"The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeing new landscapes but in having new eyes."
- Marcel Proust
It is for this reason that I sometimes wonder what the point of all this traveling business is. What are we really after, by setting out to see new places, full of different types of people with different cultures and ideas? For me, the answer is not always so clear. Sometimes, I just know it is something I want to do, but at other times, I see that it's just another form of desire, and something to be attached to.
The idea of seeing something familiar as new is a different type of experience though. In a way, because it really enables one to question everything they always see, it sparks the imagination. When you travel within, you can find that the reality you live in is much different than you might have imagined. Similarly, if you travel around the world, you might find that the world is much different than you believed, but it's just learning new things. All the things you learn and know compile together to form the body of your knowledge, but it is penetrating insight that can really prove to have life changing effects and bring about real wisdom and understanding.
You don't need to go anywhere to have a spiritual journey.
When I was living in Colorado last year, I worked at a small college that was up on a mesa above my house. Everyday, I would hike up the mesa to work on the same trail. One day, after returning from a meditation retreat and feeling inspired, I jotted down a 1/2 day schedule based on what I could remember from the retreat, and my friend Gunnar and I got up early and practiced all morning. We alternated 45 minute sitting and walking meditations, and on one of my walks, after having practiced continuously for a few hours, I walked on the trail that I take to work. Even though I took that trail 5 days a week, and had for a couple months, I saw the trail with fresh eyes that day, like I had never seen it before. The whole thing came to life and was much more vivid and exciting.
After that experience, I can't help but to wonder what the difference was. Why can't I always see the world like that? And why do I need to travel if this magical world is always right here in front of me?
I feel that it's important to continue to ask these questions when the desire to travel or learn new things arises. It's not meant to discourage or discredit the idea that it's good to explore, but just that we don't have to wait until we have extra time and money and are afforded the opportunity. It is from this kind of attitude that these fresh eyes can appear, to offer new things around every corner, even familiar corners.
It is certainly much cheaper and more eco-friendly to become fascinated with your backyard in new and exciting ways than to be using gas-powered machines to haul you around the globe.
Additionally, it serves as a reminder, that if we do have the extra time and money, and the desire to go, that we should find a purpose for our travels other than accumulating more knowledge about other places and cultures, which often just serves to solidify the ego and a sense of self, the one who is doing all this traveling and learning all these new things. If we just want to be more worldly, have more experience and more to talk about, then we are only serving ourselves.
If we want to discover, if we want to understand and we like to explore, let's remind ourselves that we can do this in any given moment. We don't have to travel across the world to make it happen. All we need to do is look within ourselves. Every atom is like a holograph of the entire universe. The world within is boundless.
So as I prepare to fly out to India in a couple days, I have to wonder what it's all for. Am I just adding to the list of places I've gone? Am I just building up my resume of interesting things I've done and places I claim to know about? If so, I might as well stay home, because the intention isn't pure. If I have pure intentions, then maybe what I experience and the effort to see things with new eyes will stay with me, allowing me to go on to make steps toward improving the world by starting with myself, and expanding outward.
Only then can I justify spending all this money and resources, money that could go to feed a hungry child in a poor country for a long time, maybe even a matter of years. When I think about it that way, I have to really consider what my intentions are. Is what I am going to do more important for the world than feeding a starving child and possibly saving a little boy or girl's life?
When I think in these terms, I have to be determined that I will strive to save more than one life. I will try to save many. I will reach down and garner strength in order to effect change on a greater scale than I am capable of doing with my current level of strength and means. If I can purify my heart and mind, I know I can do a greater service. But what it will be, I cannot say. It's not something that you can lay out on paper, it's not something that offers much security.
The important thing is that I have faith, that by working to purify my mind in order to help others is a worthwhile cause, and that even though I am faced with many obstacles, I must push on, determined to not let "life" get in the way of my dream. If I can stay connected to my dream, and my intentions, I can only let the rest fall into place. I can't control what will happen, but with observation I can take a look at my intentions, and when I see that they are misaligned with my dream, I can take steps to correct them. When I find that my ego is the driving force behind my actions, instead of my heart, I will do my best to stop moving forward until I can align my intentions for the benefit of all.
So is this trip I am going to take going be worth it? Will it be better than saving a human life? I don't know. It's hard to say that it will, but it might. I think that just having this insight into the driving forces of my actions will help me open up my eyes, even if the landscapes are new, to see the world as it really is, and not how I am conditioned to see it. If I can see the world for the way it is, then maybe, with hard work and determination, I can effect the change I wish to see. I have the vision, but sometimes motives change. We can be misled by our egos and the desire to accumulate new things, or new stories, or something amazing we have done. Even if we are helping people, we can ask, why? We all know someone who brags about their volunteer efforts as if to exemplify how great of a person they are. It is easy to see they are volunteering to impress other people, or maybe to feel a certain sense of self-worth.
The point is, there are numerous reasons why we act, and if we aren't careful, our intentions can become spoiled, or never be pure to begin with. Traveling in particular, seems to be a selfish act, and oftentimes, it probably is. Knowing that the true journey of discovery lies within, we might lose our motivation to travel, but if we purify our intentions, there are a lot of resources out there to inspire us and help us grow in ways that will enable us to be the change. So we don't have to sit at home, fearing that by traveling we will be wasting resources, but if we are at home, we don't have to be fooled into thinking that we already know what is in front of us. In either situation, we can work to find the beauty and the awesomeness of everything in this world. We can also work to purify our hearts and minds in order to act from a place of selflessness, for the benefit of all, regardless of how insignificant it may seem. And to do this, all one must do is stop and take a look. Not with your eyes, but with your power of observation. Be patient, be understanding, and most importantly, just keep watching!
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