Why do we seek?

Q & A with Felipe Oliviera:

Q: Why do we seek?

A: It is better to ask "what do we seek?" We seek something very clear and simple. We seek peace in all circumstances, whether enjoying a life pleasure or facing its inherent difficulties and tragedies. Once what we seek is clear in our hearts we can ask "why am I not or do I not have this that I seek?" The answer is only one: a concept about myself is accepted as being the truth about myself. The seeking ends when no concepts about myself are taken to be real. Why does seeking end? Because there is no more subject seeking the object or experience of peace.

From the moment consciousness accepted the first false beliefs about ourselves at an early age that seeking started. That seeking has produced all sorts of activities on our part as an attempt to fill the hole in the heart, and has attracted all kinds of events. Then we meet spiritual concepts and those too are taken as a new concept of ourselves and life. So we say: all is one, consciousness is all there is, I'm not the doer, etc. Those are fine concepts aimed at restoring a clear view of what we are.

The tricky part is that there is no individual to truthfully claim 'I am not the doer', there is no 'my consciousness' and all is one but 'I' do not know it. So, all these fine spiritual concepts are built into a new conceptual framework for 'me'. The next step then, must be to investigate the 'me' concept (the root concept) for only the concept 'I am imprisoned' projects the concept 'I need to be free' or, the concept 'I am asleep' projects the concept 'I need to awake'.

We look at life and living through a filter called 'me'. This filter is made of countless fragments of accumulated thought patterns and experiences called memory. The heart then, reacts to the light that has passed through the filter and suffers according to the concept of self that is in place in the moment.

We seek because there is a belief that concepts are truth. See concepts to be concepts and the desire to seek vanishes. If the whole setup of "I want that" is seen for what it is — a play in consciousness, there is nothing left to be sought and no one to seek. There is only being and its spontaneous manifestation.