Are You Searching in the Right Place?

“Yes,” he replies, “I’m looking for my car keys.”

“Let me help you,” says the jogger, joining the search.

After a while, the jogger pauses. “They don’t seem to be here. Are you sure you dropped them here?”

“Oh no, I dropped them over there,” says the man, gesturing towards a row of cars in the dark behind him.

“Then why are you looking for them here?”

“Because this is where the light is!”

***********

Why do we tell this famous story?

It may seem absurd, but we can all recognize ourselves in that man.

Like him, we like to look where the light is. We like to take the easier, clearer route, even if we suspect it is not the right one.

We seek fulfilment in things we can see, touch, measure and show. We stay busy; we like to accomplish and achieve, fix and build. We like to check the items off the To-Do list, and earn approval. We also like to distract ourselves, losing ourselves in screens and stories.

This is all the world of light, the external world.

There is another world inside us, but it may not be easy to explore. When we close our eyes and look inside, we are in the dark.

And many of us have little tolerance for searching in the dark.

Can you sit still, close your eyes, and open your curiosity to a full exploration of what is inside you?

“All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.”, Blaise Pascal

Many of us feel scared to do this. After a few seconds, we are powerfully pulled to come back outside, to stand up and start doing, doing, doing again. Anything but inward looking.

And yet, inside, in the dark, that is where the keys are.

Which keys? The very ones: the keys to our happiness.

It’s a truism that happiness comes from inside, but we seldom look for it there. As we go about our day in the external world, we awkwardly try to turn the keys within by manipulating our environment.

Why is it so uncomfortable to go inside and search there directly?

One reason is that often, when we look inside, the first thing we encounter is the voice of our inner monologue, our mental chatter.

It’s barking like a huge guard dog, blocking the way.

It may be saying, “This is boring, there’s nothing here. Get back to your life outside!”

Or it might be telling you what’s wrong with your life. It may complain incessantly. It may tell you that all your problems are in your situation, or someone else’s fault, so there’s no need to look inside.

Worse, it might be warning you that if you look inside, you’ll find something terribly ugly about yourself.

Of course we prefer not to sit with this voice. Many of us go to great lengths to avoid being alone with it. Even when we lie down to sleep at night, we leave the television on or keep reading til our eyes close, rather than risk being alone with that inner monologue for a few minutes.

But we can sidestep it to explore the world within.

Here is an experiment you can try right now.

Close your eyes and take a couple of deep breaths. Think of yourself as stepping through a door into a dark but safe world.

You are safe in this world because you have another kind of light with you: the light of your attention. It’s a completely different from the glare of the streetlamp; it’s a marvelous glowing light, and it’s all yours. You can shine this light gently as you look around inside.

What is your first impression, when you step over the threshold into the dark? Is it this world silent, or is there a lot going on? Are there thoughts racing? Is your inner voice barking at you to stop this silly experiment right now? If so, that’s fine, you can still turn to other parts of your inner world.

Let’s take a short, easy tour, lighting the way with attention. Feel the expansion of your lungs. What can you notice about how it feels to breathe deeply? Don’t rely on what you already know about breathing. Pay attention as though this was the first time you’ve ever noticed the breath, how it feels in your lungs, your ribs, your throat, your nose.

Maybe you’ll feel a general calming effect from the deep breath. Maybe you’ll also feel a tug on your attention, pulling you away from the breath. It doesn’t matter what you find; the purpose is to open your awareness, your curiosity, your ability to be with your inner experience.

Let’s keep exploring. Can you feel the chair you’re sitting in? Can you feel your feet and toes? Notice how the light of your attention can take you on a tour inside your entire body.

What can you hear? Pay close attention to the sounds. Where in your body do you experience the sensation of sound? You may be surprised that you don’t feel it in your ears. Notice how there’s a complete soundscape inside you.

Now see if you can feel your heart. If you can’t detect its beat, just feel the area where you know your heart is. What do find there? Is there a tightness, or a warmth? See if you can soften and open your heart as you breathe.

(I used to think “open hearted” was just a figurative term, until I realized I can actually feel open-hearted physically. See if you can.)

Try smiling genuinely with your face (it may help to pretend you’re smiling at someone you love) and notice how the sensation travels in your body.

Now recall a time when you felt complete comfort, acceptance, and peacefulness. Put yourself there mentally, stay awhile, and then check your heart again. How does it feel? Take a few more deep breaths.

And there you are. You’ve stepped over a threshold into the inner world and visited with your feelings directly, noticing how they move and change. You may even have seen how you can cause some feelings to arise at will. Perhaps you felt a sense that within the darkness, there is a more open space than was first apparent.

This practice can help you more fully recognize something you already know, that the core of our experience, including our happiness, is inside, not outside. Everything we think and feel is there. In the dark, but immediately accessible. Always right there, closer than arm’s reach.

On further inward tours, there is much more to find. The terrain is endless. As we get used to navigating in the dark, we can feel more comfortable exploring.

At the deepest level, as the glow of our attention becomes more real to us, we can turn our attention to attention itself, to its nature and source, to the essence of our being.

“Know thyself.”, Socrates

Visit your inner world every day. Show up by closing your eyes, taking a breath, and noticing what’s there. Soon enough, with practice, you’ll feel comfortable there. Keep a journal about what you find, and use the Wise Humanity tools to explore further. Your attention is your true light.

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Heartfelt thanks to Professor Srikumar Rao for telling me this story many times until it finally sank in, and for popularizing the term “mental chatter.”

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