What do you really want?
There is a fire that burns inside each of us – a fire that can’t be quenched with knowledge (of the intellectual sort), that can only be satisfied by resolving deep within our being the Big Question: Who/ What am I? What is Real/ True? Why am I here?“Life is suffering” is one translation of the first of the Buddha’s Four Noble Truths. We are all suffering. We all want things we don’t have and we all have things we don’t want. This is the cause of our suffering.
So, if this is the simple truth, why can’t we simply end our suffering by fully concurring with our lives – having what we have and wanting nothing more or less?
Believe it or not, the answer to this question is that we have lost touch with what we really want, and have substituted a whole lot of other things for what we most deeply yearn. We go around thinking that if only we had enough money, sex, power, drugs and alcohol, knowledge, etc., we would finally be happy. But no amount of any of these things will satisfy us because this is not what we really want. (By the time you have gotten around to reading my book "Heartwork: How To Get What You Really REALLY Want", you have probably figured this out for yourself.) The more of these things we get, the more we want. And we can never be fully satisfied – can never find the peace and fulfillment we are longing for.
One reason none of these things bring us happiness is that all of these longings are outward/ future focused. They are all predicated on attaining something that we don’t already have. And happiness can only HAPPEN now, in this very moment. One cannot be happy in the future! And as long as we are focused on achieving something greater in the future which will finally satisfy our longing, we can never be happy.
But the main reason none of these things bring us peace and happiness is that they’re not what we really hunger for. What we really long for is our True Selves – our wholeness, in and of ourselves, and our connectedness, with others and the Universe/God. And these things we already have; we don’t have to go searching for them outside ourselves. The problem is that we don’t know – that is, we have forgotten – that we already have these treasures, that we already are whole and complete and connected to all life.
(end of Part 1 - Part 2 coming soon)