Every Storm runs out of Rain

One believes he is the slayer, another believes he is the slain. Both are ignorant; there is neither slayer nor slain. You were never born; you will never die. You have never changed; you can never change. Unborn, eternal, immutable, immemorial, you do not die when the body dies. Realizing that which is indestructible, eternal, unborn, and unchanging, how can you slay or cause another to slay?

(Lord Krishna, Bhagavad Gita)

He was a soldier in the greatest battle there ever was, Athens against the invading Persians. They had been fighting since dawn and the sun would be setting soon. They were ridiculously outnumbered but somehow they kept the line of defense going. If the Persians broke this last line of defense they would kill everyone in a 200 mile radius; their wives would be raped, their parents killed and their children put into slavery. That was the true reason he was still standing even though two arrows had already penetrated him; his shield was breaking under the weight of the incoming battle axes. He was slipping in and out of consciousness and his movements were purely mechanical at that time. He didn't know whether he was dreaming when he heard the trumpets of Spartan from the far distance. He felt a push from behind and suddenly saw fear in the attacker's eyes. There they came on their white horses down the right flank of the Persians, cutting trough the opposing lines like a knife cuts butter. His loved ones will be save now, and perhaps even he can still make it after all.

It is hard to find that distance the Bhagavad Gita talks about when it comes to our life and that of our loved ones. We cannot help identifying with what means the world to us, just as the soldier of Athens did. But then, times have changed for the better. While our media wants to claim otherwise, violence, murder and war is actually receding as it is carefully shown in Steven Pinker's "The Better Angels of our Nature" by providing centuries of criminal and war records. We are still part of the same movie though. The ego conquers and gets defeated just in the olden days, it is just that this time around we don't need to wait a life-time to start over again. For today's' quarterback a lost playoff game feels like the end of the world, until he steps back and fires himself up for the the next season; just as one day he will make plans for his retirement.

We wouldn't kill ourselves over a job, would we? So what if the stuff didn't quite work out; we take the disappointment and the lingering negative energy and throw ourselves into the next endeavor with twice the energy and a lot more experience. Your overall life story has to make sense, little setbacks along the journey are just that, temporary set-backs.

"You are not the voice in your head", our spiritual folks have claimed for as long humanity has been around. No matter what happens to us, we can always take a step back and perceive Oneness in what is. I remember the story of an Indian Raja who got executed by an invading Muslim Sultan. As he took his last breath he said to to him, "Thou art Him" and died. You don't have to be as enlightened as the Raja in our story. Just take a good look around you, the opportunity to find the big perspective in your life story always presents itself no matter what storm might be brewing in your life right now.

Accepting and Transcending Our Nature

I remember how Krishnamurti once remarked how ugly greed is. In particular, he asked whether we have ever noticed when some people simply wolf down their food? His observation stayed with me because when it comes to eating, I am such a wolf. I can be mindful about eating; I can deliberately slow down, but I can't change my nature, I love tasty food, and it simply disappears in no time at all. 

For some reason all of this was going through my head when I read chapter 14 of the Bhagavad Gita. Lord Krishna distinguishes there the different natures in people, "sattva": the serene, happy and wise; "rajas", the passionate and compulsive, and "tamas", the ignorant and slothful. For the record, the passionate people are the ones who wolf down food and love it spicy. Yup, that would be me.

Fact of the matter is that we all have different natures when it comes to different areas of our lives. Someone might do a fabulous job when it comes to keeping the house clean, but might be a bit lazy when it comes to other work. Someone might write serene spiritual poems, but lust after women. All of us have potential, and all of us has some spiritual homework still ahead. 

The beauty of life is that events and people show up just as we need it for our respective soul development. Life is perfectly aware of our nature and always gives us that what we need to advance to the next spiritual level. Life lets us to discover the passion in the stuff we don't like, and - eventually - let's us reach peace and serenity in those areas of our lives that we once were so passionate about.

Says the Blue Lord, "Sattvic knowledge sees one indestructible Being in all beings, the unity underlying the multiplicity of creation." A spiritual path teaches us this vision. It gives us little problem sets and instructs us every step of the Way. Let life tell you what homework still lies ahead for you personally. Don't just say, "I must be mindful like the Buddha, or stoic like Lord Krishna wants me to, and loving like the Christ mandates." This spiritual super ego is unfortunately part of the problem statement. No, accept who you are deep down inside, and let life dance with you. You may feel spiritually advanced in some areas, but life teaches you that you have only repressed your passions thus far. You may be "lazy or ignorant" in some other areas of our lives, but  life kick you in the butt, and show you that work is the Way.

Eventually peace and passion will penetrate all aspects of your life, for that is the road a spiritual path takes you. Says the Blue Lord, "That which seems like poison at first, but tastes like nectar in the end - this is the joy of sattva, born in a mind at peace with itself." Accept your nature, dance with life and learn to appreciate serenity, peace and happiness every step of the Way. Along a spiritual path it is quite simple really, she who see the Blue Lord in everything and everyone is Home already.

