Why & For What Do We Seek?

On Monday, to mark the official start of reading Stephen Cope's The Wisdom of Yoga over this summer, I asked you to think about two main questions:

Why do you seek? For what do you seek?

Upon writing them down, I realized that I needed some time myself to think about these two very central questions.

I think they are important to answer as specifically as possible, because they can uncover false needs and true needs.

Before getting into the answers too much, I wanted to touch upon some videos I had the happy privilege of stumbling across this week at Linda's Yoga Journey. If you go to her site, you can watch the first of a series of videos of Mark Whitwell speaking about this issue of seeking.

(Let me say, I am adoring this guy. Nadine Fawell speaks highly of him also, and I totally "get" what he means by "stop meditating," which I would love to have on a t-shirt.)

He asserts, and I believe he is correct, that humans seeking God is like a fish seeking water. Otherwise, we already have that which we seek. We don't need to work at being who we essentially are.

The contrary part of me asks him: well, then what the heck is the point of doing yoga -- which he teaches -- or studying spiritual text and all this other stuff that I do almost every day!?

The answer is rather obvious: even though we already have that which we seek, we must be awake to this knowledge.

Upon awakening to this knowledge, we then must strengthen the muscle of Constant Effort (that the Dalai Lama is always referring to) so that we stay awake.

Back to the questions: why and for what do I, Christine, seek?

The answer to both comes from the same moment in my life: my near death experience at the age of six or seven when I almost drowned.

I believe that that experience was given to me.

I believe that nearly dying saved my life.

I believe in a benevolent universe/infinite divine/God/Goddess because of that experience.

As a child, my life could be very scary, and it only got scarier as the years went by. But always, I carried this jewel inside myself, this knowing.

I knew that this material life was not it. I knew that there was more. I knew that there was a reason for it all.

And so as I got older, I did not then try to drown myself -- in alcohol or drugs or any truly self-destructive behavior. Instead, I have always been working toward healing, toward finding peace.

I seek because I know there is more; I have firsthand experience of that fact.

What do I seek?

I want to swim in that knowing twenty four hours a day, seven days a week. More precisely, I want to effortlessly float in it.

I do yoga; I pray; I follow the path that is my bliss...all because I know that I contain the universe and all so that I can sit down, close my eyes, and see and feel that universe inside me.

(Photo Credit: Christine C. Reed, Closed Peony, 2009)