Transforming the longing

"Sometimes a longing can be so powerful that all we can imagine is going out to look for something to fill it.  Sometimes the longing becomes so complete a reality that we can't imagine there being any other possibility.

Yet if we can be aware of ourselves to the extent that we learn to redirect the longing when we feel it coming, we will develop something incredible within ourselves...

Spiritual practices and philosophies are really only the effects of the enormous effort human beings have made to turn that longing within and to discover the love within themselves...All the spiritual talk doesn't amount to anything compared to the simple, conscious capacity to turn that longing within, and find the love within us... In so doing, we find our lives transformed in extraordinary ways."

--Swami Chetananda, The Logic of Love