You are the Tao

There is a blanket that holds everyone and everything together. You are part of the fabric, but you have to feel and realize it. Lord Krishna says in the Geeta, if I stopped working for one moment, this universe would collapse. How can we realize that we are part of this magnificent blanket that spans everything?

You are your feelings, desires, fears, thoughts, etc. You are the one who observes that you want something. You are the one who makes choices. You are the one who observes the Tao, the stuff life throws at you. The Tao is your self projected back to you, i.e. the stuff you think you are as well ass the stuff your subconscious thinks you are. Lastly, you are part of a magnificent wave, the interdependence of everything and everyone, the Zeitgeist.

I am part of this magnificent Cosmic Dance and so are you. The question is only how to become aware of it. The first step in the human evolution was to realize that we exist as an entity in a way the animal never could. The second step is to consciously realize the connectedness of everything and everyone, something that the animal perhaps instinctively already perceives. Just keep reflecting on who you really are and you will merge with the magnificent blanket sooner or later.

He Who is Steadfast in Pleasure and Pain ...

He was sitting in a conference room surrounded by his peers who were involved in a discussion and nobody asked him for his opinion. He realized that asserting his presence would only lead to interference. He just wasn't in the flow of things and he noticed how his energy level was dropping. He did what he always did in those situations, he raised his imaginary baseball bat and as he tighten his grip he felt the power coming back to him.

Within just an hour the table had been turned completely. He was in a new conference room with new people and everybody was seeking his opinion. He was on a roll. As the blood was rushing through his head his perception had turned to tunnel vision. He didn't even notice the different colleagues anymore. All he could do was to address the 'crowd' with his improvised speech.

What comes to mind when you read this story? The tables did turn for this friend in a short time, but somehow you cannot help concluding that he has a problem in both situations. In the first, by not being able to just absorb what the others are discussing without minding that he is not involved. In the second, by being unable to objectively observe his environment because he is too much in love with his own performance.

The Gita writes "The calm man who is the same in pleasure and pain alone is able to attain to immortality."  This advice is often misinterpreted in my opinion as is seems to encourage indifference and stoicism. It is not about downplaying or ignoring the feelings within you, it is about being mindful of the emotional waves as they rise and fall. When you really monitor what is going on inside you, this very act of reflection calms the waves down as they develop. As Lord Krishna said, The mindful man who is the same in pleasure and pain, he is dear to me.

What Drives You?

He was a young associate in a big law firm with the drive to make it to the top. Most of the associates would have given anything to belong to the club of partners. From their perspective, once you have made it to this level, their status, wealth and connections would have them set for life. He actually thought this view was a bit naive. He already hung out with enough partners to realize that the power struggle would never be over. He just had an instinct for the underlying motives of people. He saw partners who had the desire to become the next CEO,  those who wanted to manage other partners, while most others just wanted to be part of the in-crowd. And to be in, you have to generate as much revenues for the firm as possible, or have to have power over others. Yes, he understood the rules of the game clearly and he was ready to jump in.

We all want something. What drives you when you go to work? Understanding what really drives us brings us a big step closer to a solution, that is for those who feel that there is something wrong with the workings of the law firm in our example. If you truly want to experience peace and love in your life, while still expressing yourself creatively, you will find that there is a Tao that gets you there. The good news is that our society is converging to a creative class. As most people have all the basics they need, they long for the extra, the spiritual connection, and true creators and artists can provide them. For an artist or an engineer, the creation is always first, the commercial sale or professional promotion comes second. Creators can get lost in the flow that shuts the scheming ego completely out.

Lord Krishna demands in the Gita of everyone "to work tirelessly, to do you duty without giving any thoughts to the fruits of your labor." Well, this describes the flow. The creator can do it, while everyone else would just get frustrated following this advice. The economic shift is on your side my friend. Find your creative outlet and the rewards - second in nature compared to the beauty to see your creation come to life - will come as well. Enjoy your drive of creation!

