Seeking is the Antithesis to Finding

Be a Finder of the Happy Dream

I call myself a reluctant spiritual seeker, mostly because I spent over half my life as a devote atheist and fell into spirituality unexpectedly. I’m coming to grips that “seeking” is a big old ruse that’s becoming more obvious by the day. I’ve known this for some time, but the kaleidoscope dropped into greater focus after writing a recent piece for my meditation class on joy and happiness.

And maybe, just like me, with the simple mention of these two familiar words—joy, happiness—the corners of your mouth turned up ever so slightly, even in light of what’s happening in the world. And it’s true. Just the thought of a positive state of being can evoke a sense of what’s possible, but I didn’t fully understand that possibility for a very long time.

In fact, I’ve been earnestly exploring my relationship with joy since I had a sleeping dream of awakening somewhere around my 38th birthday. It’s actually hard to remember the exact timing as my life was filled with so much unhappiness and unconsciousness back then, but I believe it may have been the summer of 2001 when I placed my tired, overworked, cerebral head on the pillow that night.

The dream was actually pretty vivid. I was standing on the shoulder of a busy highway overpass that was floating mid-air, as you’d expect in a dream. Below and above me, there were roads and highways reaching in every direction, without any sense of ending. On those roads were a cacophony of roaring sounds, beeping horns, arresting smells, and insatiable winds due to hundreds (if not thousands) of cars traveling at unfathomable speeds.

And yet, I wasn’t disturbed or afraid by the chaos, but instead appeared delighted. In fact, I leaned over the metal guardrail and let my body sway to the sounds, my hair move in full unison with the gusts of air moving in one direction and then another, and my arms dance with abandon, which seem to turn up the joy. Through it all, I was somehow tethered firmly in my body, to the ground, and to a flowing source of an aliveness that coursed through my being. I felt like one of those inflatable windsocks you find at gas stations—where forced air makes the silo of fabric look like a person dancing unabashedly.

Next, I became aware of a paradox of stillness and spaciousness emanating from inside myself. Soon there was a growing sense of amusement coming from within this larger unfoldment. The senses reached beyond the ordinary confines of my mind and my body. There was an aliveness that held no resistance to anything. Everything belonged and somehow this everywhereness offered me a deep sense of peace.

From peace, joy seemed to flow even more unencumbered.

Free, I remember feeling, I was totally free; from any sense of past, from my small sense of self, from any remnant of unhappiness.

The moment I had that awareness, I perceived a knowing and loving voice, from inside myself, without hearing any audible words, “You need only choose—anything is possible.”

I laughed at the truth of this message, throwing my head back and letting the acknowledgement ricochet through every cell of my being. I understood I was being called to choose joy as a way of living, as a way of life.

I answered with the exuberance of a child, also without saying any audible words, “YES! YES!”

Until there was only bliss, pure bliss.

Yet, I found this octave of vibration startling, frightening even, so when I heard a distracting thought…I allowed it to garner my full attention: “I wish I could stay here forever.”

And as I followed that thought, I started to wake up.

I opened my eyes and felt the bed holding my deflating body. The stark reality of my living existence moved right to the foreground, so I closed my eyes again in hopes I could return to the dream. But it was too late. My conditioned mind was already showing me a slide show of my actual life: the financial burdens I’d created through apathy, not a lack of means; the deadening reality of the job I’d taken for security, not talent or passion; the emotional estrangement from my teenage children who now lived 1,758 miles away due to my lack of discernment and self-possession, not because I didn’t love them.

Anger and unfettered resentment—my constant and dependable companions—were also there, agitated and attempting to push any sense of relaxation or joy out of my body. Then there was my boyfriend of ten years, laying there beside me and unknowingly sleeping through all the excitement of the dream. For years I’d been expecting my dependency on him to save me, but now I was secretly wondering if he was even capable of saving himself. To say my life was a self-centered melodrama is an understatement and that reality was front and center, yet again.

Since that illuminating night, my life has been lovingly divided into two distinct segments: before the dream and after the dream.

Before the dream, it might be obvious already, I lived a fairly conditioned existence crafted largely by unhelpful mental habits, avoidance of emotional discomfort, fear of the unknown, and unprocessed trauma. As a result, I was looking for happiness in all the wrong places, all of them outside of myself.

After the dream, however, I vowed to live into the question of how to make my life a living example of that happy dream, without the need to fall asleep. For over 23 years I’ve been surprised, humbled, inspired, lifted up by experiences that have given me answers I never expected, time and time again. In combination, those answers can be best summarized in one important quote from renowned spiritual teacher Eckhart Tolle:

“Don't seek happiness. If you seek it, you won't find it, because seeking is the antithesis of happiness. Happiness is ever elusive, but freedom from unhappiness is attainable now.”

But how does one gain freedom from unhappiness?

Since that fateful night in 2001, I’ve come to realize that the guidance I needed to rediscover joy (or love or peace or wisdom or abundance) came through that fleeting dream. Though I’ll also freely admit I’m still learning how to live into those lessons, which I’ll highlight now, working backwards for reasons that will become obvious.

You may recall it was the thought, “I want to stay here forever” that garnered my full attention before I woke up that summer morning. “Here” is the present moment, which is where I am when I’m not in my head thinking about the past (that no longer exists) or a future (that will never be) because only the reality  of “the present moment” really ever exists.

