Life is Just a Stage

Imagine that your life is just like a movie, and you are an actor playing a role. Will you still care so much about your life? How would your perspective change?  Whatever your roles are in this plot, you know that in the end it is not real.  Even if you play a bad guy in the movie, you won't feel guilt but instead you will be proud of your performance. As you know, good actors win movie awards, it is not important whether they play the villain or the hero.

The psychologist E. Graham Howe once said that every completed life needs to be applauded, no matter what. This is certainly true. Think of our egos as the roles we play. You never know why people do the things they do, everyone is a product of their environments. Will an actor have an opinion about the character he is playing in the script? Certainly not. He just knows that he brings a script to life, but deep down inside he knows who he truly is.

Just imagine the incredible peace you are feeling when one day this personality blanket will be lifted from you. If you want to interact in this world you have to have a persona that binds you, otherwise you would be just drifting off in a different world. Jed McKenna once described an awakening process when he felt he was disassociated with his persona but then he realized that in order to come back he needed one, so he merged with his own because, as he said, he kind of liked it. So it is not that you are any different from others when you discover that you are just an actor, you are still very much in it, but this realization that life is just a stage gives a peace of mind that you always can change movie plots at your disposal. It also gives a curiosity to see the next chapter unfolding and an intensity to live your life in a way that you will be recognized in the next Music Academy Awards.

Our life is just like these movie scripts.  We are asked to play accordingly.  We are assigned roles but they are just there to discover who we truly are. When you reach this realization you are naturally willing to let go of your agenda and merge with the Flow. Your mission in life is to bring your Self to the fore and your life script was written just to make that happen.  You are perfect, complete, and shining eternally!  Discover the real You as you stand in the spotlight under the rolling camera. Believe us, the One who wrote your script is the best director in the industry.

By Su Zhen and Christian

In the Tao I Trust

The reader of this blog will know that I have occasionally good spiritual insights yet I am realistic enough to know that they come to me delivered by the interaction that I have with others. Life, or the Tao, provides these insights and I am perceptive enough to pick them up despite having an ego like everyone else. So I welcome all the opportunities life throws at me to reach my spiritual potential despite myself. Without these holy encounters there wouldn't be a spiritual path for me would be my hunch.

In contrast, I have met people who are the medium for spiritual insights  and they are truly blessed. You find these spiritual giants especially in the group of  'women, children and mystics' as E. Graham Howe remarks. So enjoy it if you are part of these select few, but be equally upbeat if you are just ordinary like me. The Tao is out there for everyone to see. Dance with the now and your personal agenda will be turned upside down. The Tao always delivers as long as you show up and are willing to give the other perspective a second look.

Will the Real Me Please Stand Up

By insisting so strongly that we ought to love one another, Christianity has in effect not only interfered with our normal sexual development, which is not like romantic love at all, but also with certain innate trends of cruelty and hatred which are necessary aspects of our reality, at least during our early experience of life.
E. Graham Howe

Who is the real me? Am I the real me when I am in touch with the Christ in me,  the Atman, the Soul or the True Self, or however else we call this Force that seems to exist within us. Blessed are the children, the women and the mystics who are in touch with this Force, but all ordinary folks like me can only experience the 'I'. It turns out that the 'I' has many faces; in E. Graham Howe's words, we experience the Christian love and the romantic love as well as the animal spirits and the violence. The 'I' encompasses the light as well as the shadow; that is what being human is all about.

Many spiritual travelers have commented on the shadow experience. The shadow pops up because we tend to appeal to an archetype; we want to be someone else in the name of spirituality and we negate the existing other forces inside; we literally sweep them under the carpet because they are too ugly to look at. Step 1 in the process is to acknowledge that you have a shadow; this by itself is hard to do. Step 2 is how to deal with it. Many appeal to the True Self whenever the shadow pops up and try to purify themselves until the shadow goes away. Others accept and embrace the shadow and some even try to harness the power of the demon and put it to a good use.

