Never Forget Your Self

Sometimes we lose our balance in life a little. We don’t sleep well, feel stressed and cannot stay cool and kind like we normally do. We are tired and get cranky easily.  Whenever we experience these irritations it is as if life sends us little wake-up calls that we are off-track. Take a look around, it is easy to discover how you have been carried away by these little annoyances and have effectively lost your center.  You gave all these trivial things first priority and forgot to be your Self. You identified with these trivial things and let them take over your life and consume your energy.

Make it a habit to center yourself as the first activity of day.  You can then experience how everything falls into place effortlessly.  These centering activities provide all the energy you need; they put you in touch with your Self and infuse you with the energies of peace, joy, and love. When you connect with your Core, wisdom will always be at your disposal. You automatically cut out all distracting and wasteful activities and save enormous energy and time in the process. So, If you are still carried away by life on occasions, make it an effort to center your being again and peace will be again with you.

Don’t stop these life-nourishing activities when things get hectic. This is exactly the time when you need it the most. Let the energy of the Source penetrates every cell of your being. The Buddhist have a saying, "You should sit in meditation for 20 minutes a day, unless you are too busy, then you should sit for an hour! Let the flowers of peace, love, and joy bloom every day; let the beauty of life radiates from you. You are peace, love, joy and beauty wherever you are and in every situation.

By Christian and Su Zhen

Energy and the Tao (Revised)

Empty your mind of all thoughts.
Let your heart be at peace.
Watch the turmoil of beings,
but contemplate their return.
Each separate being in the universe
returns to the common Source.
Returning to the Source is serenity.
(Tao Te Ching)

Our spiritual community loves reflecting on the Self, the ancient voice that is in constant God connection. Everyone in one way or another has experienced this connection, has received a glimpse of what life could be if only we could have constant access to God. So we keep on reflecting on this divine state and we think about the ego, the "I", or our desires which often seems to stand in the way of experiencing Heaven on earth. So in essence we are thinking about ways how we could overcome our ego. The problem with that approach is that the ego is us, so if we think about the ego, everything becomes a little circular.

Thinking about our ego is perhaps not so helpful, yet being aware of the voice in our head is. In the same way, we can reflect on the "mood" that we are in; we may be indirectly able to perceive the hormones that are flushing through our system; we can perceive our breathing, and so much more. To find a name for all this, we can experience our energy state; we can observe it and react to it very much like the voice in our head. When we discuss spiritual themes we experience different energy than when we work. When we play with our children we have a different energy than when we go on nature walks.

The Tao traveler would tell you that everything is energy, everything that goes on within you just as much as everything that happens outside of you. We claim that if only we could be aware of our different energy states, we would be in tune with the Tao already. We have learned the hard way that it is good for us to stay away from dark energies; colleagues who love to gossip, greed, alcohol, violence, porn or stress. We have learned the hard way that we need meditation, yoga, nature walks, a meaningful work or a creative outlet; we need friends, a soul mate, family, exercise, a spiritual community or simply from time to time a vacation. All the activities and connections breathe new life into us. Naturally, we want exposure to good energies all the times.

All these positive energy sources are indirect ways of keeping our spiritual balance amidst a stressful life. Yet, how much nicer would it be if we could connect with divine energy all the time. It turns out, simple awareness gets you to that state. Your power of observation has that magical ability to stay connected to the Tao, and in effect, making you a master of your life. You are no longer just swayed by emotions or acting unconsciously like a slave. Being aware of energy - be it positive or negative from your perspective - allows you cooperate with life all the time.

As a spiritual path traveler you can learn to be in tune with your energies. You can feel how your impatience is rising, you can feel that you are speaking too fast when you express yourself. You always have the Tao to lean onto, the signs and symbols that you perceive as a constant feedback mechanism. When you lose your connection to spiritual energy, your soul siblings are happy to tell you when you need to slow down, or will at times encourage you to speed up a little.

You may take a colleague to a golf game and just as you are complaining about some internal company politics you observe how the bag of your golf partner keeps slamming into the back-door of your car; but as change the conversation to a more uplifting subject, you suddenly observe that - miraculously - the car ride has become so much smoother. And as you finally pull into the parking lot while you discuss how much you enjoy working with a new colleague, you observe that the time has just moved to 12:34; a feat that is totally lost on your colleague.

