Ending the spiritual search

It's a bit difficult for me to tell when my spiritual searching began.

Was it when I tried to figure out in high school the deeper meaning of Bob Dylan's enigmatic song lyrics? Was it when I devoured Sartre, Camus, and other existentialists during my early college years? 

Maybe.

But for sure it started when, in 1969, my wife-to-be and I began learning hatha yoga and meditation from a crazed Greek guy who melded Christianity and Eastern philosophy in a decidedly weird fashion. 

Ever since, I've pursued some sort of spirituality. 

For several decades I spent about two hours a day meditating in accord with a mystical practice that aimed at uniting my soul with God.

Eventually I came to doubt whether soul and God even existed, which understandably deflated my interest in trying to join them together.

In my early 40s martial arts became a sort of spiritual search.

After earning a black belt in a karate style that was pleasingly eclectic, I switched to Tai Chi in 2004, which I've practiced ever since.

Taoism and Buddhism became my favorite spiritual philosophies. I made mindfulness my meditation.  

Now, at the age of 72, I've started to ponder the pros and cons of ending my spiritual searching -- with a emphasis on the pros. 

Always looking for more from life than what life already is giving me is beginning to seem unwise. 

More meaning. More happiness. More purpose. More depth. All that more, more, more seems to lead to a hamster-wheel sort of existence.

Spiritual seeking can become such a habit, the seeker doesn't realize that they're going around and around without really getting anywhere.

If we're in an endless loop of seek-find-seek-find, the way out is to either stop seeking or find that which satisfies completely. 

Since I'm not completely satisfied with life (who is?), it seems to me that giving up a quest to make life into something that it isn't already is the best way to go.

Understand: in no way do I see this as embracing fatalism or not trying to make my life better.

But I want to do this in a natural fashion. I want to just be an average person living life as it is, not as some imagined Spiritual Life with capital letters. 

Three weeks ago an inguinal (groin) hernia came into my life, an unexpected guest. 

About a quarter of men will get a hernia at some point. So what I'm dealing with is common. Last week I had a consultation with a surgeon, which went well. 

My old spiritual self would have tried to find some deeper meaning in the hernia. Working off karma? A way to test my equanimity? The universe sending me a message of some sort?

My new not-so-spiritual self just wants to handle the hernia as smoothly as I can and to get it surgically repaired ASAP.

In other words, I'm viewing myself realistically. I'm just a guy who, like lots of other guys, has a hernia that he wants fixed. End of story.

This is, of course, the way lots of people look upon problems in their life. 

Not as an opportunity to evolve into a more refined spiritual being. Just as a damn problem that needs attention. 

I can't say that I've totally given up my addiction to spiritual seeking. I just see the light at the end of the seeking tunnel. 

Or maybe more accurately, the lack of extra light. 

Life already has plenty of light. That's how I'm able to write this blog post. An LED bulb is shining on my desk. My laptop's screen is aglow. 

Where's the need to be spiritually enlightened when the world already has so much light?

Comments

[S]

@72 I will no longer cease to be. So, looks like you and I will be forever friends in the sea of uncertainty.

[um]

Seekers will have to seek until they "know" what it is that they are seeking

[Ron Krumpos]

I have written an ebook about the spiritual journey, but let me quote St. John of the Cross:
“The soul lives by that which it loves rather than in the body which it animates. For it has not its life in the body, but rather gives it to the body and lives in that which it loves.” Mystics of other faiths have said something similar.

[XYZ]

What is a Mystic? Seriously. I used to love the word—it had a romantic feel at one point but now it just sounds a tad pretentious.

[XYZ]

It’s April 21st and it’s snowing. What the...

I’ve never followed the rules. Probably never will unless some crazed “Saint” is hellbent on forcing some sort of discipline in my life. And he would have to be truly crazy to embark on such an endeavor. Usually I don’t worry about that but every now and then I question how much control we actually have over our own thoughts and actions.

Karma is another really annoying word. Equilibrium doesn’t exist in this world. The idea of karma theoretically keeps souls trapped here. I guess some believe that a saint calls his allotted souls home. But as long as we hold onto that ideology we’re always leaving souls here... and the world as we know it continues with all of its beauty and all of its horrors.

So, suffering never ends.

I guess that’s just how “Kal” wants it.

Which begs the question—whose really in charge? You put your faith in Saints who do nothing to save the world or end suffering. There’s nothing special about being special. It’s an error in human consciousness—the eagerness to believe that you will be saved while the rest of the world suffers.