What's Your Way?

Jesus saw the Self in his brother and discovered that as he healed his sister, he in fact healed himself.

Buddha discovered restlessness, falsehood and fear in himself, so he sat down and meditated until all that disappeared in the everlasting sound of Om.

Lao-Tzu saw the ups and downs of life and realized that all these oscillations took place around a perfectly visible Way. "Connect with the Way, and be free!", he passed on to us.

Lord Krishna appeared to Arjun on the biggest battle-field in the history of man and advised him to follow the calling of his soul. "Do your job Arjun, and be free!" is the wisdom of the Blue Lord.

You can try to follow established religions. You can dabble a little here and there. But in the end you may have to find your Way instead to trail a new path for the rest of us. What is your Way?

Freedom

The Holy Spirit teaches you the difference between pain and joy. This is the same as saying He teaches you the difference between imprisonment and freedom.

(A Course in Miracles)

God in Neale Walsch's "Conversations with God", often said that there is no "wrong" or "right", there is is only useful and less so, judged from the perspective of what you want to achieve. Some want status and power, while others want love and freedom. Freedom was Buddha's stated goal and he was uncompromising in his approach to get there. I remember a scene in Deepak Chopra's "Buddha", where Lord Krishna visited Buddha after a long meditation session. Buddha said to Lord Krishna, "You have no idea how much I have longed Thee!", to which Lord Krishna responded, "I know!". But then Buddha closed his eyes again and said, "Please leave now I have work to do." That is indeed the mindset of someone who is on a mission. You keep on going until your goal reached. In Buddha's case it was a mission to be completely free from all mind-driven illusions.

It is in fact possible to be "free". Not in the way that you can cut yourself completely off from the subconscious processes that run below the surface, but in the way that you can really live your life completely detached from the longings of the ego. There is a Way that somehow always knows best and all you have to do is to follow Her. Sometimes it is external signs that guide you, while sometimes it is your intuition. There always will be a few missed steps but mostly you can be connected every step of the Way. You can see and feel the Way just as a scientist would and you learn as much from your mistakes as you do from your blissful moments. Along the Way, the longings of the "I" simply melt into nothingness and in those moments you get a taste for true freedom, just as the Course in Miracles claims.

It is pretty meaningless to strive for enlightenment just because this gift a higher authority has to grant you. What you can do though, you can cut out interferences to the best of your abilities by just holding on to the Way. Joy and freedom follow you where you go. Never mind if there are still a couple of dimensions in your life where people or positions seemingly still hold you back. This just means that you aren't quite ready for the big jump. Serve willingly as a free master and true freedom will be yours before you know it.

What is Your Way?

I was sitting in a car with another investor and I told him that I was assuming coverage of a different region than I had done before. He asked me why, and I responded "My boss told me to do it - so be it." He looked at me and only said, "Well, you are a soldier."

You may like Christian Wiese's writings, and yes, that is who I am. I am describing a Way, but hardly the Way. The Psychologist C.G. Jung once discovered what he called our Archetypes -different personality types, roles that seem to be written into our collective subconscious - and we all seem to be gravitating towards one. Mine has loyalty written all over it. I once came up with the 3 Cs that define Christian's Way: Care, Creativity and Community. I care about the community I am operating in and would give everything to see things through that I care about. I am the love that the Christ talks about, just as I am the soldier that Lord Krishna appealed to on the battlefield in the Bhagavad Gita. Love and loyalty are my sources of creativity and strive, but as I said before, it is my Way and hardly the Way.

Find your source of originality but don't make a religion out of it. The word religion is based on the Latin root "to bind"; always act from your nature but don't tie yourself to anything but the Way. You are everything! There is a time when the soldier has to rebel and there is a time when the player has to make a stance. There is no wrong or right, there is only the Way. As the reader of my writings knows, I am also a Tao traveler. As Lao-Tzu discovered many thousand years ago, the Way comprises everything: the solder, the mother, the trickster, the wise woman and so much more. Do your job in whatever shape or form, then go your jolly Way.

Everyone on a spiritual journey has to make a first step towards Her. So what's your Way?

Emotions: The Missing Link

Shatter every window 'til it's blown away.

'Til there's nothing left standing,

nothing left of yesterday.

Every tear-soaked whisked memory

blown away. Blown away!

(Carrie Underwood, Blown Away)

Buddha once stated the perhaps obvious, "The good deeds, do them, the bad, avoid them!" Righteous living is demanded by all faiths. Lord Krishna tells Arjun in the Bhagavad Gita that "he should lift up the self by the Self, and not sink into the selfish; for the self is the only friend of the Self, and its only foe." And then, of course, there was Jesus who simply stated "Get thee behind me satan!" when he was tempted to play with supernatural powers in his 40 days desert stay.