Spirituality and Freedom

Lord Krishna says in the Gita that by following your desires you will turn something that tastes in the beginning as sweet as honey into something bitter, while following the Tao will at first have a bitter taste to it, but will be as sweet as honey after a while.

It appears that following the Tao is hard work. You want to proceed professionally, yet the Tao tells you not to undermine a colleague and to have a loving attitude towards her instead. You want to live out your sexual desires, yet the Tao tells you to be faithful to your partner, etc. It looks like morality binds you to the Tao, while expressing your desires is true freedom. So perhaps we can restate Lord Krishna'a advice like this, by following your desires you will at first have the impression that you make free choices only to find that you are enslaved by them, while by following the Tao you are first under the impression that you are bound to it, only to find after some time that you are finally free.

I never liked the morality aspect of religion and always felt instead that the Tao needs to be apparent as a free choice. In fact, I have come to realize that life is a giant experiment in which you make your choices every day and their consequences are projected back to you until you finally understand and just feel what your Tao is all about. Yes it is true, sometimes you have to do something for a while that appears to go against your intrinsic desires, but then you study the consequences and maintain your course of action if you like what you see, while dropping it otherwise. Your Tao is here, it can be seen and felt if you put your heart and soul into finding it. At times you have to use willpower and be stoic about your choices, but it does get easier over time. In the end you will see that You and Your Father are One and that everything you do is a free choice of your loving heart.

Whenever One Door Closes ...

I have a lot of respect for our "manifestation crowd", who show us that we live in a matrix and everything that we see and experience is a product of your own mind. Still, I cannot say that I have had much experience with this concept; if so then only in an indirect way: my path is one where I believe that everything that gets attracted into my life does have a spiritual learning experience for me and allows me to learn what unanticipated consequences my actions have, as well as displaying my hidden agenda and subconscious motives.

Lord Krishna states in the Gita, 'The right is to work only, but never the fruits of your labor. Be thou not the producer of the fruits; neither let thy attachment be towards inaction.' Boy, isn't the Secret all about the fruits? Unfortunately, I have no answer to this inherent contradiction. In the end I always come back to the same conclusion, live your life like a leaf in the wind. Always put your best foot forward in realizing what you want to achieve, but be entirely flexible towards the outcome. I happen to work with financial markets and have discovered that the path of non-resistance works for me best there as well. Put your best foot forward, observe what happens, and then put your best foot forward again. That's all you can do and never mind if you happen to walk in the opposite direction than before.

I understand that this approach is not very confidence inspiring, since I am really saying that I do not have any control over anything - much in contrast to the keeper of the secret. But I do have confidence in one thing, if the spiritual path exist, I will always be allowed and encouraged to express myself creatively: The right is to work only ... So bring on whatever has to happen, but trust that whenever one door closes another one opens.

Leidenschaft

Leidenschaft is the German word for passion and translates its Greek meaning right into your face: 'creates suffering'. It is just that as a German native you still forget that the word has a negative meaning since you associate a positive mental image with the concept of being passionate about something.

The Indian Gita is full of advice to avoid passion: do what seems right in the now without being emotionally tied to anything. Well, the Gita has been written for Gods; we mortals cannot help but to follow our passions like the bear is after the honey, and actually should continue on this path. If we were to suppress our passions in the name of spirituality, all we can do it to create a monster that will be soon out to get us.

When you are emotionally tied to something, you will get a lesson one way or another. So do the best you can do, express yourself creatively, look out for the impact of your actions on others, but just get it done with. Once you experience the feedback loop of the universe, you hopefully will in time grow out of your passion and are ready to transcend to the next spiritual level. To use myself as an example, I have always been quite indifferent about money and wealth, but I am still actively learning my lessons in the power and sex categories.

So while there is nothing you can do about your passions except to follow them, you can observe when your blood is bubbling up inside. Enjoy that micro second of sanity when you say to yourself 'Oh, I am being passionate again', before you trod down your honey path again.

