If You Want To Escape Your Life’s Dullness, Don’t Travel
Do a permanent pilgrimage of the mind.
Every time I’m confused about my purpose, I come to India.
Not because it’s a trend. Because the social organization of this ancient land — for millennia — has produced a galaxy of sages, saints, and seers whose impact is very much alive.
In those bygone eras, there was only one window in life to be ‘materialistic.’ About 25–50 years old was the best chance you got to be as involved with the physical world as you could.
Before that, you were studying. After it, you were socially allowed to leave society & take up residence in a forest ashram.
This intensity of life has given India a flavor of being an existential pressure-cooker, as well as a contemplative sanctuary, on top of being a great classical world culture.
Its great diversity of indigenous Dharma— Vaishnava, Shakta, Shaiva, Sankhya, Buddhist, Jain, and Sikh — promise a unique path for every seeker. And more people have attained enlightenment here than any place on Earth!
So what could go wrong? (on the inner plane at least)
The thing about growing consciousness is that there are blockages to it that must come crashing down.
We are never not enlightened. But each moment, we’re oblivious to this fact. We simply follow the snowballs of karma at the surface of our knowing, while the depths of truth remain obscured.
Fire grows only when it has fuel. Wisdom discerns only when there is suffering to be analyzed and transcended.
Eventually we tire of the ordinary state of affairs. This existential crisis is a precious window of opportunity we need to pursue, rather than drug into submission.
The only issue is that we project into the inner journey all the useless knowledge of the outer one. Because the two go in opposite directions.
Which is why guides are so, so precious.
It’s not a journey. You’re already there.
Realize this completely without a shred of doubt — you are, at your core, free and blissful. Divine and ever-loving. Knowing and dignified.
The fact never changes: all you’re looking for is hidden within you, not in the locked doors of some ashram or atop a mountain temple.
For the last two months, I experienced the life of a pilgrim. I’ve met more evolved souls than I thought would be possible, experienced more sacred places than I knew existed, and received so much insight I can’t contain it all.
From the hidden, unknown temples of the Himalayas to the valleys of Nepal, the reverberating Buddhist heritage of India to the verdant forests of Tamil Nadu — in a few months, I’ve experienced a lifetime’s worth of the sacred.
And the biggest shock was that my mind mattered more than the supposed ‘energy’ of any particular place. On days which I chanted, prayed, and meditated before beginning a journey, I got much more insight and inspiration.
But that insight too was simply arising out of myself and remaining within myself.
What’s beyond your mind is the real destination to escape into.
Many of us are stuck in our ways.
On the spiritual dimension, we seek external circumstances to make it “easier” to seriously pursue goals of a different nature.
And you’re right to do so — at the beginning.
After your life simplifies, boisterous & immature people drop out, and opportunity for practice and study dawns, it’s all up to you.
No more excuses are allowed at this stage. You have to learn to inspire yourself, not an exotic deity, charismatic teacher, or sacred cave.
Because the journey is one of subtle and sustained inner adjustment to see what we actually are, properly, without any illusion. It’s the opposite of depending on external inputs. It’s an inner stabilization.
The very notion of an outer journey to collect experiences is a distraction to that deep inner work to be done.
In fact, you won’t even be able to appreciate the depth of outer sacred places without a great deal of prior realization.
And even afterwards, like the great mystics, you may simply look within to say that all you needed had been with you from the beginning.