Along the Tao you cannot really make a mistake. Sure, we are as driven by our desires - the ego - just as the fellow next door, but by engaging with the Tao's energies we manage to stay in the holy Now sometimes despite our desires, but mostly because of them. Rain or shine, serenity, love and peace is always near-by ready to catch up with you.

By Christian and Su Zhen

Falling Down

Some of you may remember this sad movie from the 80s in which Michael Douglas plays the role of a recently laid-off character who also suffered through a divorce in which his wife got a restraining order against him, keeping him away from his child. As the movie progresses you see his tensions rising and - in his perception - the world increasingly turning hostile on him. Eventually it all erupts and he loses his life over it.

Yes, we are able to fall that much. Little psychological cuts are part of our life; we all have to endure them whether we are spiritual or not. These wounds might be some karmic debt, some repressed hostility or insecurity that begs expression, or simply some random acts of unkindness. In small doses we have no problem absorbing them. Perhaps you can compare yourself with a lake. If a near-by plant releases small toxic doses from time to time, the environment absorbs it all and cleans itself in the process. If the pollution becomes a steady stream instead, there will be a level that kills the entire lake. Our situation is not that different.

We always enjoy observing little children as they play.  When they have just lost a soccer game they feel distraught; offer them an ice-cream afterwards and they forget all about it. That is how things ought to be if you had a bad day at work. You go home, relax, put your mind on something else and after a good night's sleep you are your old self the next day and everything about yesterday is water down the bridge.

The truth is, it rarely works that way. There are periods when it doesn't rain but pours and as you get really wet you also catch a cold; you can't sleep at night and are consequently caught in a long period of elevated stress, sadness or aggression. This is ok too. Everything that comes your way has spiritual meaning. Perhaps you can try to remember similar periods of struggle in the past and try to focus on the time when you rebounded from it. As a spiritual traveler you will learn quickly that you can always recover from whatever it is that bothers you today. A spiritual path is an ongoing healing opportunity; for you as much as your environment.

The most important part of the healing process is that you recognize the cuts for what they are. Don't try to negate or repress them and don't get caught in a negative feed-back loop in which you either strike back or endlessly review the occurrences in your head. Aggression will always hurt you, as will guilt and regrets over things of the past. The power of positive thinking is to find the silver lining in everything that comes your way and focus on that. Along a spiritual path you can literally think of everyone as your friend. Most friends love you, while some friends are a little rough around the edges; yet, everyone has a message for you. When you feel the anger, frustration or fear rising in you, focus on the upside in every situation instead.

The way of the Tao is really the understanding that we are all one. The environment just mirrors back to us the tension that builds in us. When we heal ourselves, our environment heals with us. Being a spiritual traveler does not prevent us from experiencing stress, fear or unpleasantness, but it will help us in our recovery once we decide on it.  Does it really make sense to be mad at ourselves over stuff that happened in the past? In the same vein, does it really make sense to get mad at someone who is just the mirror image of our own being? Discover those simple truths and realize that along the Tao you can never fall down.

Finding Serenity under Pressure

How do you feel about your life right now?  Do you feel stressed out by all the stuff that accumulates throughout the day; the work, the chores, or working out some rocky relationships? Do you feel your health is deteriorating? Do you feel like you are always running behind, never able to keep up with everything that is coming your way?  Do you feel a constant pressure and don't experience any fun at all?

 A depression is a darkness of expectation, a complete slump of energy. You somehow feel overwhelmed by the tasks at hand, with no relief in sight. You feel that life exerts constant pressure. All your attention is on duties and responsibilities, and you completely forget to focus on the incredible upside that slumbers inside of you. It must have happened to you that you suddenly felt that surge in energy inside of you and with that little energy kick all the problems vanished almost effortlessly. Yet these energy bursts feel sporadic to you and when you are dragged down by life's relentless attacks you can't even remember them.

We think the Tao can help you! Take pride and joy in facing everything that comes your way; consider every task, small and big, as a present you send to yourself to help you succeed. The German poet Goethe once said, "Even with stones that someone put in your way you can build something nice." That's indeed how the Tao works. There is no good nor bad along the Way, there is only the path that helps you discover who you truly are. Find the upside in everything that comes your way and you will find it!

