Everyone is looking for Truth/Freedom/Happiness on some level, but most people have no idea where to start, so they let the conditioning from society provide the carrot (and the whip) for them. They lull themselves into believing that happiness comes through material things/career/partner etc. and this becomes their carrot throughout a whole life. They never really face their mortality as that would strip away this delusion pretty quick (as so many of them experience when old age closes in on them, but then it is often too late because they are so stuck in their pattern/habits).
Other peoples carrot is "knowledge" (or mind content). They search for Truth in books/scriptures/lectures/university/studies etc etc. until the mind is so full that they are more confused than when they started out. Suicide or depression is not uncommon in the extreme cases of this "syndrome". I see many professors in the university that is trapped in this threadmill. Especially in the philosophy/literature/art department where I study. I have been trapped in this myself also, before I discovered meditation.
Literature/art/philosophy of high level of vibration/truth can induce small glimpses of clarity and take you into the eternal Presence for a breif moment (just like the zen koans are designed to do). This aesthetic/ecstatic experience is almost like a drug. It conditions people to believe that the Truth (which created the "feeling" of beauty/freedom) is in the material (drug), and not in themselves. This is also the trip/trap of the artist as he/she have the same "feeling of oceanic Oneness (inspiration)" while creating, as the art can induce in receptive people in short glimpses once it is created. But he/she cannot control this feeling as it comes and goes on it's own accord. Often the creative genious escape into alchohol/drugs to seek for this experience when it is not there...
The path of meditation is different. It's independent of any outside content/"knowledge". In many ways it is an effort to go beyond all content/beliefs/"knowledge". I used to be a developing poet, but at some point I realized that hey! the feeling of Oneness/Beauty I get when I write can be experienced for prolonged periods of time if I simply sit and do nothing at all, and allow my mind to calm down. It would still "come and go" on it's own accord, but at least it lasted longer and I felt that I could trust it more now that the pressure to "produce" anything from it was gone. After a while of meditation I lost all interest in writing poetry as I understood that it was not my "path", but rather a bridge to get me onto my path - the pathless path of meditation.
The mystics of the world has always said that the Truth is already within everyone of us. It is not dependent on any content/knowledge of the mind. In fact, this mind and it's content is blocking Truth like the clouds block the eternal empty sky. In meditation you pay attention inwards and thus you will sometimes experience a clear and empty sky (if you are "lucky" and persistant that is). This empty sky is the Ultimate Context which includes all things. Climbing up the
ladder of Consciousness is about cleaning out the content and dis-cover more and more of the Ultimate Context which has been there all along. This Ultimate Context (Love) which runs through all things is "the Truth" everyone is really searching for. The more you have "realized" of this Context in yourself, the more all other things - all knowledge/content of the mind - will fall into their right place.
It's good to question everything outside, but even better to question everything that is already indoctrinated inside. A glimpse of the Ultimate Context is more valuable than all the content in the world combined. Without such a glimpse it is very hard to know which direction to move in. Most people are moving in circles on the surface and gather only misery and content. The Context wants to be dis-covered, but it can only meet people "halfway". It's all a big washing machine and we should perhaps aim to be the sock that disappears in the process...