We spiritual travelers mostly know what to do because it is somehow obvious. Sure, sometimes we have to do what seems not so kosher at the first because the Way lets us know that nothing is quite as easy as it seems. But eventually we all travel the same holy pathway and meet at the same beautiful location. No, the true challenge of returning Home is the process of letting go emotionally. Stuff that has been swept under the carpet for decades, perhaps for even for lifetimes. Stuff that we projected or repressed. Fears that we are finally willing to confront, anger we are willing to admit to ourselves; guilt we release and temptations we are willing to face. It is an emotional process and no guru can help us with that personal and painful journey. We have to get it out of the system all by ourselves. 

When all the stuff comes to the surface it really hurts; it really blinds you and it tempts you to do stuff that you know is not right. When you reach this point you at least have to let the steam out. The trick is not to accumulate new karma in your interactions with others, but as far as the stuff below the surface is concerned, you have to let it come to the surface, ugly as it is. Find ways to let go. Make faces, scream, cry, do kick-boxing; allow some little dark symbols in your life from time to time. The tortured girl in Carrie's song unfortunately seems to have reached the end of a road; she believes that there is "not enough rain in Oklahoma to wash the sins away". Yes there is! There is always a way to let go. Just allow your emotions to flow and everything will work out in time.

Do Your Job and then Move On

You have a right to your actions,

but never to your actions’ fruits. 

Act for the action’s sake.

And do not be attached to inaction.

(Lord Krishna, Bhagavad Gita)

Take any goal of yours, a promotion, a degree, a possession, and you will find that even if you get what you want, the enjoyment will only be temporary and soon enough a voice inside will speak up, "so what's next?, "was that it?", and "if only I also get this next thing I will finally be happy!" There is only one solution to this problem - just as the Bhagavad Gita suggests - aim for the activity per se that gives you meaning and don't worry much about what is in store for you personally.

Accept life as is. It is perfect from a spiritual perspective. Success and failure, progress and set-back are finely attuned to ensure that you learn along the Way to let go of things that no longer serve you. Run after whatever it is that get your juices flowing -that is all you can do anyway- but stand ready to let go when the job is done.

Don't negate your desires but learn that life knows best in providing you with what is yours. Keep the attention on your job, the task at hand, the people you work with and the problems that come your way. When you truly care about what you do and the people you are connected with, your authentic needs will always be fulfilled. And if the ego acts up now and then along the way, then so be it. The sun will shine again even after a little rage, a whiff of depression or a few shattered dreams. The sun always rises the next morning, you must have spotted that pattern by now.

There was a time when I felt that the Bhagavad Gita is a spiritual norm as well - a super-ego so to speak that risks bringing out the demons in you if you repress whatever it is meaningful to you. Today I think of the quoted Gita's verse as an insight instead. We cannot live with or without the ego, with or without the desires and the the aspirations, but we can transcend them. Life does that for you. All you have to do is being mindful and you can discover for yourself that it is only the journey that matters and the people you meet along the Way. Leave your mark for future generations if you wish but know that the "destination" of your journey is every step along the Way.

The Retirement of Retirement

You have the right to work Arjun, but never to the fruit of work. You should never engage in action for the sake of reward, nor should you long for inaction.
(Lord Krishna, Bhagavad Gita)

A colleague told me other day a story of a fairly successful CEO who retired at the age of 65 and afterwards fell into a big hole of darkness. I can understand why; it is hard to accept if you go from being at the top of the world to apparent "nothingness". Sure, most rich people have the means to hide this transition fairly well. Fancy vacations, club memberships, perhaps even displaying their "trophy wives" in social gatherings but eventually all that is meaningless. Only one thing gives you true happiness, meaning, connectedness and love!

If there is a promise of the Creator it is that meaningful work is yours to choose if only you are willing to go the distance. The rewards the Creator can't promise to you since these are your desires. But as we all know, whenever we put our heart and your soul into something, a few crumbs will come our way. So let's focus our attention to the creative outlets, the connectedness with others and the love for what you do instead and chances are, we will be just fine.

Everyone should always have an eye on the next creative outlet. It is a nice feeling to be at the top of your game and perhaps at the peak of your earning power. Think about passing that golden goose on to someone while you already work on your next endeavor. Sure, there may be a time when you finally settle down with a person you love and really do retire for good. You will know when this point is reached, but until then have fun creating, connecting and caring for what you do!

Phallic Life Expressions

He who performs his duty
with no concern for results
is the true man of yoga.
(Lord Krishna, Bhagavad Gita)

We moved at work the other day and as I was putting my belongings up in the new office I noticed that my colleague had left his memorabilia from a previous offsite meeting behind. When I dropped them off he was happy to get them back. One was a conductor's baton that we all got when we met with an orchestra conductor and a handful of musicians to compare our business philosophies. I was thinking to myself that a conductor's baton is in fact is a great symbol of everything I aspire to accomplish as a strategist in the financial industry: guide others with my investment knowledge and get the timing exactly right - just as every good conductor would.