The other energy booster is meaning. They say that you can bear almost any pain as long as it is meaningful. Well, we don't want you to experience any pain, we want you to have fun along the Way instead. Still, the same principle applies. Find meaning in what you do and discover a boundless energy source. Always remind yourself what each situation is for and see how the necessary energy to get the job done will be at your disposal.

Remind yourself of your mission and your life will be so much more purposeful; study the Tao at work and you will have so much fun. But then, if at some point resentment, pressure and anxiety do overwhelm you, that's ok too. That is what we all experience from time to time, just remember that you can always snap out of it. Your fears and restlessness are the impostors; serenity and peace is your natural state that you always can return to.  May peace be with you!

By Christian and Su Zhen

When Serenity Meets Flow

Why do you feel stressful and anxious?  Have you ever tried to observe yourself while this is happening?  Is it because you lack the confidence that you can achieve what you set out to do? Isn't it true that when you are looking at all the interferences that come your way, you are in fact getting signal after signal to take it a little easier? Perhaps the problem is that you try to do it your way and not the Tao's way? Try to observe everything that is going on inside of you and in your environment. You will find the answer.

As a Tao traveler, most of the time you accomplish things with ease.  You tune into the flow of the Now and do whatever needs to be done at that special moment. Faced with the divine Now, your own agenda is simply washed away.  You surrender yourself to the Tao and totally trust Her arrangements.  You don't worry and you are at ease. So if you already have reached this spiritual maturity, what are all these stress attacks about? It is the self trying to eclipse the Self with some lingering worries and irrelevant mental conjectures. Perhaps you can think of these situations like you would of a cold. Somehow you must have undermined your psychic immune system, otherwise the strength of the Self would never have allowed this situation to happen.

Along the Tao everything happens for a reason. So even your stressful periods are here to help you. When you develop a sniffle you have some orange juice in order to strengthen your immune system, don't you? In the same way, when stress and worries creep up in you, ask how you may have undermined your Self and change directions accordingly. The Tao is always here to help you. Lose your self along the Way. Be  alert to your environment, heighten your sensitivity responsiveness to the people around you, while being mindful of everything that is going on within yourself. With this alert, with this sensitivity, with this timely response, you become Her instrument again. You harmoniously merge yourself into the flow of Now. Your mind becomes quiet in the moment and everyone benefits from your actions, especially you. Where serenity and flow meet there is just not enough space for stress to develop. Try and experience this for yourself.

By Christian and Su Zhen

The Bar Has Been Raised

You know what happens in a high-jump competition? Just when you pass the hurdle, it will be raised on you. Does your life feel like an endless high-jumping event? The work-requirements go up, the resources you have access to get fewer and fewer; new and younger colleagues are moving up the rank fast, and in all that you realize that your children and significant others need more of your time, care and attention.

This would be a good time to connect with a life-coach. Someone who reminds you of your bigger picture and helps you to redefine your priorities and objectives. A Tao master could help you as well. After all, our motto is that everything you require to be happy and successful is at your finger-tips. You are always safe and sound, and all these people who you think annoy and challenge you, are really here to help you.

Start with a life-coach first though. Create yourself a little breathing space to look for alternatives, a new way of looking at things. Your problem is that you are on auto-pilot running after things that your parents, your friends, the advertisers, and society at large tell you are important. You are running like everyone else after the stuff that glitters on the horizon and are trampling over the gems that are lying in front of you in the process. Sort out your priorities a little, become more confident and efficient at what you do and start getting in touch with your soul. Once you have completed the warm-up exercise you are ready for the a Tao. And this is when the true fun will start.

Why do you think the bar has been raised on you? You have put yourself into this position. Subconsciously you want to run against a wall to remind yourself that there must be another way out there. You want to remind yourself that you are like a donkey running after the carrot never to be reached. Today is a good day to stop; drop everything and remind yourself of your happier days. We are telling you that you can have it all. You can experience these feelings of joy, love and well-being any time, at home, at work, everywhere really. But first you have to stop and reposition yourself. The life-coach will get you the breathing room to get ready for our magnificent journey, a first step into freedom. For the homecoming-tour, the Tao will take your hand. And when She gets started you will be in for a breath-taking ride.

