What has moved me to do things?

Subhan ponders over Motivation

For years, underneath everything, it seems to have been a deep desire to seek pleasure – and thus avoid pain.

This way of looking at life kept me stuck for years, living a life of being pulled toward what I thought was pleasure. That meant seeking entertainment (in more forms than I had ever imagined), including movies and TV, the internet, concerts, sports, sex and food and more. And it urged me to become someone and be successful, which were also sources of what appeared to be pleasure. (That isn’t to say that there weren’t also moments of creativity, celebration and fulfillment. But they were much fewer and were often drowned out by the need for pleasure. And my life always seemed to require me to seek “more.”)

Seeing my life from the notion of “seeking pleasures” didn’t allow me to recognize the hidden motivation behind them! With much digging and exploration, I discovered that they were really distractions and diversions – from a life of dissatisfaction, boredom, guilt, irritation, anger, sadness, pain, fear, worry, anxiety, and tension. All adding up to more and more problems; and all requiring more and more distractions.

Then I learned that, when I felt a craving for something, I could stop. Even for a moment… and instead of indulging in the diversion, experience what I was running away from. At first, this was extremely difficult. I could repress the desired diversion or indulge in it – which I did again and again! But to begin looking at what I was moving away from? That was difficult.

I began to see that if I didn’t distract myself, I would have to experience, feel, confront the feelings of discomfort. I recognized that there was so much chaos happening, both in my personal life, AND in the world around me. And many times, I would find myself once again engaged in the distractions, to avoid the hidden discomfort.

This “see-saw” effect led me to finding a spiritual master – one who had gone through what I was going through – and who could be a guide for me out of this chaos. And that is when I began to meditate, and watch my body, and then my mind! It was like bringing light into the dark night.

Flash forward to just the other day, I heard Osho describe exactly what I have been feeling and experiencing, and what I have learned about my life. He said this:

“The outer world has to remain a beautiful chaos so that you have to struggle for inner awareness.” *

This pierced me like an arrow, and went into what felt like the core of my being.

Yes, the world and its chaos, and the mind’s chaos as a part of it, had done the perfect job of motivating me to move inside, to find the inner light, to become marinated in the silence that resided there. Without the chaos, I never would have been motivated to seek the light within. And, it was… and is… clear, that everything that is happening in this world is an insistent wake-up call to find that true nature of existence and being within.

And now? I share with you this possibility: May we recognize the gift of the chaos, and may we enter deeper and deeper into the struggle – and the joy! – of finding the light within.

* Source: Osho, Yoga: The Alpha and the Omega, Vol 9, Ch 8, Q 1

This article was first posted on Facebook – reproduced here with the author’s permission
Featured image by Pixabay