The Myth of the Seeker and the 20 Minutes Guided Meditation for Reducing Anxiety and Stress

We live in a world that is constantly screaming at us to become something else, to improve, to mask, and to perform. For the protected soul, the noise of the world feels aggressive and the constant overstimulation of social interaction feels like a weight. We are told that we are incomplete and that we must find a way to fix the anxiety that bubbles up within the body-mind. But what if the very idea of a "you" that needs fixing is the only thing standing in the way of realizing what is already here? There is a common expression that perfectly captures our predicament: searching for the donkey while you are already riding it. We look for peace, for presence, or for the absolute as if they were distant destinations, yet we are already sitting on the very thing we seek. The separate self is convinced it is on a being here now, but enlightenment is not a destination. There is no path because there is nowhere to go. There is no "there" that is separate from "here." When we talk about a 20 minutes guided meditation for reducing anxiety and stress, we must be very clear. This is not a ladder to a higher state. It is not a process of becoming enlightened. At a horizontal level, sure, the body-mind may feel better. We know that when the body-mind relaxes, the blood vessels carry more oxygen and the immune system might function more effectively. Noticing chronic tensions that we usually ignore can allow them to dissolve. But this is just the movement of the absolute; it is not a spiritual achievement. A 20 minutes guided meditation for reducing anxiety and stress is simply an event that happens, like the wind blowing or the rain falling. It may bring comfort now, but it doesn't take you closer to what you already are. Who is the one seeking to reduce stress? Who is the one feeling the anxiety? When we look closely, we find that the separate self is not a solid entity with its own substance. It is a function, a relational mode of the body-mind trying to navigate its environment. We often think of liberation as something the "I" achieves, but liberation is never *of* the "I"—it is liberation *from* the "I." The separate self is like a character in a dream who is desperately searching for a cure for an illness. When the dreamer wakes up, they realize they were never the sick person, nor were they the doctor. They were the entire dream. In this space, nothing is asked of you. There are no chats to join, no recordings to worry about, and no need to mask your true state. You don't have to pretend to be "spiritual" or "calm." Even the feeling of being distracted is just a movement of the absolute. We often think distraction is a movement away from being, but distraction is just another expression of being. Total liberation includes everything: the perfect and the imperfect, the generosity and the exploitation, the silence and the noise. Consider the silence that underlies all noise. Noise does not destroy silence; they exist simultaneously.