âOn a deeper level you are already complete. When you realize that, there is a playful, joyous energy behind what you do.â ~Eckhart Tolle
For a long time Iâve had a bit of an obsession with coming home. Not my physical home, but Home with a capital H. Being with myself. Knowing who I was. Leaning back into me and having that âahâ feeling of being totally whole, and totally at peace.
I felt like there was something missing, and that I needed to find that missing piece to complete the puzzle.
I thought that if I found the right job, or met the right man, or had the right friends, or went on the right adventure that I would find it.
I always imagined myself on a beach somewhere, with tanned skin, with my soul mate (who was obviously gorgeous), and felt that then I would be at peace. Then I would know myself.
I went to satsangs (literally âtrue company,â when an enlightened person shares their truth/wisdom with people who want it). I tried to work out what these people had that I didnât. What did they know that I didnât know? And how could I know it too?
I imagined that they had reached a place. They had meditated hard enough and had reached a place of enlightenment, of wholeness, of union.
I felt the burning desire to be united with myself, and didnât know how to do it.
The idea of a pilgrimage appealed to me. I liked the idea of starting off not knowing who I was, and then walking my way toward me and finding myself at the end of the tunnel.
In addition to satsangs, I met Indian gurus, and meditated, and worked on all my issues, and did healing courses.
Helpful as they all were, they never quite brought me to myself. They came close, and sometimes I got a glimpse of this elusive self I was looking for. They helped me in many ways, but I still hadnât found the missing piece to complete me.
I presumed that it must be because Iâm young. People walk the path for twenty, thirty, forty years, and they still havenât found the self, so while Iâm lucky in that Iâm starting young, I still have a long way to go.
And then, my understanding of what I was looking for started to change. This linear journey from not knowing to knowing started to fall away, in its place appeared a circular, non-journey.
Suddenly this idea of following a path and finding myself at the end of it seemed ridiculous. Obviously you donât find yourself at the end of a long journey.
The only way you find yourself at the end of a journey is if at your final destination thereâs a massive mirror that reflects back to you who you are.
Out of nowhere the idea of me looking for myself seemed crazy. Itâs like walking into a room full of people and not finding yourself amongst them. Obviously you wonât find yourself amongst the crowd, as you are the very thing thatâs doing the looking!
Itâs like how the eye can see everything but itself. Itâs looking for your glasses when theyâre on your head. You can look in all the elaborate places you want, but youâll never find them until you stop and look in a mirror.
What Iâm trying to say is that when the thing that is looking is the same as what is being looked for, youâre in for a very long, fruitless search.
When you are what youâre looking for, the only way to find yourself is to turn inwards, and find that you were there all along.
So long as weâre looking âout there,â weâre never going to find who we are. We might meet someone who holds up a mirror for us, and so long as we are with them and their mirror we can feel at one.
But even then we usually presume that it is only around this person, teacher, or guru that we feel good, and we imagine that they have the key to unlock who we are. This Is why we can get so attached to our mirror holders, and believe that they have something we donât.
They journey to the self is much less of a linear path to be trodden, and much more of a turning back to ourselves.
Itâs a stopping, a slowing down, and the realization that we are already complete and whole.
Thatâs not to say that all the satsangs, teachers, and gurus were a waste of time. They helped me let go of enough stuff; they helped me loosen my identification with ego so that I could turn in. Thanks to them there was less illusion, and less conditioning standing between me and myself.
But it wasnât until I stopped trying to get somewhere, be it the perfect future or the end of a spiritual path that I could see that I was what I was looking for. And, that Iâm in here, not out there.
Itâs like (my favorite teacher) Adyashanti said at a satsang in London: if you have something really valuable that you donât want anyone to find, where do you hide it? On the top of a mountain? In a Himalayan cave? At the end of a long journey, or on an exotic beach?
No. You make the seeker out of it, and theyâll be so busy looking for it, that they will never realize that itâs hidden in plain sight, is literally right under their nose, and is in fact their very essence.
So call off the search. You donât need to be found. Youâre already here.
Photo by Peeratam Tangtua
About Jade Doherty
Jade is a laugh-aholic who went looking for herself only to discover she's been here all along (ta-dah!). She isn't really sure what she's doing with her life but she does know that her calling lies in drinking tea and wearing a onesie. She enjoys geeking out over Philosophy books, going to satsangs, watching football, and having good conversations laced with wine. You can find her on her blog, on Twitter, and on Facebook.