When Serenity Meets Flow

Why do you feel stressful and anxious?  Have you ever tried to observe yourself while this is happening?  Is it because you lack the confidence that you can achieve what you set out to do? Isn't it true that when you are looking at all the interferences that come your way, you are in fact getting signal after signal to take it a little easier? Perhaps the problem is that you try to do it your way and not the Tao's way? Try to observe everything that is going on inside of you and in your environment. You will find the answer.

As a Tao traveler, most of the time you accomplish things with ease.  You tune into the flow of the Now and do whatever needs to be done at that special moment. Faced with the divine Now, your own agenda is simply washed away.  You surrender yourself to the Tao and totally trust Her arrangements.  You don't worry and you are at ease. So if you already have reached this spiritual maturity, what are all these stress attacks about? It is the self trying to eclipse the Self with some lingering worries and irrelevant mental conjectures. Perhaps you can think of these situations like you would of a cold. Somehow you must have undermined your psychic immune system, otherwise the strength of the Self would never have allowed this situation to happen.

Along the Tao everything happens for a reason. So even your stressful periods are here to help you. When you develop a sniffle you have some orange juice in order to strengthen your immune system, don't you? In the same way, when stress and worries creep up in you, ask how you may have undermined your Self and change directions accordingly. The Tao is always here to help you. Lose your self along the Way. Be  alert to your environment, heighten your sensitivity responsiveness to the people around you, while being mindful of everything that is going on within yourself. With this alert, with this sensitivity, with this timely response, you become Her instrument again. You harmoniously merge yourself into the flow of Now. Your mind becomes quiet in the moment and everyone benefits from your actions, especially you. Where serenity and flow meet there is just not enough space for stress to develop. Try and experience this for yourself.

By Christian and Su Zhen

The Surrender of Self-Will

To die but not to perish is to be eternally present.
(Tao Te Ching)

I think most of us understand what it means to be enlightened. It means the absence of a personal filter. It means living in the Now. You can get there if you are so absorbed by the moment that the " I" disintegrates and merges with your environment instead. " I Am" implies that the " I" has become part of the Now. Life invites you moment by moment to let this happen. If you perceive every voice that comes your way as a hint from God and every development that you encounter as spiritually meaningful, you cannot help but being captured by the magic of the moment.

Be Open to the Flow

There is a rhythm to life. High energy is followed by low energy, day follows night, activity is followed by inactivity, love follows hate. Some aspects of this flow we may appreciate, others we may care less about, but if we can follow this energy flow and accept it as it is, our life would be in harmony. However, most of the time we have opinions and expectations about how things should be. This expectation creates tensions because we cannot accept the now and resist the energy flow of the moment.

Try to be in tune with the energy flow of the situation. You will find that your life will be much more peaceful and harmonious this way. When you feel tired, go to sleep, when you feel hungry, eat something, when you feel you are cold and indifferent, just accept it. We all tend to put on a mask and present us in a way that is socially acceptable. However, in doing so, we deviate from the flow. This is why working regular hours in an office can be torturous because we feel that we need to deviate from our natural flow. Perhaps you can try to tune into the collective energy flow of your organization.

Think of a successful real estate broker. She knows the mood of the client perfectly and carefully addresses every concerns the client may have when doubts exist, but aggressively markets all the positive aspects of the property when she feels the client is ready to commit. The successful real estate broker is in tune with the energy flow and the emotions of the client and that is her recipe of success. Surrendering to the flow of life is very much like this. Go with the flow and you will feel easy and successful; on the contrary, going against the flow will feel difficult and will, over the long-run, be destined to fail.

Going with the flow doesn't mean that you should do whatever you feel like. For example just because you feel sexual energy rising in you doesn't mean that you can go out and have sex with everyone you are attracted to. Sure, you can try to but as we all know, it takes two to Tango. No matter what, always try to accept the situation. Never suppress your energy flow, just observe it in you and in your environment and be aware of it.

This flow of life is the Tao. Say yes to flow of life, say yes to the Tao. When you go with the flow of life, you can feel that power in you - the Tao gives you that power. The Tao is like a big river that carries you along. Let the river of Tao does every thing for you. You will feel easy and peaceful along the Way.


By Christian and Su Zhen

The Best of all Worlds

It is not Having What you Want, it's Wanting What You've Got.
Sheryl Crowe, Soak Up the Sun

Walking the Tao is a philosophy really; the belief that you live in the best of all worlds. You might be outraged when you hear that, 'How can one believe that', you might say, 'with all the sickness, unfairness and crime around?', but we would encourage you just to give this hypothesis a shot and see for yourself. Trust to walk the Tao and let Her decide whatever comes your way. You can certainly tell the Tao what you want and what you need, but let Her decide in what way this wish will be delivered to you. We always trust that Tao knows best and trust that Her decisions are the best for us.

