Wherever you go there you are
Meditation in the Buddhist temple. Jan 16, 2020
It is all a game.
You are running in circles trying to get that next big thing. You are like that dog that chases its own tail. You are trying to be richer, more successful, more famous. You want to get attention to your persona.
You run for a promotion, you run for the next paycheck, you run for another chance to prove yourself to someone.
But at the end of the day, if you think about it there is no one to prove to but to yourself. You are the witness, and you are who creates the ripples on the waters of reality. You yourself create the rotation of the world.
The world itself is you. All the people in it, all the buildings, the faces, the Alpha and Omega, the whole perfection and imperfection of the world. The wars, the news, the weather, the numbers. Everything. Everything is you. And you is what is happening right here right now.
Ultimately the destination point doesn’t exist. There is nowhere to go. There is no purpose. Everything that was meant to happen has already happened and it is happening right now.
The unique spiritual event that is occurring inside of you right here and right now — this is the result of the chase of your life. And this result shows nothing but one thing —it shows you that the chase is unnecessary.
This is the reason why people need a weekend. To unplug. To slow down and look around themselves. What have you achieved, what have you done with your life, what will people say when you are gone. To ask themselves a question “What will be the epitaph on my tombstone?”
“he went to work, he was a pleasant guy to talk to”
or even better:
“at least he tried”
Should I disappear in the very next moment, my life would be nothing but a handful of ash and all I can hear is the howling behind my window — the winds that will take this ash are rising.
I keep asking myself.
What is the goal? What is the purpose?
We all shall die.
But isn’t it exactly the reason for being alive? To see the beauty of the infinite and uncatchable moment unfolding in front of you.
It is the reason to give your best at this very moment, but this is also the reason to work hard without investing, without increasing importance.
There is nowhere to go. Whatever destination you were aspiring to arrive at all this time, you are already there. And you were there all along.
You are right now whomever you were destined to be. The ‘old you’ is dead. You shed your past identities as a snake sheds its dead skin. The ‘new you’ is never to actually materialize. He is a ghost, a phantom, an eluding idea that flickers on a hazy horizon.
With all the things that you don’t like about yourself. With all the things that others admire in you. Everything that happened up to this moment and everything there is to happen. All is you. You are a self-aware Universe entrapped in a single second.
We are people of Earth. All of us here are stranded warriors. We walk this planet without understanding why we are here. We try to find meaning in anything that has the potential of giving us this sense of stability. Be it religion or politics, nihilism or deep faith, we need this straw to hold on to that would help us not to go completely insane in a crazy world.
We need to believe in something.
But there is no belief if there is no believer. And if you sit down, and close your eyes, breathe, and watch, soon enough you will discover that as a matter of fact there is no believer. You look deep inside, your gaze pierces the darkness, you are trying to reach out and grasp something that would seem real, but there is nothing.
You are emptiness.
There is nothing to take, and there is nothing to give, and if you throw in some more it just disappears inside. You can stand on the edge to hear when that something will hit the bottom. But there is no bottom. The depth of you is endless.
And that scares you. It scares that part of you that is so afraid do disappear. The ego. The ‘you’ that wants to be real but had never and will never have a chance to be real. Everything you are — you have imagined. Everything you think about yourself —it all happened in your head. Everything you are so proud to represent today — is all absorbed from the external world. Nothing you discuss with people on a daily basis has anything to do with the real you. All is taken. We all are walking plagiarisms.
We are born into our bodies, but what we truly are has nothing to do with the vessels we occupy. The vessel is given to us by a chance and it is given to us without our will. Or is it?
Shaped by my culture, my language, my parents, the books, the movies, the music, molded by all the experiences that happened up to this day, like an odd, unprecedented, and unfamiliar abbreviature I look at my name and I think to myself:
What does this word stand for?
I think what I have been taught to think. Everything about me was imported from the external world.
The minds that are given to us are heavily conditioned by the place of origin and we don’t choose a place to be born. It seems like my mind is also given to me without my will by chance. Or is it?
I am a spirit inside of a shell, under an overwhelming illusion that all I am is the shell.
But this is absurd. And that is why I tell myself and I ask you, my reader.
Stop and look around.
Nothing is important. And nothing to worry about. Everything that is to happen has already happened and is happening right here, right now.
We can still build strategies of how to spend our lives, choose realities to experience, look forward to the future, and enjoy the play that is being unraveled on the stage of our lives if we bear in mind that all we see is just a game. Look around, friend. None of this is real.
But we give in to the illusion. We forget our true nature being hypnotized by the spinning of the hamster’s wheel. And this question keeps bugging me:
Why is it so hard to remain self-aware during the racing time?
The more I live the deeper I understand that meditation is not important. It is crucial for good livelihood.
Unless you succeed to separate yourself from this sticky, tenacious ego, it will be controlling you, it will be choking you, sabotaging your goals, affecting your performance, swaying you away from what is important to you.
And if you sit down and think about it, there are not that many things that deserve to be called truly important.
- Your circle (family and friends)
- What you do in this world (your job, your side-job, your mission)
- What you leave behind.
- Remembering who you are in all of this mess happening around.
The list is short. But at the moment I can’t think of something that would matter more. This is my take on these 4.
You should awaken and never fall asleep again. Realize to the depth of your bones, that you are your mind not more than you are your body. Realize that you are everything there is to be, you are enough, and you are complete. For you, it is not good news or bad news. There is no negative or positive connotation to it. You just are.
And when you go into the world, keep in mind. The show is on but at all times it is up to you to choose whether or not you want to be an active participant in it. Behind the myriads of noise, masks, and decorations, there is a deeper river that flows in silence. You are an inner observer. Immovable, unchangeable, boundless.
When you walk in the world do your thing. Do what makes you happy and the world will find an application for you. Yes, on the way of finding the place where you would feel like you belong you will have to go through all the circles of adversity. But eventually, if you make an effort, if you invest your energy, time, and attention you will find your talents, you will understand your higher purpose, and hopefully fulfill it. Do what you do because it matters to you. Do what you do to feed your soul. Some things just make us feel really good. Service to others and hard work are two of them.
I am human. I am a fallen being, and I know how hard it is to be one. If I can help, I help. To the best of my ability. And it is only natural that having this innate urge to help others, I want to create something that would outlive me — something that would continue my service after I am long gone. And what can be better than leaving my thoughts?
I am not a teacher or a preacher.
I am more like a crazy man standing on the streets of downtown who is waving at you with a piece of cardboard that says: “The end is near.” All I want is for you to stop running for a second, sit down and think. Or, if you can do one better — sit and unthink. Try to teach yourself to cease the thought.
I write because I know that you are somewhere there and you are reading. I write because I can see how writing is healing me.
I will finish this one with the phrase that I heard in the Buddist temple last Thursday.
Wherever you go there you are.
Stop thinking for once. Relax, forgive yourself for everything, forget the bad, recall the good and embrace the present moment. And don’t forget to take a deep breath before you continue running. It will always remind you who you truly are.
Thank you for reading this essay.
If you would like to learn more about my work, here is my book “Meditations of the Millennial”.
If you want to support me on my mission, please, share this book with someone you love. Maybe they will find what they seek on its pages.
