Friday, September 25, 2015

Just Keep Pushing

Sai Baba of Shirdi was an enlightened master, and one day decided to help a disciple in need. So he took his disciple's negative karma on his shoulders and consequently fell violently sick. As he was lying there, apparently dying - the medical doctors had already written him off - he did one powerful symbolic gesture. He requested a glass of water, poured it over him to wash himself clean, and got up to give a lecture.

We cannot exclude negativity from our life; it has to be around just to make the positive occurrences in our life meaningful. If Sai Baba of Shirdi can fall sick, then who are we to think that we can do any better. But then, there is also no need for suffering. Just absorb the pain of whatever it is that comes your way, digest it, put it behind you, and then move on. Find your symbolic gesture of moving on and then do it. 

We spiritual travelers tend to struggle a little with the concept of karma. If something horrible happens to us, is it God's doing? Are our past sins catching up with us? Well, never mind the bad stuff; just accept and embrace it the way Sai Baba did. Just keep on moving to the best of your abilities, and let's see what good can come out of a bad situation. Never mind a little resistance, and a little pain to get things done. There are only two possible outcomes, either the resistance keeps on intensifying, in which cases you need to change course, or - with a final determined push - just break free it. Either way, cut the entanglement for that is what a spiritual path is all about.

God does not want us to suffer! What we should strive to work on is our inner conflicts, persistent set-backs, and resistance of any form. We are here to manifest our vision; our personal success story, and sometimes undermine ourselves in the process. I remember a time when I had the first real investment call to make in my career. It seemed over-whelming at that time and I was shaking in my boots; I was constipated for the first time ever. I took long hot showers until all the stuff finally came out. I figured at that time that this was just my inner resistance to being successful and I was right. The investment call turned out to be well-timed and put me on the map as an investor. Just imagined what would have happened had I stopped because of a little internal resistance. Just think if I had taken the constipation as a divine sign to change course. In the ups and downs of life you never know what is internal resistance and what is a sign from the beyond. All we can do is to stick to our mission, keep on pushing and then see what happens. I don't invite you to be obstinate, but I would encourage you from time to time to put your foot down in spite of resistance.

Consider this example. The famous hypnotherapist Milton Erickson was staying with some families in a small American town when he was doing his research and reported that the men across the board complained about headaches the next morning after they had sex with their wives. Now this was in the 1930s, so chances are that the good Christians of the day's still believed that sexual relations were intrinsically dirty, and their imagination was vivid enough that they all suffered from a mass hallucination; but then, who knows. Perhaps they had a poor diet and the loss of energy created a havoc for their biological system. Perhaps some of them were 
spiritual advanced that the loss of their sexual energy interfered with their flow of prana; in the end you had to be in their shoes to know what was really going on. 

We are God's co-creators, so in the process of airing our movie, we certainly have to be willing to accept a little pain, a few set-backs and a little strive. But then, some fights are worth taking on, while other battle fields are just a reminder to look for a new perspective. Sooner or later we all stumble on the Way, and next to Her everything that happens makes perfect sense and happens effortlessly. But until that blessed day, just keep pushing!

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