How your endless seeking is killing you
And how to stop it
“Trying to improve upon yourself is like trying to improve upon God which is just stupid, and you will get madder and madder in trying that. You will not arrive anywhere and you will have missed a great opportunity.“ Osho
If you truly want to wake up, you must transcend your ego. You must know what your ego is, recognize how it is acting out and put it in the back seat of your psyche. Or forever remain in its fearful grip.
This is the third of five practical articles on the ego and how it behaves. The five main clues, or five red flags, that alert you to your ego are:
Judging
Blaming
Endless seeking
Controlling
Regretting and worrying
This article is on endless seeking.
Although we all seek in a variety of ways, much of it is unhealthy. We often think that we must seek in order to get anything done and that goal setting and ambition are good and normal. As you will see here, ego-based seeking places us all on an endless treadmill, without ever finding permanent peace or satisfaction. But as you begin to see how your egoic mind works and the problems is causes, with a bit of effort, you can slowly let it go and be truly be free.
What’s wrong with seeking?
Seeking means that you either want to “get more” or want to “be more.” You want things to be somehow better than they are or you think that you need to improve somehow. In essence you cannot accept things as they are. Therefore, you spend your life trying to change everything, including yourself.
This desire to seek is caused by your ego, who, in its sense of isolation and separation feels empty and thus seeks external satisfaction. It does not believe that you are good enough or that you have enough. Your ego always thinks it needs more and must be more. It lives in a state of permanent scarcity, never reaching its goal. As Pema Chodron says,
“One of the things that keeps us unhappy is this continually searching for pleasure or security, searching for a little more comfortable situation, either at the domestic level or at the level of mental peace.“
Rather than trust that it is supplied and sufficient, the ego goes about trying to fill a deep empty feeling (the void) with all kinds of external stuff and all types of self-improvements. A big indicator of this egoic seeking is the word “should.” If you think you “should” improve yourself or that things “should” be different, then the ego is usually at play.
The Wanting Machine
In his book “Boundless Awareness” Michal Rodrigues describes this seeking as a “wanting machine” that somehow thinks that we are not whole or that something is missing. He suggests that as we awaken to our egos, we come to discover that we are naturally whole and complete and that we had simply been conditioned to think and feel otherwise. He urges us to remove the “thought-feeling” or else it will lead to profound loneliness and sadness:
Awakening is not a “positive experience” or even a “gain” but simply the loss of the super-imposed thought-feeling that there is something missing lacking or wrong. There is nothing missing, lacking or wrong! … If you do not see this mechanism clearly it will continue to recycle in a painful process of endless seeking, It drives profound loneliness and deep existential sadness.”
To make matters worse, while you are in this state of perpetual wanting, the wanting actually creates more dissatisfaction, as described here by Steve Taylor:
“In the sleep state [egoic mind] our dissatisfaction with our lives as they are- together with the impulse from our psychological discord – puts us in a state of constant wanting. We feel a constant desire to escape our dissatisfaction by wanting more of what we already have or to replace what we have. … And we often get trapped in a vicious circle. Wanting is generated by dissatisfaction, and the very act of wanting creates further dissatisfaction. “
As well, society supports our seeking by continually telling us that we need to buy more things and we constantly need to improve. This, of course, leads to anxiety and stress, as suggested here:
“All the cultures in the world have been poisoning the human mind because they all depend on one thing: Improve yourself. They all create anxiety in you – anxiety is the tense state between that which you are and that which you should be. People are bound to remain anxious if there is a “should” in life. If there is an ideal to be fulfilled, how can you be at ease?” Osho
The wound of the heart
At the deepest level, we often look outside ourselves for more because our ego has convinced us that at some level we are not quite enough. We are not worthy, not lovable and not loved.
One of my favorite authors, John Welwood, suggests that this the biggest “wound” of all of humankind. He calls it the “wound of the heart,” or a deep-seated suspicion created in childhood, that tells us we are not lovable as we are. He describes it as an icy place and the cause of so many of our personal problems:
“A cold black hole forms the psyche where they [children] start to believe they are insignificant, unimportant or lacking in beauty and goodness. This icy place of fear is what gives rise to …the emotional assaults that go on inside ourselves and our relationship.”
The problem is not just that we harbour a fear of not being good enough, but also that when we feel this fear, we try to fill it with things from the material world; things outside of ourselves.
Any struggle is seeking
Indeed, any struggle at all can be seen as wanting. As Osho says: “The very idea that you have a goal, makes you an island; you are no longer part of the vast continent of life.” He suggests that all struggle is unnecessary and that once we truly understand life, we can float with it and stop pushing:
“It is the involved people who struggle, because they have certain ideas of what has to be done. They want the world to be a certain way; it has to be changed. They become so involved that they cannot sleep. … the whole night is lost in arranging and fighting and changing things. Out of our understanding, not of our enforced practicing, you start floating with life. Then all is okay; then you don’t push.“
The bottom line is that in an egoic-state we believe that we must endlessly seek. Yet, as we begin to recognize this belief and the egoic insanity, can slowly shift and come to realize that seeking is not only destructive, but entirely unnecessary.
So, if you find yourself seeking just notice it. Notice how it feels to endlessly seek and how it feels to accept things as they are. Don’t be surprised if your ego keeps putting pressure on you. Slowly as you put your ego in its proper place, you will feel less inclined to seek, allow things to unfold more naturally and feel more at peace.
Here are some non-seeking behaviors:
I set intentions and rarely specific goals
I don’t feel I need to constantly improve
I allow things to unfold naturally
I enjoy sitting in silence
I allow my mind to let go of “should”
I can relax my busy mind
I don’t struggle or push things to happen
I invite others to agree, rather than persuade, convince, or manipulate
In my next entries I talk about:
Red Flag 4: Controlling
Red Flag 5: Regret and Worry
If you want to be notified when they are posted please sign up for my Substack (it’s totally free forever).
This is an excerpt from the book I am writing: “Wake the F Up.” Thanks for joining me on the journey! This Substack is completely supported by you the readers. The best way to support me is to buy my books, invite me to speak or become a subscriber here.