Sacred Acts

My mother used to take a bath on New Year's Eve and at might-night, when everyone else was setting off fireworks, she would burn her calendar in which she had marked up all the important events of the year. I didn't think much of it when I was a boy, but today I understand that these were ancient cleaning rituals - taking a bath and having the old consumed by the sacred fire. So consciously or subconsciously, she managed to let go of the old and got ready for the new year.

Do you know that it is part of the Jewish tradition to burry the equipment used for animal food production regularly in the ground. For food to be considered kosher you need to let Mother Earth clean the equipment regularly to wash away the sin of killing animals. Modern man may consider these rituals as superstitious, but modern man is simply disconnected from his roots, and these roots eventually will catch up with him. The Chinese tradition of Feng Shui explains what we do, and what would be beneficial for us to do, by simply stating ancient real and symbolic energy patterns. We do what we do for a reason, and once we study what we do, we often find sacred acts behind them.

Once we are aware of these connections we can use them to our advantage, and that's where the notion of a talisman and the so-called superstitious acts come from. C. G. Jung wasn't shy to remind the psychological community of our collective soul. We are all part of this collective unconscious and we can use these psychological and spiritual procedures to our advantage. For those of you who are interested in more depth on this subject, the Chilean author Alexandro Jodorowsky's book "Psychomagic" gives some great pointers.

That Which Tastes Like Poison at First

Do you know people who sabotage themselves at times? Who knows, perhaps it was  a father lashing out at his son telling him that he is a  good-for-nothing, or a nasty remark of a relative telling a little girl that she is ugly at an impregnable age. Unfortunately these words can burn themselves like vicious memes into our subconscious and we take them for granted like God commands without the ability of our intellect to overwrite them when we are older.  The good news is, just as these irrational programs can get installed you can uninstall them with the help of targeted symbolic acts. Please read Alejandro Jodorowsky's excellent book Psychomagic for many case-specific examples.

So when we talk about the subconscious mind we really talk about two different things, a mindless computer that can work for or against you, as well as a divine source of wisdom and guidance. Every spiritual traveler will have felt this wisdom,  sometimes even heard a guiding Voice deep inside. Sometimes we receive divine messages from our environment. We call this external communication channel the Tao. You get step-by-step instructions to help you understand who you truly are and encouragement to tackle your mission in life.

A spiritual path is really a cleaning up with all these subconscious programs that hurt your Self-discovery, while at the same time learning to get in touch with your inborn Self-connection. One fine day you discover the red carpet the Tao has always laid out for you and from therein all you have to do is to follow it. Still, despite this divine touch,  you are not any different from all the others. You too have to tackle insecurities, overcome fears and deal with confusion. Sometimes the divine Voice will tell you to cut out stuff that seems like fun to you, but it will be explained to you  why this particular activity would stand in the Way. So in a sense a spiritual path is like an ongoing therapy course. Every resistance along the Way is yet another sign to reposition your self in order to connect with your Self.

The psychologist/mystic Gurdjieff once said that if you follow a spiritual path you manage to avoid living like a pig and dying like a dog. This sounds a little extreme, but I am sure every spiritual path traveler understands the truth behind it. If you experience your Self while living, it is hard to get carried away by life's fickle temptations, just as you have little to be afraid of when you die.

The Bhagavad Gita puts this theme in the following way:
That which tastes like poison at first, but tastes like nectar in the end, this is the joy of a mind at peace with itself. Pleasure of the senses seems like nectar at first, but is bitter as poison in the end.

 Follow the signs of the Tao and you already are reunited with the Source. Life becomes an ongoing feedback mechanism and your subconscious understands that you are completely taken care of. All life demands of you is to stay away from the poison and enjoy the nectar instead. That is not hard to do, is it?