Longing

As a friend once said to me some time ago when I told him that I was longing for something, "well, when you're longing, you're already there."

That's another, perhaps better way of saying that whatever 'it' is that we're longing for is right under our nose. It's not necessarily a practical thing, not necessarily something we have to do. Yes, part of the longing is a desire to connect and express the longing in a practical, tangible way, to share it with others and create sangha (spiritual community) but the fundamental thing, the thing that has to come first, and is in fact perhaps the only thing we really need, is the longing.

We're never gonna find 'it' out 'there' cause when you feel longing you've already got it within you. It's already there. But thinking that what we long for is somewhere out 'there' undermines us really embracing and living the longing that we're already in touch with. It undermines us just being with it.

All you have to do is just be with the longing and you're 'there' and so there's nowhere to get to, nothing to get, no standard of x, y or z to achieve or whatever. Just embrace, immerse yourself in, be present to the longing. But paradoxically, in embracing the longing some form of expression will work it's way out of you, through you. The chrysalis will give birth to a butterfly, "to a dancing star."

But THE thing that holds us back, that most often stops us from embracing the longing is shame. That's the no.1 demon. We all have it. Essentially shame is not feeling good enough and so we freeze, we don't act, we look to some imaginary, unreal external thing that we think will fulfill us but it won't, it can't, cause it doesn't exist out 'there'. It exists in here, now, within us.

So just remember that when you're longing, you're already there.

If you fancy, click on the picture below and see where it takes you...