The mind is never going to let you do less. It’s always going to tell you that there is still something else to do, something else you must acquire, some piece of information that you must have in order to be happy, fulfilled, something you need in order to make it as a human being. You are incomplete and you will remain so until you finally “make it”, says the mind. The mind will tell you that you will be happy after you get your next promotion… but you won’t be. You’re either more stressed or you’re planning on how you are going to get yet another promotion. It will tell you that once you attend another meditation retreat, you will finally have “it”. Once you read the latest Deepak Chopra book, awakening will dawn. All your worries and fears will fade away and you can finally bask in the resplendent glory of enlightenment.
These are stories your mind creates. Stories that we have been conditioned socially and individually to believe. Stories that tell us that “I have to constantly create, I have to constantly buy, I have to leave a legacy, I must have the best car, the biggest house, I am a middle class American and I thereby must fulfill these various roles given to me by society so that I can make it. So that I can be somebody.” But these roles are pointless illusions. Once you make it, there’s always something else to become. This level of being never leads to fulfillment. It never leads to a place in time where you are embraced with a sense of expansiveness wherein you exclaim, “I am happy! I am alive! I am vibrant!” No. Instead we often choose to just make it by, day by day, lifetime after lifetime. Sadly,f we exist in a languishing state of survival instead of thriving while missing all of the life happening right before us because we are so caught in dealing with a future that has yet to manifest or dwelling in a dead past that we can not fix.
There is an alternative. The alternative exists in seeing the lies of the mind for what they are. The alternative is to uncover the illusions, via silence and rampant, voracious self inquiry. To vigilantly stop. Stop here. Stop now. Stop and know that this already is the pinnacle. This already is what you wish to achieve. It’s already here. In the present moment. You don’t need to continue to strive, to keep pushing it away into the future. You can bask in the resplendent glory that you are and always have been right now. Strip your fears away and be. Embrace your sacrosanct nature. Embrace your wholeness. Embrace your stillness. And embrace the vastness that is the true you, unfettered by the lies of society. I don’t mean to imply that we should not have goals or aspirations. Yes! By all means we want to make something of our lives, create this dance in the most magnificent way possible. However, choose your choreography from a place of balanced stillness rather than a frenetic search for fulfillment that will not be attained. Happiness is found in our stillness, not in our constant running toward things we think will complete us.