The spiritual community prefers the word enthusiasm over passion, which means inspired by God in Greek. So my favorite notion of bliss is experiencing your tao moment by moment while drifting like a leaf in the wind without being swayed by your personal urges. The Germans have the word Begeisterung , i.e. the spirit (Geist) is with or inside you.

Well, may the Geist be with you,
Zeitgeist

Never Repress Your Desires

You see your attractive neighbor and know how much sexual desire you have, but you decide not to do anything about it since both of you are married and you respect this holy institution.

This might be the right choice, it might not be. Only you know what is right for you and you have to make decisions like these every day. By making them and by experiencing how your world reacts you fine-tune yourself along your spiritual path. If you try to repress your desires by saying "I must not look at my attractive neighbor" or "I only must have holy thoughts", your repressed desires will come back in one form or another to haunt you.

The Gita describes God as the absence of desires: once you stand still, without any desire to move, you will see Me. But I fear the Gita has been written for God-like humans. Arjun looks like a little child next to Lord Krishna with his whining questions and endless repetition of concerns. What you probably don't know about him is that he happens to be the 'best of the best' of us. He once was in a shooting competition with India's best archers and he won with a perfect track record. When his teacher asked him to share his secret he said "When I aim for the bird on the tree, I aim directly for the eye and I do not shoot before I have perfectly zoomed into my target."

Do not beat yourself up over who you think you are right now. You may have to question some of your desires just because they may be distorted outlets of different urges, but once you have disentangled them, go after your desires with laser-loke focus. With every desire you have there is a perfect opportunity to express yourself beautifully today without being in conflict with who you really are. Desires do burn off as you get what you aspire. 'Been there, done that' happens to be a holy mantra in my opinion.

Professional Success and Spirituality

Nice guys finish last! Does this expression resonate with you? Can spiritual path travelers have a successful career? I had this discussion with my wife the other day and told her that for me Kobe Bryant, Tiger Woods or Michael Jordan cannot be it since all of them revealed personality traits that I would consider unacceptable. "Well", she said, "you have given the answer right there, as you would never be willing to make the choices they have made. Yet others consider their choices as perfectly acceptable and certainly desirable".

Spiritual path travelers can be professionally successful and certainly are. It is just that the journey they take often happens to be off the beaten path. Spiritual path travelers come in a jeep I guess. Probably most of us are artist and teachers, but there will be breakthroughs in many other professions as well. I happen to work in the financial industry and am pretty sure that you can be an enlightened investor.

There is one misconception with the 'nice guys finish last' phrase however. Being on a spiritual path doesn't mean you cannot or should not act tough professionally. Of course we are and aspire to be gentle with everyone, but sometimes colleagues, friends or relatives come to us with a big sign around their neck (invisible to them) that says 'brother, please teach me a lesson'. That's the spiritual evolution the Christians still have to learn, but the concept was already taught many thousand years ago in India when Lord Krishna told Arjun on the battlefield that it was his destiny to execute his relatives and friends "Yield not to unmanliness", He said, "you have a job to do!"

Actually, I haven't had a tough personal decision to make in my career, so apparently I have chosen a peaceful professional path for myself. But CEOs of companies, politicians and so many other managers do not have this luxury. But they can be spiritual travelers nevertheless. As Lao Tse observed as well many thousand years ago in China, there is always a Tao, a middle path, that works for everybody. All one has to do is to selflessly open one's eyes and look for it.

May your spiritual path be blessed and may you finish first as it happens to be your birthright!

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.

Time for a Group Prayer?

Whenever I see this gushing pipe in the Gulf my heart is bleeding. I understand that we are in a cosmic period in which some of the exising mental tension is released in order to prepare humanity for a higher plane of consciousness. As the Gita says, whenever societies go under I (Lord Krishna) will be born again. Damage needs to be done, and our devine mother Kali is clearly at work here, but enough is enough. If we are all so enlightened in this community we should be able to mentally close this pipe.