The most important question you can ask yourself might seem like heresy but it’s the most honest question you will ever ask yourself—if I were god what would I do?

[Uchit]

This world is the hell. In this prison there are innocent souls amungst the hardened criminals, the rapist and murderers. Then there are the sly old devious souls that are disgusted as perfect gururs, and of course the GSD and his road show RSSB is one that comes to mind. These dark souls are the root cause of hampering our spiritual progressions, and make our desires align to what's best for them and there group. Karma, is a joke here, as there seems no justice for the mafia satanic cults. GSD, his drug barren relative manjeetia, his key special chosen sevadars who control by fear, and his snidy slithering antiques to influence politicians such as, bhadals and modi are examples all be it, hidden in plane sight. Once you realise that you been had by the dangerous Dhillon, you can may be start living your own life before it was taken away so cruely.

[Spence Tepper]

Hi Brian Ji
The pursuit of spirituality may indeed be, as you wrote..

"Always looking for more from life than what life already is giving me is beginning to seem unwise."

"More meaning. More happiness. More purpose. More depth. All that more, more, more seems to lead to a hamster-wheel sort of existence."

If we could understand all life is giving us then we would simply drink from the faucet and not the drain.

[albert]

Thanks Brian. May I make a comment regarding your statement of this region having plenty of light? Actually it is very, very dark in this material universe. The closest star to our own sun, Proxima Centauri, is 4.5 light years away...roughly 24 trillion miles! Although galaxies look like dense concentrations of stars they are really very empty. In the Milky Way, the average distance between stars is about 5 light years, or 30 trillion miles! Our own sun provides all the life, radiance and light for our solar system which has a diameter of about 4 billion miles. Neptune is about 3 billion miles from the sun. Let's divide 24 trillion miles by 3 billion miles to get some perspective of the distance to our closest neighboring star. Proxima Centauri is 8000 times further away from our solar system than Neptune is from our own sun! Now, think about the tiny point of light that represents our sun (please see link below), viewed from Neptune! And then consider how much TOTAL DARKNESS EXISTS between our solar system and Proxima Centauri, 24 trillion miles away. Remember that the only source of light in our universe is a star!

Darkness is really the norm. It is actually an oddity to be alive on a planet that is close to a sun, given the immensity of pitch black space that separates each star.

Get the picture? This material universe is very dark, mostly inky blackness until one gets relatively close to a sun. When there is no moon out and we look at the stars at night, is there any usable illumination from all the points of light that are stars? No, there isn't. If we move only 2 billion miles away from the sun there is hardly any illumination at all. Check out the following rendition of our planets and how the sun looks from each.

Enjoy our planet and its star!

https://futurism.com/how-does-the-sun-appear-on-other-planets

[OshoRobbins]

https://youtu.be/sRclMBdk_dE

Life is exactly what life is.

Nothing more. Nothing less.

It is out mind that creates all the delusions and meanings.

God is real for many people because they BELIEVE in him, not because he is a real person

People go by their feelings.

What you feel is true is not necessarily true.
All delusional people feel that what they believe, is actually true.

Religious people seek answers to questions they don’t even fully understand

[Dungeness]

@ Religious people seek answers to questions they don’t even fully understand

More frequently it's the reverse: opining an answer before you've understood
the question.

[Ecosus]

Can you stop seeking, unless you find? Or lose yourself? After religiously adhering to Sant Mat for about 30 years (1970 - 2000), with many hours of dubious meditation under the belt, I finally spat the dummy after reading Brian's Life is Fair; I wholly disagreed. I could no longer stomach the BS of RSSB! With the help of David Lane's sites, I managed to deprogram myself from the belief system. It took about 10 years to come to terms with "not knowing". It is interesting that Gurinder is allegedly denying the basics of RSSB (no Guru appearance at death, etc.) and taking a more Advaitic oneness approach. I did hear Gurinder once say "Promise you everything, give you nothing" when nagged about lack of spiritual progress at a speaker's meeting. There is something very attractive in Nothing: looking out from Oneness there is Nothing else. The Buddhists appreciate that. The Sufi Ibn 'Arabi says it even better in "Know Yourself: An Explanation of the Oneness of Being"
https://www.youtube.com/watchv=0BP9XH35aLc&list=PLWzYrEdlV4O4G1IuoEfMbKedQaSrJXrSD&index=3

[Ecosus]

Try again "Know Yourself: An Explanation of the Oneness of Being"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BP9XH35aLc&list=PLWzYrEdlV4O4G1IuoEfMbKedQaSrJXrSD&index=3