Can you imagine stopping. Stopping everything and just breathing, having stopped all the distracting thoughts, the endless talk the inner debates. Can you imagine simply experiencing your breath and in that moment allowing the beauty of the world around you to flood over you. For in every moment of our life we experience that breath hand yet most of us never give it a second thought.
We perhaps have heard of people who have been given weeks to live. Suddenly, many experience a sense of clarity that gives life renewed focus and purpose. Every breath counts and is gratefully received and every second exploited to the maximum possible.
Most of us do not experience that clarity of purpose. Can that sense of clarity and desire be found without having to face death? Can we experience inner peace now?
We are all searching for something. Many look in ancient traditions, or the certainty of the past, While others seek only the novelty of the future. One seeks the thrill of the group while another seeks isolation hidden deep in the Himalayas. Each is looking for something - few ever can say they have stopped looking because they have found what it is they desire. Advertisers spend billions of dollars reminding us of our lack because they know we a re searching for a nebulous, poorly defined inner yearning. We all give it different names, depending on what it is we need in life. If our life is full of distress we search for peace, if we are alone perhaps we seek love, however I suggest that these are all words of a deeper spiritual yearning that transcends culture, education and social niceties. Rather it is experiential. We may curiously seek answers that are easily forgotten when a solution is found. That is why the search for inner peace transcends philosophy, because it is not about questions but the deep inner physical experience of certainty that mere head knowledge does not offer. It is felt within our being.
If I need something, perhaps I am dying of thirst, then only a drink can satisfy me even if I am so parched I cannot even express the words intellectually. If I am being rescued it would be logically absurd to say help me as the rescuer grabs hold of me and yet, the clarity of our need to remain alive overrides the logical need to beg.
In such times of extreme clarity of focus, social protocols go by the way side. Nothing is allowed to stand between us and its fulfillment. Only the real thing will do. If we need food, then pictures of fruit, or plastic models will not satisfy our hunger for fake food cannot satisfy the purpose of satiating our hunger. In the same way, unless we learn to experience out thirst for inner peace, love, tranquility, if we do not live filled with this wonderful feeling, we are like a plastic model shell that does not satisfy our purpose to exist. If we cannot experience e joy, we cannot truly share it with others. If we do not experience peace we cannot be a peace maker. It is in those moments of gratitude that we step onto the bridge between the mortal and the immortal, when we approach the divinity within us. We must feel that peace within.
This is not intellectual. It has been said that the more people intellectually search for 'Truth', the more untruthful the 'Truth ' becomes. If we are run by intellectual curiosity then we we will find one answer and then be led on to the next series of questions triggered by the next news broadcast or the next person we meet. Curiosity is transitory; the experience of our inner life has a sense of certainty about it. When we have come to inner knowledge then we know. There is no doubt. Yet like the person whose great thirst overrides any need to intellectualize his need for water, a person who has a need to know, a need that is so clear in himself, will find his inner self. A person who has been dying of thirst experiences a great inner gratitude when finally his thirst is quenched. He does not debate with the bearer of the water why he did not come earlier. He takes and is grateful that his life is saved, yet to someone without that need it is mere wooly nonsense, If I am nit thirsty I may argue over which cup a drink should be served in or whether I want ice or a squeeze of lime, but if I am extremely thirsty I care only for the water. In the same way, when I come to know my deepest needs I am no longer a puppet of protocols.
So many reject joy because of past hurts. Perhaps they reject the experience of their heart because of a failed romance. Yet who would reject a drink of water in the desert because they had nearly experienced death by dehydration?
We are meant to experience happiness, but I suggest true happiness transcends the illusory distractions of the latest technology or advertising. Early 2008 a group of people were offered wine in which they rated their preference. At the same time their brain functions were measured using brain imaging technology. What was expected was that people told they were drinking a highly expensive wine rated the drink as better. What is amazing is that the brain actually experienced a greater degree of pleasure even though everyone was drinking exactly the same wine.
Is happiness just an illusion then? Was the joy experienced by our near dead desert traveler an illusion? No. Likewise when we know ourselves the satisfaction obtained when our needs are met is just as real. We need the simplicity of a child so that we can approach our yearning for inner peace with simplicity. U is not complicated. Intellectualism would have us analyze every step. When we experience a yearning pointing us in a direction, do we overanalyze whether the yearning is valid or would it perhaps be best to ask what the yearning is pointing us too?
Like the person who facing death suddenly values every last breath we must take hold of every breath with intense gratitude. We must come to appreciate the singularity of this moment called now where all our burdens and social distractions melt away. Tomorrow is the greatest of illusions, for we are never guaranteed a tomorrow. I is in the now that the subtlety of this life becomes real to us.
For us to experience e this joyful reality, we must experience the thirst that impels us. To find inner peace we must experience a process of acknowledging ourselves and discovering our heart. This process is made possible by cultivating the field of our heart and allowing the seeds of our desire to grow to fruition. We must open our heart and embrace life.
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