Suffering: fear and desire

Imagine you’re at an airport, and your suitcase gets lost. For hours you’re stressed, anxious, and uncomfortable without your familiar belongings—your clothes, your toiletries, the things you believe you need to feel like yourself. Then a kind person offers you everything you need for the night—clean clothes, a warm bed, and a hot meal. Suddenly, the anxiety lifts. But the question arises: was it the suitcase you really needed to feel peace, or just the removal of the fear of lack? Most of our lives are spent chasing ‘suitcases’—things we think we need to feel okay—without ever examining who is doing the needing.

This feeling of lack stems from believing we are only this body and mind. As long as we think we are separate individuals defined by our circumstances, we will try to protect ourselves from discomfort and chase after moments of comfort. But when we begin to question the foundation—“Who am I?”—we slowly realise that the peace we crave doesn’t come from acquiring more. It arises when we stop mistaking our luggage for our identity. The ‘I’ that panics, desires, and clings to experience is just a mental construct, like mistaking the airport for home.

Self-inquiry reveals that behind all of life’s ups and downs, a stable presence is always here—calm, aware, unbothered. That is your real nature. It’s like discovering you were never lost; you were just reading the wrong boarding pass. True happiness doesn’t come from securing the next flight, job, relationship, or belief. It comes from realising that you, as the Self, were never incomplete to begin with. No suitcase can give you that. And no loss can take it away.