The real echo chamber is I. Not the news, not the social media feed, not family and friends, but this weaver of stories and beliefs that masquerade as life. The self, that great dramatist who suffers the slings and arrows of his own monologue.
“For we live by faith, not by sight,” writes Paul. Truly, I never see, hear, taste, touch, or smell anything I have not first believed. Faith is the mind projecting its own image and then stepping into it, believing it to be life. Such a life is but my own self-fulfilling prophecy, a dialogue with the echo of my own voice.
Like a playwright trapped in his own tragedy or a dreamer lost in her dream, I bump against the walls of my beliefs, looking for a way out. But what I find is only more belief, more dream, more tragedy. Indeed, the end of a tragedy is not found within the tragedy, awakening does not occur within the dream, and there is no sight within belief. The end comes with awakening, and awakening comes with sight.
When I see the story as a story, the echoes and reflections cease. Then, I am neither within the story nor outside it. Neither believer nor unbeliever, I am unbound. Then, there is that “peace of God, which transcends all understanding.”
May we live by sight,
Simeon
“When you are completely free from all seeking, not even the desire to be free remaining, then the Self stands revealed.”
— Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
Suggested Reading
The Untethered Soul: The Journey Beyond Yourself
Who are you when the voice in your head falls silent? In The Untethered Soul, Michael Singer invites us to turn awareness towards awareness itself. A modern doorway to freedom. Order here to support SEEKER TO SEEKER at no extra cost.
In this piece, we explore a powerful teaching by the Christian mystic Meister Eckhart. See how the great sage unpacks a single sentence by Christ to lead us to that freedom which lies beyond identity.