What inspires our search?

My own impression is I personally have never met any human being. Of course, there are many human beings, but I don't talk to everybody, but the ones I have ever spoken to, including many students in my classes, I used to be a professor, and similarly friends, acquaintances, I have never met anybody who was not at least occasionally interested in, for example, sometimes out of fear, what happens when I die? But sometimes, actually out of wonder, they are wondering, is there anything that exists? Or even, where was I before I was in this body? Was I? Partly because some of this arises even from our language. We say, my body. We don't say, I the body. What do we mean by this? As if I am something other than the body. On the other hand, psychologically, we always identify ourselves almost wholly with the body. I am including the mind here with the body. So, sometimes a person, as I said, I have almost never met a person who doesn't actually occasionally ask this kind of serious question. These are the serious questions of any spiritual tradition. In fact, repeatedly many people say, for example, Plato even made this remark, that all philosophy is a preparation for death. Because if I can keep this in mind, or even occasionally, that I will die, then one actually has more serious questions about why I am alive.

Otherwise, one is alive and one is eager to have more pleasure and this and that. But in any case, as I said, I have personally never met anybody who doesn't occasionally think about this. So, it's not that somebody has to impose this on people, but in general, we don't pursue it. But then, sometimes a person may be, we sometimes say, by happenstance. Personally, I don't really believe this. There are all kinds of forces which are running my life, everybody's life. But we may call them angels or devas or higher levels of consciousness. Sometimes a person encounters somebody else or even reads a book, maybe happens to read the Bhagavad Gita or the Yoga Sutras or the Bible. But in a way, not just simply, oh, I am stuck with this, I am a Christian, so I have to read this. But actually be touched by something, some teaching of Christ or of Krishna or the Buddha. That then begins to create more interest. So, it's not that I am wholly interested in the spiritual truth, then I would study something. That's not the way it happens. That's the kind of linearity created by language.

But even a minor little interest, which may even come about if a close friend dies, I may not usually think about that. I may not usually think of what is really, why the hell am I here on this planet? Considering the vastness of the universe, two trillion galaxies, and if it is really true that there is a cosmic intelligence, it's really amazing that this cosmic intelligence should create me. For a few decades. But one can be more struck by some of these questions in a heightened emotional state. Sometimes a great joy can actually create that feeling as well. To see the birth of a baby, for example. One really wonders, oh my goodness, here is a whole new creature coming into the world. But often for most of us, it's actually created by a feeling of great grief or sadness. A close friend dies. Then at least temporarily one wonders, what happens after death? Where is this person now?

What will happen to me? So what I'm saying is, not to think of this spiritual search or the worldly achievement orientation either in opposition to each other or that one has to get completely rid of one to be engaged in the other. No, sometimes for varieties of reasons, one is even temporarily struck by something. Then one wishes to explore it more. Then maybe one would read certain books that strike one. Or sometimes it happens seemingly by happenstance. I don't personally believe that anything is by happenstance. In physics we would say every effect has a cause. Everything that takes place actually has a cause. We may not know it. So we then say, oh it was just by chance or lucky or destiny or something. We just add words to make our mind easy rather than to search for those causes. But however it takes place, occasionally one maybe comes across a book or comes across a person who is very interested in something which I'm not interested in. I never cross my mind.

Then it can even be that in our conversation now, supposing somebody were to hear this transformation, well I wonder what the hell that is. Does it really bring about something? So it could even raise a question like this for somebody. Then they may begin to search for something. What is the discipline required for this? What is the yoga and how does Patanjali Yoga Sutra or the Bhagavad Gita or any other classic text of yoga or really any other serious teaching? How does it assist to bring about this transformation? And then one can begin to question, am I really interested in this? What do I have to do? Maybe I just need to make enough money so I can survive and then I will attend to it. I know people who say that. Sometimes they never get around to coming back to it.

Sometimes they do. So what I'm saying is, don't think of this as X having been completely accomplished, then I come to Y. Now a little bit of X, if I'm a little bit interested in chemistry, then I study more chemistry books maybe. Then it increases my interest. Then I can learn more about chemistry. Every development, every interest, every talent, every skill is spiral in nature. It's not linear. For example, Patanjali is eight limbs of yoga because the way they are expressed, they seem as if they are linear. First of all, you master yama and then niyama, then asana. That's not the way it is.

Even when I have not at all mastered yama or niyama, I can still do the asanas. I can still engage in some meditation.