The Seer

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We hope to experience peace and happiness once and for all by getting what we want. However, peace and happiness are not achieved by getting but by loving what is, just the way it is. We are so afraid that if we love what is we will never get what we want, when that has been the secret to happiness all along!

Loving what is would seem to be the simplest thing possible. It involves no effort, no struggle, no longing, and no disappointment. But loving what is goes against our programming, so it is difficult.

It requires vigilance to counteract the egoic mind’s automatic rejection and resistance to whatever is happening. To experience the peace and happiness that exist in this moment, it is necessary to stop listening to the egoic mind, which undermines this peace and happiness with complaints and judgments.

These are the tactics it uses to take us out of the present and into its world of desires, hopes, and dreams. It woos us with fantasies of a more perfect world, a more perfect mate, a more perfect experience, and a more perfect you, all of which are unreal and will never be real.

Your fantasies, dreams, and desires don’t create reality or even reflect reality accurately, although they do affect your experience of it. When you are focused on your desires, dreams, and fantasies, you are not experiencing this moment, and you are missing out on the real richness, peace, and happiness that are right here, right now.

From Anatomy of Desire, How to Be Happy Even When You Don’t Get What You Want by Gina Lake

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Admire then, the works of the Lord, though He himself considers them as nothing but Him. His throne is on the waters and the world is in the air. But leave the waters and the air, for all is God: the throne and the world are only a talisman. God is all, and things have only a nominal value; the world visible and the world invisible are only Himself.

There is none but Him. But, alas, no one can see Him. The eyes are blind, even though the world be lighted by a brilliant sun. Should you catch even a glimpse of Him you would lose your wits, and if you should see Him completely you would lose your self.

All who are aware of their ignorance tuck up the flap of their garment and say earnestly: ‘O thou who art not seen although thou makest us to know thee, everyone is thou and no other than thou is manifested.

The soul is hidden in the body, and thou art hidden in the soul. O thou who art hidden in that which is hidden, thou art more than all. All see themselves in thee and they see thee in everything.

Since thy dwelling is surrounded by guards and sentinels how can we come near to thy presence? Neither mind nor reason can have access to thy essence, and no one knows thy attributes.

Because thou art eternal and perfect thou art always confounding the wise. What can we say more, since thou art not to be described!’

From: The Conference of the Birds, a Sufi fable by Farid ul-Din Attar (12th Cent.)