How can I know if there is more to life than I can see right now?
Question:
How can I know if there is more to life than I can see right now?
Nukunu:
We are always looking for a state of freedom and fulfillment, but satisfying our desires does not help us to find it! We still sense that something more exists: because what we have found so far is not entirely satisfying. We know deep inside what fulfillment is, and sometimes there is a feeling that we have the answer on the tip of our tongue! This place or space is our very nature, but we have moved so far away from it that we now search for it in the wrong place. But actually we cannot really look for it; any attempt to try and get it will only take us further away from it! Why? Because we are already it – it is here now. We must be still to let the mind be totally empty and free. Just be still and it will reveal itself!
It is very easy to keep the mind active and pursue our desires. To be totally still is much more difficult. When we are still, the ignorant “me” feels threatened to death. When the mind is not doing anything it stops thinking. The little “monkey mind” gets desperate if it become still – because it is usually active 24 hours a day producing thoughts.
We are already and always have been what we are looking for, whether we know it or not. If we do not realize this we feel miserable, yet if we know it we are free. I used to say to people, “everyone is enlightened, some know it and some don’t”. Every experience, thought and feeling is an expression of our enlightenment but we only see the expression; not the mother of the expression! In Advaita Vedanta this is illustrated by the metaphor of “the stone dog”….a dog carved out of stone. Everyone sees the dog but very few are aware of the stone.