Longing For

I long for fulfillment in life through a variety of things. There is a desire to be fulfilled or life just seems to be or become meaningless. I desperately seek what I desire to escape this meaningless. So, I’m always longing for something. Perhaps, it’s something that I can easily obtain; otherwise, I’m going to live a miserable life. A life of longing to possess that which is unattainable.

Choice of Escape

Personally, I long to be free of conflict because I see the conflict going on in myself, in my relationships, and in the world. In addition, I once had an authority, which I created, which made this state of being sound so desirable. So, I wanted to be free of conflict too because how very pleasing that would be to my psyche.

I thought to myself that is what I should do. Surely, this is my purpose in life. I would experience no more pain and suffering myself. All while everyone else is still suffering, I alone will be free of this. This is an illusion, is it not? Yet, I have these illusions. I have this self-centered way of thinking that I’m different from the whole of humanity.

Nothing Fulfills Me

As I reflect about all what happens in life, I say to it that nothing which I’ve done has fulfilled me. I’ve tried philosophies, work, knowledge, money, sex, alcohol, drugs, brand named cloths, religion, cars, houses, children, meditation, gurus, food, etc. They all have their time and for a brief second I’m gratified. But then I return back to where I started feeling unfulfilled in my life. I seem to have no fulfilling purpose in what I’m doing. Nothing that I do brings me lasting joy and happiness.

Who Can Help Me?

I long for anyone or anything that can help relieve me of my emptiness. Yet, all of these things actually act as a barrier preventing me from seeing just what my emptiness is. The emptiness I feel actually contains all the aforementioned things I tried to cover it up with. Do you see that? But what else is the emptiness? I long to escape from it, which begs the question, do I do so because I’m afraid of what it will do to me?

What is ‘Me’?

What is the entity which I call ‘me’? It’s the distinction I’ve given to things ‘I’ possess and have identified myself with. My car, my dog, my country, my money, my status, my experience, my knowledge, and so on. My clinging to and identification with what I possess creates a ‘me’ and ‘you’. It is only because of my attachment that ‘I’ see a ‘you’ and vice versa.

I Possess Because I’ve Become Attached

Why do I possess? Why do I have a need to say it’s mines. It belongs to me as opposed to it being yours as well? Why should I try to possess or long for anything that emptiness already contains.

I think it safe to say I possess because I am afraid to die. It’s not that I don’t know death exists that I am afraid of. No, it’s the ending of attachment that scares me. I worry about ‘my’ continuity. I know that death is the end of my conscious clinging to my attachments or possessions.

What I possess will no longer physically or mentally be on my mind. What I have or have not accumulated will be associated to my name, but not to me because I’m deceased. Death ends our attachments and accumulation unto ourselves and you nor I can bargain with death.

Death Before Death

But is there only a physical death we must experience in order for us not to have attachments? Not to cling? Can I experience a death before death? In other words, I don’t have to commit suicide right now because death for me is in the far off future. I can in essence die right this moment without physcially dying by just being empty. To be free of attachment? To not cling to or accumulate any possessions which death will surely separate ‘me’ from.

It would then appear as though I had no time. No time to begin nor end; this, infinite.

So, do I truly long for the death of ‘me’? The ‘me’ being time and attachment. The ‘me’ that clings to things instead of letting them go.

Death will separate us from our attachments irregardless of how we think, feel, or look. It is going to be that way and there is nothing anyone can do about it when it’s your time. So, why wait for death to do what I can do myself and end my attachment.

In Closing

I will not possess or cling to anything that death can sever. Therefore, I’m free to live an unencumbered life. Not because I want to, but because I have no attachments. I’ve returned to that state of emptiness; thus, clinging to nothing I am eternal.