in a spiritual sense, what is it that you want?
Vic Shayne
author
The Enduring Myth of the Buddha: a hero’s journey into enlightenment
What is the meaning of life? What is my place in the world? What is my purpose? Why is there so much suffering and confusion? Questions like these lead people to search for answers, but the search doesn’t always end up in the same place, depending on their ultimate desire for truth. I always tend to go back to one main question: What is it that you want?
A world of ideas leads us down a rabbit hole, but if we know what we want then nothing is that complicated. So, if you want to know who you are, it’s just a matter of observing what you are — what you think about, what you tend to think about, your actions, your reactions, your relationships, who you take yourself to be, and so on. Just take a good, long look at what you are without any criticism, memories, judgments, or knowledge getting in the way.
In knowing what you are there is a certain freedom from it, and to know takes observation and not analysis. This is because you cannot meet one image with another image — the one who wants to know and the one who is observed.
The idea of being enlightened or trying to be enlightened is a goal like any other that requires someone trying to get something that is perceived to be outside of himself. Again, there are two images: enlightenment and the perceived person trying to get it. Someone on the internet explained this as a person saying, “Here is the prize, and I have the key.” Well said. But on the other hand, a great many people, perhaps most, really just want to listen to someone pontificate on the meaning of life. It’s a satisfying mental and emotional exercise and there are plenty of so-called teachers to supply this balm. But if you just want to know who you are then observation is the only way. All the stuff about the “I,” the self, consciousness, paths, rituals, ideas, spirituality, meditation, and so on, get in the way.
The Buddha put things succinctly when he narrowed everything down into three words: Life is suffering. You can think about this statement alone for years and it takes on different shades of meaning. For most, the path to end suffering is through distraction, whether it’s drugs, sports, entertainment, sex, music, work, or whatever. But for others there is a yearning to be free of everything and just get to the hard cold facts of life. Their question is something more like, “Who am I and why do I suffer?” or, “What is life really about?”
This is a very personal path, one that is meant to find out what you are in your own way and on your own schedule, however you come to it. I think Joseph Campbell describes this path best as the hero’s journey. There are all sorts of myths that are available to lead you to your own enquiry. I tried to explain this in my book called The Enduring Myth of the Buddha. The story of the Buddha leads people from the first inclination to understand and rid himself of suffering to the end of the story with something called enlightenment. If you take this story to heart then you don’t become a follower, you become whole. But most people seem to want to be followers and let others dictate their sense of being to them. They want to live secondhand lives. It’s why we have religion and all other sorts of institutions that create and foster a sense of identity and attachment.
