The search for authenticity

No one can be truly happy if their life is not authentic. Authentic means that it is truly yours, coming from your source; not from your parents, your teachers, the movies, from social or traditional conditioning. But from

, from your core, your essence, your soul. When we make space for our soul to fully embody itself in us as ourselves and our lives, well then what could possibly be more authentic?

A second-hand life

Education today still fails to give our children what they would need in order to find their own truth, values and authenticity. Society still forms the new generations according to their blueprint. Conformity however leaves man insecure and unhappy deep within. The vast majority of people on the earth suffer an often unconscious unhappiness which makes them vulnerable to becoming convenient customers of an industry that sells us substitutes. This creates our life style.

Most of us have become dependent on substitutes like entertainment, unhealthy food pleasures, luxury articles, intoxicating substances, and so on and so forth. Other escape routes from the inner pain of living a second-hand life are workaholism, sexism, narcoticism and the whole range of modern society disorders: panic attacks, anxiety, burn-out, bore-out, depression, just to name a few.

From my perspective, taking all possible factors into consideration, it all boils down to this one conclusion:

What is missing is people living authentic lives.

Anybody taking a good look at our world can tell very soon that something is profoundly going wrong. And the more we try to fix it, the more we seem to fail. It reminds me of the short tale of an Indian character named Nasrudin.

Nasrudin left the local tavern one night and realized on his way back to his house that he didn’t have his keys anymore. In despair, he started to look for his keys under the nearby lantern which shed a small radius of light onto the street. On his knees, Nasrudin crawled and searched every spot of the lit up pavement.

A friend came by, saw Nasrudin on all fours and curiously asked “What are you doing, Nasrudin?” Nasrudin answered: “I’m looking for my keys!” After a moment of screening the situation, his friend asked: “Where did you lose them?” Nasrudin spontaneously answered “Over there!”. His surprised friend replied: “Then why don’t you search over there?” “Because there is no light!” was Nasrudin’s answer.

Searching within the light of the mind

For Nasrudin, it doesn’t make sense to search for lost keys where there is no light, irrespective of his memory telling him that is exactly where he lost his keys; what makes sense for Nasrudins mind is to search where searching makes sense: in the light under the lantern.

This story is told to point to the observation that most people look for their lost parts of themselves within the light of their mind. And wonder why they fail to find them.

Two questions can be asked here.

Why not wait for the next day when there is all light again? And, are there any flashlights available?

The first question needs definition of what “next day” means? What if it means “next life”? Who would want to wait that long? The second question can be answered with yes; the flashlight is in the teachers who have taken the journey previously and therefore know the territory.

Those lucky to have established an authentic life are happy human beings. Happiness is when nothing is missing. An authentic life doesn’t need anything specific. Its happiness is its own alpha and omega. Authenticity is whole and healthy in itself.

The answer is love.

Love is the natural state a person experiences when they live authentically. Love for themselves, love for others, love for the world and love for life.

with ❤, Marc Steinberg