What do I want?

- by Swami Jnaneshvara Bharati

The most important question to ask yourself is, "What do I want?" It means asking this at the highest level of your desires.

There may be many things you want in the external world, but here you want to have a key principle that you, yourself are seeking at the deepest level of the inner chamber of your heart. It needs to be your word, not just that of somebody else, something that was read in some book, or is popular in the culture.

If you say you want enlightenment, Self-realization, or to know God, when that word or phrase does not really excite you personally, deeply, then it will not serve you at all. You will just be parroting something you feel you are supposed to be wanting, even though you really don't.

Choose a keyword for yourself, some word or phrase that really captures the spirit of what you are longing for. It's probably hidden deep in the inner world, underneath all of the seemingly countless other desires and words that have been programmed in as acceptable, proper desires. It's a longing that has been there a long time, a very long time. It was probably there in early childhood. It was with you in adolescence. It is still there. But what do you call it? What is that single word or phrase that draws you back to that felt longing.

Just by having that word or phrase drift through your mind field, that deep memory is no longer latent, but stirs in wakefulness with a passion in the heart. There is a certainty about the purpose of life that suddenly emerges with clarity. 

Find that keyword that works for you and never, ever let it go. Write it on little notes around your house; maybe even on your arm, under your shirt. Be innovative in the ways you constantly remind yourself of this one keyword that captures the highest level of what you want out of life. It is your word, your phrase.

It may contain the many other lesser ways of saying the goal of life, or the steps along the way, but this one, this keyword or phrase pulls you, draws you to the stance where you know who you are and you know where you are going.

How to get there will emerge, on its own, through effort, and remembering your own keyword that captures the highest answer to the question, "What do I want?"