It has been many years since we had that offsite and I have grown a lot personally and spiritually since then. At that time I would never have made these symbolic associations. So I probably put the baton somewhere in a storage box at home and will find it one day when I am moving houses. Yet, as synchronicity has it, a few days before the move I got a coffee mug which has in bold letters "maestro" written on it. So I put it up next to me at work on the book shelve as a reminder of what my true aspirations are. The symbol is always there in the background, yet nobody really would make this association and even I - quite deliberately - face away from it in my day-to-day operations.

Isn't that exactly what the Bhagavad Gita has in mind? You acknowledge your desires, you do your best to get them expressed in a spiritually kosher way, but leave its manifestation up to a higher authority. Being at the top of our game professionally and being admired by our peers for that ability we perhaps would consider a somewhat more refined phallic symbol. Yet, it is the same underlying desire that makes the peacock dance in front of the hens. As it turns out, I am no longer quite driven the way at work I once was and now use my job mostly just to pay the bills. My next career will be that of a writer and a spiritual coach. So from a spiritual perspective this will be an even more refined expression of my being, yet it is exactly the same leitmotif: the desire to be admired for my wisdom.

As long as we walk the earth we have to accept our roots, yet it is very much in our power to transmute life's energy through whatever creation we choose. Take this choice seriously, express yourself in way that works for everyone but don't worry so much about the results. A higher authority will figure out how exactly your creation is being implemented. Successes, disappointments, lucky strikes and faux pas - accept them all as they come. You just worry about burning your fuel in the process, while the Tao guides you home efficiently and in a personally meaningful way. Decide on a creative outlet, do your work to the best of your abilities and than walk away - that is the Way!

Holy Indifference

Those who are motivated only by desire for the fruits of action are miserable, for they are constantly anxious about the results of what they do. With unified consciousness, however, all anxiety is left behind. There is no cause for worry, whether things go well or ill.

When your mind has overcome the confusion of duality, you will attain the state of holy indifference to things you hear and things you have heard. When you are unmoved by the confusion of ideas and your mind is completely unified in deep samadhi, you will attain the state of perfect yoga.

(Lord Krishna, Bhagavad Gita)

It is hard to walk the spiritual path the Bhagavad Gita recommends. Actually, being stoic about the ups and downs of life brings is not even the hardest part. The toughest part is that it is so easy to confuse this divine state Lord Krishna describes with a forced lack of emotion and a repression of what really matters to you in the name of spirituality. Yet, it is possible to reach that unified consciousness the Gita refers to - a state of perfect harmony with the Way. When you see the seeds of decay in success, and the beginnings of a renaissance in failure, how hard is it to have an an even mind about things? When you at-one, it would never occur to you to question the perfection of the Way. The holy Now is beyond good and evil, success and failure. It is just perfect as is.

The Elephant in the Room

Once upon a time, there lived six blind men in a village. One day the villagers told them, "Hey, there is an elephant in the village today."

They had no idea what an elephant is. They decided, "Even though we would not be able to see it, let us go and feel it anyway." All of them went where the elephant was. Everyone of them touched the elephant.

"Hey, the elephant is a pillar," said the first man who touched his leg.

"Oh, no! it is like a rope," said the second man who touched the tail.

"Oh, no! it is like a thick branch of a tree," said the third man who touched the trunk of the elephant.

"It is like a big hand fan" said the fourth man who touched the ear of the elephant.

"It is like a huge wall," said the fifth man who touched the belly of the elephant.

"It is like a solid pipe," Said the sixth man who touched the tusk of the elephant.

They began to argue about the elephant and everyone of them insisted that he was right. It looked like they were getting agitated. A wise man was passing by and he saw this. He stopped and asked them, "What is the matter?" They said, "We cannot agree to what the elephant is like." Each one of them told what he thought the elephant was like. The wise man calmly explained to them, "All of you are right. The reason every one of you is telling it differently because each one of you touched the different part of the elephant. So, actually the elephant has all those features what you all said."

"Oh!" everyone said. There was no more fight. They felt happy that they were all right.
 (Hindu Wisdom)

Freud had astute observations about himself and his patients, yet he was one of the blind men that told us about the elephant. Freud discovered the ego and analyzed it for us. He was bold enough to talk about sex in an utterly sexually repressed society, yet he was not bold enough to talk about the Spirit. Erich Fromm once described one of Freud's dreams where Freud experienced love as a dried up - dead - rose. Yes, Freud analyzed life with an razor-sharp intellect; unfortunately sometimes life bleeds to death during this operation.

Freud made the subconscious a household name, but it was Jung who made us realize the elephant in the room. Not only did he help us understand the incredible wisdom and power that is hidden deep inside of us, but he was also willing - buried by lots of intellectual blah - to admit the presence of the Self. We have passed a century since this discussion started and have added plenty of insights from the New Age movement. Today we know of the elephant in the room. Yet everyone will have to see and feel all parts to really know all about it. That is exactly what a spiritual journey will do for you.