What, Me Worry?

The Lord is my shepherd. I lack nothing.
He makes me lie down in green pastures,
he leads me beside quiet waters,
he refreshes my soul.
He guides me along the right paths
for His name's sake.
Even though I walk
through the darkest valley,
I will fear no evil,
for You are with me;
your rod and your staff,
they comfort me.

You prepare a table before me
in the presence of my enemies.
You anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows.
Surely Your goodness and love will follow me
all the days of my life,
and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.
(Psalm 23)

I devoted a chapter to Psalm 23 in my book "The Magnificent Experiment". I would guess that all spiritual path travelers have felt this amazing feeling of peace and serenity at some point during their journey. When I feel stress at work, home or anywhere really, I just look up and without fail see Her handwriting in front of me.  The other day I saw a report in Ian Robertson's excellent book, "The  Winner Effect", that claims that if you believe that you are in control you can single-handedly reduce the stress hormones that otherwise would torment your system. Well, I  can't say that I am always in control, but I can definitely say that "I Am" is always in control. Once you have discovered this secret, peace will always be at the fingertips. What, me worry?

The Tao as a Stress Manager

Have you ever had the experience that you are very stressed, so you make a project out of finding relaxation only to realize that you are as stressed as before despite your best efforts? You put on the candles, listen to some chants, you meditate, but the thoughts keep on popping to the surface like water does in a pot that soon reaches boiling temperature.   Don't be upset if this happens to you. Even a goal as innocent and well-intended as relaxation is set up by the ego. Whatever the ego touches comes with stress and effort attached.

Maybe you can do this instead. Tune into your environment and get in touch with what is going on inside you and just become aware of what happens. With no intent to change anything, see how your environment and your mood changes with this new approach. For example, when you are stressed, see how people and situations show up in response. Some may give you an opportunity to step out of it, some may intensify your stress; in fact, often these situations give you an either or dependent on how you end up reacting.

Realize when you are angry how people present themselves, sometimes literally waving a red flag in front of the charged bull. In turn, they may  offer themselves as perfect doormats to walk if you are inexperienced enough to make this mistake. Notice how stress, anger or worries pop up to the surface, but see how the solution to the problem presents itself. In particular, see how the bubble immediately deflates when you become aware of the yin and yang of life. No yoga, no meditation or stress management class is required. Just be aware of how connected the "inside" is to the so-called external environment.

Accept every emotion as is. Your inner nature just reacts to the environment you are in just as the flow of life you experience responds to your inner pace. When you feel that something is off kilter, some stress, anger or some lingering worry, accept that stage. Life - everything and everyone the Tao sends your way -  is a perfect stress manager. Observe and accept everything and don't give any more power to the emotions and thoughts that bubble to the surface. You can dance  to the tune of the Tao just as you would do meditation. The stimuli come, they reach you, but you decide to engage with some and let the others just fade into nothingness.

As you tune into the Tao, you naturally drop your personal agenda. Let the Tao lead you out of the stressful situation back to the peace of mind that is always yours to reach for.In fact, the Tao is doing the job for you if only you let Her. Peace and silence is always at your disposal no matter where you are. It takes some practice to become a Tao master but keep on trying. The Tao is wherever you are, so the next opportunity to try is just around the corner.
 

By Christian and Su Zhen

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

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.

The Silence Amidst the Chaos

There was a beautiful scene in "Bloodsport", the movie that made Jean-Claude Van Damme famous in 1988. It showed him in the final fight against an seemingly invincible opponent who with the help of a dirty trick temporarily blinded him. As his eye-sight left him you could see the panic in his face. But just before his opponent managed to knock him out he remembered a time in his life when he had so serve tea to his Japanese martial arts teacher blind-folded. So he suddenly figured that while he certainly was at a huge disadvantage, life had nevertheless prepared him perfectly for this situation. He focused all his energies to the point that time stood still for him, he then sensed the location of his opponent and he knocked him down with a barrage of massive kicks.

