The Illusion of “I’m Not There Yet”
- Sukhdev Virdee
- Jun 6
- 3 min read
There’s a quiet suffering I see in almost every seeker.
It’s not loud.
It doesn’t scream.
It whispers… all day long.
“I’m not there yet.”
Even when the satsang is beautiful…
Even when the meditation is deep…
Even when the silence feels full…
Some part of the mind still says,
“Yes, but you haven’t fully arrived yet.”
And so the seeking continues.
A Loop with No Exit
The illusion of “not there yet”
is not a personal shortcoming.
It’s built into the structure of the seeker itself.
Because for the seeker to exist,
a destination must also exist.
Some final point where awakening is complete,
where all questions dissolve,
where no doubts remain.
But here’s the trap:
That very concept of “getting there”
is what’s keeping you from realizing you’re already here.
There Is No ‘There’
Let me say this clearly.
There is no finish line.
No grand spiritual badge.
No lightbulb moment where the ego explodes and never returns.
That’s a fantasy sold by minds to other minds.
The truth is not a climax.
It’s not an event.
It’s a quiet shift in seeing
that what you’ve been trying to reach
was never separate to begin with.
The Pain of Delay
The belief that “I’m not there yet”
is incredibly painful.
Because it constantly delays your freedom.
It tells you that peace is just one more book away,
one more retreat,
one more moment of grace.
But what if that very thought
is the only thing standing in the way?
What if the only veil
between you and the Self
is the idea that there is a veil?
This Moment Is the Destination
I used to believe
there was a permanent state I would enter.
A moment where I’d finally know I had arrived.
But I never found such a moment.
And neither did the sages I trust.
What I did find was this:
Awakening is not an achievement.
It’s the dropping of the one who was trying to achieve it.
In the absence of the seeker,
there is only what’s here.
This moment — raw, unfiltered, unresolved —
is Reality.
You don’t become That.
You realize you’ve never been anything else.
But What About the Mind?
Now, some will ask:
“If that’s true, why does the mind still chatter?”
“Why do doubts still come?”
“Why does suffering still arise?”
Because you’re still confusing awareness with what passes through it.
Awakening doesn’t mean the end of thought.
It means the end of identifying with thought.
Thoughts arise. Emotions arise. Sensations arise.
But none of them define what you are.
You are the silent witness.
The open sky in which clouds come and go.
Let Go of the Finish Line
Can you see how deeply ingrained this belief is?
Even as you read this, a voice might say:
“Yes, but I still feel like something’s missing.”
That voice is the illusion.
It’s not describing a reality.
It’s creating it.
There is no “there” to reach.
There is only the falling away of that belief.
And in that falling —
a peace that doesn’t depend on anything.
A joy not based on outcomes.
A love that simply is.
Stop Waiting. Start Seeing.
You don’t need to wait
for more healing,
more knowledge,
more perfection.
You don’t need to fix the ego
or silence the mind
or resolve every trauma.
Just notice what’s already present —
before the seeking begins.
A silent clarity.
A sense of “I Am”
that has never left you.
That’s what you are.
Not someday.
Not later.
Now.
Walk With Me
You don’t need to do this alone.
If this post touches something in you —
a recognition, a softening, a deeper yearning —
I invite you to come closer.
📘 Start with my free guide:
🧘♂️ Or take the next step through a course or 1:1 session
Sometimes a single pointer is all it takes
to bring the illusion to light.
You’ve never been far.
You’ve just been believing in distance.
Comments