We are Eating from the Tree Again

"Surrender to life, don't surrender your desires". If I had to summarize my spiritual learning experience over the last couple of years in a sentence, that's how I would put it. Many of us in this community aspire to be free, and we try to achieve this goal by listening to the free spirits and their lessons. However, don't assume that you are operating on the same spiritual level. You have to follow your path instead.

When we ate from the tree of knowledge for the first time we were babies who had to be told that there is a divine part buried in the animal. We needed rules to discover our spiritual path. Today we are adolescence, we learn that we have a mission and suddenly there no longer are any rules. Play your part in the divine video game by following your passions. Actually, you don't have a choice in it anyway. Live your desires and burn them up in the process.

Arjun in the Gita discovered that he had to slaughter his friends and family, he hated his mission, but God Himself told me that he better do his job. What's your mission? Knowing what Christ and Buddha would do in your situation doesn't cut it. The divine play needs you to show up instead. Doing the "right" thing at the "right" time is your assignment. No pressure, at worst you can learn another life experience if you "mess up". As the Course in Miracles states, 'Nothing real can be threatened, nothing unreal exists". You have nothing to lose and your Self to gain.

Two Out of Three Ain't Bad

Throughout my life I have been a mind person. School and studies always came to me easily. My mind is sharp without being razor sharp. I always go straight to the non-fiction section in every bookstore. Emotions, empathy and compassion was something I was definitely capable of, but my mind was sometimes in the way; if you are a mind person you just live in your own world and are often just not sensitive enough to observe what others are going through. Actually, I was amazed how hazy the thought process of a heart-driven person could be at times; it just seemed to be a different world. Intuitively, however, I felt something was missing in my life and I married someone who is love, compassion and empathy all in one.

My spiritual journey was mind driven as well. Protestant by birth, I had a pretty rational spiritual education, but eventually still struggled with the concepts of faith and miracles. Ironically, it was Sri Ramakrishna - the saint of love, faith and passion - who got me back on my spiritual track. Still, the spiritual concept that resonates most with me is the Gita - Lord Krishna educates the human race in the same intellectual way as Neal Walsh was educated in his Conversations with God. But then a few years ago I figured out that what you really need to merge with our Source: the mind, the heart and energy, all working together.

Energy just came out of nowhere. Perhaps it always has been my destiny to get it. My mother told me a story that when she went in a store to get balloons for me they all burst in my hand. At one point the sales person - I grew up in Germany - just refused to give her more balloons. The energy wave started a couple of years ago. I vividly remember how I was sitting in a meeting and suddenly felt that strange sensation in my lower body. It was at if energy shot up from my testicles. Around this period, my sinus cleared up. Pretty much all my life my sinus were stuffed up and then one fine day I could breathe freely. Meanwhile the energy wave seems to be creeping up my spine: I feel little bubbles towards the end of my spine and often a certain lingering tension in my neck and lower head area. Actually, sometimes I feel as if I am burning up inside.

So what about the heart? Well, here is the thing: while you start your spiritual journey in one area, you reach a point when everything just takes off together. Today I look for clues everywhere, from the people you meet, the nature and environment you experience, songs on the radio, etc. When you are together with people you suddenly experience the exchange of energy waves. I will never forget a conversation with my assistant a while back. I had forgotten something she had already told me and when she realized that I saw a flash in her eye which hit me like a sledgehammer. That's what a spiritual journey does to you, it makes you sensitive in a way you never had before, and with it empathy and compassion come automatically.

Actually, I have no idea where my spiritual journey will take me. Things just happen so fast and they also seem unstable. Sometimes I ask myself, am I just losing my mind, which would be somewhat ironic for a mind person. But I am pretty sure that whatever comes from here will be a package deal. Mind, heart and the energy wave just expand together. Two out of three ain't bad, and that's just the beginning.

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.