As early as I can remember, I have felt this innate feeling that there exists a deeper truth out there about reality. And the only way to receive the truth was through information and learning. And the way only to receive information/learn was through reading books.

Books and reading felt ‘alchemical’ to me – they had the ability to convert me from lead to gold. They were a wizard’s tool – the books did magic and had spells. So, reading and obsession with books was never a casual love affair for me. It was never relaxing or fun but rather the tool through which I could achieve…satisfaction (a feeling that I ‘got it’, that I really ‘knew’, that I found out the ‘secret’) and so then I could rest (one day).

I really had the perception that there was some book somewhere that had magic or secrets to understanding people or mind reading tricks. And so I would collect and read as much as I could. Even purchasing and hoarding books felt very pleasurable to me because it felt like I was on the ‘right’ path to satisfaction (even I never got around to reading the book).

When I examine my life, the patterns and cycles in it, the desires behind grand actions, I can see that this desire to search for a greater truth has never left me. I dont mean the search for meaning or search for some existential truth about the purpose or reason for human life. I mean the simple search for a ‘secret’. It is a very personal search. A search for a secret that is revealed that is the truth – whether that is some grand truth about reality or some smaller secret that changes how I see a certain object or person or even about myself. But there is also an underlying to be recognised/appreciated as the one who knows the truth/this secret – the sense of pride/sense of achievement/sense of glory of finding the truth.

This ultimately makes the entire world some great big detective novel to seek the truth which is known ultimately by some grander person/entity who is trying to pull me to that truth. At the core of it, this is a Sagittarius energy

1. Becoming a lawyer – I think the entire appeal of this profession as a child was because of the ability to dig for truth in written materials. That the truth was in books and it could be reached if you read more and more. There was so much to learn and so much depth offered in legal texts that it was really exciting for me. Over time, I have learnt that there is a lot of gap in the texts and the truth is subject to interpretation. There is possibility to be creative about the truth. So, the truth is not discovered but made.
2. Philosophy – inevitably, I found myself reading large philosophical texts but I found the questions that they were asking to be quite unaligned with what I assumed philosophy was about. While I got a quick basic understanding of Western and Eastern thought, the major philosophical ideas, scholars and schools, it was not satisfying to me. The predominant modern was all metaphsyical thought but it sounded to me to be a refusal to play in the system. I was not concerned with my ability to know reality but with the fact that what else is ‘reality’ – whether I experience it or know it in an ‘idealistic’ sense was irrelevant. I needed a system to categorise the whole of reality reality and the truth of this expereince
3. LSD/Ram Dass – entirely a search for the deeper truth within me that eventually led me to buddhism.
4. Buddhism/Meditation/Zen – led me to understand that a large majority of truth cannot be learnt but must felt intuitively or must be lived experientially. Once the truth of non-duality occurred, it seemed that everything else was irrelevant. It appeared that all other philsophy was just asking questions that the truth of which the Buddha and Zen had answered centuries ago. But it also reminded me that the truth wont be found in books, and the further I chased truth would be further from alignments.
5. Manifestation/Astrology/Tarot/Law of attraction – once I realised that books wont give me enlightenment, I still needed to do something with my life. So, I began delving heavily into esoteric truth. Now that I knew the greater truth of non-duality, I had the freedom to have fun about what else I could find about the physical aspect of reality and the truth/secret that would allow me to manipulate reality. There was a huge time gap in this and the Buddhist teachings since the Buddhist teachings had made all focus on ‘desire’ completely redundant for me, whereas all esoteric truth required a clarity of desire and the achievement of desire. There was a lot of time where I had to work to find a balance given that I could not let the failure of achieving my desires torture me but also not fall in the trap of taking these desires so seriously that they governed my happiness.
6. Emotional enquiry/somatic work/shadow work and limiting beliefs – Following the esoteric teaching eventually led me to my body. The feelings as they travel in my body, the body as an expression of my emotions and the repression of my emotions reflected in my body. Lot of dealing with difficult questions and the difficult emotions that would arise and finding ways to really connect my gut, my mind and my heart. There was also a surface level experience that I wanted good basic mental health that required having a clean healthy digestive/gut system. So, I had to really examine my physical health as well.
7. Now – there are a few ways I am seeking a deeper truth:
   • Paradoxics – I am learning to hold paradoxical truths together. Learning to accept truth from logic and intuition.
   • Externalisation – directing my enquiry for truth out in the real world and seeing the micro in the macro (my problems and how they are manifesting in a global scale in a different form). Power structures of systems, control etc.
   • Discipline and identity shifting – Learning how to actually achieve my goals. While manifestation helped me expand my imagination and capability to accept a greater truth, there is a lot to be learnt about discipline and how that can be acheived to reach the deeper truth. I am currently in what I would describe as ‘truth-testing’ era. I know the relevant aspect of the truth and now I am testing that thesis by putting it into work to see if I can acheive my desires.