“The more a man lays stress on false possessions, and the less sensitivity he has for what is essential, the less satisfying is his life.” – Carl Jung
Knowledge of the essential varies from person to person. When I was 27-years-old I shared an apartment on Venice Beach, California with an old philosopher, a man who lived life very simply. He had a only a few things in his life that were essential. They were walking on the beach every night, eating organic fruits and vegetables, and focusing on photographs of his spiritual master which he would meditate on for several hours a day.
I, on the other hand, was always spending money on suits, shoes, ties, taking workshops, eating out, going to movies, and flying to the East Coast. Subsequently, I would frequently find myself broke despite making a good salary at the Los Angeles Times. One of these times he heard me say that I was out of money and he had a classic response, with a smile on his face, that I will always remember: “Tell me what you need and I will show you how to get by without it.”
This is a great piece of advice. In this society, with the bombardment of advertising, it is easy for people to convince themselves that they need something that they don’t. And when they are unable to get it, they suffer. They suffer not because they need it, but because they have an addictive demand.
There exists in man an insatiable appetite for wholeness. In some it is conscious, in others unconscious. But in both cases, it is the impetus behind man’s actions. Feeling an emptiness inside, we reach out in a grasping way for anything that might fill that void. Like the grasping desparateness of a man in quicksand, it only intensifies the crisis.
So often what we seek in our outer lives is only a temporary substitute for what we need in our inner lives. Behind the outer desire is an inner desire. For instance the man who desires to have the most powerful car on the road is really missing the real inner desire which is to realize the power of consciousness and spirit. Gandhi, with his walking staff, had more power in his voluntary poverty than most men can even imagine. With his inner power, he had no need for a powerful car or for that matter, a powerful weapon, to kick the British Empire out of India. He didn’t need to compensate artificially.
The awakening of awareness is dependent on removing the obstacles of attachment to the non-essential within us. It is these attachments and desires for new attachments that choke our consciousness with blindness and obsessive wanting. When our attention is exclusively on the outer world of things, we lose awareness of the inner world and the source of being.
The most essential aspect of life is finding the treasure within. Find it and you will be free of outer obsessiveness. What is this treasure? It is your own self, undivided, pristine, and infinite in power, knowledge, and bliss.
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