How Old is Your Soul?

Heart beats fast, colors and promises. How to be brave?

How can I love when I'm afraid to fall?

But watching you stand alone,

all of my doubts suddenly go away, somehow.

I have died every day waiting for you. 

Darling, don't be afraid, 

I have loved you for a thousand years;

I will love you for a thousand more.

(Christina Perri, A Thousand Years)

It strikes me as odd that a concept that is key for our spiritual advancement - our soul - is so poorly defined. The Hindus - as always - have the purest and highest notion of the Soul: it is our God connection. The spark that God implanted when we decided to eat from the Tree of Knowledge and fell in a self-imposed slumber. This is how the Gita describes the divinity in us:

The sharpest sword will not pierce it,

the hottest flame will not singe it.

It is perfect, all-pervading,

calm, immovable, timeless.

But the Hindus have other expressions that are missing in our vocabulary: the concepts of vasana and dharma - a tendency, an idiosyncratic desire, a mission statement; something meaningful that we have to fulfill and burn off. I would argue that we - more in the spirit of the ancient Greeks than in the Judaic-Christian tradition - could use the expression soul in contrast to the True Self that already encompasses this notion of God-connection. 

So what exactly does it mean to have a soul-longing? Well. It is something we have been after over many lifetimes; a homework we may not have quite completed, a lesson not yet learned; some residual homework that our parents left behind; a karma that somehow sticks to the soil of the country we are born in or where we now live. In short, we have a human mission with a divine purpose that is ours to discover.

The beauty of this insight is that once we have reached this stage of illumination, we are already Home. When we remember the longings of our soul we will always find a way to express it in a spiritually kosher way. Our feet are on the ground while our eyes gaze at the stars. We put our heart and soul into whatever is meaningful to us just like we did before, yet, for the first time we 

remember God's Golden Rule: choose love every step of the Way. Our spiritual journey is already complete even though our body and mind are still at it.

Soul of a thousand years, we bow to Thee. The journey is finally over!

Meetings with Souls

When you walk on the spiritual path long enough, you will come across your own soul. This "meeting" is an awesome experience. Try to imagine how many lives you have lived on earth, how many death you have gone through, how many separation you have come across; all that information is stored in your "system" - deep inside - which by the way explains your deepest longings. The mission statement of your life, which sometimes can be explained by the struggle that your parents go through, sometimes by your upbringing, but sometimes by nothing really that you have encountered in this lifetime. You still have homework to do that are remnants of your previous lives.

Congratulations if you come to this point because it means that you are having the chance to release all these pains and start experience complete freedom. Once you have dealt with all your pains, all your karma and dharma (the soul's mission statement), you are free to roam the country as God's co-creator without any constraints attached to you.

It is like finally you can release all burden you have carried along with you and get back to your original light. Yes, we are all made of light. But during our life here we have forgot who we are and identify ourselves as a human form. As a human, you will experience birth and death, disease, old age and separation. If you have identified yourself with these experience, your life becomes so heavy. Meeting your soul gives you the opportunity to clean up all these pain and memory. And more wonderful, after the clean up, you will feel so light and joyful! So please allow yourself to cry, to laugh; be prepared to experience a wide range of emotions to let the stored up energy out of your system.

When you reach that stage of development, one area of confusion might be that you start confusing your own energy with that of other people. When you get together with other people, you can feel their accumulated energies and pains as well. In fact, you can sense their thinking patterns, experiences and suffering so vividly that you can easily make the mistake of mistaking them with your path. There is a remedy though, you can learn to experience every energy movement just as a wave that comes and goes. It is very much like you put on someone else’s coat, you have that dark feeling, if you mistake them as yours, you will have difficulty to take off because it is not yours anyway. These souls just want to be seen and get the help. Keep them in your heart, pray for them and leave them to God’s guidance. They are in good hands. People struggle only because they identify with a wrong identity. Their suffering is illusion. Everything that happens to you and everyone else is just a play. Don’t take it too seriously. You can slip out of every coat as easily as you slipped into it. When you experience this fact you will enjoy tremendous freedom. Life is but a game, enjoy!

By Su Zhen





Sent from my iPad

Share Your Present With the World

We have chosen to become the messenger of the Tao in our writings, in our interactions with others and in the way we let Her flow through us. This mission is a process, an ongoing alignment with a Force that we both can see, sense, feel and often understand. Since this inspiration can't be taken for granted, and given that these moments of connectedness mean so much for us, we both do whatever we can to cut out interferences to the best of our abilities. We connect with the Tao when we write and when we are mindful of the moment and when we spend time with others. The beauty of being a Tao traveler is that you can find Her anywhere, at home, at work; wherever your heart is, She is as well. When you are connected to the Source, every activity becomes divine by itself because it is like God is leading Her life through you. How can you not feel joyful, peaceful, loving and creative when God is with you all the time?

Eckhart Tolle is right. Living in the Now means to be enlightened by life. Consciousness shines through you at the time when you share your present with others. In the Now, your ego dissolves and with it your worries, your burdens and suffering. When you are enlightened by life there is only joy, laughter, love, peace and serene energy.

You will find your unique way of connecting with the miracle of life. Anything that is dear to your heart can be an expression of your devotion to Her. Explore your interests and  hobbies and let life help you finding out how you can make a living out of it. Let it be writing, music, acting, cooking, drawing, science, learning, teaching or caring for others.  When you do what you love, Her consciousness is flowing through you. You are literally a magnet and you are attracting the opportunities to share your enthusiasm with the rest of the world, while the activity per se will be literally effortless.

