Seeing Life as Is

You often can't really change how you feel about life. You may consider yourself fat even though your husband says you look so sexy, or you may feel under-appreciated at work even though objectively you are doing just fine. What you can try to do though, you can try to compensate in your actions the way you perceive things. So even if you view yourself as a mouse, you can nevertheless roar like a lion whenever life demands it. You do that because a higher authority tells you that is who you truly are.

You can disregard the voice in your head or the feelings you experience in order to reach the reality that truly reflects your Self. Say you are greedy but you don't act on it because your consciousness tells you to. Say your mind says, "get that promotion at any cost", yet your conscience tells you not to take advantage of others. Or say your body begs, "conquer that attractive woman", yet your heart tells you not to cheat on your soul-mate.

Caroline Knapp describes in Appetites the yin version of deviating from the Self. If greed is the yang energy that wants to conquer, indulge and take over, anorexia is the exact opposite. It is the desire to shrink physically; the need to punish the body for some psychological reason. The problem statement is one of perception, anorexic people perceive their body different from reality. They see fat where there objectively is none. Caroline Knapp eventually healed herself from this disease by forcing herself to eat against her will. The question is, can you in fact reprogram your way of seeing when you look into the mirror? 

Affirmations are the conscious attempt to bring the self closer to the Self. The way to heal greed is to acknowledge that what you have is in fact awesome. Sheryl Crow puts it well in Soak Up the Sun, "It is not about having what you want, it's wanting what you have got." You can learn to discover that. Just open your eyes, life will teach you to see the world with new eyes. Step outside of your head and fall in love with life and you will experience reality quiet differently. You will discover a stunningly attractive woman where you saw only fat thighs in your mirror before. You suddenly meet a well-meaning friend or a colleague who is struggling colleague where you perceived a ruthless competitor only yesterday.

Spirituality is the art of engaging and falling in love with what is. The voice in your head or some unpleasant sensations may still exist but they increasingly fall short in the new reality that you perceive. Use affirmations to override your interferences, understand where cravings, desires or fears come from, but most importantly, just show up every day and let this world teach you who you truly are and what really is going on. Discover yourSelf in the mirror as well as the real world.

The Best of all Worlds

It is not Having What you Want, it's Wanting What You've Got.
Sheryl Crowe, Soak Up the Sun

Walking the Tao is a philosophy really; the belief that you live in the best of all worlds. You might be outraged when you hear that, 'How can one believe that', you might say, 'with all the sickness, unfairness and crime around?', but we would encourage you just to give this hypothesis a shot and see for yourself. Trust to walk the Tao and let Her decide whatever comes your way. You can certainly tell the Tao what you want and what you need, but let Her decide in what way this wish will be delivered to you. We always trust that Tao knows best and trust that Her decisions are the best for us.

When you follow the Tao, you don't have any anxiety and you don't root for anything. We have experienced over and over again that we always get along the Way what we truly desire. The Tao tells us whatever we need to know; the Tao shows us whatever it is that we need to achieve. In fact, the Tao acts through us. We have no idea where we are going except for trusting that everything is perfect as is.

It is certainly fine to set up goals, just as it is necessary to have a vision of what your destiny is all about. Yet, whenever despite your best efforts your life starts deviating from your mission, understand that this is perfect as is. As Katy Perry says in her song Firework, 'Maybe you're reason why all the doors are closed - So you could open one that leads you to the perfect road.' If you live by that philosophy you will never experience any stress and anxiety. Led by the Tao, you live a life moment by moment and act according to the demands of your environment. You don't feel annoyed by anything that comes your way, you just follow the Flow. Distractions do not exist, deviations from what you think you want give you instead the opportunity to aim even higher in life. You also start to understand that these people who may act evil or mean are also tools of the Tao to get you where you truly want to go. They are more like alarm clocks that help you wake you up while you fall asleep on the wheel. Along the Tao there is no good and evil, everything just is, and it is perfect as is!

Whenever you hand yourself over to the Tao, all you need to do is just be present and follow the cues. The Tao is doing everything and there are never sacrifices along the Way. So if you perceive effort instead, ask what this is for. Along the Way you also no longer possess anything, and all your achievements become natural and self-evident. Everything will be out of your control, and yet, without your trying, everything will fall magically into place just as your heart desires. Effort and resistance will show that you have temporarily deviated from the Way. But this is ok, the Tao always welcomes you back with open arms. All you have to do is to ask for Her and take a look around and the next cue to reconnect will be there.

There is ego and there is the Tao and there is nothing in-between. Decide on the world you would like to live in. Don't trust us as authorities, see for yourself whether you can discover the world we talk about. When you hand yourself over to the Tao, you cease to exist. It is Her doing everything and you are just Her instrument. Whatever you achieve, you can not claim that it was you. Everything is Her doing instead. In this realization there lies incredible peace. A Tao traveler is at peace with herself, is happy wherever she goes and encounters love no matter where she turns.


By Christian and Su Zhen

Having It All

It's not having what you want,
It's wanting what you've got
Cheryl Crow, Soak up the Sun

If you run after gold, you will not find it.
If you tell yourself not to run after gold for God's sake,
demons will come and chase you.
When you understand that gold is wherever you are,
you will recognize that you are home and always have been.