For many of us the path is a journey through all four quadrants: intellect, ego, subconscious, and Spirit. We tend to know the New Age "ego - True Self" debate pretty well, but unfortunately it is just that, a debate. You have to experience your ego dissolve in the presence of the Self for yourself. This is your spiritual mission. You have to feel it, breathe it, struggle for it, and come to appreciate it. Eventually the "I" transcends into "I Am". This may happen in front of the burning bush, may happen after falling in a deep depression, or might happen on a trip to the local grocery store. Until then, monitor the workings of the "I", see how your state of mind interacts with the environment you are operating in, and do whatever you can to also be in touch with your Spirit. For many this connection happens as they pray or meditate; some discover the Self in others, very much like the Chinese sage Lao-Tzu did when he described "The Way".

The Bhagavad Gita is an intellect driven spiritual journey. Lord Krishna tells Arjun on the battle field that you can cut through the distortions of the ego. The goal of the spiritual warrior is find out the demands of the Way - your personal dharma as the Hindus call it - and just do it, whether you like it or not. The Gita was written for Gods. If you go down that path make sure you listen to the voice in your head as much as you listen to the wisdom of  your subconscious. Women and children have a better access to this Voice then men do.

Imagine an iceberg with the ego and the intellect above the water line. Spirit and the subconscious would be the giant mass below it. There are angels and demons hidden there, archetypes as well as fears and monsters. Freud's optimism that we can catapult many of these forces into our conscious mind was justified. Yet he wanted to squeeze these insights through the male intellect while the true reality is so much bigger than that. Woman and man have to merge, child and adult have to walk together, intellect and subconscious have to be in harmony, within and without have to be on the same page, and the ego has to be guided by the a Self. This is a giant task but you have a life-time to work on it and you have so many friends and angels cheering you on.

We invite you to join our journey towards wholeness. Nothing is sacred while everything is sacred; we feel and understand at the same time ; we discover every external occurrence in perfect harmony with our internal state of mind, and we see every sister as a mirror image of ourself. Discover that we are God together with us. It is a Herculean task but it is a lot of fun too. There is a unifying force linking intellect, ego, Spirit and the subconscious: love. You can love the intellect that Lord Krishna gave us, you can be proud of the "I" that has already traveled so far and just needs one more step on the homecoming journey. You can love the Spirit that prevails in everything and you can love the innocence, purity and strength of the child, woman and hero within, just as you can appreciate the incredible energy reservoir of the demon. Discover the wholeness inside. It is as plain as the elephant in the room.


                                         Intellect



Ego                                     Love                          Spirit



                                      Subconscious

On the Freedom to Choose

Reshape yourself through the power of your will; never let yourself be degraded by self-will. The will is the only friend of the Self, and the will is the only enemy of the Self.
(Lord Krishna, Bhagavad Gita)

When I was 5, I was supposed to go shopping with my mom, but somehow decided to go in a different direction. My mother was never very forceful so no matter how much she tried, she just couldn't get me to turn around. In the end she couldn't take it any longer and started crying. Only then did I come to my senses and joined her.

There is the Self that our spiritual community talks about and then there is the will to create something, the perceived longings of the "I". Sometimes we create what our Self wants us to and sometimes we are on our own trip just as that little boy who was supposed to go shopping with his mom that day. So somehow there is a consciousness inside of us - the will that Lord Krishna alluded to - that is free to choose between the two voices. This consciousness can be clouded at times but then there is life that reminds us to always take a stance. Life reminds us of who we truly are, but it is very much in our power to hold on to the self-will and we can certainly put blinders on.

Your homecoming starts when you realize that everything that happens to you is really the Voice from the beyond trying to remind you of who you truly are. Sure, there will be moments when the self-will takes over again, but these are just temporary distractions. It takes one look at your soul-sister walking next to you and you remember your mission. Once you get a glimpse of the Self, the self-will fades into nothingness before you know it.

Accepting Your Drives

When Sattva predominates, the light of wisdom shines through every gate of the body. When Rajas predominates, a person runs about pursuing selfish and greedy ends, driven by restlessness and desire. When Tamas is dominant, a person lives in darkness, slothful, confused and easily infatuated.
(Lord Krishna, Bhagavad Gita)

When you are greedy it doesn't make much sense to tell you that running after name, fame and profit doesn't become you. When you are full of lust it doesn't make much sense to remind you that you are not your body. When you are worried it doesn't make much sense to advise you against taking out insurances and protections. Spirituality wants you to be generous, pure and worry-free; yet, if you are not, pretending to be will only create a super-ego. All you will do that way is to push the tensions and unresolved conflicts under the surface. Don't bother with artificial spirituality, live your life instead. Like a magnate you attract the situations that allow you to express yourself.  There is no wrong or right, there is only your next choice that allows you to advance spiritually to the next level. This is why living the life that presents itself to you is the best of all worlds - perhaps not from a happiness perspective, but certainly from the perspective of your soul development.

