“Knocking at the door. It opens. I have been knocking from inside.” – Rumi
As both an entrepreneur and someone who is very deeply passionate about his internal freedom, I find it very interesting how different the worlds can seem.
In the entrepreneurship world, via Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest and in fact the roots from which I have come when I started my entrepreneurship journey five years ago, I was motivated like a crazed mad person, who’s only mission was too….
“Set some goals and then demolish them.” – Anonymous
I had ambition, motivation and the craving for achievement circulating through my bloodstream, in my veins and in the bones.
It was safe to say, that nothing in the world was going to stop me from achieving what I had set out to do.
I had hundreds of places I wanted to visit; I had the nicest cars in the world I wanted to acquire. I wanted the houses a lot of people dream of, and, of course, I had my bucket list of 100 things to do.
These materialistic, experiential things were all ingrained, cemented and deeply entrenched in my imagination.
I read everything from Think & Grow Rich, to The Secret, The Magic of Thinking Big, The Slight Edge all of which showed that anything I implanted in my imagination I could manifest in the physical.
I studied this stuff so much, that it began to become a part of me. Rather than understanding it intellectually, I begin to intuitively know that anything I planted in my mind, in my imagination WOULD become manifested.
There wasn’t anything else I wanted to do except to work religiously, passionately and borderline insanely and what ever would bring me closer to the images I had had in my mind.
Then one day on my way to get a back massage.
BOOM!
Out of nowhere it had happened!
SHOCKING it was, that I couldn’t believe what was happening inside of my body.
A state of absolute AWE, had overtaken my body.
I remember writing an article for my previous website about how I wanted to put a dent in the universe and conquer eternity based on making an impact on people’s lives and how I wanted to do it. My imagination was and even today is still vast.
BUT!
What I had felt that day on the way to my back massage, was SO FAR BEYOND, my wildest imagination, that in hindsight it made what is in my imagination look fairly small & fairly minute.
Nirvana.
Pure. Deep. Intense. Unfathomable & unimaginable bliss.
I suddenly felt like an angel, floating through heaven from cloud to cloud with not a single worry in the world.
It was from that point, when I knew that everything that I had been searching for, that I desired, I already had.
“At the end of the seeking, the seeker is the one sought.” – Anunda
Suddenly, I still continued to want. I still continued to desire but no longer were those desires madly and grossly NEEDED.
Two of my favorite stories of all time will bring this understanding closer.
“There is a story my teacher liked to tell about a consummate diamond thief who sought to steal only the most exquisite of gems. This thief would hang around the diamond district to see who was purchasing a gem, so that later he could pick their pocket.
One day he saw a well-known diamond merchant purchase the jewel he had been waiting for all his life. It was the most beautiful, the most pristine, the purest of diamonds.
He was very excited, and so he followed the diamond merchant as he boarded the train, getting into the same compartment.
He spent an entire three-day journey trying to pick the merchant’s pocket and obtain the diamond. When the end of the journey came and he hadn’t found the gem, he was very frustrated. He was an accomplished thief, and although he had employed all his skills, he still was not able to steal this rare and precious jewel.
When the diamond merchant got off the train, the pickpocket followed him once again. Finally, he just couldn’t stand it anymore, and he walked up to the merchant and said, “Sir, I am a renowned diamond thief. I saw you purchase that beautiful diamond, so I followed you onto the train. Though I used all the skills of my art, which have been perfected over many years, I was not able to find the gem. I must know your secret. Tell me, please, how did you hide it from me?”
The diamond merchant replied, “Well, I saw you watching me in the diamond district, and I suspected you were a pickpocket. So I hid the diamond where I thought you would be least likely to look for it—in your own pocket!” He then reached into the thief’s pocket and pulled out the diamond.” – Gangaji, The Diamond in Your Pocket.
The pickpocket searched and searched, for that diamond, not realizing that he already had it.
I had diamonds, the biggest diamonds, the prettiest shiniest of diamonds in my imagination for what I wanted. Hundreds of diamonds in my imagination, that were WEIGHING me down, dragging me by the hands and feet into the future that I so desperately wanted to get too.
What I failed to realize, was that who I really am, IS THE DIAMOND that I want, obviously metaphorically speaking.
Let’s take a look at another story from the book The Power of Now.
