The following story was used as a teaching by the great Sufi teacher, Nasrudin.

His friend, Mansour, comes to visit him and sees Nasruddin on his hands and knees, crawling on the sidewalk under the street lamp, obviously searching for something, appearing frustrated.

 Concerned for his friend, Mansour asks, “Nasruddin, what are you looking for? Did you lose something?”

 “Yes, Mansour. I lost the key to my house, and I’m trying to find it, but I can’t.”

 “Let me help you,” responds Mansour. Mansour joins his friend, kneels down on his hands and knees, and begins to crawl on the sidewalk under the street lamp, searching.

 After a time, having looked everywhere on and around the sidewalk, neither Nasruddin nor Mansour can find the lost key. Puzzled, Mansour asks his friend to recall his steps when he last had the key, “Nasruddin, where did you lose the key? When did you last have it?”

 “I lost the key in my house,” Nasruddin responds.

 “In your house?” repeats the astonished Mansour. “Then why are we looking for the key here, outside on the sidewalk under this street lamp?”

 Without hesitation, Nasruddin explains, “Because there is more light here . . . !”

 The great teaching contained in this story is that we are constantly looking for what is important to us outside of ourselves. It is easier to see outside and so this is where we look for happiness, truth, understanding, and love. We believe that we will be happy when and if we can obtain something, be it a promotion, raise, or new position, an object such as a new car or house, or an experience such as a travel or a vacation. We believe that we will find the understanding and love that we seek with a new relationship, or once we change a significant person. We believe that we will find the truth by following a particular religion or spiritual teacher, or by studying what great thinkers and scientists have discovered.

All of these things can be beneficial, good, and useful. But, after a while after obtaining them we discover that they were not the answer. They may have been briefly satisfying, but that satisfaction did not last. So we seek something else outside of ourselves leading to the same outcome. So we try again on what psychologist’s term the hedonic treadmill. It’s amazing that many people never realize that this strategy is simply not working.

The problem all along has been that we’re looking in the wrong place. Like Nasrudin we are searching outside when the key can only be found inside. We can only find happiness, truth, understanding, and love within ourselves. Contemplative practice is the means for internal exploration. It allows us to carefully view our mental and emotional landscape seeking the keys.

With practice we can begin to see that happiness is a choice that we can make. It’s everywhere around us and in us if we only appreciate life for what it is and cease to fight against it. If we accept things as they are and then look deeply at them we will see the splendor and glory of life as it transpires moment to moment.

The more we engage in contemplative practice and the deeper we go, the more the mind begins to quiet. Once settled, we can begin to see that the love we’ve been seeking is already there within us. When we learn to love ourselves first we will see that others love us but it has to be viewed through a compassionate understanding of the emotional upheavals within them. Eventually we may even have the revelation to see that love is the substance of the universe.

All of this can lead to understanding that life is to be experienced not opposed, that the truth of existence is always present inside us if we only allow ourselves to see it, that heaven is not a place but is everywhere, and that ultimate truth was there all along.

These revelations do not come easily. They require often years of dedicated practice. But, they are there. If we’re looking in the right place we can find them. If we’re looking outside, we’ll never find them. If we’re looking inside we’re on the right track. The keys are there.

 

“Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.” – Carl Jung
CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies