Total Peace Underwater

So many of us divers got into scuba because we were looking for an adventure. An escape. A way to get away from the troubles we face on our earthly world.

It’s an escape from home and work, when we travel away to exotic islands filled with new cultures, new people, and new dive sites.

We take up diving because we are looking for a fun sport or exercise. It’s an activity we can do with new and interesting equipment to learn. It’s is a physical activity where we can learn new skills and stay active and feel like we are doing something exciting with ourselves.

Equipment moves us through the water. Equipment allows us to breathe underwater. Equipment tells us when we need to leave the water.

And just like the baseball player needs the bat. And just like the musician needs the guitar. The scuba diver needs the fin to swim, the regulator to breathe, and the certification card to be a diver.

So what makes one diver better than another? Better gear? More logged dives? More destinations visited?

Does having the gear, the log book, or the C-card fulfill the quest for precision buoyancy control that so many divers long for?

And what happens when all the cards have been collected? What happens when the log book is full?

Does the perfect control finally come? Is peace of mind somewhere there to be found in the pages of the log book? Does that translate to our lives on land?

Diving is life, life is diving.

Not as a way of kicking water to propel yourself along a reef. Not as a collection of skills that need to be learned to stay safe underwater. Not as an activity to share with buddies and compare log books.

But as something more spiritual in itself.

Peace.

Total peace underwater, which can ultimately show you the way to total peace in all of your life.

Perfect trim, buoyancy control, and great kicks are not your goal. Nor is the best dive gear, or the log book full of exotic locations. The goal is not to have the most certifications or the highest level of certification.

Your goal is total peace underwater. If you have Total Peace Underwater, you’ll also have the perfect trim, the precision buoyancy control and the magical kicks and everything else that you need as a diver.

But not because that is what you are seeking. But because that is the result of being at total peace underwater.

If you focus on your breathing and your peace of mind; then the skills and attributes of what you want to look like underwater will happen. They have to. They can’t "Not Happen" if your goal is total peace underwater.

The goal is not getting neutrally buoyant but instead to be neutral buoyancy. The goal is not to stay in trim but to be the trim that the environment needs when you need to fix your trim for the environment.

If you struggle with buoyancy and balance and trim, it is because you are focusing on these things, instead of being present in the art of diving. The art where finally becoming neutrally buoyant and truly at peace underwater is just the beginning.  A rebirth where, now, you can really dive.

You are buoyancy. You are trim.

You are at peace.

The skills we work on in The Essentials are not really diving skills at all. They might be to the new student, at that time. They are buoyancy work, and improving personal skills, and developing team skills and how to be in control enough to think and see more. To enjoy more.

We do need to work on these as divers but they are not the goal. And as long as you still focus on them as the goal, you will continue to work on fixing something in yourself.

We are not just diving underwater. But, diving into ourselves. Where what we really need is Total Peace Underwater.