The dysfunction of my life was built around my resistance to the present moment and joy, even though I didn’t know that at the time. So, the minute my eyes opened that morning, I was plummeted by thoughts and feelings meant to remind me why I was so unhappy. And it was true, my life circumstances were less than ideal. My thoughts were pointing to the repercussions of a conditioned mind, which always wanted me to think something important was missing from my life or something I’m attached to might be on the verge of being lost. It would take me two decades to fully grasp that I could actually question those thoughts, instead of following them, getting lost in my mind, and drowning in a sea of unprocessed feelings.

Now it’s so obvious, I was living in a self-fulfilling prophecy. I’ve found those two thoughts alone create all the unhappiness I experience in my life, in a myriad of ways. Yet, I continue to be duped by them all the time, seriously. In fact, I’ll be as bold to say that this sense of not enough or the fear of letting go creates all the dysfunction in the external world. We have a society that chases external pleasure to fill an undefined void many people don’t know how to acknowledge and make distraction an antidote to avoid the displeasure of impermanence that asks us to release what no longer exists. And yet, we can’t transcend what we can’t accept, and we can’t accept until we are fully present with what is.

I understand this, through my own lived dysfunction, which is the reality of being human without a fully awakened heart.

And yes, I’m still suffer fools.

I still fall asleep, often at the expense of my own joy.

But now I know the dream was pointing to an ancient path; one where we understand that happiness and sorrow exist, but there is an inner place that can hold and transcend every passing circumstance, even the more difficult moments, while enjoying happiness for what it is—fleeting and grossly inadequate to joy.

Joy is a choice.

Which leads to the next idea that was introduced in the dream: anything is possible. I believe this notion was pointing to the potential of a dedicated mindfulness and meditation path, one that is crucial for anyone who wishes to reacquaint themselves with joy as a way of life, as a way of being. This path offers access to presence that can be with, have space for, and engage with the thoughts, feelings, and strategies that keep us from fully inhabiting the body, feeling all the sensations of being fully alive, and reaching beyond the five senses for non-ordinary states that come with higher states of consciousness.

This is where we find the hope and faith of a new earth (to use Tolle’s words again) that already exists in each of us.

Unfortunately, I think most of us would agree that to live a joy-filled existence as a way of life could easily be called “non-ordinary” in today’s world, where identification with depression, distraction, conditioned thoughts, contingent happiness, restlessness, speed are the norm. Those symptoms are exacerbated through a confusion between circumstantial pleasure verses a state of being that arises when we are relaxed, in the moment, and experiencing life without any mental filters.

It’s not that conditional pleasure is bad or wrong, it's just temporary and creates suffering when the conditioned mind becomes attached; it doesn’t want something wonderful to end, it wants life to be something it’s not, it wants us to avoid discomfort, and it wants us to be somewhere other than where we are at the moment. The conditioned mind wants us to spend our life seeking, looking, pursuing, striving, achieving…searching for something, someone, anything in the outside world to give us…what we think we’re missing or we’ve lost…but we’re looking in the wrong places.

That’s why Tolle’s words are so integral: seeking is the antithesis of finding. Finding is an inward journey, one predicated on bringing our full attention…our sustained attention…to the present moment, whether on or off a cushion…and this is how we say “YES! YES! to being right here, right now…and choosing unconditional joy (or peace or love or any positive state of being) as a way of life.

None of this would be possible without the gift of awareness, which was highlighted so beautifully in the dream. Here, for the first time, I was introduced to the inner observer that never goes to sleep; even in awakening slumber, something is aware of dreaming. It took me years to understand that if presence is awake during dreaming, it must be readily alert and aware during waking hours.

Can I align with the presence that watches?

Yes! Yes!

I can choose where I place my attention…I can focus and grasp onto the chaos of the external world…or reach deeper inward for what lies beyond the dream of madness: the spaciousness of pure potential, which offers the promise of joy.

And if we listen attentively enough to that space, there’s a voice that beckons us more deeply inward; this is the voice for God. Once you start to heed that voice, you come to realize what blocks our collective awareness of joy’s ever-presence: those thoughts telling us any positive state of being is something to be earned, attained, created…or worse…something to be avoided, withheld, destroyed.

This inner self-discovery of joy can feel incredibly nuanced at times, as joy can absolutely arise from contentment, stillness, peace, as you’d expect, but I’ve also experienced joy even as I’m fully present with anger, sadness and grief. That is, if I don’t heed the ego’s need to project those negative feelings onto others.

Yes! Yes!

This mysterious elixir of life is somehow intertwined within life, within the everywhereness of life, but it requires we reach through the discomfort and noise to rediscover it.

Which brings us back to the opening of the dream, where the interdependent role of the body, the senses that lie beyond the smallness of the conditioned mind, and the spirit were so poignantly highlighted. When this trinity works in unison, the body becomes an important communication device, the expanded senses transport us to a larger reality, and the spirit reminds us that freedom comes from accepting life exactly as it is. This aligning of body, mind, spirit is what creates an inner equilibrium that steadies us, even in the most turbulent of times, and offers access to clarity of action.

And finally, that transports us to the very beginning.

What if each of us have fallen asleep, are living in a dream of our own choosing, and are being called to wake up through the circumstances of our own lives? What if nothing has ever been missing and nothing real has ever been lost, except in our own minds?

I can’t answer that question for you, but I’ve answered it for myself a million times over. I’ve found when I practice being present, I’m incrementally developing my capacity to be fully accepting, fully present with all of life. As a result, I’m slowly waking up to a spacious, placeless reality where there is no lack or loss…and joy is a state of being that is inherent to my true nature.

Yes! Yes!

Coming to that realization takes a sustained commitment to being a finder.

And some days are easier than others.

But, I know, with every cell of my being, there is a promise of a happy dream; one built on peace, and joy, and love—and that’s why I’m still practicing.

I want to live in that dream.