The terrible “me”: a summary of our sharing.
I was not born as a seeker. I became a seeker from the moment a sense of separation inevitably crept up in my very early childhood years. The infant, that was once whole, gradually ceased to feel complete and the quest for wholeness started spinning “my story of myself”. The sense of “me” was born and with this sense, “I” morphed into this "terrible me”, and became the seeker...
There are many types of seekers but, as a spiritual seeker, I am one of a kind! Flashing red signs abound on my highway to Enlightenment: mantra chanting, yoga, fasting, pranayama, japa recitation, mindfulness meditation, bhajans, self enquiry in so many steps, spiritual literature, podcasts, satsangs....
“I” keep steadily driving from EXIT sign to EXIT sign only to find out... the promised land is already right where and when gas eventually fails the body-mind, and has stopped fuelling this journey to the promised land. “I” give in to “What-Is”. In that final surrender, exit the "terrible me”, the seeker! A story goes on but no longer as “my story of myself”...
Now is it this simple and this quick? As long as a subtle sense of lack remains or comes back despite the intellectual understanding, the quest to gain back wholeness redirects the desperate “me” on the freaky highway. A new journey starts... until the “me”, sooner than later this time, runs on empty once more and even dies down... for better and not worse!
To counterbalance the feeling of desperation some of us may feel at times, the session deliberately opened on 2 videos by Dan “Spiritual Junkie Needs A Fix” followed by “Dan Tries Tony Parsons One More Time"
We could heartily laugh at ourselves... enough to go on with Tony Parsons: “Doctrines, processes, and progressive paths that seek enlightenment only exacerbate the problem they address by reinforcing the idea that the self can find something it presumes it has lost. It is that very effort, that investment in self-identity that continuously recreates the illusion of separation from oneness.” “As it is” page 11
“No amount of effort will ever persuade oneness to appear. All that is needed is a leap of perception, a different seeing, already inherent but unrecognized.” “As it is” page 12
No difference! Jeff Foster shares that it is the same seeking whether it is the search for a million pounds on a bank account or for spiritual enlightenment. “It has all to do with me, a separate me. The separate individual is always a seeker because the moment you have separation, you have a longing to end that separation.” As it is
Rupert Spira elaborates upon the specific topic of our meeting. De facto we are seekers. "to do or not to do" “If we think we are a person, we are doing something. If we think as a person, "I am not doing something and there is nothing to do", it simply means we are fooling ourselves. We haven't noticed that we are in search.”
We giggled along with Eckhart Tolle: “It is only humans that give up the search in the future that realise it - enlightenment - is already here. "Enlightenment"
We ended up with a small meditation by Joe Loett “This is it!”.
“Notice if any thoughts or ideas about what is happening are necessary for what is happening to be happening. This is it. Stop looking for something else. That may be uncomfortable at first. Let it be uncomfortable. Just for now, stop looking. Just for now, let go. Just for now, rest. That this is already the peace and the freedom that you long for will reveal itself.”
There is no rule of thumb as to the duration of a seeker's quest. “It is the will of God!”, says Ramesh Balsekar. “The seeking is in phenomenality, in duration; daily living is in phenomenality, in duration. It is just that simple. It is important that the seeker be clear about the seeking: the seeking happens, there is seeking and no seeker."
Page 17, "Peace and harmony in daily living"
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