Written and spoken by Mike Jenkins
Guest Contributor for Wake Up World
A note from WuW: I was recently introduced to a delightful and quirky animated video on YouTube that tells a simple story of spiritual awakening. In the Wake Up World office, we loved it so much that we had to share it with our readers.
Ladies and gentlemen, written and spoken by Mike Jenkins, this is “You Are What You Seek: Non-Duality and the Awakening You Are.”
With the kind permission of the author, there is also a full transcript of the video’s script provided.
Problems loading? Click here to view the video on YouTube.
Video Script
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The world seems like such a big place doesn’t it? There’s so much to see, so much to do, so much to experience. There is so much to have, to do and to be. Most of us are looking for something to feel satisfied and fulfilled.
We might be searching for our next big job, our new career, in a new life. Or, we might go chasing our favorite foods and our favorite indulgences.
Many of us seem to want more money so that we can buy lots and lots of things, like a shiny new sports car that we can bomb around in… or to go on holiday on a paradise island or to live in a beautiful place. We’re on a journey it seems. A journey to find something we think we’ve lost.
We sail the high seas, always on the move, always on the go. Seeking here and seeking there. We travel from place to place—hunting high and low, looking for what we think we’ve lost. We’ve mounted a worldwide search… and here we stand, utterly perplexed by the puzzle before us.
• What is it?
• Where is it?
• Who am I?
So we go to the books, we study and accumulate knowledge but we don’t find it there. We seek out gurus and teachers. We learn to think in new ways. But we don’t find it there either. We scour the known world for knowledge, answers, it must be out there somewhere. But we can find it.
And then we seek for the answers from those we love. We look in our relationships and still we can’t find what we’re looking for. Which way to turn? There’s just too many questions!
• Where is this freedom I long for?
• Where is this happiness I so desperately crave?
• Why can’t I find what I am looking for?
And the answer is:
What you’re looking for, is what is doing the looking. That which sees and looks is what is looked for! And that can’t be found: because it’s not been lost! It’s been looking all along. At the deepest level, you’re holding the answer you’ve been looking for. The answer is in your hands. It’s in your own being. You ARE what you’re looking for. You ARE what you’ve always longed for.
Which begs a question, doesn’t it? If I am what I am looking for, well, what am I? Where is this me that I take to be myself? If I am definitely here, I should be able to find myself. If I look for ME, what do I find? Am I the name I was given at birth? Is that me? No, somehow it doesn’t seem to fit.
Am I my body and my personality? No that doesn’t seem right either! Maybe then I’m my mind, that’s got to be it.
But when we sit and watch the mind, we usually just find a bunch of thoughts coming and going. If you watch your thoughts carefully enough you’ll soon see that they float in and out of awareness by themselves. They come and then they go. One thought after another thought.
Words, pictures, sensations… pictures, sensations words. It’s just that when they appear all together, they seem like me. They seem they’re telling a story, it feels like me. So maybe, I am my feelings, my emotions. They seem real sometimes. Sometimes I’m happy, lonely, lost or sad. But then the feelings seem to come and go all the time too.
There is something here which feels like me that never leaves. Something that doesn’t come and go, but I can’t find it. There’s NOTHING here…
… and that’s where the greatest discovery can be made.
In those times when there is just WHAT IS, when you are just aware of AWARENESS ITSELF, simply being—it feels peaceful, it feels like home.
Simply aware of the world around you and nothing else. Resting as awareness itself… as life coming and going.
In those times, it’s like you and the world are one. The world arises inside and outside of you. There’s no more separation. Suddenly the world inside you, IS the world outside you. You are in the world, and the world is in you.
And there’s no contradiction in that realization at all. It’s simply the natural way of being: The natural state of awareness that’s always been here.
And in this realization, it can be seen that you are awareness showing up as all the books and the knowledge, showing up as the teachers and the gurus. You are consciousness appearing as the money you long for and consciousness appearing as the relationships in your life too.
And it’s all happening now, in this moment, right here.
Time is no longer about before and after, past and future. They become one in the present moment. Where there really is no time at all, no time like the present; where what I am is what is happening, which includes the world, and everything in the world…including all the people—all of them, everyone.
I am the air and the wind and the moon and the night sky and the stars twinkling in the sky… and the stars in far off galaxies and all the planets. What I am is universal, literally, the entire universe… it’s amazing!
You searched all over the world to find your way home. You searched in the wilderness, looking in the long grass, above and below, when all along you were the home you longed for.
What an incredible surprise! It’s ingenious.
You dreamt you searched all over the world, over hill and dale, looking for the answer, looking for salvation, looking for truth, seeking awakening, seeking enlightenment, seeking the end of seeking! Looking for the ultimate secret to life and then, you woke up.
You woke up right here where you always were. Already home.
In the end—feeling separate from home, was just a dream.
So welcome home.
Now rest yourself—the search is over! You’re already whole, you’re already whole and complete as you are. But the life happening; happening in the freedom of the present moment, as it is.
About the author:
Mike worked as an actor in London after studying at The Guildhall School of Music and Drama and later worked as a teacher and trainer.
The feeling that something was missing in his life was ever present, and like many people, he constantly sought to improve himself, his work, his relationships, his health, and his wealth… and mostly met with failure. Dissatisfaction, instability, and illness led to a voracious spiritual search and intense seeking for freedom.
The search ended with the realisation that freedom was already happening… happening as the present moment unfolding.
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