Melancholy - You Have a Choice

Forces beyond your control can take away everything you possess, except one thing, your freedom to choose how you will respond to the situation. (Harold S. Kushner in foreword of Viktor Frankl's "Man's Search for Meaning")

I was reminded of this insight when I reflected on shadow experiences. Darkness is part of every spiritual traveler perhaps especially because we are aiming for the light;  the darkness reminds us of the fact that we are human like everyone else. Melancholy, restless energy, anger and fear visit us like every other mortal. Don't run away from these feelings. Just sit there, without judgment and without escape. If you engage, you have given power to it. But when you accept, when you have become one with that dark feeling without responding to it, the next divine spark will be just around the corner lifting you out of it. And your darkness dissolves as  the morning fog in the rising sun.

You have a choice. You don't own your feelings and you can't control your thoughts, but you are in charge in of how you react to them. Just sit there, accept, embrace, transcend and be free!

The Story of the Old Monk

There was once a revered old monk in a monastery. Every day he went out and took care of the garden. He didn't shy away from hard work despite his age. The other monks worried about him and one day decided to hide the shovel that he always used for his work. The monk said nothing and stopped working just as the other monks had hoped he would. A few weeks later he died!

It appears the monk took the missing shovel as a sign from above to just let go. Catering to the garden had given him life's meaning while without it nothing could keep him on earth anymore. That is exactly how death works - it is a decision. For most of us these changes happen subconsciously and we experience death as an event beyond our control. But for some big souls it can be an active choice as well. Nothing is really strong enough to beat us, but when we hear the voice inside that it is time to let go, we do sooner or later.

Viktor Frankl in his book Man's Search for Meaning had a strange observation that confirmed this thesis. During his stay in a Nazi concentration camp he noticed that whenever someone was found smoking a cigarette, that person would often die within a few days afterwards. During those times cigarettes acted as currencies, so lighting a cigarette meant that you were literally setting money on fire! Frankl took this as a sign that they had simply given up on life. Conditions were so so tough during these days that only a strong will for surviving gave you a shot of making it to the next day.

Sun Tzu once claimed, "victory is reserved to those who are willing to pay the price." Well, we are that powerful, we can accomplish whatever we set our heart on. But then there are the times when we are unwilling to pay the price. That's when we are ready to move on. How do we know when it is time to fight and when it is time to move on, you might ask. Well, that depends on your mission in life. As long as you have one and are willing to see it through no matter what the price, no one can keep you from it.

The Secret of Highly Effective People

Steven Covey mentioned in his book,“7 Habits of Highly Effective People” that we should prioritize different daily activities. In particular he recommends that we nurture the activities that may not seem very urgent, and that may on the first glance not even seem that useful, yet that are still very important to us in our daily life. For me that would be my daily attempt to connect with my Self with the help of meditation and creative writing. It activities like these that give our lives purpose. While others may need their coffee in the morning, I need to have access to these creative outlets to be truly effective in the day.

On a very busy day I do the opposite of what many others may do; instead of rushing into the tasks at hand, I take my time to meditate to put myself in the right frame of mind. Meditation helps me to anchor myself in the now and gives me the energy to deal with everything that comes my way. When Christian feels pressures at  work to do something in a hurry, the first thing he does is to slow himself down. Amazingly, the pace of the world adjusts to our inner frame of mind.

Christian always always reverts back to  Psalm 23 which describes the state of the holy now. What is the ongoing communication of the Tao for him is meditation and creative writing for me. Either method boils down to the same thing, there is an ongoing connection with the Self - a feeling of purpose and divine connectedness that we can always tap into. With this trust, confidence, and centeredness, what initially seems like a scary storm disintegrates into a harmless wind. Better than that, we can have the wind in our back and sail with it.   Read Viktor Frankl's "Man's Search for Meaning" and discover how some remarkable people like him could even use the impact of a tornado - his horrendous Holocaust experience - and transform this energy into a life-long quest for teaching and healing. Victor Frankl shared his secret with us, find meaning in what you do and run with it.

Why do meditation and writing have such calming impact on me? It is the presence of the Self that I can feel at that moment. Everyone has access to this secret, you just have to find your idiosyncratic way of connecting with this Force. Some find the Self in external happenings like Christian's discovery of the Tao, while others like me are able to connect with an inner guide instead. Whatever your spiritual journey may be, please find this daily fountain of energy and wisdom. By being in touch with your Self you have access to eternal sunshine no matter what. Find this secret that other highly effective people have found before you and please share it with others.

By Su Zhen and Christian

On the Temptation to Give In

On a sleepless night, I googled 'self-hypnosis' and found a number of interesting entries: how to make you fall asleep with self-hypnosis, how to gain self-confidence, how to experience a tremendous orgasm, how to seduce others into sex, how to change gender and how to grow a bigger penis. Whether any of these programs work I honestly cannot tell you, because hypnosis has never really worked for me. Perhaps my will is just too strong, but I have to admit that when I looked into the spinning wheels at 2am in the morning, I felt attracted to the idea that one could just let go and let a different force take over.

Viktor Frankl was a holocaust surviver and reported in 'Man's Search for Meaning' that whenever he saw inmates smoking cigarettes you knew that they would be gone in a few days. Cigarettes were a currency in the concentration camp days, so when you saw someone lightening one up, you knew that he had given up on life. Burning money figuratively and literally was a powerful symbol of giving up on life- 'I am done brother, you can take me whenever you like!'

I also remember someone in the self-help community I used to visit stating that he was done with all the light-working and that he had found another cult instead that goes in the opposite direction: devil worship. I told him then that while the devil is nothing but a psychological force, it nevertheless is a pretty powerful one. 'So you are not lost even if you join the cult', I said, ' but with every step that you take down this road, turning around the car will get harder and harder'. I never heard back from him.

I have a number of times compared the spiritual journey to stairways - you can walk upstairs and you can walk downstairs, it is your choice at each step of the way. Always walking upwards, always consciously choosing to follow the light, requires effort. Most of the time we try to do our best with the occasional letting go on a Saturday night when we know that the heavy lifting will start on Monday mornings anyway. So despite our occasional step back, we tend to drift upwards towards the light almost naturally over time, cheered on by our soul siblings in disguise.

I think that every moment we have a shot at turning the car around, just as every moment we have a chance to say no to the soothing voice that wants to lull us into sleep so that we are to drowsy to notice that we are falling into the spinning vortex. Your spiritual siblings stand next to you and with every step that you take towards darkness, they will scream louder and encourage you to reach for their stretched-out hands. Just take it, no force in this world is strong enough to prevent you from coming Home. All you have to do is to take the first step; the second will come naturally to you, as will the third.