When you are ready, you will understand what is meant by the common refrain: When the student is ready, the teacher will appear. You may have heard it over and over again: Look within. But maybe you have this thirst to devour all books in your path, to read it all in like a sponge to water. And before you know it, many perspectives are coloring your worldview, and sooner or later, you have to undo much of what you've learned and begin to step-into the great Quest for self-realization. Not an easy task at the best of times, the Quest has become even more elusive in today's world.
The problem: Noise (distractions). Unlike natural sounds and practices which are healing and beneficial, noises take on many unnatural forms that distract and prevent or inhibit you from knowing who you are. The noises I'm referring to here, are distractions such as the stresses of survival, the scream of machinery, pollution, forced and aggressive sales pitches, popular notions of fame and success, and other common attachments that many world traditions voice the need to banish, such as anger, greed, ambition, selfishness, violence and unhealthy desires, to name a few.
The result of noise: A diminished ability to listen and a diminished interest in listening. People who are caught-up in all of the distractions and seductions of a fast-paced world, become, in a sense, the product of their desires (or attachments). Being creatures of habit,[1] over time, there is a very real danger that the cycle of non-listening becomes more ingrained and our life is lost (more bound) to a world of mundane existence.
To be continued.
1. I am often astounded by the persistence of habit. It's been years since I've stopped wearing eye-glasses, yet, from time to time, I catch myself in the process of beginning to raise-up my non-existent eye-glasses to a more comfortable position.
