What you seek, You already are

Currently, I'm reading The Book of Secrets, By Deepak Chopra. The saying holds true, that when the student is ready the teacher shall appear. This book couldn't have come at a better time in my life. Without trying to sounds too cliche this book has opened my mind to a whole new level of understanding. I wanted to share an important insight from the book, in regards to seeking. Seeking, is basically just another word for chasing. We're all chasing after something. We all have our motivators but what are we really after? Chopra says, "Seeking is a word often applied to the spirtual path - and often the people that seek a higher, better self, are the same people who once chased too hard after money and power. The problem with this is seeking begins with a false assumption - the chase, in fact takes you outside yourself. Productive seeking requires that you throw out all assumptions that there is a prize to be won. this means acting without hope of rising to some ideal self, hope being a wish that you'll get somewhere better that the place you started from. You are starting from yourself, and its the self that contains all the answers. So you have to give up on the idea that you must go from A to B." Are you falling into a habit of seeking? What is it that you seek? Look no more, because what you seek, you already are. Be a genuine seeker and avoid these pitfalls:

1) Don't know where you're going:
Spiritual growth is spontaneous. The big events come along unexpectedly, and so do the small ones. A single word can open your heart; a single glance can tell you who you really are. Awakening doesn't happen according to the plan. It's much more like putting together a jigsaw puzzle without knowing the finished picture in advance. All you can imagine in advance are images, and images are never the same as the goal

2) Don't struggle to get there:
If there was a spiritual payoff at the end of the trail, like a pot of gold or the key to heaven, everyone would work as hard as possible for the reward. Any struggle would be worth it. But does it help a two year old to struggle to become three? No, because the process of child development unfolds from within. The same is true for spiritual unfolding. It happens just as naturally as childhood development, but on the plane of awareness rather than in the realm of physiology.

3) Don't follow someone else's map:
If you follow someone else's map, you could be training yourself in a fixed way of thinking. Fixed ways, even those devoted to spirit, are not the same as being free. You should glean teachings from all directions, keeping true to those that bring progress yet remaining open to changes in yourself.