How do we deal with stressful situations? The old way of dealing with it was to instinctively shy away from the incoming heat.The way that we would suggest instead is to tackle the fear head-on: " Feel the fear and do it anyway" is the approach Susan Jeffers takes in her book. It is the right approach, and you certainly can make it a habit no matter what the situation. The one advantage that you as a Tao traveler can have over others is to know that every panic situation is just a monster of your making. Perhaps it will pass like fog, perhaps you will need to adjust to the situation. Either way, trust that the Tao will hand-deliver the solution to every problem if you are calm enough to receive Her message.

We have found that dealing with difficult situations is actually what brings out the person you were born to be. If you have been in a couple of those situations - and managed to successfully override your fears - you know exactly how to respond. You slow down and focus all your energy on the silence within. While you are collecting yourself, you can sense the stillness and the divine presence. It is like you are waiting for disturbed water to get clear. When it does, the answer presents itself.

You can see this confident and collected nature in most successful people. You can see it in every successful athlete. Observe how they collect themselves before they move, the gymnasts, the divers, the golf players; you also can also see this trait demonstrated in all good dancers, artists, musicians or great chef. They are totally connected with the divine voice within when they move. You can see the stillness and beauty emit from their actions. They move like a piece of art.

So don't mind problems, welcome them with open arms. The Tao knows exactly what you can handle and you will never be given more than that. Connect with the divine voice inside. It is time that the real you shows up and your problems will bring Her out in the open. Find the silence amidst the chaos and become the master you were born to be.

By Christian and Su Zhen

Let the Tao Heal Your Anxiety

What is anxiety? We all struggle with it. When you think about it, anxiety comes when you are deviating from the Now. Anxiety is a product of the mind, you disconnect with your Self and your environment. There is nothing per se that you can do when anxiety hits, all you can to is to look for the interferences that have temporarily disconnected you from the Now. Accept it! When you notice that you are anxious, you actually already detach yourself from it. Experience your anxiety just like the Tao is experiencing you. The more often you practice this, the more skilled you will become and the quicker you will manage to recover from an anxiety attack. Just know that anxiety is like a signpost that says “stop everything here and now and just watch”. When you can treat anxiety this way, she has become your friend already. She becomes a positive force in your home-coming journey.

When you face a difficult situation, you become tense, you make mistakes so that the situation you are in becomes even worse and your mind suddenly goes into overdrive. Learn to disconnect from this voice in your head, it is just that, a voice that doesn't have to be connected to the real You. Whenever you panic, know it is not the situation or the environment you are in, it is you having temporarily lost faith in the Tao and yourself. Try to connect with yourself again, pay attention to your body, experience how it feels. Is it tense, do you have your arms and legs crossed? Is your face looking old and haggard when you pass a mirror? Is there any message that your body tries to communicate to you? Be your body at that moment and step outside of the tension as you gain this awareness. It is possible.

Another way you can reconnect with your Self is by focusing on your breathing. There is something very powerful in your breathing. Did you know that "spiritus" means breath in Latin? In the same vein, in the Indo-Germanic language connection, the expression Atman (Soul or True Self) is connected to the word "atmen" (to breathe). So the different cultures have long figured out that meditative breathing can instantaneously connect you with who you truly are. So don't think about calming yourself down, but just focus on the breathing instead. Try to breathe as deeply as possible. In the beginning, it is probably very difficult for you and annoying, however, if you make it a habit, you can witness how this simple technique changes your life.

By being present while you are experiencing your environment you can reconnect with the Tao. You must have experienced that sometimes you are overwhelmed by some worries, but when you go to office and concentrate on your work, suddenly, your worries go away and never come back. They just disappear. Or sometimes when you experience the environment you have been dreading, somehow it doesn't look so scary anymore. To the contrary, it becomes interesting to see everything unfolding in front of your astonished eyes and you can't wait for the next moment.

Take some time off and do something you really enjoy. This will give you a good opportunity to disconnect from your worries. It is like magic. You probably think when you are so worried that time is running away from you. This is not so. Time is just a reflection of your inner state. If you approach a problem with the attitude that time will be running away from you, it will. If you approach it with the mindset that you have everything you need to handle the situation, you will master it instead. So work on your mindset first. Find the activity that disconnects you with your worries first. Play wholeheartedly with your kids, be present when you are cooking. The Tao is ready to reconnect with you whenever you are.

