Life's Song

Have you observed what happens to you when a song plays on the radio? If you listen to the lyrics as carefully as I do, you probably experience a mix of feelings that the tune arouses as well as the personal meaning that you associate with its lyrics. You will also remember situations you were in, or people you were interacting with, when the song was playing; often all of this happens subconsciously.

That's pretty much the meaning of memes: they are little mental programs that get activated inside of you. Just as you are pumped up - or deflated - by a song, you will probably transfer this energy back to others until this mood is either exhausted or a new meme shows up. You can try to surround yourself with "good" memes to the best of your abilities, but you can't completely shut out the dark ones. Don't bother to try, they too serve a purpose.

Frankie Ballard sings in Helluva Life, "Bad times make good times better". That's how life works. Life is a symphony with ups and downs carefully planted to make the overall experience meaningful to you. So if you hear an Adele song on the radio today and she reminds you with her out-of-this-world voice of the pain, disappointment and resentment that slumbers deep inside of you, then stand ready to experience that too.

To paraphrase Shakespeare, "no meme is either good or bad, only thinking makes it so." Well, from life's perspective, every message, meme or interaction is just perfectly planted to make the overall experience meaningful and a "helluva ride".

You and the Tao are One

Are there people or activities you feel passionate about? Be sure the Tao works with your passions for your fuel tank has to be burnt off before you can merge with Her. Some of your passions She will refine for you until you feel peace and serenity whenever you engage. Others you are encouraged to channel in a different direction altogether. At times you will feel resistant to follow Her path, but you will learn over and over again that She always knows best. Like taming a wild horse, the Tao is encouraging you to take good care of yourself and to prosper in all dimensions of your life. Soon you will know that She and you are One.

Thoughts cannot capture Her, but your mind may reflect Her Voice. Stop expecting, anticipating, or looking forward to anything for She will only meet you in the divine Now. Accept whatever comes to you without labeling. Experience everything as it is and you will have access to Her wisdom. By letting go of any value judgements you become part of the divine Flow  yourself. The river flows to the right and you realize that is the direction you are taking too. You and Her are One.

Apply the same technique to your life.  Stop thinking about what you want to achieve, stop holding on to the magnificent experience you just had, or tying to polish any image you may have of yourself.  Experiencing everything life has brought to our attention without any labeling and judging.  Just as Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita had to find out, life may imply having to fight your family and friends at times. Nothing is either good or bad, only thinking makes it so, as Shakespeare once rightly pointed out.

 With your acceptance, without your expectations, the flow of life merges peacefully with the divine Whole. You are not worried about what life may bring you, and you stop trying to intervene. Your image of yourself disintegrates and all that is left is you functioning as a mirror of Her divine presence. You are not yourself anymore, you and the Tao are One.


By Christian and Su Zhen

On Good and Evil

To thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man. 
(William Shakespeare)

I work in the investment business as some of you know and I always used to think that I have friends and foes. The other day it struck me that I wouldn't say this today anymore. Let me give you an example: say I want to give a presentation, express my view and there is someone who competes with me for my spot. Suddenly I am forced to postpone my presentation and, given the limited availability of presentation slots, have to do it a month later instead. Well, as chance has it, the message of my investment recommendation is much more timely that way and my audience is finally ready to receive it. So who can say whether an interruption of your agenda is good and bad? Does it even make sense to judge the mind set of the colleague who may have inconvenienced me at one point?

Traveling the Tao is to learn that the notion of 'good and evil' is just not useful. Everybody has a role to play in this magnificent theater play called life. The 'villain' has as much right to receive an Oscar as the 'hero'. All you have to do is to make your subconscious journey a conscious one. That's what the Tao will do for you. It brings your subconscious agenda out in the open and suddenly there no longer will be good or evil, wrong or right. There will only be an action that is true to your Self and one that isn't. Once you have reached that stage you will suddenly see  that everything is perfect as is

There is no Good or Bad ...

Some of you might have seen the HSBC adds on airports that show pictures of people, landscapes and other objects, but attach different meanings to them dependent on the perception of different cultures. For example, you see an old man with white hair and you can associate with him wisdom as it is often done in the east or over the hill as it is often done in the west. HSBC wants to make the point that they have the necessary local knowledge to get the meaning right as they operate in different cultures.

When I reflected on these mental images that we form based on what we see and our personal conditioning, I was reminded of Shakespeare's "There is no good or bad, only thinking makes it so" quote. The choice is up to you whether you want to see a wise man who can share a lot of his learned insights with you, or an old man who is forgetful and unreliable. As you choose your mental image, the old man is likely to respond accordingly. Or take the phallus: you can see it as the ultimate engineering device that spreads the cradle of life and divine energy, or you can see it as an instrument of male aggression. Our fall was a mental one, of course there was sex in  paradise, and that's exactly what the tantric sex folks are out to show.

I am fascinated with the subject of symbols or mental images that we form according to our conditioning and the question whether we are able to mentally redefine what we see and experience from ego-driven thinking to right-minded thinking. This is the process of spiritual healing, just keep on doing what you are doing, but experiencing everything on a much healthier spiritual plane. I do experiment with the sexual reprogramming, but cannot really tell much internal change yet. Where I have succeeded already is at work. One by one, I am redefining the people I work with from competitive spirits to my spiritual friends. Amazingly it is true, as my perception of them changes, their attitude towards me changes as well.