We advise you to be mindful of everything that is going on inside of you as well as in your environment. When you realize that you are greedy, accept this first and then see what to do about it. Your drives have to be burnt up. Some desires you express, some you repress in the name of spirituality, and some you simply transcend because you have outgrown them. The serenity associated with the state of Sattva has to be earned, you can't will yourself towards it. When you experience the state of Tamas at some stage of your life, rise and get the hidden energies to the surface. When you experience the state of Rajas, go and get the conflicting energies out of your system. The state of Sattva is when your infinite energies circulate in equilibrium. Sattva is also the understanding that the world is already perfect as is. You have to do very little in that state - your mere presence makes it perfect. Sattva is your true nature, keep experimenting and expressing yourself and you will discover it. No one can keep your birthright from you.

Holiness and Wholeness

Sri Ramakrishna, the 19th century mystic from India, claimed that he couldn't associate with money at all, so his disciple Vivekananda decided to test him. He put a coin under his bed mattress just to see what would happen. Next day Sri Ramakrishna complained that he couldn't sleep all night.

The notion of holiness can be a big struggle in our spiritual community. We don't want to be greedy, we don't want to lust after bodies, we don't want to be egoistic, but somehow we carry a shadow with us. Temptations pop up just when we think we have put them aside. We think Taoism can help you with that problem. The journey of the Tao is one of wholeness first and foremost, but soon you will discover that wholeness and holiness go hand in hand.

Think of yourself and life as one big magnet wrapped around you. Each moment you attract the people and situations that give your soul the ability to heal. Let go of your notions of good and bad, just embrace everything wholeheartedly that comes your way. In every situation there is the opportunity to grow spiritually, just as there is the opportunity to take a step towards your self, away from your Self. Don't lose sleep over this choice, for every spiritual traveler at each signpost the next step is literally a non-brainer.

The yin and yang of daily life is tailored just for you to come home, back to the Source. The Tao will make you whole, and yes, soon you realize that you are converging with your notion of Heaven on earth. It may mean sexual abstinence the way Sri Ramkrishna lived it, or it may be the celebration of divine love the way Lord Krishna practiced it. You are the divine creator who will tell us how Heaven on earth looks like.  Let the Tao show your idiosyncratic expression of holiness. One thing is for sure, along the Way the self will be absent while the Self will be radiating - that's the way the Tao is.

Just Do It

At the beginning, mankind and the obligation of selfless service were created together. Through selfless service you will always be fruitful and find the fulfillment of your desires. This is the promise of your Creator.
Lord Krishna, Bhagavad Gita

Ever wonder where all the stress and annoyance comes from?  Most of time it comes from our own resistance. We don't want to do something though deep down inside we know that it is probably good for us and others.  This resistance creates the stress and conflict in us. So instead of wasting our energy fighting what we have to do, why don't we just accept it and just do it!  Observe how your energy level changes accordingly.

When you accept that you need to work to support your family, when you accept all these chores that are necessary to nurture your family and provide them with a comfortable environment. When you know you need to spend that time with your children to nurture their souls and calm them down. When you understand that you need to be there for your friends and family, suddenly all the annoyance disappears, suddenly, your light shines through every trivial thing that you have to do.  It is almost like wherever you walk and whatever you do, it is the most important activity in the world and the most important
moment of your life.  You basically experience meditation while you do whatever you do.
Divine energy springs forth from your activity and from you.  There is nothing more important than this moment!

Feel the joy of everything you do. The Tao has prepared this task especially for you to make you whole. You can sense that divine connection every moment. Happiness and peace of mind is nor defined by money, nor is it measured by social status. Only one thing matters, you, your divine activity and your connection with your soul siblings. Your presence and your participation makes you one with the Tao.  Can you feel this joy while being at work? Do you share the excitement of simply spotting a wild rabbit in your yard?  Can you experience that silence and joy that is radiating from you? You are the Tao's gem. This world would be incomplete without having you here now.

Leave the rewards of our actions up to a higher authority. These too will come our way. Let's enjoy our life moment by moment by fulling engaging with whatever comes our Way. Let's do it!

By Christian and Su Zhen

Having it Your Way

Arjun in the Bhagavad Gita had a mental break-down when he had to enter a bloody war with his friends and relatives; it was Lord Krishna who reminded him of his mission to do his job whether he liked it or not. Arjun's mental breakdown led to a divine lecture during which Lord Krishna showed him the workings of the universe and explained the different paths to God. Don't get me wrong, no one expects you to fight any wars or do anything that violates your notion of a spiritual path. Arjun was a warrior and fighting wars just happened to be his mission; you have your mission to fulfill. But expect resistance along the Way just because the resistance still lives in you.  No worries though, life - the Tao - is doing its best to remove these interferences for you. That unfortunately means that you have to sleigh a few monsters just like Arjun had to.

