Jim Palmer

Jim February 25th, 2012

Why is it we never quite embrace what we are always so earnestly desiring and seeking? We say we want love, peace, freedom, contentment, well-being, and contentment but then it’s as if we’ve subconsciously add one uncompromising stipulation: we can never attain it. There is always one more question to answer, one more stage of consciousness to reach, one more step of enlightenment to take, something else we must figure out. There is always some way we are falling short of our goal. We are perpetually needing just a little more faith, just a little more discipline, just a little more holiness, just a little more understanding, or just a little less religion, just a little less ego. There is always something to add or subtract from our lives in order to have what we desire. If nothing else, the addition of more desirable circumstances and/or the absence of difficulties. But neither do we arrive on this path because there is always something that could be better about our circumstances. We can always imagine a more preferable future from what we currently have.

Are you sure you really want these things you say you desire such as peace and well-being? Maybe you don’t really. Maybe you desire more to be in constant seek, search, and strive mode. Maybe never getting there does something for us in some strange way. Let’s face it, if you started feeling at peace, fulfilled, content, and satisfied, you’d probably feel guilty. You might even feel empty because of the big hole left from abandoning your lust for more enlightenment – you know, discovering “the next thing.”

What if right now there was nothing preventing you from embracing what you desire. What if there is nothing you need to add or subtract. What if there really isn’t a “next thing” you must do or know or arrive to.

The Garden of Eden was a reality of abundance and all that was necessary was to simply enjoy it. Jesus said, “Be of a new mind and know that God’s kingdom has already come.” Jesus taught that this kingdom was accessible through the mentality of a child. Peter said that we have everything we need in order to be fully and wholly alive and well. Jesus even once said that when the time comes when we are worn out from all our seeking and striving, that his presence would give us rest.

It seems to be a paradox that we are encouraged to seek the kingdom, and yet our seeking can prevent us from living there once we find it. Which brings me back to the previous question, do we desire the seeking more than we desire the treasure we seek. Once we discover in our seeking that the treasure requires nothing of us, all that’s left is enjoying it. How do you do that? How do you “enjoy it?” It seems so foreign to those of us who have become so familiar and comfortable in the always-striving-but-never-quite-getting-there mode.

For me, following my feelings was a big help. I guess I might need to make a distinction by saying that hate, pride, greed, and lust are really expressions of the ego masquerading as “feelings.” That’s why “feelings” get a bad wrap. What I discovered is that the things that truly make me feel good stem from following my deep-seated feelings (there’s perhaps a better word or a more spiritual sounding word than “feelings”). Though hate, pride, greed, and lust have their place in satisfying the ego, I’d have to say that following those impulses don’t make me feel good but ultimately make me feel yucky, crappy and unfulfilled.

There are some who may take offense to the idea that it all could be quite simple. Maybe it makes us feel something is “wrong with us” because we haven’t yet been able to grab a hold of something we are told even a child can do. Yes simple, but not “easy.” Isn’t the challenge for us all often involving those things that sound so simple when rolling of the tongue like “rest” and “grace.”

Our seeking helps us only to a point and then it can help us no further, and might even become a hindrance. The greatest spiritual master spends his entire life on the quest for truth, and then one day discovers it when observing a blade of grass. He or she stops all seeking and striving and rests in peace and lives in peace.

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