The addiction to comfort (and its kind of subtle aspect, which is having things easy)—having a belief in the idea of security…
Simply, in this existence, in this universe, there’s no such thing as safety or security. It doesn’t exist. And I’ve been saying it since day one. The example I typically trot out…is just look at the simplest, factual aspect, no matter what else you believe: Where are you? You’re on a spinning rock in outer space… What’s safe or secure about living on a spinning rock in the middle of space?… safety and security are false idols…
So the addiction of comfort comes from that belief in the false possibility of safety or security of some kind. We take refuge in comfort; we’re soothed by making ourselves comfortable. Deep down, you absolutely know (this is wordless)—deep down, you absolutely know, unconsciously, you absolutely know that no safety or security is possible. “So at least let me have some comfort”. But since there actually is no safety or security in a human life, in any life, comfort is pretty valueless. It feels good, feels nice. We are trained, conditioned, to believe that it has high value. But it’s actually fairly valueless—doesn’t add much to your life or your experience of it, and is kind of a substitute. It’s Splenda, not real sugar. It pretends to be sweet and good, but it actually kind of lulls you to sleep. It actually kind of limits your ability to be aware of the bigger picture. And everybody who goes outside their comfort zone and does things that are uncomfortable, tends to see for themselves right away that, “Wow, that was good! That showed me something. That gave me an experience that feels more real.”
There’s nothing wrong with being comfortable. But the addiction to comfort gets lived as a refusal and unwillingness to do what isn’t comfortable.
And the spiritual path is frequently uncomfortable, all along the way (because it’s actual exploration).
What’s comfortable about exploration? Lewis and Clark didn’t do their exploration in an easy chair. They sweated and they got sore feet, and they got bitten by every kind of bug there is, and they got sick again and again. And Columbus…. you name it. There’s never been any discovery, any exploration for real, that included any genuine comfort. Comfort is really not part of exploring what’s truly real. So those who want Truth, those who want Reality, those who want the Divine, those who know that the Eternal and the Infinite are more important than the temporary, the material—that there’s something that is beyond what lives and dies—can’t afford the luxury of addiction to comfort.
Not that they can’t ‘afford’ comfort. There’s nothing wrong with being comfortable. But if you insist on it, if you’re addicted (and most of us are strongly addicted), then you’re going to insist on it, when it really matters to be willing to bear some discomfort.
Because all true discovery happens in a moment of discomfort.
It’s part of what discovery is; it’s part of the exploration process—that there’s an uncomfortable aspect. So, when you’re addicted to comfort and you’re not aware of it, you are—as a spiritual seeker—putting a giant weight on your shoulders and saying, “I’m gonna run this race!” Well, you’re going to run it more successfully if there’s no weight on your shoulders. And the addiction to comfort is one of the heaviest weights we carry, if we’re spiritual seekers. If you’re a conventional person who doesn’t give a fig about anything related to Truth, or the Ultimate, or the Supreme, then comfort is just your addiction, and it doesn’t have much meaningful impact. But if you’re a spiritual seeker for real (and I don’t talk to anyone who isn’t), if you’re listening to me in this format, it means that you actually have to give up your addiction to comfort. You have to find the way to get rehab’ed. You have to consider that comfort works against your spiritual attempts.
This is not because you shouldn’t be comfortable, but because at those intervals where it really matters, it’ll prevent you from the deeper discovery. You’ll choose comfort over Truth. You’ll choose a feeling of security or safety over real God, and that would be a shame. Because if you’re capable of getting to God for real, if you’re capable of Truth dawning in your life—for something so worthless as comfort to prevent it, is just a terrible thought.
As far as I’m concerned, you can absolutely give your addiction to comfort up, with no loss, and still have the normal comfort that has no problem in it. But you cannot afford to be addicted to it on a spiritual path. It’s necessary to get sober so that comfort isn’t something you insist on, but something you can enjoy (and not require), when the moment requires you to be much more real and to deal with something much more deeply —which naturally tends to be uncomfortable—because it’s a new discovery. And when it’s new, it’s almost always uncomfortable (even if just a little bit, subtly). You know, we almost always experience some sense of discomfort when we’re completely unfamiliar with something, and it comes along.
Well, what’s the spiritual path? It’s groping your way toward what’s absolutely unfamiliar to you. You have a sense it’s out there, it’s achievable, you can get there. But if it was familiar to you, you’d already be there! You wouldn’t describe yourself or experience yourself as, “I’m seeking for the Truth.” You’d say, “It’s here, and there’s no issue.” You would say, “I didn’t even seek, and it found me.”
But that doesn’t happen without the seeking process. At some point, seekers become finders. But you can’t be a finder without first being a seeker. You can’t find the needle in the haystack without at least a little bit of looking for the needle. If you don’t know the needle is missing, how are you going to find it? So, digging through the haystack is not necessarily comfortable, but it’s worthwhile—if you need that needle.
And a spiritual seeker isn’t just desiring the Truth. There’s a deeper motive, of kind of needing it, kind of that, life cannot be fulfilled unless something of the Truth becomes actual “in my life.”
That’s the position, that’s the deeper attitude, which is not always conscious in the spiritual seeker. It’s an insistence for the Higher: “I know that ‘the everyday’ can’t be all there is to it, that I know, even if I can’t explain it. And I seek because I’m willing, and want what’s Higher, what’s more Real, what’s Better, what’s Truer, what’s more Divine.” And that requires giving up what works against it.
That urge is the deepest part of you and comes from the soul level. It is absolutely trustworthy. It absolutely should be gambled on. The risk is worth it.
But the addiction to comfort is like throwing a blanket over that urge. It makes it not clear enough to you, even though it’s clear in you! (but not clearly interpretable). Your motive for God, your desire for Truth, your feeling that this isn’t necessarily all there is to Reality, and “I’d like to know the bigger picture”—if that gets too obscured, you can’t get far enough and you can’t go fast enough.
And why be held back with something as cheap as comfort? But first you have to see that comfort is valueless—only an addiction.