I used to be a spiritual seeker.
A man on a sacred quest. A pilgrim moving toward something holy just beyond the horizon.
There was a time when I lived as though the next book would unlock my freedom. The next teacher would reveal the path. The next spiritual practice would grant me peace. The next breakthrough would finally deliver me into the version of myself I was trying to become.
It looked like growth. It looked like ambition. It even looked like devotion.
But underneath it was a quiet assumption: I am not there yet.
There is something I do not have.
There is something I must find.
There is somewhere else I need to arrive.
Seeking implies disconnection. It is fueled by lack, even if dressed in good intentions.
Seeking implies something is missing. And I no longer believe that.
I am not a spiritual seeker.
I’m a spiritual explorer.
A Self-explorer.
Exploration is different.
Exploration does not assume absence. It assumes wholeness.
When I explore, I am not chasing something that’s missing. I’m curiously moving through what’s already here.
I am curious about the terrain of my own being. The valleys of grief. The sharp cliffs of fear. The quiet lakes of contentment. The enchanted forests of desire and doubt and creativity and love.
Nothing is missing.
It’s all right here within me.
The breath in my lungs.
The thoughts moving through my mind.
The sensations in my body.
An explorer does not walk into a forest to find something missing, but to experience what’s there.
That’s how I relate to life now.
I am not trying to transcend my humanity. I am not trying to purify myself into some enlightened abstraction. I am not climbing toward a spiritual summit where I will finally plant a flag and declare myself whole.
Wholeness is the starting point.
The invitation is not to become complete. The invitation is to Know that I already am, and live from that place.
There is something deeply relieving about this shift. When nothing is missing, there is no frantic searching. No desperate hunger. No sense that time is running out. There’s no hurry toward some illusory solution to a problem that I created.
Instead there is curiosity.
What happens if I look here?
What happens if I feel this fully?
What happens if I try this?
Exploration invites presence. Seeking invites tension. The same tension created from trying to pull a piece of fabric apart, from trying to separate something from what it already is.
When I was seeking, I was often bypassing the moment in front of me in favor of a better one I imagined somewhere else. I was optimizing my consciousness. Upgrading myself. Engineering my enlightenment. Working toward an outcome, a different version of myself. A different experience of reality.
Now I am interested in the texture of this moment. The way sunlight hits the floor. The way my chest tightens before a difficult conversation. The way my heart sparks when I do what I enjoy. The way love feels when I let it in. The way the tension from my shoulders releases when I remember I’m inseparable from God.
Exploration is intimate.
It requires courage too. Because if I realize nothing is missing, then I can no longer seek resolution in the future. I have to meet what is here in all its forms.
But that is the adventure, the one I’ve found to be the greatest of all.
Because when I stop seeking what’s missing, I realize what’s here.
And I move through my inner landscape the way an explorer does. Attentive. Engaged. Sometimes uncertain. Always curious. Often surprised.
I’m not looking for treasure. I’m playing in it.
I am here.
And what a miracle it is to be here.
I used to be a spiritual seeker.
Did I find what I was searching for,
or did I simply realize I never had to search at all?