When you follow the Tao, you don't have any anxiety and you don't root for anything. We have experienced over and over again that we always get along the Way what we truly desire. The Tao tells us whatever we need to know; the Tao shows us whatever it is that we need to achieve. In fact, the Tao acts through us. We have no idea where we are going except for trusting that everything is perfect as is.

It is certainly fine to set up goals, just as it is necessary to have a vision of what your destiny is all about. Yet, whenever despite your best efforts your life starts deviating from your mission, understand that this is perfect as is. As Katy Perry says in her song Firework, 'Maybe you're reason why all the doors are closed - So you could open one that leads you to the perfect road.' If you live by that philosophy you will never experience any stress and anxiety. Led by the Tao, you live a life moment by moment and act according to the demands of your environment. You don't feel annoyed by anything that comes your way, you just follow the Flow. Distractions do not exist, deviations from what you think you want give you instead the opportunity to aim even higher in life. You also start to understand that these people who may act evil or mean are also tools of the Tao to get you where you truly want to go. They are more like alarm clocks that help you wake you up while you fall asleep on the wheel. Along the Tao there is no good and evil, everything just is, and it is perfect as is!

Whenever you hand yourself over to the Tao, all you need to do is just be present and follow the cues. The Tao is doing everything and there are never sacrifices along the Way. So if you perceive effort instead, ask what this is for. Along the Way you also no longer possess anything, and all your achievements become natural and self-evident. Everything will be out of your control, and yet, without your trying, everything will fall magically into place just as your heart desires. Effort and resistance will show that you have temporarily deviated from the Way. But this is ok, the Tao always welcomes you back with open arms. All you have to do is to ask for Her and take a look around and the next cue to reconnect will be there.

There is ego and there is the Tao and there is nothing in-between. Decide on the world you would like to live in. Don't trust us as authorities, see for yourself whether you can discover the world we talk about. When you hand yourself over to the Tao, you cease to exist. It is Her doing everything and you are just Her instrument. Whatever you achieve, you can not claim that it was you. Everything is Her doing instead. In this realization there lies incredible peace. A Tao traveler is at peace with herself, is happy wherever she goes and encounters love no matter where she turns.


By Christian and Su Zhen

Flow

I remember my first flow experience very well. I was a high school student and we had to run 400 meters for grades. During those days I played soccer day and night and also did some jogging so I was pretty fit, but I had never really invested much of my mental energy into track and field. The person I was up against was a rower, he was full of muscles, but I wasn't intimidated since I very much doubted that upper body strength was correlated with speed. Well, I was in for a surprise, he took off on the 400 meters the way I would have run a 100 meter sprint. But with intense willpower I managed to stay next to him. I felt incredible pain, but miraculously, after 200 meters or so, I didn't feel my body any more. All I could perceive were thoughts. I got a glimpse then of what it means to be in the 'zone', it was a terrific feeling of connectedness. If my body was aching, I couldn't feel it, the race just seemed effortless. It turned out that we both got an A plus for our finishing time, so being in the flow definitely pays off.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi expressed this theme beautifully in his book 'The Flow'. It introduces the theme from a psychological perspective, but it really is a spiritual gem. Eckhart Tolle's 'The Power of Now' describes exactly the same thing. You always have the chance to get lost in the here and now and when you do, a magic world opens up to you. If I had to sum up the way towards getting to this stage  it would be 'embrace life wholeheartedly'. Like it happened to me in the first few meters of the race, it might be a little uncomfortable to be synchronized to the new Force, but it will be well worth the effort and after this adjustment, all you really have to do is to follow the lead. Everyone can do this, spiritual or not. Love what you do and if you also love the people you are connected with, the flow will be just around the corner.

What is a Tao Traveler?

A person who has achieved control over psychic energy and has invested in consciously chosen goals cannot help but grow into a more complex human being.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Flow

A spiritual path is nothing but a mission statement. Everyone has one. The ambitious business man who wants to climb the ladder of success, the teacher who wants to educate others, the stay home mom who wants to raise a family. Life is all about the choices you make along the way. In the same vein, the mission of a Tao traveler is to feel the space in-between, the holy connection that life and people provide every moment. Most people are too busy too look, so this connection feels like magic to them. We spiritual path travelers perceive glimpses of the 'beyond' and when we zoom into it, we cannot help but to drop our agenda. Don't get me wrong, we are still ambitious and we may still want to educate and or to raise a family, but all this we temporarily forget when we surrender to the space in-between. Over time we find that  it is the Tao that takes us to places. We still decide on our goals, but the mode of transportation is no longer up to us. Happy traveling!

