Longing

Your soul is a river seeking the sea of fulfillment, your heart a bird forever in flight toward the horizon of contentment.

And you ask, "When shall I reach my destination?"

But I say to you, the destination is a mirage born of your thirst; it retreats as you advance and appears anew with each sunrise.

For life is not a journey with an end, but a ceaseless becoming.

Your heart cries, "Tomorrow I shall be satisfied," and your spirit whispers, "In the next valley I shall find rest." Yet tomorrow comes bringing new hungers, and beyond each valley rises another mountain.

Is the seed not destroyed that the tree might live? Is the caterpillar not undone that the butterfly might soar? So too must your contentment perish that your yearning might be born again.

The pain of unfulfillment is not your enemy, but the chisel with which the Master shapes your being.

You gather moments of joy as a child gathers shells on the shore, only to see them dissolve in your palm. But it is in their dissolving that they reveal their true beauty.

And if I were to tell you that your happiness lies not in possessing the fruit but in the reaching, would you believe me? That your fulfillment dwells not in the quenching of desire but in the sacred thirst itself?

For what is satisfaction but the end of becoming? And what is the absence of longing but the silence of the song that is you?

Your hopes are stars that guide you through the night, though you shall never touch them with your hands. But in following their light, you discover countries within yourself that would otherwise remain unknown.

Therefore, do not lament that the cup is never full or that the feast ends before your hunger is sated. For it is the emptiness within the cup that makes it useful, and it is your hunger that makes the feast worth attending.

And when you cry in the darkness, "One day I shall arrive," know that there is wisdom in the journey that no arrival could teach you.

For you are Life itself, ever moving, ever seeking, ever becoming. And in that becoming is your true glory.