Tuesday, January 26, 2016

Seeking the Unknown, part 4

The seeker is maladjusted, but he is not seeking adjustment.

The ambitious man seeks to transform himself, to be free from his troublesome desires and his fears.  But the seeker must first accept himself as he is.  With all the desires and contradictions and instincts and drives and I daresay, even ambitions.

The seeker is never very serious about his desires or ambitions, but they might exist.  He might even be aware and ashamed of them.  But the journey cannot start with shame and a desire to be rid of oneself.  That personality is not that of a seeker, but that of a disturbed individual who is seeking a self-image that is better than his current one.

The seeker must start his aimless journey with a full acceptance of the absurdity of himself, his desires, his existence and the universe.  The seeker starts by negating all aims and goals.  And then he ventures out, and starts the exploration about oneself and the world without an end in mind.

Exploration without a destination is the essence of seeking.

To seek happiness is not to seek the unknown.  To seek happiness is frequently to want to regress to a state where stress is non-existent, to go back to the womb.  To seek happiness is usually to want to be free from anxiety and fear.

The seeker embraces anxiety and fear.  The seeker is almost like an outlaw who wishes to break from regulation and restriction.  The Cool Hand Luke who doesn't want to hurt anybody, but who is likely to be punished by society for failing to fit in.

In Hermann Hesse's Narcissus and Goldmund, Goldmund is more of a seeker than his friend in the monastery.  It is a mistake to assume that only they seek who retreat from the world into the self.

A seeker that only explores inwardly is limiting his seeking.  Why shouldn't he be at a brothel and a jail and a burial ground and a cathedral and a war-zone as part of his exploration?  Why shouldn't he try an entheogen?  The hallmark of a seeker is someone who doesn't shy away from experiencing.  He might be careful and avoid danger, but he will not be shy.

A seeker is unafraid to be naked.  He welcomes to have his persona cursed and nailed to the cross.

It can be argued that Christ was laughing when he died.

(to be continued)

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