Let’s talk about the spiritual path and whether we should be seeking – trying to refine the mind, change ourselves, have deep insights – or being – resting in who we are and recognising our innate perfection.

This dichotomy is built into the spiritual path. People vehemently argue for one or the other. Entire spiritual paths are built on either seeking or being.

I hope to convince you that both these views are important and complementary.

The Seeking Component

So, what do the advocates of seeking claim? They say that we go through stages as undertake meditation, yoga and other practices that induce spiritual insight. At the end of this long journey of expansion and deepening, we eventually come to realise our true spiritual selves.

We must accumulate thousands of hours of spiritual practice, do retreats, bring it into our lives, slowly incorporate new practices and up the difficulty level. We must polish the mirror of our mind, become better people, learn the traditions, seek out teachers.

As I said, entire spiritual schools and systems are built on this paradigm, so there must be truth to it. You see it in the Zen Ox-Herding Pictures, the Four Jhanas, the stages of samadhi, and so on.

The Being Component

On the other hand, we have those that advocate the Being perspective. “Call off the search”, “there’s nowhere to go, nothing to do, nothing to get.”

According to this point of view, our spiritual nature is already present, so there’s no need to work hard to discover or attain it, since this implies it’s not already there.

This is true, but I’ve found it can lead to spiritual lip-service. This is when we memorise quotes and catchphrases and get lost in their surface-level sonority rather than contact their deep truths. “It’s all one”.

We happily slide them into conversations at just the opportune moment, and we feel like we get the meaning, but really we’re distracting ourselves from concerted effort and true embodiment.

How They Come Together

Both perspectives have problems, and both point to crucial elements of the path.

The problem with the Being perspective is that though our spiritual nature may already be 100% present, that doesn’t mean we’re aware of it. In fact, 99% of people will live their entire lives and not be aware of it. Spiritual ignorance is most certainly a reality, which necessitates training. We can’t just slack off. Too much attachment to the Being point of view might encourage laziness, complacency, and overestimation of one’s level of spiritual realisation.

On the other hand, the Seeking perspective is often built on the idea that there is something to gain, that we’ll become greater and stronger as we progress. But it can also lead to striving, to valuing our hours of practice over our level of spiritual realisation. It can lead us to looking outside or elsewhere for the deep truths, which are only to be found inside.

However, it’s possible to reach a healthy balance between Seeking and Being. Here’s how that looks.

Our deepest nature is not outside us. We are already it. To paraphrase Lama Surya Das,“it’s so close that we overlook it. It seems too good to be true, we can hardly believe it. It’s too profound, so we can’t fully fathom it. This splendour is not outside ourselves, so we can’t obtain it anew.”

But, paradoxically, we must train earnestly to consistently contact and embody it, even though it’s right before our eyes.

For this reason, spiritual practice is transformative and progresses in stages, but it’s still only a means to an end, and ultimately it’s an anti-path that leads us home, rather than to a distant place.

The spiritual path itself is transformative, but it merely lifts your veils and your confusion over your identity. You don’t become a superhero. You become more fully who (or That) which you have always been.

You come Home, but that Home is not quite the same Home from which you departed. Your point of departure is one of cloudiness and confusion. Your destination is clear, sharp, lucid.

And until we dispel that confusion once and for all, we must practice.

This is how we balance Seeking with Being on the spiritual path.