The other day I watched a popular movie where one of the characters sought never-ending expansion. He felt his life had no meaning unless he could keep expanding. That may sound silly and very Hollywood-esque, but I notice the same tendency in real life. The rich seek to get richer, the powerful seek to get more powerful. Common folk seek expansion too in some form or fashion, whether that’s adding another instagram follower or branching out their business.
My spiritual teacher says, “Everybody wants expansion. The desire for expansion is the innate characteristic, the dharma, of human beings. No one desires to remain a tiny thing. All wish to expand their psychic arena.”
This picture. I mean really. Photo by Bryan Goff on Unsplash.
I buy that, it makes sense to me from what I’ve witnessed in myself and others. What’s interesting for me to contemplate is how this desire for expansion, or vistára as we say in Sanskrit, plays itself out. As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, for some it means garnering more wealth or power. I continue to be amazed at the lengths some people will go to for those two things. I know it’s not a new thing, to lie, cheat, and steal in the name of wealth and power, but every year it seems people find newer and more appalling ways to acquire them. It would be easy to keep casting those seeking expansion as villains, as indeed this movie I watched recently did, but again, the desire for expansion exists in all of us. It’s natural and normal. What to do then to keep the desire for expansion from becoming cancerous?
I’m pretty sure you know where I’m going with this, what I’ll say next. The answer is meditation, specifically, any meditation that puts a person in touch with something greater than themselves. We long to expand unencumbered. We long for something infinite and the only thing that’s infinite is the Cosmic Self. That means we have to turn our psychic quality of vistára toward the Supreme if we ever want to satisfy our thirst for limitlessness.
I mention this because I notice the tendency in myself, too, that enough is never enough. What is the number of followers on social media that would satisfy me? What is the amount of money in my bank account that would be enough? Heck, if I could eat cookies nonstop without feeling terrible, I would. My brain wants more, more, more. And the only way I’ve found thus far to satisfy the feeling of “more, more, more” is to turn to spirituality. Let’s be honest though, even with meditation I still want to eat all the cookies all the time, but now at least I’m clear the answer does not lie with the outside world, but rather the internal one, and that, I think, makes a huge difference.
I dream of a world where we we take our desire for expansion and turn it toward something which is truly infinite. A world where we keep expanding but we do so internally. A world where we recognize wanting to expand is normal, and we channelize it in such a way that benefits ourselves and those around us.
Another world is not only possible, it’s probable.
Something kicking around in my head today is the idea we are not problem solvers, we are solution allowers. When I’m confronted with a problem I automatically jump to, “How can I fix it?” I like to plot all the possible solutions to the problem and then choose the best one. Somehow I’ve been trained to think it’s my job. In truth, it’s not.
When I was in college my scholarships and grants didn’t cover all of my expenses. I started off living in a house with some friends of mine but after one semester I couldn’t continue to afford it. My solution was to become an RA. Live on campus for free! Get paid for it! I put on my most charming smile and went to the interview assured I would get the job.
I didn’t.
Not only did I not get the job, but they made a guy I deemed creepy and who acted inappropriately toward women an RA. Someone who used to leer at friends of mine and may or may not have groped a mutual friend of ours. What did I do? I went to the head honchos and I complained. How could they not have given me the job??? How could they have given the position to that other guy???
I sat in the woman’s office and I cried about how unfair it all was, how I was a way better candidate than Joe Schmoe over there. Somehow I thought if only she saw how much I cared and how much this other guy didn’t deserve it, they would magically give the job to me. My act of outrage accomplished nothing other than moistening my cheeks with tears.
What to do next? I thought about being a nanny but geez, I was a senior in college. I didn’t have the time or the patience for that. I scoured Craigslist and university job boards looking for something. I felt inspired to look up babysitting gigs. What ended up happening is I became a live-in babysitter for a 10 year old. My only responsibilities were to pick her up from school everyday (which was within walking distance from the house!) and watch her until her parents came home from work. In exchange I lived rent free in their basement apartment. And not some studio either. A big apartment with a living room, bedroom, and kitchen. What the Universe provided for me was way better than what I picked out for myself.
Living in the dorms I would have used the communal kitchen, requiring me to schlep all my pots and pans as well as the ingredients to and fro. I would have had to deal with drunken students and fire alarms and floor activities to promote bonding. As a live-in babysitter? I just had to watch a sweet 10 year old for a few hours a day. And the family let me use their car when I needed it.
I guess I’m saying the Universe already has the solution to all of our problems lined up. All the live-in babysitter scenarios we could ask for. All the everything. It’s not my responsibility to figure everything out. It’s my responsibility to allow the best things to come to me. To take inspired action. To do what moves me, knowing and trusting the Universe along the way. The solution to the problem? It already exists – I just need to be open to hearing it.
I dream of a world where we realize everything we experience on this Earth is for the purpose of expansion. Where we realize our purpose is to not to solve problems but to live our solutions. A world where we allow ourselves to be taken to the solution as opposed to trying to force our own will. A world where we know all we need we already have.
Another world is not only possible, it’s probable.
Oh perfectionism. I know thee well. You are the character trait that says, “I don’t want to make any mistakes at all. Ever. I want to do things right the first time, all the time.” You are the character trait I displayed the most while in school because you were frequently rewarded. Every time I did something “perfectly” I got an A, which got me attention, love, respect, validation. I got pats on the head and encouragement every time I trotted you out. I’ve attributed the successes of my life to you, thinking you were the reason, you were my motivator. And even though I graduated years ago I’ve carried you with me ever since.