Chasing Love and Spiritual Experiences?

Have you ever had a spiritual experience that has connected you to the peace, vastness and love that you are? Or perhaps you have experienced a state of bliss and oneness with another human being? Maybe you think you haven't and are looking to experience that? These certainly are powerful moments that can offer a glimpse of our true essence beyond mental interference. Just this morning I have looked back at certain profound states of connection I have felt in the past, and having gone through a rough patch of emotional baggage lately, I have yearned to feel that connection again.

As my mind started running in circles, missing that connection I once felt, I realized: wait a minute. How am I supposed to chase for an experience of peace and bliss without mind interference... WITH my mind? Why am I trying to force something that always comes naturally? A glimpse of our true nature sure can feel refreshing when it comes to interrupt an often too busy and stressful stream of thinking. But how useful is it to try and re-create or contain it with the mind, when the very essence of that love and peaceful connection is beyond the mind? How relevant is it to chase it outside of ourselves solely with our mind, when it is a state that requires nothing else but the participation of our innermost being?

Glimpses of our peaceful and quiet nature aren't meant to become a new mental goal or destination. They serve as a reminder that these moments aren't a mind creation, they just are and happen without mental effort. Chasing and trying to re-create actually pushes the experience away. Our true nature is not something to create, it is already here and who we already are. When mind says "but I can't reach that state, I can't connect, I need this or that to connect," it is the very mental noise clouding the connection it claims to desire. Don't buy into it, it leads nowhere ;)

It may feel difficult to tame our mind and remind it that it does not need to try and control it all, but what is easy is to notice the difference between how we feel when we seek out to control and cling to something versus when we simply let the moment take its natural course. One is busy, creates tension and suffering, perpetuates the belief that we lack and is quite into self-sabotage (in my own experience)... while the other is at peace with what is and doesn't bother with barriers and expectations that prevent love and connection from flowing. In the end, all we need is awareness to see the difference and choice to choose again, both of which we have.

We are in control, but not in the way our ego likes to be. The only thing we can "control" is whether we choose to give all our power to the mind to give us what it isn't even designed to, or simply allow whatever unfoldments need to take place without further depiction or expectation. The mind is a tool for the practical and active aspects of our creation, but it is in the heart that we can connect with our peace and receive clarity and insight.

"Integration happens by moving out of the head, where you are in the victim/perpetrator mindset, and into the heart center. The heart center doesn't have any filters that say, 'I'm limited. I'm not enough.' When you are heart centered you move into the perception of co-creator. You are a co-creative being, and you can see how and why you create an experience and how it is of service to you."

This article is a simple reminder and invitation for us all to observe the illusion of lack, which is the very story we tell ourselves that drives us to chase things externally. Now is a good time to relinquish the habit of seeking out and allow the fear behind it to reveal itself. We can allow ourselves to feel it, bring up all the stories surrounding it, and choose again: do I hold on or do I let go? Do I need to keep living this way? Are my stories of lack true? Do they allow me to expand or do they restrict me?
 

True peace and connection will never come from a "lack" being fulfilled or a race being won anyways. Conditional peace is not true inner-peace. True peace and connection is in you at all times and is connected with everyone and everything. So why continue the pattern of chasing beauty and connection with a mindset that is programmed to miss the beauty and connection that is right now?

Chasing love, truth, spiritual connection, peace, quiet, creativity... is like trying to chase air. it is futile because it is everywhere.

"Are you always trying to get somewhere other than where you are? Is most of your doing just a means to an end? Is fulfillment always just around the corner, or confined to short-lived pleasures, such as sex, food, drink, drugs, or thrills and excitement? Are you always focused on becoming, achieving, and attaining, or alternatively chasing some new thrill or pleasure? Do you believe that if you acquire more things you will become more fulfilled, be good enough, or psychologically complete? Are you waiting for a man or woman to give meaning to your life? In the mind-identified state of consciousness, the power and infinite creative potential that lie concealed in the Now are completely obscured by psychological time. Your life then loses its vibrancy, its freshness, its sense of wonder. The old patterns of thought, emotion, behaviour, reaction, and desire are acted out in endless repeat performances, a script in your mind that gives you an identity of sorts but distorts or covers up the reality of the Now." - Eckhart Tolle