For Certainly Thou Art so Near the Gulf, Thou Needs Must Be Englutted.

Why are we searching and what are we searching for?  What is it that compels the will to seek something more, something better, something superior than what is right here and right now?  Perhaps it is the legacy of survival.  Perhaps we are always subconsciously striving to find the bigger prey, or the more secure shelter, or the healthiest and best-looking mate in order that the species might survive.  The same imperative may well inform the spiritual search:  the mission to improve our souls, to understand fully, and to exist completely and holistically in the consciousness that makes reality appear.  A vague unsettled-ness pervades our perception.  The feeling that something is missing, and that things are never complete and accepted just as they are may very well be a healthy urge to constantly better our circumstances, and put off the death of the body and the mind by virtue of stabler shelter, ever more protective and loving relationships, and increasingly healthy and satisfying food.  The "spiritual" goals of  losing ourselves completely in existence, and flowing unhindered with the energies of life, is reflected in our fear-driven urges and instincts.  They reflect beautifully, in duality, the oneness that they actually are. 

In losing one's self, a symptom of less fear is more compassion.  Compassion may seem to go against the grain of survival, as it shows mercy to those whose bodies and minds are not best suited for mere survival, and yet paradoxically strengthens our social bonds and thus further ensures that our species endures.  On the coat-tails of compassion comes great humility and possibly the clear perception of the size of all things.  Then we know the survival of the species is not necessarily important.  However consciousness (or awareness, or God, or Brahman, or whatever label we put on totality) manifests is perfection.  It manifests joyfully, whatever the face of it; the jumble of  horror and bliss that makes the whole cannot be molded into some logical package.  We question, and the question is its own answer.  We struggle, and the struggle is its own resolution.  We falter, and that error is Being's exquisite statement of the faultless imperfection of humanity. And we land where we began, with everything everywhere, here and now, fought with or accepted, or perhaps both at once.  The search is the destination. Here is the answer; there is no other.


The Addams Family films are right up my street, or rather down my poorly-lit alley. Interestingly, the original television series starred the great John Astin as Gomez, who is the father of non-duality writer and singer/songwriter John Astin. This clip is for all my Native American friends, all my Swedish friends and all fans of justice.  Happy Thanksgiving!