Now more than ever, I believe, has the once Buddha-like lifestyle crept into mainstream living as just a way of being, and it is almost as if it has been here all along. The answers we seek in life are so often found within ourselves, or so we are told. We then use these insights to go out into the world and broaden our knowledge and our horizons until we call ourselves back within to reflect.
But what about those times or those individuals who don't come back out? Those who stay within themselves? What does that look like and can it be healthy?
I liken this to people who essentially become full-time students. They spend a life time studying and never venture out into the practice of all that they are educating themselves in. BUT, I then beg the question, are they, at the core, a full-time student by profession? A philosopher of education? A student of life? Why must they then venture into the workforce and earn a full time living as the society we live in says we must? Some may say that they are spending too much time on the theory and not enough time on practical activities, but what if this is what they came back to this Earth to do? Are we not all students of life at the end of the day? Fumbling our way through the day, just trying to survive and find what it is that really makes us tick?
And who are we to intervene with those who spend too much time within and don't come back out? As they are living their lives on their paths, just as we who are observing they are also. When I started this piece I did so with the end goal in mind that it is not healthy to spend too much time within ourselves. But as I write, I've come to the conclusion that it really does not matter anyway.
We are all on our individual journey's, doing what we must, but more importantly, doing what we choose, so who is anyone to judge whether or not one spends too much time going within? That judgement could only come from someone who spends too much time outside of themselves could it not?
I've almost led myself to a conclusion here that it ultimately does not matter what anyone is doing, as long as they are fulfilling a need, a want or a choice and that this makes them happy. So where we do go within on occasion to find the answers we are looking for, it does not really matter if we do not come back out, as long as we are okay with where we are, then all is okay. Right?