What You Seek Is Seeking You
Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi was born in the early 1200s and is known today for having been a deeply spiritual being and a mystical poet. I confess that I’ve never been much for most poetry (which I think is a reflection of my shallow thinking, left brain oriented mind), but Rumi is credited with a quote that I have always found instructive and profound. (And, perhaps, a little unsettling!)
“What you seek is seeking you.”
And just how does that work?
If what I am seeking is seeking me, even if I don’t know what that might be, how can I engage this consciously? (Or if I am seeking something other than what is seeking me, what then?)
If you think about it for a moment, there is a clear implication that some sort of intelligence is on the other end of this interaction. If it is seeking me, that implies intelligence. (Perhaps, just maybe, that intelligence is more intelligent than we are!)
So, even if we have lived long enough that we have life experiences that readily accept this idea, most of us live as if this potential relationship doesn’t exist. Perhaps we accept it because we’ve been able to validate it in hindsight. But how many of us proactively engage with it? Perhaps we're too busy with other things. But perhaps the real challenge is that we don’t know how to go about seeking what is already seeking us! For most, I suspect, we’ve never even thought about the possibility of proactively engaging it.
To make the obvious, explicit, I am very aware that there are conventional religious concepts that can also be used to describe and explain all this. God, prevenient grace, prayer, etc. I am also aware that many people no longer find that approach effective. If you do find it effective, great. If you are not proactively engaging it, why not? So, just on the chance that perhaps that avenue has not gotten you the results you hoped for, let's explore how else you might get them and see if that awakens anything within you.
So, the concept is fairly easy to comprehend, but just how do I embrace it, cooperate with it intentionally? How do I utilize it? And what if I don’t know what I’m seeking, specifically? (It is a given we all want happiness, good family and personal relationships, good health, physical security, and to be at least reasonably prosperous financially. But assuming these are being met in an acceptable way, then what?) How do I “apply” this concept to my life?
I am quite clear that what is, for me, the necessary first step that also is for many, the most challenging: You need to make space in your life for things to appear. We live in a culture that rewards tangible productivity, action, and results that you can measure. Many of us (including me) embrace that and become almost addicted to it. For us to connect with what is already seeking us, we need to have intentionality about being open to it and making space for it to appear. This often means getting out of routine and physically going into a different environment, usually one that is fairly (or very) quiet. And, usually, we need to make that a practice, something we do with regularity.
Imagine how delightfully surprised you will be when you try it and discover that…it…actually….works?!
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This issue was originally published by Greg Hayne on Substack.