What does "having it your way" really mean? You want to be in a professional environment without ugliness, want to raise your children without competing or paying for any top schools, want to live in a nice house without any neighbors looking down on you. You want to be serene, you want to have the ability to meditate, pray,  and emitting positive energy for your environment all the time. Well, if you hit obstacles along this path please respect them. If you see ugliness, greed, competition or stress in your life, chances are certain aspects of your being aren't yet quite as spiritual as you think despite your best intentions.

Celebrate your life as is. Welcome every voice no matter how pleasant or annoying it might be. It is all "you" being reflected back to you. Don't aim for becoming a monk - unless of course being a monk is your mission - that would only mean you are running away from who you are deep down inside. Live your life like everyone else but with with a very different motive. The drive of a Tao traveler is to be always connected with Life. So allow life to "digest" you and see how these hidden tendencies of yours dissolve in the process. You leave them behind just as a snake disposes of its skin.

But you can do that only if you face your life just the way Arjun faced his monsters. Let other people have it their way while you only experience the Way - the Tao. By walking the Tao you live in the best of all worlds, so without aiming for it you essentially have it
your way in the end.

The Four Paths Home

There is no path that does not lead to Him.
A Course in Miracles

They say many paths lead to the Lord. Pick the one that is closest to you and follow it. There is the path of wisdom, of action, of devotion and of meditation/channeling our energy. Typically whenever you find a seeker who follows passionately one path, there is very little patience for the other approaches. Yet, the longer you walk on your path the more you realize how connected all the four paths really are. True wisdom comes from falling in love with life, from working hard towards your goal, from falling in love with the many messengers God sends your way. As you mature spiritually the different chakras open up inside and your energy field changes. You also experience the advantages of meditation: the ability to experience who you are when the voice in your head quiets down.

You have your unique way Home, but be on the look-out for the co-travelers who can propel you enormously by walking a few spiritual miles with you. Sadhguru told this story to illustrate this point in his "Mystic's Musings":

 One day, one Jnana (Knowledge) Yogi, one Bhakthi (Devotion) Yogi, one Karma (Action) Yogi and one Kriya (Energy) Yogi were walking together. Usually these four people can never be together, because a thinking person has complete disdain for everybody else. A bhakthi yogi, full of emotion and love, thinks that jnana, karma and kriya yoga is just a waste of time. Just love God and it will happen. The karma yogi thinks that everybody else is just lazy. One must work and work and work. The kriya yogi just laughs at everything. The whole existence is energy. If you don't channel your energies nothing is going to happen. Then it started to rain and they all ran looking for shelter, they found an ancient temple. As the storm grew more and more furious they all moved closer to each other inside the temple. Suddenly they felt a huge presence. Lord Shiva Himself was there. They all cried out together, why now, we have pursued you for years and nothing happened. Lord Shiva replied, at last the four of you got together. I have been waiting for this for a long time.

By meditation, some women can see the Self in the self; others, by the yoga of knowledge; others by selfless action.
(Lord Krishna, Bhagavad Gita on meditation, wisdom and the path of devotion)


Seeing the great Lord everywhere, she knows beyond doubt that she cannot harm the Self by the self, and reaches the highest goal.
(Lord Krishna, Bhagavad Gita on the path of the Tao)

On Turbulence and Peace

The Self cannot be pierced by weapons or burned by fire;
water cannot wet it, nor can the wind dry it.
It is everlasting and it is infinite,
standing on the motionless foundations of eternity.
The Self is unmanifested, beyond all thought, beyond all change.
(Lord Krishna, Bhagavad Gita)

Have you ever contemplated why you can't experience love, joy and peace on a permanent basis? Sure, you have your fair share of it, but unfortunately there is also chaos, stress and loneliness. It is because we experience life on the surface. Beneath it lies our everlasting Self; completely calm, loving and peaceful, untouched by the turbulence of life. A spiritual path is all about finding that divine connection to your inner Core.

Compare your life to an ocean and imagine your Self at the bottom of it. On the surface, your life fluctuates dramatically in tune with your external environment. Sometimes there is sunshine and no wind at all, sometimes it is raining and stormy and on occasions hurricanes are passing by. It is hard to imagine at those moments that there is complete calmness at the bottom at the ocean. Spiritual path travelers get glimpses of this peace, while still being caught in the turmoil of life on other occasions. Walking the Tao gives you this chance to dive to the depth of the ocean and experience this eternal peace and love no matter what.

The Tao shows you the connections of everything there is. Very much as all parents know that their children are extensions of themselves, it dawns on the spiritual path traveler that we are all one. Love abounds in this world and anger becomes pretty meaningless. As you experience anger and violence in others, you observe it in yourself. As you see sacrifice, you understand its meaning. Hurricanes can be tolerated and withstood if you understand that they set the stage for beautiful sunshine afterwards. Let the Tao show you how to connect with that eternal calmness, love and peace inside of you. It is like watching the movement of the water a few meters below the surface and while seeing the turbulence above, being connected at the same time with the eternal peace below. Externally, you are moving with the flow of the unfolding situation, while internally you are unmoved just like in the center of the ocean. Peace and love is always yours to have when you reach that stage. Let the Tao show you this divine connection.

