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Seeking

Liberation is the end of seeking, of trying to become something other than what you are. Most seekers get stuck in becoming, thinking that Buddha or Ramana has attained something they have not. So they are seeking for some ultimate state or experience, trying to transcend their ordinary consciousness. Many try to purify their minds, believing they will come to a mental state where no negativity, or even thought, arises. Their behavior will be perfect at all times and they will never say or do anything culturally described as negative or wrong. They will never experience anything unpleasant and their actions will always be perfect, according to some sketchy and transitory moralistic view they have come to believe. They want to be special, the special enlightened one. I thought many of these things myself as a seeker.

Seeking stems from a sense of lack, a sense that there is something inherently wrong—wrong with me and wrong with others who are not ‘enlightened.’ But with some careful inquiry we can see that this sense of something wrong, something lacking, is simply based on impressions programmed into this mind, mostly by culture and religion. Impressions like, “You are a sinner”, to give one gross example. We have unquestioningly taken for granted ideas like this. But when we came out of the womb none of these ideas were there, so how true can they be?

Most people will never give these ideas up and will continue to seek, thinking there is something more to attain, or something more to fix. They hope they will be better in the future. But truth is now only. What is, is. There is only now so as you are now has to be true. The ideas we have about what we ‘should’ be in the future are lies that keep us seeking and becoming forever. But we never ‘arrive.’

Knowing that what is, is, and can be no other way than it is now, is the end of seeking. It is the end of harsh judgement of self and others. It is the realization and recognition that your ordinary human condition is what you have been seeking. All the authentic sages have said the same thing. “I am ordinary.” But we say, “No, you are great and I am pathetic and lowly.” We create the inferior self in this way and idolize the superior self that we believe the sage possesses. Again he says, “No, I am just like you”, and we refuse to believe, because the last thing a spiritual seeker wants is to be ordinary.

Who you are now is who you are. What you believe you should be, or that there is something more to attain, or some greater experience you need to attain, is illusion and a lie. Why? Because what is, is. Liberation is the natural human condition now. Come to know this for yourself and be free of seeking and becoming.