The Search

The Search

Every human life is, in its own way, a search. Some search for meaning, others for success, others for love, peace, happiness or simply a sense of belonging. Each person’s search is uniquely shaped by their inner landscape—their experiences, their questions, their wounds, their hopes and dreams.

What makes searching so powerful is not just the object of the search, but the awareness that comes with it. When you are truly searching, your eyes and heart are tuned differently. You recognize what you are looking for when it comes your way. Without that search, the same thing might appear before you, yet pass unnoticed, like a book left unopened on the shelf of your own life, never read or explored.  It is in the seeking that you find what you are looking for, even though when you are not quite sure what shape or form that will take, but there is a faith, an inner knowing, that you will recognize that “something” when it crosses your path.

What are you searching for right now?

Think about it: What are you searching for right now? And how would you know when you’ve found it?  Two people can walk through the same garden. One will see only flowers. The other sees medicine for their soul. The difference is not in the garden, but in the searcher, the seer, in the attitude of mind of the soul.

Searching requires effort—restlessness, movement, questioning. Yet what is often found is not something “new” at all, but something that was always present. Always there. It was hidden not by distance, but by inattention. The search, and the intention act like the headlights on a car to clear the fog.  And … eventually you find your way.

The secret is to become a happy traveller on the journey of life.

The secret is to become a happy traveller on the journey of life.  When we are focused too much on the destination we fail to appreciate the wonder of the side scenes of life whilst we are on the journey.  But if we come to trust the plan for our life and become a co-creator in the process of life, basically if we have faith, we know that we will arrive where we are meant to be and it will be OK.

Many a world travelling backpacker, setting out for an adventure, can tell us that their seeking brought them full circle.  A seeker will often find the answers to their questions; that the peace and happiness they were searching were exactly at the place where they began!

What have you overlooked in your own life?  That might already hold the key and part of the answer you’re seeking. Sometimes the deepest searches are not for external things, but for alignment within. To find the place where one’s actions and values meet, where one feels at home in the world. This kind of searching can be quiet, invisible to others, yet it transforms everything in our life.

Meditation is the tool of the inner explorer. Perhaps the most beautiful part of searching is this: the moment you find what you are looking for, you instinctively know it. There is a sense of recognition, a deep: “Yes.  This is it!  I have found what I have been searching for.”  Even if words cannot explain it. Without the search, that moment might never come. With the search, it arrives and feels like a homecoming.

Are you searching deeply enough to recognize what is already waiting for you?

So, whether you call it a search, a quest, or a deep longing, it is worth honouring, to listen to the cues, the signs and signals that are presented to us in the drama of life and to take note of them. To search is to stay awake to life. To search is to keep one’s heart open. To search is to make oneself ready for the miracle of recognition.

Are you searching deeply enough to recognize what is already waiting for you?  And are you ready to receive that deep inner wisdom and deep insight?  Or are you just a spectator and easy surfer of life?

It’s Time… to recognize what it is we are searching for.