I try to balance the different phases inside myself very much like a surfer rides the waves of the ocean. Just to give you one example, I enjoy my spiritual outlets like my writings or my conversations within the spiritual community very much. More than that, I would even say I live for them. Nevertheless,  I keep a foot in the real world just because I know it is the outlet for the energy that still has to be harnessed by life. I guess this approach sums up my philosophy as a Tao traveler pretty well: Everything is perfect as is to get us to experience our Core;  so embrace your life wholeheartedly and to the best of your abilities and get done whatever it is you still need to accomplish. Life and the resistance you face keep your demon at bay; all you have to do is to show up and put your best foot forward each step of the Way.

Competition Versus Cooperation

The willpower of power is the willpower of conflict, the alternating dualism of "yes ...no, yes ...no", which are the two aspects of desire. But the willpower of wisdom has nothing to do with such competitiveness; in fact it behaves in quite the opposite way. It manners are perfect; it is never rude, because it feels no revulsion. It never says "No" and is never offensive. The willpower of wisdom is the willpower of a single motive of acceptance - yes, yes, yes.
E. Graham Howe

I was once in charge of an offsite, a team spirit building exercise, and I decided that we would go and play mini-golf according to the Ryder Cup rules. The Ryder Cup is a golf tournament that is played between the best European and American golfers. And even though golf is a highly individual sport as we all know, when you put the players into teams with alternating shots or by choosing the best shot of each player, suddenly a team spirit develops and for the players who gel with each other, the team effort can be much more than the sum of the individual players.

The Tao master knows something about cooperation. The Tao teaches you how to cooperate with life and with other people. Sure, competitive folks will show up along the Way as well, they too will be incorporated in the magnificent play of the Tao. You let them do whatever they need to do but you never fear their force because in life cooperation gets you a lot further than individual competitive efforts. My favorite example in this direction was the Ryder Cup during a time when Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson were Number 1 and Number 2 in the golf rankings and both were beaten handily as a team by the much more cooperative European players.    

Put on an Oxygen Mask Before you Help Others

Selfishness is all right. Go on, be selfish, as selfish as you like. Make up your mind what you want and go get it. When you've got it, enjoy it to the full and share it with your friends. Enjoy yourselves, have fun!
E. Graham Howe

I remember the story of a young girl who once met a famous Indian guru at an airport in the US and she boldly went up to him and asked if he had some advice. He took one look at her, smiled, and then just said 'Enjoy!' She immediately understood the message and pursued her not-so-holy desires before starting in earnest on her spiritual path.

Going out and helping people in the name of Christ is really hard. Can you really extend a helping hand without looking down on your brother? I have seen so many people who tried to help others but they exuded arrogance which they would never really have admitted to themselves. Perhaps it is better to follow the advice of E. Graham Howe and the Indian guru: go out, express yourself, have fun and get what you want and discover as you run into life's constraints that you truly care for your fellow beings. As they say, 'Every saint has a past and every sinner has a future'. Perhaps it is easier to remember that if you truly face who you are.

In a retirement speech a colleague gave this advice 'Put on an oxygen mask before you assist others.' Yes, she is right, you can only give whole-heartedly if you yourself feel that you have abundant resources. Sure, I am all for it if you like to come and give in the name of the Christ. Just make sure that you have reached that stage. Otherwise, there is no harm in going out and having a little more fun until you do. Make first sure that your well is functional before you share it freely with others.

The Christ and the Shadow

There is a way of life called "humanism", which asserts that kindness and service towards our fellow man will solve the many problems of our lives. This is better, but it is only partly true. It is not true enough, because we are not gods and should not undertake so willingly a god's responsibilities.
(E. Graham Howe)

Some of you may be on Christ's mission and I would be the last one to discourage you from it. Yet, be prepared for your shadow to pop up, the voice inside you that screams 'Hey, what about me?' A spiritual path is about understanding your personality, not a lofty ideal but the entire package. You are not God yet, so do not negate your dark side; accept it instead. If this screaming voice in your head becomes too loud, perhaps it is an invite to reposition yourself. The Tao will always allow you to express yourself the way you really are. Everything you experience is a perfect opportunity to let go. You are being digested by life; the dark force will be sucked out of you along the Way and with every sucking sound your true being shines a little stronger.