The Courage of the Seeker
Today I’ll be talking about the courage that seekers show—people who are walking the path like you—when they become aware or they try to sustain this awareness in a broken world.
A World Designed to Distract
In society and culture, it asks you to define yourself by what you consume or how you appear.
The system wants you to be perpetually stimulated and perpetually unsatisfied. So the system is designed so that you stay distracted and numb, so that the deeper questions are never heard.
And the system does not like it when you step out.
Society and culture do not like it when you question it, when you go against the flow, when you rebel, because the system wants you to be a mindless, unconscious drone.
And after you’re born, there is a constant pressure from all sides—from peers, family, parents, and media—to become part of this unconsciousness.
The Discomfort of Awareness
Once you start being still or being spiritual, people around you start finding that uncomfortable.
The culture calls your depth overthinking, and it keeps suggesting that maybe you are going down the wrong path.
And every moment you have walked the path, every time you’ve picked up a book, every time you’ve sat down to meditate, every time you have questioned the conditioning, you have rebelled against this entire system.
And that takes a tremendous amount of courage.
It is not an easy task to go against the collective unconsciousness, and being aware comes with its own challenges, which I think the spiritual path does not acknowledge.
Because once you start seeing with clarity, you start seeing unconsciousness everywhere.
You see people around you running on autopilot, and you feel it.
You feel the loneliness of being the one who notices the system, who notices all these cultural norms, who notices the unkindness, the hatred, the pain, the suffering.
And so there is that loneliness of being awake in this world which is sleeping.
And so you looked at the package which society was offering you—the package of identity, the package of comfort, of being numb, of being happy and shallow.
And you said no.
You said no, I do not want this.
And that refusal requires a lot of strength.
Honoring Your Journey
And before I go on, I want you all to take a minute and to see how far you have come.
Spiritual seekers are always very critical about each and every thought that arises in their mind.
They’re critical of their desires.
They’re critical when they’re angry, when they’re anxious.
Why am I feeling this?
But have you ever taken time to celebrate how far you have come?
Shouldn’t you honor yourself for keeping this light alive in a system, in a world, in a society which does not honor this light, and which wants you to become one of its unconscious drones?
So take a minute, see where you were in life, how far you have come, how many years you’ve spent reading different books, going to different teachers, attending retreats, the late nights you’ve spent thinking about consciousness and the meaning of life.
Each and every action, each and every step that you took needs to be honored, needs to be celebrated because it was an act of courage.
So I’ll just give you a minute.
Swimming Against the Current
When you’re walking the spiritual path, you’re swimming against the current every day, and this is a current of collective anxiety.
It’s a current of culture that has made greed, deception, ego, and narcissism its highest virtue.
And staying present requires you to keep choosing against that strong current every minute of the day.
And most people don’t have to do this work, they just go with the flow.
They’re blissfully unaware, carried by the mind.
So again, it is a noble endeavour.
You’re swimming against the current.
It’s a very worthy and honourable path.
The Weight of Seeing Clearly
And being aware means when you sit through everyday dinners with family, you hear the same conversations which have been going on for years.
People arguing in the same fashion, being defensive, talking from their egos.
You can see it all, but seeing it doesn’t make you immune to it.
It makes everything more vivid, sharper.
You feel what they feel.
Plus, you feel the weight of your noticing that you’re aware.
Now you’re awake.
So that’s the cross which seekers have to carry.
Because once you awaken, you see the injustice, you see the pain, you see people killing each other, people destroying others, people destroying nature.
And something in you cries out because it’s awake, it’s aware.
It cries out when it sees all this injustice, disharmony.
And again, that’s a cross which anyone who walks on the spiritual path has to carry.
Sensitivity and Awakening
When you awaken, you become more sensitive.
When you’re awake, your mind becomes more righteous.
And that’s the movement when you move towards the light.
In Sanskrit we call it Sattva.
So the movement is from darkness to light.
And of course then there is the final movement which transcends all this.
So there is a movement which transcends the light and the darkness, which transcends the sensitivity, which transcends the pain.
But before that transcending can happen, you become awake to it.
And again, that requires courage because it’s so simple to fall asleep and then you don’t have to carry this cross.
The Path You Chose
There is a simpler life that was available to all of you, you know—no seeking, no waking up.
But you didn’t choose that.
You chose this path and that means something.
And for those who are today here and who have been for years struggling with their mind and struggling with different theories and philosophies and teachers and Advaita and Buddhism, I would like to say that you would have had moments of clarity and then you would have watched those moments of clarity dissolve, and then the old usual doubt and darkness come in.
But you still chose consciousness when unconsciousness was very freely available and recommended.
So I’ll just repeat the sentence.
You chose consciousness when unconsciousness was freely available and highly recommended by society and the people around you.
Recognition Never Arrives
And no one around you will acknowledge that.
No one will throw you a parade saying that, “Oh, you have woken up, you are going against the current.”
Your family will not thank you for staying with the discomfort and the pain while they are watching the next Netflix show, and the world will not give you a medal for keeping your heart open or having all this love and compassion.
And surprisingly, for a seeker, it doesn’t even matter.
On some level, they’re not even looking for that recognition.
And what I mean to say is that recognition never arrives.
And the reason I’m bringing this all up and naming it is because most of the time society is structured in a way where it belittles people who are not in positions of power or money or greed or violence or deception or strength.
But they don’t realize it is the seekers and spiritual people who are silently holding the framework of society.
If everyone becomes asleep, how long will society last?
How long will civilization last?
The Small Acts of Courage
So even though society and your friends and your neighbors can’t see that sacrifice, the courage that you all show, it shows in small things.
Whenever you choose to be aware rather than look at your phone, that’s going against the current.
Whenever you choose acceptance over reaction, that one small step is moving towards the light.
It’s breaking the conditioning.
And though, as I said, society will never celebrate this, seekers need to learn to celebrate this aspect of their journey as well.
It’s a beautiful path you’re walking.
You’ve come far.
And it’s all right to be critical and look for the future, look for the states of bliss and enlightenment and what should be and what could be.
But sometimes you should just take a moment to honor yourself for coming this far, for choosing to stay awake, for choosing to stay aware, for choosing to be spiritual in a system and a society which is designed for the opposite.
The Reward
And it’s not only always struggle and pain.
So that’s one part of the journey.
Of course, there is a reward, and the reward is a depth which others have not felt.
The reward is a grounding, a sense of being, a vast silence, and an understanding that you’re not the mind.
A recognition that whatever happens are just passing clouds in the sky.
That you’re vast.
That you’re timeless.
That you’re spaceless.