To look for
something, first we must know what we are looking
for, for if we don’t know, how shall we
be able to recognize it if and when we find
it? We talk of searching for Truth, God, Peace,
Happiness, etc., but do we know what these things
are? It is rather like a person who goes to
the beach to search for pearls, but never having
seen a pearl, he goes with the idea that a pearl
is something red and cubical. So, while peering
in the rock-pools, opening shells, overturning
stones, and so on, maybe he sees a small, round,
white object gleaming there in the sand, but
he thinks: "That’s not a pearl; the
pearl I am looking for is red and cubical".
So he passes on and continues searching. And
he might indeed come across a red and cubical
object, but it will not be a pearl.
Looking
is active, something we do, while seeing is
passive and receptive, something that happens.
We look with the accumulations of the past,
that is, with our conditioning, and this prevents
us from seeing. And yet it is necessary to search,
for if we do not search, how shall we be able
to stop searching, and SEE? |