Easy like a Sunday Morning

"Seems to me girl you know I have done all I can,
You see, I begged, stole and borrowed.
Oh, that's why I am easy, easy like a Sunday morning."
Lionel Richie, Easy

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi writes in 'Flow' that someone who knows his desires and works with purpose to achieve them, is someone whose feelings, thoughts and actions are in unity and thus someone who achieves harmony. While this is true, this description doesn't really have any normative implications. After all, as Lionel Richie reminds us, someone who begs, steals and borrows can feel easy as well. This flow insight is all about the use of psychic energy, if you are 100 % sure about your life's mission then there are no conflict of interest. All your energy flows in the activity that is meaningful to you.

A spiritual path traveler has normative values. Yes, we believe that deep down inside we are all loving and beautiful. Thus, someone who is on a mission to conquer the world may follow his destiny, but at the end of the day something inside himself will rebel and scream, "No, this isn't me". As the bible reminds us, "What use is it to gain the world if you lose your soul". So from our perspective, the Tao traveler happens to be the only one who devotes 100 % of her psychic energy towards her mission in life, to follow the clues of the Tao, while being quite flexible about the actual journey. Like Lionel we perhaps transition from beg, borrow and steal to

"I wanna be high, so high,
I wanna be free to know 
the things I do are right
I wanna be free, just me!"

Flow

Optimal Experience, it is what a painter feels when the colors on the canvas begin to set up a magnetic tension with each other, and a new thing, a living form, takes shape in front of the astonished creator.
(Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi in Flow)

The ego is your homework, your mission statement. It is your perception of reality, your perception of the boundary that separates you from others. To deny your ego is meaningless, you are who you think you are. You have to follow all the desires you have, yet, understanding that none of them can give you any lasting happiness is a big step forward on your spiritual path. All your desires are but substitute for feeling oneness, for being finally home.

The amazing contrast to having your desires fulfilled is to creatively express your desires which can give you happiness. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi coined the flow concept and perhaps the notion of the painter being absorbed by her creation explains it best. Creating, being captured by the moment, is your only chance to let go of the ego temporarily. Surely you must have experienced this magic moment yourself when you did something that really absorbed you completely. Perhaps you are blessed with that ability to get lost in whatever you do. At this moment you are beyond your thoughts, you have actually transcended your desires while pursuing them. When you experience the flow you are connected with the Tao and the universe bends in accordance with your needs. The flow is the eternal dance with the Tao.

You cannot negate your desires, you have to follow them. They are your starting point and define you as a creator, as an artist. Yet, once you understand that the moment worth living for is the act of creation, the infinite moment in time when you are connected with the 'beyond', the time when you are flowing. You deserve to work, you deserve to express yourself creatively, so find the creative outlet that defines you as a creator and an artist!

Drive

When you talk to family, friends and colleagues in an open way, without having any secret agenda and without any concern that they have one, there is an open exchange of energy at that moment, an encounter with kindness that emerges out of the spontaneous union of caring people. If in that natural exchange opportunities emerge to help the other party, you just do it without thinking. I would emphasize the 'without thinking part'; this exchange puts the the self temporarily out of the picture  as you get sucked into the energy exchange and your mind is 100 percent absorbed. This happens to be the now, or the flow, or the zone that the spiritual as well as the psychology community has discovered. As you flow, you experience a drive that is serene and happens to be very different from the drive that we all know so well: the itching under the skin to get something or to become someone.

Of course, you have to accept who you are; negating your passions doesn't solve anything. But what you can do is to look for these serene moments and as you welcome them, the Tao will send more opportunities to heal yourself your way. As you experience these moments, it is actually quite easy to perceive how the serene drive is making you whole, while your passions can become cancerous so easily.

Lord Krishna says to Arjun in the Bhagavad Gita "You have the right to work, but never to the fruit of your work. You should never engage in action for the sake of reward, nor you you long for inaction." The problem is that if you are really honest with yourself, this is impossible to do since you always have an agenda deep down inside, but if you embrace the priceless offers from the Tao , either by merging with a friend or a situation, these drives transform themselves at that very moment. At least at that moment, you have managed to transform your passion into a feeling of serenity. So please enjoy yourself, or perhaps I should say your Self, along the Way, the Tao!

Flow

Each time you do not experience the flow you know that you have to reposition yourself in one way or another. It is your birthright to be connected with the Source each moment. The flow is a dynamic equilibrium; you are at peace even while you are moving. It doesn't matter in which direction the wind is blowing, all that matters is that you are connected with the Source here and now. As they say, be here and now or be nowhere!