Don’t look outside of yourself for answers, or for something to complete yourself.
It is common advice, and can be understood in a few different ways.
First, in a conventional sense, it is an invitation to find in myself what I am looking for outside of myself. I may be looking for advice, and remember to (also) ask myself and find it in myself. I may be looking for something to complete me, and remember to give it to myself and find it in myself. It is a way to learn to trust what is here, see that it is already here, and that something outside of myself – teachings, people, situations – can remind me of what is already here. The world is my mirror.
It is an invitation to not get caught up in blind projections, in blind attractions and aversions. I may get advice from others, and enjoy things I am attracted to in others, but also remember to find it right here now. I can see it. Feel it. Find appreciation for it.
Then, I can notice that it is already happening. It is already that way. I may be looking for answers outside of myself, I may be looking outside of myself for something to complete me, and it may be outside of myself in a conventional sense, but is it really outside of myself?
It is all happening within my own world of images. The wider world and me that I see all this in is my own world of images. There is no outside and inside here.
The qualities and dynamics these images refer to are also here now. The wider world is a reminder, a mirror, of what is already here now. There is an inside and outside, but they mirror each other instantly and perfectly in this way.
And it is all happening as what I am and everything is. As that which all experience happens within, as and as an expression of.
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Outline…
- don’t look outside of yourself
- find the answers in yourself, not through others
- see that it is already and always that way
Initial outline…
- not looking outside of oneself
- means
- not getting caught up in blind attractions/aversions
- recognize as here now, too
- see it, w. examples, take time to feel it
- including insights, when get something out of a teaching, is b/c resonated with something here + the insight is here now
- world of images
- all happens w/in my own world images
- outside and inside, others and me/I, teachers and students, saints and sinners, culture and nature, a me relating to all of this, all happens w/in my own world of images (overlay)
- and what these images refer to, are here too (here now)
- all happens w/in+ as what I am and everything is
- means