Fulfilment is not a competitive field

Everyone has this consideration in life. How deeply has it really involved them? 

When we find our “work”, our art, our flow, we realise that it is not a separate thing to others. What do I mean and how do we know? Well, it will grab us and put a ring around anyone that comes into contact with it. It is an intuitive experience, only felt, that disregards time and space. Our art will speak to the eternal and undeniable in everyone else. We feel one with nature. Realise that we are nature.  

This is not a riddle. We are one already with what we are looking for. It is there for you when you want to find it. It is you.  

I promised some purposeful practices in my previous meanderings to help with uncovering these deepest intentions, the art of our lives. I’m convinced that each one of us has to work it out in our own way, so these practices may or may not help, but they may perhaps offer the start of the enquiry into identifying what electrifies and enlivens your heart…what wakes you.  They may at least help you to start believing in your own inner depths. Depths that nobody can explore for you.  

If we aren’t willing to paddle our own canoes we’re not going to get across the river. I think it was Oscar Wilde that said, (rather disparagingly), that if an American was given a chance to choose between actually going to heaven or attending a lecture about it, they would go to the lecture. I would be a little kinder and suggest that if you don’t want to go to heaven then you can at least attend a lecture on it, and maybe the lecture is just what you need right now. 

But if you’re ready then let’s start looking more keenly for the river we need to traverse.  

Go back to what it was that most engaged you in fascinated play when you were little, so that the hours would pass and pass. Take your time. Find some quiet. Still your mind if you can. Remember. Now if you can find that place then you’ve found one initial point for your own exploration. Go back and find what was the real fascination there. What can you learn from being with those moments? What can you feel? Don’t just touch it lightly or fleetingly, bathe luxuriously in this wellspring for as long as you can bear. Absorb what it may have to show you. 

You might also like to follow your current interests more keenly. Submerge yourself in them deeply rather than simply finding solace or distraction. Be truly wholehearted with them. The congruence you feel with them in their overload may open a sensitivity to inner depths, and perhaps a keen sensation to where you aren’t congruent. Signposts. Clearings in the wood. Sunbeams through the storm clouds. 

Look for what puts you in touch with the mystery that is the ground of your own being.  

If it doesn’t then it is most likely a lie. 

There will be more practices to try in later posts. And for now, I implore you to realise that fulfilment is not a competitive field. Your art is your life, and your life is your art. Get deeply involved and no moment will ever again feel wasted.  

We live in the world when we love it. 

—
Andrew.