talking about this mental struggle and the effort that we put in.

Shouldn't we have examples?

Shouldn't we have the exact steps written down and shouldn't all of us be following that and achieving it?

Why would we have so much suffering around if someone had figured it out?

Or could it be like a whole scam that we are a part of?

Nobody has found something special at the end.

I don't even know what the end means here.

I don't think anyone has sat us down and said,

You know what,

You're going to do this for 20 years,

30 years,

40 years,

50 years and on your 60th birthday you're going to find this.

No,

It's time for us to see something.

We can strive all we want mentally,

Physically,

But that should be our choice to strive,

Not in expectation of finding something.

Because what are we going to find?

How many times in our own lives,

In our own experience,

We have strived for something a lot and imagined that,

You know,

This is how it's going to be.

Maybe it's a relationship,

Maybe it's a job.

And it turned out somewhat like what we had imagined,

But never completely like what we have imagined.

Either it was way better than what we imagined or it was way worse than what we imagined.

Then how can something that we imagine at the end of this struggle be something exactly what we want?

We can only trust our own experience and if it hasn't happened in 30,

40,

50 years,

What are the chances it's going to happen again?

Or even for the first time?

I'm giving you this rant only to expose this scam that someone has sold to us and we are living every day of our life beholding it as true.

What if we already have what we imagined to get later?

What if we already have what we imagined to get later?

And can we accept this as a possibility?

It might seem like we don't,

It might not feel like we have it,

But what if it might be true?

Despite not feeling or seeming like it,

The best illusions are right in our face.

We just have to look slightly differently in plain sight as they say.

And the job of a friend just becomes like what my teacher said,

To point out what's already there.

You know,

We get bombarded by social media,

By businesses trying to sell us things.

They're constantly telling us that you don't have this,

This is lacking in your life.

Either some rights or some privileges or some comforts,

Some conveniences that tells us maybe instead of cooking our own food,

We should buy pre-cooked meals.

Instead of chopping our own vegetables,

We should buy chopped vegetables.

So we've been constantly bombarded with something that tells us our lives are incomplete from almost every angle.

It's quite natural to start feeling that way.

But we are all critical thinkers.

We like to think,

We like to reason,

Question,

Protect our sovereignty,

Our autonomy,

Our freedom.

The moment we believe what is being bombarded,

We jettison our freedoms,

We suspend our reasoning.

So this conversation is about invoking our autonomy.

We might not have some things,

But our lives are not incomplete.

We are not incomplete without that thing.

And how do I know that?

From experience.

I'm sure you all have that same experience where you felt like you were lacking this thing,

You bought it,

You felt quote unquote complete,

And two days later you forgot about it.

And then we started feeling incomplete for something else.

Do we really think someone is playing a cruel joke with us by leaving us incomplete?

Look at the perfection outside.

Look at a blade of grass.

Look at a tree.

Look at a forest.

Look at a dog.

The magnificence of nature is so evident in all these things.

But somehow nature would create us incomplete only to be pseudo-completed by some things that are invented by us.

I'm not saying we shouldn't get things,

Comforts,

Conveniences.

I'm talking about that feeling that we have that you know,

I'm incomplete.

I need this.

If only that happened.

If only this happened or this didn't happen.

If only someone behaved this way.

That's the mental struggle and the striving I'm talking about.

We should celebrate the comforts,

But let go of this mistaken belief,

Mistaken hypnosis that there is something incomplete now that in the future is just going to be the rosiest future and it's going to continue for the rest of our lives.

This is what I used to believe and I still sometimes fall for this pray or pray to this.

Only once I articulate it,

I pause and ask myself,

Is that really true?

Because the moment I say it,

It sounds ridiculous.

There's not much explanation that can be provided for what we already have,

For who we already are.

So all this explanation applies to the negation of our current belief that we are incomplete.

So how does one see it?

We're just asking our hearts,

Am I really lacking anything?

And is this thing,

Is this event that I am projecting to solve all my existential problems,

Is this truly going to deliver?

And if we really think it will,

We should experiment and wait for it and then be honest because we all know it's going to disappoint us.

Even if it gives us what we want,

It's going to disappoint us because then we are going to be feverish about something else and somehow everyone does it so it's okay.

I don't think so.

All we need to see is we are in the matrix.

In the moment we see it,

We are out of it.

That's the beauty of it.

Once you know that the magician is playing a trick,

Even if you don't understand how they do it,

You know it's a trick.

If the magician can create a million dollars,

Why would they be performing?

So all we need to see is that what we have been living is a scam and that we already have the peace that we are looking for.

We just need to find it within ourselves.

Amidst our chaotic lives,

There is it,

There it is.

We just have to find it.

We have to believe.

We have to first be open rather than believing.

We need to be open to this possibility that it might be there and then nature in its mysterious ways will open things up for us where we get a glimpse of it and then it becomes an undeniable truth for our own experience.

Your eyes will change,

You will change and you can't ever go back.

That's when we get out of the matrix.

It all starts with being open.

This whole discussion is in the context of finding lasting peace and happiness,

Not the I get what I want,

Peace and happiness,

Because suddenly I want something else and then the happiness disappears and striving begins.

What would our struggle,

What would our striving even look like without the mental striving?

What would the physical striving look like?

Wouldn't it be free from the tyranny of this mental striving,

This unease?

Food for thought.

Thank you.