There is a beautiful Indian story about a musk deer with a really powerful lesson. Now you may have already heard of musk, maybe because it exists in your perfumes, or your aftershaves, or deodorants as a scent. And this scent is one of the most expensive natural products in the world, fetching three times its weight in gold. Now, when this dear comes across this aroma, this scent, it becomes completely captivated. It searches through the forest day and night for the source of this scent. Completely intoxicated by this incredible fragrance, the deer searches in every corner, in every place, to find where it's coming from. The deer completely exhausts itself looking for the source, with a bitter irony, and not recognizing that the fragrance comes from inside its own body. The fragrance, musk, is produced in a gland in the deer's body. The deer spends its whole life searching for outside what was always hidden, inside.
How we spend our whole lives looking for pleasures and happiness outside of us, when actually what we're searching for is right there inside of us. We try to find joy and happiness in external pleasures, in things, in results, when actually real happiness comes from meaning, relationships, and a connection with oneself. See, we all know that we can't love someone we don't know. So, how can you love yourself when you don't know yourself? And just as this musk deer, we've probably had similar experiences. How many times have you walked out of your home and then felt that you've forgotten one of those top three things: usually your keys, your wallet or purse, or your phone? You rush back in, you look around your own home, you make a mess, you make havoc, you look under every seat, every corner, and then realize that phone, that wallet or purse, or those keys, were in your back pocket. In the process of seeking happiness externally, we make a complete mess of our minds and life, and sometimes even the lives of others, not realizing that what we were truly looking for has always been with us.
Today, we hear a lot about self-love and self-care, but neither of these are possible without self-knowledge, without self-realization, without self-awareness. Remember, if we don't know ourselves, we can't love ourselves.
Comments