Prayer: “I am sorry God, for not spending too much time with you these days. My excuse is that, in trying to search for the correct way to pray, I begin to believe that if I do not know how to do it correctly, then I cannot do it at all. I spend my time trying to figure out how to pray instead of praying.”
Something happened last night, a trivial occurrence, a minor interruption that my mind amplified to the point that it seemed as if nothing was possible. I raged, while at the same time, I let my thoughts fork away from the occurrence and tried to reason what I would do with the steps I had figured out for myself. I analyzed my situation; the situation was not too relevant; it was my thoughts, my beliefs and desires that augmented the severity of this little event. A whole future of misery was ahead of me, as far as the standards and verdicts I held for and against myself. It all weighed down on me. I thought about the Bhagavad-Gita’s description of dark inertia, it was overwhelming me. After about 20 minutes of doing nothing but standing in one spot staring into the blank towards the floor, I fell on my knees and hands and raged as hard as I could. Sweat dripped down my nose. As I did this, my mind kept analyzing and tried to reason, coming up with method after method to not let this happen again, to deal with this turbulence if it were to happen again. But no method is ever good enough. My mind kept doing this, separate from my hopelessness, and asked: What is it that I was really after? What is it that I should give up? What is it that I should accept? Is there really anything that I should do? What is it that I was really after? What was my sin?
My sin was that I sought something that I thought would be better, that I depended on this ideal to make me happy, or to end my search. So I tried to stop seeking, but as I tried, I only succeeded in seeking to stop. Was I supposed to remain like this, in this state of dissatisfaction? If I ignored it, it would not mean that I stopped seeking, it only meant that I wasn’t aware of it, and my dissatisfaction was proof, my unhappiness was proof? Am I suppose to seek happiness? But if I seek happiness it would mean that I am not satisfied… I am not suppose to seek, what am I suppose to do?! (Well, for one, you need to stop asking this question, since asking it implies you are seeking an answer.)
It’s ok to seek, but you don’t know that when you are seeking. But it is not about seeking the truth, it is about accepting it. After thinking this I sought to accept what I had, but what I had was not acceptance, and I was not willing to accept that, if I was, I wouldn’t be seeking to accept it. So should I seek acceptance? If not, then how would I ever come to accept things beyond my range of acceptance? How am I suppose to discover the world and learn new things if I do not seek? When you seek you reject your current situation, and if you find you will miss out on the pain you yearned to let go of. When you accept not only do you accept your current situation, but you can also accept what you do not have.
What is it that I am after, if it is not anything tangible. Was it right to seek happiness? No, but it is better to accept dissatisfaction, so that even when you are dissatisfied, you will be satisfied with yourself. But how do I accept, then? (again asking this question implied I was seeking, or rejecting my present situation.) I seek… I seek to end my search (because if I did not want to end my search I would not be seeking)… but instead if ending my search, I seek… This is where I don’t make sense. What my seeking says is that I want to end seeking. What my dissatisfaction says is that I want to be satisfied. What my failure to accept says is that I want to accept. But what should I accept? If I truly accepted I would not only not seek, but I would be satisfied, and if I were to never seek then I would keep being satisfied. There is something I should seek (if I may say it so); I should seek nothing, I should accept the present, but not my current situation of dissatisfaction ([if I may say it so] not from this level). I should accept the present as perfect, I should seek the perfection of the present. By seeking perfection I mean to see its perfection, not to mold it to my idea of it. The more I accept, the more satisfied I should be, the less I would seek to find.
I guess that when you seek to find, you are forced to move by pain; but when you seek to seek, you are allowed to move by freedom. This is the difference between seeking and seeking, they are both essentially the same in the sense that they lead to discovery, except one has an element of contradiction; that by seeking to find, you are essentially doing one thing because you want to do something else that you are not doing.
Be rigorous in being satisfied, to the point of perfection, to the point that you are happier all the time. When you seek, seek so that you have to seek less and less every time; not more, by way of “realizing” you have ways to go. Be rigorous in being free.
As I practice this today, I don’t give myself time to accuse myself when I do wrong, because there is no wrong. I realize that whenever I am dissatisfied, whenever I feel incomplete, when I hate my situation, I am only dissatisfied with who I am at the moment. As I try to accept this and my situation, I find myself renewing a certain perspective, a movement that I treat as a law, and that I interpret as “Love yourself, continually; even when you fall.” Even when you wish you were not you, love this about yourself. Continually, be in that space that loves without failing, that loves regardless of your situation, in synthesis with the merciful God above you, the one who created you as you were, and as you were to turn out to be.
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