What is reality?
“How beautifully it was summarized by a great sage: The truth cannot be found by merely searching, yet it is only the seekers who find it.”
A person may dedicate their entire life to discovering reality. However, many end up with more confusion and an inner emptiness at the end of their journey. So, what is it that most people envision? Where do they go wrong? Perhaps their greatest mistake is viewing life as a puzzle or game to be solved using intellectual reasoning. The biggest trick played by our ego and mind is to waste our time and energy on these games that will never truly be solved. One puzzle begets another, one question leads to another, and like a cat chasing its own tail, a person ends up running in circles. This is because the mind enjoys complexity and convoluted paths. It is often the intellectuals who get caught up in these puzzles the most.
Humanity has been on a quest since the dawn of time, often without even realizing what it is truly searching for. This is why, like being lost in a labyrinth, people end up drifting further away from their own reality… becoming more and more lost. Their curiosity for all things mysterious leads them from one path to another, from one door to the next.
Various teachings, rituals, New Age movements, manipulated religions, philosophies, self-improvement methods, etc., all arise from this sense of emptiness and search within humans. Is this wrong? Certainly not. All of these are necessary. Each of them represents a step towards development and spiritual maturation. But they are not sufficient on their own. Getting stuck on these steps can lead one away from the truth. One must pass through the phase of seeking the truth in external forms and appearances. It’s time to realize that what lies behind all forms is one and the same, and that all paths converge at a single point.
Almost fifteen hundred years ago, Hazrat Ali beautifully expressed this when he said, “Knowledge was but a single point. The ignorant multiplied it.” The truth is so simple and pure that it is beyond imagination. It is right within itself… within everything… in every particle… in the heart…
The gates of reality open one day to those who can step out of the mind and into the heart, to those who can see through the heart. For it is they who knock on the door. His palace is the heart of man… a door that can only be opened from within.
