Every Step is an Arrival

Why have you used the word seeking and not searching? A young friend helping me proof-read some writing asked. … it's a very current word is it? Her question made me pause and look at these two words more carefully.

Searching has a more solid, practical, action-oriented feel to it. I understand it as referring to things, to ends, to something you imagine you know is somewhere. You may have preconceived notions about what you want to find. And you must have answers. Preferably within a time frame you decide on!

Seeking, while it can be definitely active, has a more receptive, spiritual connotation. While there is a certainly that it exists, expectations could be less precisely or rigidly defined. I really don't know about the form, shape or experience it might take or even when it might show me teach me challenge me. In searching we usually move faster; seeking often requires us to slow down.

We search for ways to end conflict or discord: we seek solitude. We search for like-minded people; we seek relatedness. We search for people to love or for people who will love us; we seek love. We search for answers; we seek meaning.

Searching and seeking need not be considered watertight definitions, rather as interlinked or perhaps sequential processes. In the field of positive psychology, psychologists and coaches are invited to note the distinction between seekers and searchers. Seekers are those who have already set the path themselves. They may need support and encouragement to keep envisioning and acting upon their own chosen path, and there is a desire to stay with the quest even without too much 'hard evidence'. Searchers have to be supported to help find their goals in the first place. Not only do they initially need more help and clarification, they can easily give up unless they see more concrete signs or results. Interestingly, once these things are identified, once some proof is accepted, the searcher very often becomes the seeker.

Spiritual searching manifests for many in the urge to read more spiritual books, engage in more rituals, embark on pilgrimages, go to more retreats and satsangs, find a special teacher - or often to ship for exciting new teachers. In and of itself there is nothing wrong with this; for some this may be just necessary steps on one's was, but for others the means can be confused with the end.

Denise Levertov's poem in which she speaks intriguingly, not of a person, but a dog, teaches me the true spirit of seeking: Let's go - much as that dog goes intently haphazard … dancing edgeways, there's nothing the dog disdains on his way … nevertheless he keeps moving, changing pace and approach - but not direction. Every step an arrival…"

However, not just searching, but even seeking can come to an end.

The early need and impulse to acquire further answers or meanings dissolves. You learn that perhaps in the end, whatever you seek lies within the quest itself. In seeking you learn that there is no final knowing, only an ongoing learning and un-learning process; an unfolding and bringing together of what you discover along the way. The end of seeking is not so much about arriving or achieving, but to use another 'not current' word - it is about dwelling.

Man often becomes what he believes himself to be. If I keep on saying to myself that I cannot do a certain thing, it is possible that I may end by really becoming incapable of doing it. On the contrary …… if I have the belief that I can do it, I shall surely acquire the capacity to do it even if I may not have it at the beginning.