Monday, January 8, 2018

Go Forth and Change the World

The Self is here and now. It is the only reality. There is nothing else.
Ramana Maharishi

In the story of the 6 blind men of Hindustan, each one described one of the elephant’s attributes brilliantly, but together they were unaware that they were facing an elephant. Metaphorically, we are these blind people in search of the mission God gives us. Let’s make very sure that we do a bit better than them. God wants us to come Home. This world, life, and all the people we hang out with, are the means of getting there. If you are reading this article you are likely a spiritual traveler like us. You have dreams and aspirations to live in a better world, but how you ask. What exactly should be your mission? Will you make enough money following your heart? Are you perhaps abusing yourself in the name of spirituality? Should you stay in a job that support you economically but kills your soul? Relax, God’s instructions are clear enough, but it takes a little practice and openness to receive the message. Life itself prepares you for your mission.


I am a spiritual coach and I always instruct my clients to find the Way. Opaque as this sounds, the Way is very real and can be spotted easily if we are a bit more creative than the six blind men of Hindustan. There is a read thread weaved throughout our life story and once we connect with our heart, we are bound to spot it. There is a mission statement inside of each of us that begs to be discovered, but we have to engage with life to find it. Planet earth—and the people we hang out with—show us the Way to discover our true Self. We should take our mission seriously, but shouldn’t take ourselves too seriously. “God could save the world if He wanted”, the 19th century Mystic Sri Ramakrishna used to say. It is in fact the other way around. We need life’s problems to realize that we are trapped in an illusionary world. When we face our mission, we have the opportunity to set our true Self free, here and now. Life is quite simple that way. 


The six men from Hindustan lacked the vision to discover the elephant, and we are similarly blind-sighted by our fears, expectations and conditioning. We want to help. We abhor the greed and poverty that we see everywhere. We want to see everyone better off, ourselves included. That’s all quite all right, but everything that we see and experience is an illusion. We live in a world of make-believe. The people in the richest country in the world—USA—are also not any more happy than those living in poorer countries, hard as this is to imagine. What makes us happy is the knowledge that we matter, that we are embedded in a network of caring people who look out for each other. Most importantly, what makes us happy is to be in touch who we truly are deep down inside—our Self.


God has created this world for us to set us free. Life is here to rip off our mask, to show us all the baggage that we still carry around. Life encourages us to let go. So it turns out we can live in the best of all worlds. We can help the world with our talents, and the world helps us to find God on the ‘battlefield of life’ so to speak. I had my Awakening in the stressful and busy world of financial markets. Out of a sudden, a world of magic opened up, and I wanted to tell others about it. Alas, with all the magic there also came the realization that I was carrying a big pain body with me. There were times when I felt the weight of the world on my shoulders. Luckily, I also discovered that with every spiritual promotion our spiritual remuneration rises in proportion. A friend showed up just in the nick of time from the other side of the planet. She helped me confront my inner pain body. The Awakening process showed me how much inner healing was needed for me personally. In hindsight, it was ‘life’s battle field’ that allowed me to embark on my spiritual mission. We never know what our struggles are all about, but God does! Face them patiently, discover life’s message for you, and embark on your quest to the best of your abilities. 



Go forth and change the world and set your true Self free. You are not alone in your quest. The six blind men of Hindustan found a wall, a snake, a spear, a tree and a rope, but not an elephant. They worked on their own and not as a team. Sadhguru once said, “Without being in constant exchange with the rest of the cosmos you cannot exist. The idea of individuality is an illusion.” So in order to embark on our mission, we have to find our spot in a web of light-workers supporting each other. Together we can awaken to our mission with the required support system to get the job done. Let’s get our arms around building the New Earth that the spiritual teacher Eckhart Tolle envisions. Even more important than that, let’s service each other to set our true Self free.

No comments: