The Surprising Shark Principle

When I was young, my greatest aspiration was to capture a moment of perfect ‘meditation flow’ and hold it forever.

I thought that if I could stay connected to energy, to the sweet spot of my meditation 24/7, then I would have‘made it’.

That would be enlightenment (or at least something close to it!).

Interestingly, this dream of meditation perfection wasn’t too different from the more mundane dreams most people have.

Take our marriage vows, for instance.

‘Until death do us part’.

We want to capture the heady early days of love, bottle them, and somehow keep them fresh forever.

Or take the big goals many of us set, in which we imagine a ‘perfect day’ and then strive to live it and relive it forever more.

If we could just live that sort of life with those people, those things, and those hobbies, then we’d be happy.

But there are a few problems with all this.

To begin, as the sages have been telling us for millennia, everything changes.

Everything is subject to the law of impermanence.

So to try to bottle a moment, to make it last forever, is futile.

Life is seasonal, both externally and internally.

The year has its seasons.

Day turns to night.

Our body has its natural rhythms and cycles.

Circadian cycles. Menstrual cycles. Hormonal cycles.

The list goes on and on.

So ‘stable perfection’ is an impossibility, and no matter how desperately we lust after it, it will always slip through our fingers.

Another issue with ‘stable perfection’ is that it presumes there is an endpoint.

And that, interestingly, is how most people interpret enlightenment.

It is the ultimate state of human evolution.

The final step on the journey.

Perfection.

But as the saying goes, ‘everything is either growing or dying’.

So ‘static’ enlightenment is an impossibility.

Our being – just like the universe that surrounds it – is in a constant state of expansion.

So while I’m not enlightened, I’m confident enlightenment isn’t a static, ultimate state.

Rather, my guess is that it is more of an evolutionary landmark– after which, among other things, we will cease to identify with our ego.

But even as enlightened beings, we will continue to change and evolve.

And this, I would suggest, is a good thing and something we should remember the next time we daydream about reaching some form of stable happiness.

For anything repeated too often grows dull.

Good food, good company, good meditation.

It’s all the same (even if the shelf life of meditation seems to be a lot longer!).

So as much as a part of me might wish to bliss out in a permanent state of intense inner energy flow, even that, ultimately, isn’t going to be enough to satisfy the longings of the spirit.

No, as beautiful as such high-energy meditation states might be, at a certain point, a part of us always wants to keep growing and experiencing new things.

And this is what we might call the ‘Shark Principle’.

To continue to live and breathe, most breeds of sharks need to keep swimming 24/7.

Stop doing that, and water ceases to reach their gills, and they suffocate and die.

Similarly, when we stop growing, a part of us always dies.

So, instead of dreaming of some idyllic, perfect state, maybe we should practice rolling more with change.

It mightn't be easy, but one thing is certain: if we battle change, if we try to freeze our life in some ideal moment, then we will be torn from it and suffer.

Unless You Solve This, You’ll Never Be Content

“You don’t want to get to the top of a ladder only to realise it is leaning up against the wrong wall.”

It’s a scary fact, but the motivation for a lot of our actions in life typically stems from a deep-seated belief that we are ‘not enough’.

We choose a certain job or career. We dedicate ourselves to improving a skill. We work towards mastering a hobby – so often to prove to ourselves and others our self-worth.

We feel that we are unlovable as we are. We feel that we are not enough as we are, so we need to better ourselves to be okay.

But the truth of the matter is that we can never fill up from the outside.

Possibly – in a metaphorical sense – this is how we might interpret the widespread Christian idea that you can’t get to heaven through your actions and deeds.

For many Christians, it is typically only through Christ that we can get there. I’m not a Christian, and I don’t want to get into a debate with anyone on the issue, but for me, personally, if I readjust their wording slightly and say that we can’t get to ‘heaven’ without connecting to the Christ-essence within us, then it makes sense.

In other words, we need to connect the essence of what Christ embodied. We need to feel our connectedness with ‘God’ (what I’d call the ‘Universe’ or ‘Spirit’) if we want to experience a taste of heaven.

For the purposes of the ‘I’m not enough idea’, we might say that to feel enough, we need to connect to the Christ-spirit within us. No matter how much we try to build up our self-esteem through our actions and accomplishments, long-term,they will never be enough – on their own – to eradicate the feeling of not being enough.

This point is clearly supported when we think of the cliché billionaire, rock star or actor who has all the fame and fortune they could desire but still lacks any deep-seated happiness.

Bobby Fischer (the former world chess champion). Robin Williams. Marilyn Monroe. No need to go on and on. The number of miserable ‘successful’ people is legion.

The problem with trying to be enough through actions and deeds is that it is like attempting to fill up a bottomless pit. It doesn’t matter how much you toss into it, you still can’t fill it up.

And yet, we SO want to believe that it is possible to find everlasting happiness through our actions.

We run around doing all sorts of things that don’t align with our true Path.

We do our best to be skilful/successful at something.

We try to be a great mother/father.

We do everything we can to be saintly.

On and on, we try different things in the hope that our mistake thus far has simply been to choose the wrong things.

We hope that if we can only find the RIGHT thing, it will make all the difference, that we will then feel enough and find happiness.

Alas, the only way to be enough is to FEEL it in our bones, in our core. We need to connect to the place within us where there is no lack, the place of inner plenitude, the place where we connect to the vastness of our inner being.

As Christ said in Luke 17, 20:21:

“The kingdom of God does not come with observation;nor will they say,‘See here!’ or ‘See there!’ For indeed,the Kingdom of God iswithin you.”

Of course, it is unlikely many of us will be able to stay 100% connected to this ‘Kingdom of God’ within us, to the vastness of our inner being. But the more we can connect to this place, the freer our choices will be, and the happier we will become.

Rather than be motivated to do something out of a sense of lack, out of a desire to rid ourselves of our feeling of not being enough, we will feel enough just as we are, and can then allow our actions to be guided by our Higher Self.

If we are starving, all we can think about is food.

If we feel we are not enough, all we can think about is doing whatever it takes to be enough.

But when we are full, when our basic necessities are taken care of, then we can pursue higher goals.

Similarly, when we already feel we are enough, we can relax, enjoy ourselves, and pursue a path that is in true alignment with our Higher Self.

Then, the stress and anxiety of trying to do the right things and become the right sort of person will vanish, and we can just relax into the core of being and enjoy life.

So, rather than rush madly after whatever our feelings of ‘inner lack’ push us towards, we should take a breath, centre ourselves in the core of our being (possibly through meditation, energy work or the like), and only then, when we touch that place of wholeness within us, decide what to do.