“A beggar had been sitting by the side of a road for over thirty years. One day a stranger walked by. ‘Spare some change?’ mumbled the beggar, mechanically holding out his old baseball cap. ‘I have nothing to give you,’ said the stranger. Then he asked: ‘What’s that you are sitting on?’ “Nothing,’ replied the beggar. ‘Just an old box. I have been sitting on it for as long as I can remember.’ ‘Ever looked inside?’ asked the stranger. ‘No,’ said the beggar. ‘What’s the point? There’s nothing in there. ‘Have a look inside,’ insisted the stranger. The beggar managed to pry open the lid. With astonishment, disbelief, and elation, he saw that the box was filled with gold.” – Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
So the beggar was not really a beggar in his true nature. It had just appeared that way, because he didn’t know who he was.
Just as with the diamond in your pocket, you have gold as well. Just as being the diamond, you are the gold too.
The diamond and the gold are references for internal freedom. It means that you are already internally free in this moment, you just have to realize that on a cellular level.
It sounds contradictory in nature, because if you already free, then why would you have to realize that?
Why would there just simply not be freedom already felt.
And that would be because without pain, without suffering, without hardships there would be no purpose to the life.
The universe would already be complete.
For what good is joy without first experiencing pain?
What good is the Gold or the diamond without first experiencing some sort of pain relative to finances? Or whatever it is that you feel in terms of lack.
So the pain is there as the GATEWAY into the internal freedom.
The imagination that I had in terms of achievement was perfectly necessary for me, because it was that very pain that built up, that once released by knowing who I am, was what allowed me to realize Nirvana.
Let’s take a closer look at what Eckhart Tolle says…
Those who have not found their true wealth, which is the radiant joy of Being and the deep, unshakable peace that comes with it, are beggars, even if they have great material wealth. They are looking outside for scraps of pleasure or fulfillment, for validation, security, or love, while they have a treasure within that not only includes all those things but is infinitely greater than anything the world can offer.
When I say “Knowing who I am.” I’m referring to what Eckhart Tolle states as “The joy of being.”
What happened during that car ride in which I was suddenly taken over by who I am, by bliss, ecstasy was that I was suddenly no longer the thinker.
I was suddenly not trapped by nothing but thought.
There was suddenly a gap between my thoughts, of no-thought which sparked, widened, widened and widened like the tiniest of flames that can start a state wide forest fire.
No longer was it I who was looking, who was experiencing Nirvana, it was Nirvana Experiencing Nirvana, or knowing itself.
Heaven!
It was heaven, experiencing heaven, THROUGH me, not as me.
When Eckhart Tolle says the Joy of Being, what’s he’s saying is the JOY OF BEING THOUGHTLESS.
Knowing who I was, did not mean that I became someone different.
Knowing who I was, was not at ALL about “who” but about what it was that was looking, noticing the Nirvana that had been realized.
Back to the pickpocket story. The diamond had been in his pocket the entire time. He could have gone his whole lifetime, even if had the entire world of 7.5+ billion people began to help him look for that diamond, and all he had to do was simply look inside his own pocket, he would have never found it, and neither would the 7.5+ billion people.
The search would have killed him, buried him alive had he not asked the merchant where he had hidden it.
The answer was so subtle, so delicate that the mind cannot understand it. The mind can only know what is outside and to search outside.
Your mind is what is hiding the diamond, hiding you and you are hiding in the inside.
Look through the mind, at what is already thoughtless and you will have found the diamond. Your mind won’t find anything specific though, and won’t find any-THING at all, but it will be known on a cellular level that it’s the diamond that IS LOOKING.
Thoughtless.
Had the guy passing the beggar on the street not told him to look inside the box, the beggar would have continued collecting change on the streets rather than knowing he had gold all along.
This isn’t about material wealth, but experiential wealth that is available no matter what time it is & no matter what you’re doing.
Rewinding back to my entrepreneurship journey.
Now that I know that the true wealth is already here, why continue my entrepreneurship journey?
For the fun of it!
I still enjoy learning, being motivated & succeeding. Rather than before where I wanted to help motivate people, to help them improve themselves, I want to point them in the direction of their true nature just as the merchant helped the pickpocket find the diamond, and the stranger helped the beggar find the gold.
I still have a wild imagination, big things I want to achieve, these come naturally, and I will not fight against knowing how my true nature manifests itself into this world.
The lesson though is, that no longer will I get lost in these desires, no longer will I ever expect them to fulfill me for a ‘constant’ period of time knowing that all passes away, even our GREATEST pleasures.
Thoughtless awareness will be THE MAIN FOUNDATION of my life, and whatever is born from here will manifest just the way it should.
“Having never left the house, you are looking for the way home.” – Nisargadatta Maharaj