By Christian and Su Zhen

The Spiritual Martial Artist

Reshape yourself through the power of your will.
Never let yourself be degraded by self-will.
The will is the only friend of the Self,
and the will is the only enemy of the Self.
Lord Krishna, Bhagavad Gita

Imagine a circle with the Self - our Soul - at the center of it. At the core of the circle is perfect unity, internal and external merge into one. It is also the place where energy stands still. All visible movement has come to a halt. Yet, all the energy is lively active if you can experience them with your inner microscope. They are totally collected and ready to move if you are ready to give any instruction. If you want to merge consciously with the Self you will find that you can't. It is like looking into disturbed water and trying to look at the ground by moving the water with a stick. Even more sand will rise to the surface that way and the water will become even muddier. What you can do though, you can wait. Just don't do anything and the water will clear by itself. Let Tao bring you to merge with your core. You are totally passive yet lively alert. You join the flow and back to the source.

The spiritual martial artist is the one who knows how to follow the flow. He is so still and sensitive that he joins the flow of the Tao. With this collected energy, with being totally present, he is able to move and respond to situations with clear clues. He totally merges with the Now. With this awareness, with this total presence, he turns his life into a piece of art. It is like whatever he does, where he walks, he turns every moment into a beautiful lotus flower.

Most of us are not able to do the magic yet. However, this is not a problem. The point is that you have to know that you have this power if you can learn to connect with your Core. Enjoy the glimpses that you see. Experiment with the powers you discover inside of you and your environment.Try to schedule a mindful activity every day, something that you enjoy doing. Cooking, jogging, meditation, cleaning the house, weightlifting, walking, talking to people, breathing…etc, there are endless things you can do if you can pay your attention to it. And then slowly expand this mindful exercise to other activities you don’t enjoy as much. Practice for a while and see for yourself what you experience.

When you are doing these exercises, you may observe fears and desires popping up inside of you. Try to catch them and understand with your awareness. We argue that whenever you are disconnected from your Core, you enter the realm of the " I", the ego, which brings fears and desires with it. Being aware of them is all you can do. Only at your Core will they evaporate into nothingness.

Whenever you sense the fears or desires arise in you, try to understand what it is about. When you fear, you are worrying that you are going to lose what you have. When you desire, you want to strengthen your identity. When you can monitor and understand these fears and desires, they will lose some of their power over you.

A spiritual path is about experimenting with the intersection of the divine Core and the psychological " I". It is about putting yourself into situations where the Self is likely to pop up, about finding ways to merge with the Now and even just experimenting with the psychological "I". Have a look at the figure below. Perhaps you can think of the " I" as a circle around the True Self. Internally, perceive how the " I" is afraid of doing what deep inside you know you have to do. Perceive how the " I" wants to escape from freedom by engaging in all kind of mindless and addictive activities. Externally, perceive how the " I" wants to be different from others, wants to built a persona that dominates, while simultaneously feeling attacked from higher authorities. Just be mindful of everything that is going on and counter-act as best as you can when the self wants to gain the upper hand over the Self.


"I" feels afraid.                                     "I" wants to escape.


                                       Self


"I" feels attacked.                                 "I" wants to be different

Counter-balance the internal forces like a martial artists when the " I" wants to take you away from the Self. So specifically,

Feel the fear and do it anyway.
Feel the desire to escape and don't do anything about it.
Feel the temptation to give in to stronger egos but resist.
Feel the temptation to dominate and refrain.

By Christian and Su Zhen

Letting Go of the Filter

Whenever righteousness declines and the purpose of life is forgotten, I manifest myself on earth.
(Lord Krishna, Bhagavad Gita)

The other day we wrote about panic attacks and stress. The point is that you can take a crisis as great opportunity to connect with who you truly are just as Lord Krishna told Arjun on the battle field in the Bhagavad Gita. The advantage that a spiritual path traveler has over all other folks is that we are aware of the filter that stands between us and "reality". We know this fact because we had glimpses into the beyond. So on days when we perceive restlessness in us, when we hear alienated voices in our head, or when we simply don't gel with our environment, we just know that the " filter" is there again. We all have different ways of dealing with it. Some people go inside and purify themselves with the help of meditation, while others go outside instead and find a way to reconnect with the Now.

One thing is for sure though. Let life help you rechannel all existing negative energy in a different and purposeful direction.Yes it is true that some of the events that you classify as negative bring out the negative energy in you. But this is just an opportunity to let go of the "filter" that was always there. You just didn't notice it when times were good. Use the stress and the crisis and dispose of your " filter" as well as all the negative energy. Embrace life and all the little trifles and presumed crises that come your way. See for yourself that there is no better authority to connect you with the beyond than life itself under the single condition that you are always willing to put your best foot forward no matter what. Dance with Her rain or shine and experience how your "filter" disintegrate into nothingness.