The Bhagavad Gita says, "You have the right to express yourself creatively, but you have no right to the fruit of your action." This doesn't mean that you as a creator will end up penniless, all it says is, do not concern yourself with the rewards. Let life figure all this out for you. Don't get bogged down in trying to calculate how the world will evaluate your present. Your present is literally priceless and life will make sure that you have everything your heart truly desires. Let life show you the way how to transcend from "making a living" to "living to express your True Self".One fact you can be sure of, your loved ones will champion your creative outlet.They signed up for this role of seeing you excel in your spiritual dimension a long time ago.

Focus on your present and how to share it and don't lose sleep over what society may or may not value at the current moment. We are entering the Creative Age and with it a new mind set and openness for your creative self-expression. Share your present with the world. What are you waiting for?

By Christian and Su Zhen

The Best of all Worlds

Try to convince someone that we live in Leipnitz's best of all worlds and chances are you will get an earful. "Ah yes, and how do you explain holocaust"? they will say. Or, "How could a God ever allow children to die?" I would have nothing to respond to any of this. The only thing I can observe is that we are all driven by our subconscious urges back to our core, our Source. If you truly embrace everything life throws at you to the best of your abilities, if you 'feel the fear and do it anyway' as Susan Jeffers recommends, if you express your dharma -as the Hindus express this force of destiny so succinctly - you cannot help becoming whole. Life washes you clean if you just let it.

Why Me?

It is so easy to fool yourself about spirituality. You think that you are striving for enlightenment and you are out in the ashram meditating when in fact years later you realize that you are running away from life. Or you are teaching others about spirituality and you give all you have to reach enlightenment only to find that you want to be extra special. This is what the ego does, it is natural, but the good news is there is an authority that helps you on your path and enables you to save years along the way, and this authority is called life, the Tao!

How often do we cry: "Why me?" Why do I have to deal with those materialistic, ego-centric people, why can't I be out in Africa, building schools or in an ashram, teaching others about God? Well, the reason my friend is that you are still full of it, full of ego. Your subconscious was programmed to tie you to your path, or dharma as the Hindus call it; it is designed to make you realize the ego at work and showing you the best way to cut it out of your life. Everything is just perfect, embrace life, the Tao, to the best of your abilities and an open mind and you will be home before you know it!

Aspire, Manifest, Reflect and Renounce

We are eating from the Tree of Knowledge again. We were little children when we took our first bite many thousand years ago and were afraid of the responsibility to choose between good and evil. In the meantime we have grown up and the next step in our evolution is to move beyond good and evil. Express yourself and play your part in the divine play.

There is a tao of life that shines before you. Right or wrong very much depends on your personal path. As Lord Krishna told Arjun that it was his duty to kill people he cared for in the battlefield, who knows what is in store for you - only you can be the judge. The brother you may meet today may have a sign around his neck -  of course invisible to himself - "brother, please teach me a precious lesson".

The question of course is how to separate the egotistic I demands from the longings of your soul. That's what Jnana Yoga is all about, i.e. the path of wisdom. No authority, no guru or holy book can help you with these decisions. You only have your intuition, and the little signs life throws at you. Aspire to realize your dreams, manifest them as best as you can, but be prepared to drop them if life tells you to. Aspire, manifest, reflect and renounce - that's what Jnana Yoga is all about. Yes this, but not that!

Eckhart Tolle writes that women are ahead of men on the spiritual journey. This resonated with me. Women are more closely connected with their hearts and "feel" themselves from decision to decision. For somebody like me who has a stronger intellectual connection, all I can do is to look out for the signs that life has to offer as I make my choices. No matter what you do, there is always a quite voice in the background that begs to be heard.

Take the fairy tale of the fisher and his wife as an example. The fisher finds a golden fish one day and declines his offer for a boon as he feels he already has everything his heart desires. His wife thought differently  and makes the fisher go back and ask the fish first for a bigger house, then a castle, a kingdom and eventually to become God. One wish after the other gets fulfilled, but progressively the sea gets darker, the weather worse and the fisher has to wait longer and longer before the golden fish shows up. Eventually, when the wife wants to become God, the golden fish tells the fisher that his wife has lost everything and is back in their old filthy shack.

So what exactly is the moral of the story? It is not that we shouldn't aspire to express ourselves. It is knowing what desires to manifest and what desires to renounce. The fisher's wife could never see the signs of discouragement to go further as her submissive husband was unable to communicate them to her. I don't know what her dharma (destiny) was, but she certainly aimed for stars that were out of her reach. Know your dharma and  fulfill it and you don't have to worry about good and evil any longer.

Just Be Yourself

I sometimes wonder whether there would be a piece of advice I would have for my two little boys on the day when we send them off to college. It probably would be this: Just Be Yourself! I am someone who is still in the process of truly finding myself, so apparently this is easier said than done. Still, this motto should always be in the back of your mind. Accept who you are, don't try to satisfy other people's expectations. Do what you are born to do, give it your best and the universe will be on your side.

The Gita has a clear message on this point: Better to fulfil one's own Dharma, be it ever so lowly, than another's, be it ever so illustrious.

One question, though is how to get the insight of what you are born to do. This question is separate from what we normally discuss, i.e. finding your True Self by overcoming your ego. To the contrary, finding your passions in life can be, and often is, all about the need of working off your karma and the tendencies you still have. If you know off some literature on this subject, please let me know.