The mind can’t find awareness.

Ever.

But it will help you look for it anyway!

That’s the paradox of the spiritual search: trying to find what already is.

The mind loves it.

After conventional studying and creating careers and becoming better at stuff and all kinds of apparently necessary improvements, it can now lose itself in a whole new endeavor: Expedition Enlightenment.

The hazardous, long journey to the Land of Awareness.

And there are so many roads that can be traveled, so many books to read, so many teachers to revere, and so many sacred activities and habits to adopt.

A sheer buffet of possibilities to overcome an endless amount of obstacles.

It can take years, it WILL take years, but you’re getting closer.

The meditation that was so boring in the beginning, now lasts much longer, and there are days you are craving your sacred cushion more than anything else.

You have become more loving and compassionate, your voice has become softer, and your lifestyle has changed.

There’s yoga now, and you feel the urge to protect the innocent on a global scale.

So it’s going okay, you’re working hard, and yet…

You’re not there.

There are glimpses.

But the mind, your true and loyal and arduous companion at first, has now turned into an arrogant guide and a divine judge, and it’s always demanding more, and it’s always ready to be disappointed.

And so are you.

When will it happen?

Until one day you might realize that all the searching, all the improving, all the losing of unwanted things and the acquiring of missing stuff and the collecting of spiritual medals, has always already been powered by awareness.

No part of your life, no element, not a single breath, no burning failure or glorious victory, no moment of despair or rage, could have existed without being aware.

It has always been there, illuminating your world, unconditionally.

Breathing life into all your experiences.

And maybe at that moment, you’ll see that the mind is nothing but a clever creation, an activity, WITHIN awareness.

Awareness was first, before, and after.

You have been using the light of a flashlight, to find the flashlight.

What you were looking for, was looking.

Always.

Always, aware.

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(Photo by @ross_savchyn, for Unsplash)