Practices From the Inside Out: What Are We Trying to Find?

What Are We Trying to Find?

The reasons people become interested in spiritual life are as different as they are.

We may get started in spiritual life because we want to know our beginnings. Some of us are intrigued by what motivates and inspires us. Other people get captivated by spiritual life because they are searching for where we are going.

Our interest may spring from desires deep within us from before we can remember. Others have fallen into spiritual life seemingly by accident.

Some of us had parents or other relatives who intentionally pushed us toward spiritual life. We may have been introduced to spiritual life by attending church or reading books, or not.

Other people have needed to struggle and search to discover spiritual life even exists. Spiritual life may be an idea completely outside our experience, beyond our imagination. We must overcome obstacles even to take the idea of spiritual life seriously.

Each of us approaches spiritual life with our own unique questions, from our own starting place. Our personal experience shapes how we each understand spiritual life.

We each encounter spiritual life in our own ways. We have our own specific practices and ways of seeing spiritual life around us. Your ways of relating to spiritual life may confuse me, while my ways might frustrate you.

Each of us explores the depths of sacred truth all around us in our own ways. While we can share our insights and questions, we are free to make up our own minds.

One of the things we have in common is we approach spiritual life as part of a search. We are each looking for something we expect to experience through spiritual life.

As we get to know each other, and ourselves, we share what we are trying to find.

How Are We Trying to Find It?

Some of us have a clear, tangible idea of what we are trying to find. We believe we know what we are trying to find. In fact, it may be something else.

Some of us do not really focus on what we are trying to find, which does not mean we are not trying to find it.

Our understanding of what we are trying to find shapes how we try to find it.

If we value the measurable aspects of our lives most highly, we often work in measurable ways. When we view life as an analytical puzzle we will try to solve it analytically.

Our understanding of life may be more intuitive or emotional, physical or psychological. We will begin seeking what we are trying to find in ways related to how we see our quest.

For many of us, spiritual life is a confusing or even intimidating concept. We may not have any experience of spiritual life. It will take us some time to begin recognizing it and trying to find what we are seeking in spiritual ways.

Many of us began to believe in what we are trying to find early in life. We tend not to question our focus or how it directs us. Our lives can become fixated on finding what we are trying to find.

It can be helpful, though uncomfortable, to look at where we think we are going.

We may have unconsciously chosen to seek something we do not really desire.

The idea of questioning, or even changing, an underlying motivation of our lives can be daunting. It can, though, help us avoid wasting our time and effort seeking something which is not what we want.

Where Are We Trying to Find It?

Our universe is filled with things for us to seek and ways for us to seek them. The choices are almost limitless.

No matter what we are trying to find and how we choose to seek it, there is a spiritual life in our search.

We often begin because something attracts our attention. Something, anything, seems worthy of our further exploration. We begin collecting information and experiences about what we have discovered.

Putting the pieces together, there is always more we would like to find. We gain more questions and insights from what we can see.

Our exploration and discoveries in the universe become part of how we see things. We continue to seek and be drawn further into the universe around us.

At the same time, our experiences shape our discovery of ourselves. We learn more about ourselves as we learn more about the universe around us.

The spiritual life which surrounds us is the same as the spiritual life within us. What interests us and draws us into the universe also draws us toward our true selves.

Our searching in the universe inspires us to examine the deeper parts of ourselves.

Will We Ever Find What We Are Trying to Find?

Each of us spends our life trying to find something. We each come to our search and understand it in our own uniquely personal ways.

What begins as an exploration of the universe around us reflects how we discover ourselves.

Our searches teach us and guide us, helping us know and become who we truly are.

If we each approach spiritual life with our own questions, when will we find the answers? We search and learn and grow, but are we getting closer to finding what we seek?

The people I know who have been seeking the longest do not seem as concerned with answers.

We may become passionate about what we are trying to find, but it is not that we want our search to end. Part of the attraction is there is always more to seek.

Spiritual life is not essentially about acquiring what we are trying to find. At its core, spiritual life is more about letting go than about accumulating more.

Whatever each of us is trying to find, seeking is more meaningful than finding.

What are we trying to find this week?

How spiritual is what we are trying to find and our approach to seeking it?

[Image by NASA Goddard Photo and Video]

Greg Richardson is a spiritual life mentor and leadership coach in Southern California. He is a recovering attorney and university professor, and a lay Oblate with New Camaldoli Hermitage near Big Sur, California. Greg’s website is StrategicMonk.com, and his email address is [email protected].