Passion and Love for the Truth

Someone else wrote the following:

What to do about this impatience to wake up now. Every time there is a sense that all is just happening, all just is... there is this ownership that immediately overlays it and this intellectualizing starts. " Oh now I get it. Its blah blah blah blah blah" There is still a residual hope/thought that I will get enlightened and enjoy the wonderful experience. What to do? (I'm guessing nothing, just be with the noticing of the alive presence that is there, and wait for grace... OK....I'm not supposed to wait for something to happen... its already what it is).

And here is my response:

I would simply suggest that you apply all the energy of your impatience and hope and passion to awaken to the experience you are having right now. If the mind is jumping in and taking ownership, then give this passionate curiosity to the experience of the mind. How do you know what you are thinking? What is thought really? When we "own" an understanding that arises, what is that like? Can you really "own" a thought, or do they all dissolve--even the most enlightened thoughts?

When you are just being with the experience, then notice what that is like. How do you know that you are just being with something? What is the quality of that dimension of experience? How does it compare to the moments when you are efforting or hoping? And what about the moments when you are efforting to just be?

There are no right answers to any of these questions, and in fact your experience of them will naturally be different every time you ask them. You may not be able to do anything to satisfy your passion to awaken, but you can still express all of that passion to awaken in this exploration of your moment to moment experience. The point isn't where the exploration takes you, but the joy of the exploration itself. All of the joy and wonder and beauty of your true nature is right here in your impatience and passion and frustration. What a great place to "hide" it!

We can never mentally capture or own our true nature, but we can freely express it when it moves so strongly within us as a deep love for the Truth.