If you really stop to think about it, to whittle down human existence to its rawest essence, each of us has but one of two choices to make: invest our lives in the outside world, or turn inward to find the source of the one said to be experiencing that world (and itself in it).
That’s really it.
Perhaps this is why, when asked to sum up the world’s spiritual, religious, and mystical teachings into a single word, Ramana Maharshi answered: attention. As in, whatever we focus on is what we are.
I’m pretty sure this also explains why the world’s great religious and spiritual traditions admonish us to avoid focusing on money, graven images/idolatry, the neighbor’s wife, those who wrong us. Anything ‘out there’ is a distraction, a detour away from what truly matters.
But because of the way we are molded by parents, siblings, culture, circumstances, etc., our default setting – the only setting we have, really – is outward looking. By the time we really emerge onto the scene, our roles have been cast, all the world a stage, you and I its players.
Ergo the call to compassion, a recognition that each of us is blindly reciting from an inherited script with no idea how we arrived on stage, how the story ends, or who created the production in the first place.
Too often we make the mistake of thinking we are working on ourselves through, say, exercise, diet, counseling, education, career. It is akin to damming or redirecting a river rather than seeking its source.
In his book, Perfect Brilliant Stillness, David Carse cites the advice of teachers who urge their students to turn away from the outside world and dive deep to find that which is said to be experiencing the world.
Nisargadatta Maharaj used to tell his listeners repeatedly, ‘Back up. Go back.’ Whatever level you are at, whatever place you are thinking or experiencing from, go back from there, find the place or the level which is before that, prior to that.
No doubt, this also is why the mystics and masters urged us toward silence – it is silence from whence we (and this universe) emerged, and it is silence to which we return. Silence is our real home.
Alas, we live in an era when mental chatter and noise are our constant companions. A single, simple example: At the local gym, I marvel at the endless sources of distraction. Music blares from the sound system; dozens of televisions surround us with a wide variety of content; every machine allows access to various forms of data and still more forms of media consumption; most of the ears are directly or wirelessly connected to smartphones; between (or even during) sets eyes are glued to those same smartphone screens lest they miss a single text, social media post, heart rate reading.
Even when I seek sanctuary in the local wood, I routinely come across hikers with earbuds feeding their brains, the need for (addiction to?) mental stimulation/noise seemingly insatiable.
It’s a difficult time for those who seek the inner path. But if we do, bit by bit, maybe even atom by atom, the outer world loses some of its pull, and that, at least here, is cause enough for celebration.
Even if I’m wrong, what’s the alternative? More of same – to be lost in and confounded by a world mad with confusion and noise, hyperbole and silliness, cruelty and confusion.
Fortunately, something – that still, quiet voice within – calls to us, but can be heard only if we make the choice to shut out the noise long enough to hear it. Wrote Rumi:
Sometimes you hear a voice through the door, calling you, as a fish out of water hears the surf’s ‘come back!’ This turn toward what you deeply love saves you.
