The Art of Being Normal: Where Acceptance and Totality Meet

We often find ourselves trapped in a loop of seeking, convinced that if we just find the right practice or the perfect state of mind, we will finally arrive somewhere else. We look at the world and see it as superficial or vulgar, and we imagine that there must be a profound, transformative experience waiting for us just beyond the horizon of our current boredom. But who is it that finds the world vulgar? Who is it that is tired of commercialized wellness and seeks something "exclusive"? When we look closely at this separate self, we find nothing but a collection of thoughts and tensions trying to escape from what is actually happening. The art of being normal is not a technique we can learn or a state we can achieve through effort. In our daily lives, we are constantly faced with the ordinary—the chores, the interactions, the mundane movement of the body-mind. We might think that a good "spiritual" attitude would be to constantly recognize and accept everything, to stay within an observant process and disidentify from being the author of our choices. We tell ourselves that because there is no free will, because everything is just the movement of the absolute, we should simply accept the unacceptable. But let’s be honest with each other: can a separate self actually choose to accept anything? If we try to accept something because we think it will make us feel better or because we hope it will change the situation, that isn’t acceptance. It’s just another hidden strategy of the separate self to get what it wants. It is a negotiation with reality. We say, "I will accept this pain so that the pain goes away," or "I will accept my partner as they are, provided they eventually change." This is not the art of being normal; it is just the same old game of seeking and avoiding. The separate self only accepts in view of a result. It is always doing something for the sake of something else, forever chasing a "there" while ignoring the "here." However, there is a level of conscious presence that is already operating, whether we notice it or not. This presence does not need to try to accept, because it is the very space in which everything appears. Think of it this way: if a brick falls on your foot, the pain is felt instantly. You don’t have to decide to feel it. The fact that the sensation is there means that aware presence has already "accepted" it. It has allowed it to be. Our most profound nature does not reject anything. It is like a screen that doesn't care if the movie being projected is a tragedy or a comedy. The screen is already one with whatever appears on it. We live in a culture that treats silence and presence as products to be consumed, as ladders to climb toward a better version of ourselves. But silence isn't a practice we do to get a result. It is what remains when the noise of the seeker finally stops. We are like waves in the ocean, exhausted from trying to become the ocean, failing to see that we have never been anything else. The wave doesn't need to reach the ocean; it is the ocean expressed as a wave for a brief moment. In the same way, the body-mind is just a temporary expression of the totality. There is no one inside the wave who is making it move, just as there is no one inside the body-mind who is the "author" of life. When we talk about the art of being normal, we are talking about the collapse of the idea that we are separate from what is happening. In the dream of being a separate self, we might try to accept things to make the dream more pleasant. And that’s fine—a pleasant dream is certainly nicer than a nightmare. If trying to be more accepting makes the body-mind feel more comfortable, there is no harm in it. Meditation might bring comfort now, but it won't lead you to a destination because there is no destination to reach. The absolute is already here, fully present in the sound of a car passing by or the feeling of breath in the lungs. Why do we keep looking for something "more"? What are we hoping to find that isn't already present in this very moment of aware presence? We are like people standing in the middle of a vast gallery, closing our eyes and crying because we want to see art. The art is the seeing itself. The art is the fact that anything is appearing at all. There is no "journey" to enlightenment because enlightenment is not a place. It is the end of the one who wants to go somewhere else. In the ordinary flow of the day, things happen. Work needs to be done, food needs to be eaten, and sometimes the body-mind feels irritation or joy. The separate self wants to categorize these things, to keep the joy and push away the irritation. But the totality doesn't categorize. It simply is. When we stop trying to "achieve" a spiritual state, we are left with the art of being normal—the simple, unadorned reality of what is. There is no progress to be made here. You cannot become more of what you already are. You cannot "attain" the absolute because there is nothing that is not the absolute. So, who is the one reading these words? Who is the one trying to understand? If you look for the "understander," you won't find anyone. You will only find more thoughts, more sensations, and the vast, open presence in which they arise. This presence doesn't need a path. It doesn't need a guru. It doesn't need a process. It is the silence that is already shouting in the middle of the marketplace. The art of being normal is realizing that the seeker is the sought. The desire to reach a conscious presence or a more evolved state is just the ocean pretending it isn't wet. We can stop the struggle, not because we have achieved a goal, but because we see there was never a goal to achieve. There is just this—this flow, this presence, this ordinary, miraculous moment that requires nothing from us to be complete. If the "you" that is seeking finally gets tired and gives up, what remains? Is there a difference between the silence of a mountain and the noise of a city to the one who is truly aware? If everything is already accepted by the very fact of its existence, then who is left to struggle? We find ourselves back where we started, but the starting point has been revealed as the only place that ever was.