Mon, Dec 09, 2019
By QUSAI MAHESRI
As we traverse this physical reality that we call “Our World”, we often come to a point when we ask the existential question: What am I doing here in this “World” of ours – What is the purpose for my existence? And at that point is usually when the inner journey begins…
My inner journey started many years ago, one late evening in Khandala (a hillside community in India). I had just finished a very philosophical and interesting conversation with my uncle/mentor and was getting ready for bed. In the guest room, there was a cabinet filled with books that had not been touched for decades. For some reason, I was drawn to them, so I dusted off the cobwebs from one of the books and started reading. I didn’t realize that I had been reading for hours until I finally looked up and saw dawn begin to break. The book I could not stop reading was “Many Lives, Many Masters” by Brian Weiss.
Although the book is about past life regression therapy, it made me realize that our physical mind-body is just a very small part of our non-physical energy (some call it source energy). It was one of those epiphanies that almost magically removes all the haziness and shows a clear picture of who we really are in this Universal Cosmos. I sighed, smiled and fell asleep … I knew something substantial had just happened within me. My inner journey had just begun.
My definition of the inner journey is that it is a lifelong quest to find your “True Self”. When someone asks the question “who are you?”, one usually says: “I am John Doe, I am doctor, and am married with two kids.” Is this not the True Self? Well, not really. What you have just described are the personas or roles that we play in this physical world. We are a lot more than that; we are timeless beings in an envelope of the mind-body–what we refer to as our existence in this physical world.
The question I am asked most often is this: “Why is it important for me to find my True Self?” And my answer is usually another question: “What are you looking for in this Life?” A majority of you have said “happiness, contentment, joy” and so on. And how do you intend to find this happiness, joy, etc.? The answer always boils down to “If I do this, and get that, and am at this point in my career or personal life, I will be Happy!”
What we have just created is a conditional road to Happiness & Contentment. Again, this is something that we are all conditioned to believe in. From the time we were children, we were told if you work hard, you will do well. If you achieve these things (whatever they may be), you will be happy. This is embedded in our belief system. We keep trying to find conditions, then try to be happy when we get close to that condition by usually finding another condition! I am sure you are seeing the futility of this process.
The path to eternal Happiness has been espoused for centuries in holy books and scriptures. There have been countless books written in the last few decades that dwell on these concepts. They all have a common theme–mainly that Contentment or True Happiness is possible when we are truly “Present”, and that only occurs when our physical mind-body is aligned with our True Self.
That’s why it is so important for us to start our inner journey; that is the beginning of understanding our True Self and starting the process of aligning with it. So, the next time you think about who you are, or what Happiness is, ask yourself some of these questions–it might lead you to the beginning of your quest to finding your True Self.
