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 YOU, 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?
Education still today 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 become 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’s 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.
Nusrudin one night left the local tavern and realized on his way back to his house that he doesn’t have his keys anymore. Desperately he started looking 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 four 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.
For Nasrudin it doesn’t make sense to search for lost keys where there is no light, irrespective of his memory telling him that exactly there he lost his keys; what makes sense for Nasrudin’s mind is to search where search 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.
To 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 wants 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 complete human beings. Peace and love are when nothing is missing. An authentic life doesn’t need anything specific. It’s completeness is its alpha and omega. Authenticity is whole and complete in itself.
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 love ❤ Marc