Where's the Confounded "Kingdom"?

The other day I got a bit annoyed, since, while I was off seeking the “kingdom within,” my wife demanded I remove a spider from the bathroom. I mean, how can one possibly “seek the kingdom within,” when you got all this external crap to take care of.

Or maybe I got it all wrong.



Go ahead and Google “seek the kingdom within” and you will get literally hundreds, if not thousands, of sites that employ this specialized phrase and many authoritatively inform that once you get to this kingdom you’ll be sure to meet the Big Kahuna himself, God.

So what do they mean by “seek the kingdom within,” Since the spiritualists keep pumping this “within” thing as if it were a given.

Yet, my feeling is that this phrase, probably more than all others, is what can lead some folks on a useless life-long journey of egoic self-absorption that afflicts all spiritual/religious persuasions.

So:

When you go in search of the “kingdom within” should you then ignore the ‘outside’? Does the outside disappear? Does everything become inside-out or outside-in? If the kingdom is within and that’s “where” you need seek it, then where are “you” now? Are “you” inside, thinking you’re outside or really just outside 24/7? Does that mean that if you’re outside the “kingdom” then you’re outside your ‘self’ seeking to go inside your self (mind)? But if you’re not outside your ‘self’ seeking inside, who is it that will then be ‘inside’ when “you” get there? And if you’re outside the “kingdom” then does that negate the existence of an inside until you find it? Or can you be both inside and outside at the same time?

Damn!

Does seeking the "kingdom within" mean you should close your eyes in meditation so that you're not distracted by what you see outside when your eyes are open? But then, wouldn’t that mean that you have to shutdown all your senses? And what if you’re inside and suddenly touch your body (not that kind of touching!) would that immediately take you back outside? I guess you have to keep perfectly still when going inside.

Is the "kingdom within" actually inside your head, or in your brain, or is it in your thoughts? Is it in your “consciousness,” but only when you’re not conscious of an outside world? Maybe it’s inside your consciousness, but only when your consciousness is without thought (because thought is always representative of an ‘outside’). But where does your body come into that equation? Is your ‘self’ then inside, while your body’s outside?

Or are “you” the kingdom?

Yet, if your the “kingdom within” you must be outside, since how can you be inside without me? Unless somehow you take me with you.

Ha! Fat chance I’m comin’ to your “kingdom within”! I got my own to get to!

Or maybe the kingdom is a place were we all reside, since how can there be a “kingdom” of one. Yet, maybe getting ‘there’ is contingent on getting there together, in fact, maybe that’s the only way ‘there’?!

Maybe the kingdom is waiting for its subjects and if we keep going off and trying to find it by our ‘self’ we’re never gonna get there, since it needs everybody to make up a “kingdom.”

Dang! how could the “masters’ have bungled that one?! Since it seems pretty simple to me now. Of course, there are those “great masters” who spent many years in a monastery or cave only to come outside with what they found inside, which was found only by shutting themselves off from the outside and staying inside for long periods of time. Can’t argue with that, right?

Whew! So where the hell is that confounded “kingdom”!? Maybe it's all more spiritualized bullsheit?

Peace People!
mikeS