Once you re-connect with the Tao you realize that you can handle any situation at hand. And if you can experience this magic turn-around once or twice, soon the confidence will grow that you will always have access to this magic force. You will also get a feel for what your interferences are and you will learn to avoid them at any cost. You can stay centered regardless of the situation. Yes, you can follow the flow of the Now always. For the experienced Tao master it is as if there is a red line on the ground, plain to see but apparently invisible to everybody else. If you are a novice spiritual path traveler you will have your phases of magic with the occasional moment of panic sprinkled around. You may claim yourself as a victim of the environment but as a matter of fact, you are only a victim of your self-imposed interferences.

Study these different phases in spiritual consciousness. Observe the environment you are operating in when you are anxious and contrast this to the environment when you are calm. Observe your breathing, be mindful of the voice in your head. Fact of the matter is that you are literally emitting very different levels of energy dependent on which state you are in. Learn to perceive these energy states in yourself and your environment. Only when you are not present, the environment you are in and other people can hurt you. Otherwise you are centered as a massive rock; that is your natural state in fact. The Tao will bring you lots of opportunities to practice being present and centered; appreciated these disturbances instead of complaining about them.

The Tao always knows what is best for you from the perspective of your soul development. Do not dread things you are afraid off, see them for what they are, learning opportunities to connect you with who you truly are. Without a little challenge you would never focus your energies in the same way to accomplish that feat. The Tao is here to help you. Soon you will learn that there is only one natural state, one of happiness, love, peace and light! This is not a slogan, this is for real. Embrace life and let Her show you the Way and a new master will be born. Please join us in this fun-filled learning classroom!

By Christian and Su Zhen

Let the Tao Help You Find True Success

Are you driven to achieve something? Have you ever asked yourself why are you so driven to do these things? Why do you work so hard? What is it really that you want to get in the end, and are you happy doing these things? Most people are driven to achieve something. We have seen so many people work so hard to the point that they torture themselves and others in the process. Have you ever asked yourself why this is the case? Do you really enjoy it, or are you perhaps driven by subconscious processes that are out of your control.

Isn’t that sad that you work so hard all your life only because you are out to prove something to yourself and others? Don't get us wrong, spiritual path travelers also have to work quite hard at times when the situation demands it. But there is an underlying serenity, a feeling that everything is perfect as is, and we don't put pressure on ourself and others. We just float along a strong flow that prevails at the time. The big question though, how exactly do you get there? If you just say 'I must not be competitive!" or "I must not hunger after power!" you are not solving anything.

Sometimes people have no idea about the true motivation behind their actions. They may have a vague idea that they want to succeed, that they want to be rich, that they want to be admired, that they want to be smart, but have no idea of what the real reasons behind it are. Can you imagine that you may have been teased as a child and now you hunger after power to compensate for it. Your father may have been out of a job for a couple of years and now you aspire to become the best surgeon in the world to erase the family shame. You may not consider yourself as very smart and now you put all the pressure on your daughter to get her admitted to Harvard. Or you may still carry a scar from a previous life so you were literally born with a drive to succeed that no one, including yourself, really understands.

A spiritual path often starts because you literally lose direction somewhere. Old goals that were so meaningful before suddenly have lost their attraction. If this happens to you, congratulation, we think that you are connecting with your potential to be truly successful. Most of us only start our spiritual journey when we feel lost and when we rightly conclude, there must be another way!

This loss motivates us to launch this journey to find out who we truly are and what we truly want. In this process, we start to take off layers and layers of expectations from our society, parents and friends until we get in touch of who we truly are. We are totally fresh and reborn. With our curious eyes we are able to see a new world and launch a journey in a totally different direction. We are light and fast because we carry no longer any baggage. At that stage you will find a friend, a guiding light, who you have overlooked all your life because you were too busy to look elsewhere.

The Tao can help you find your natural connection with others while avoiding the ones which are built on power games and hierarchy. The Tao can teach you how to find that natural flow of things, the presence of hard work without any pressure, as well as the flow of give and take of friends at work with a loving and serene mind set.

We hope you do really can express yourself when you are working. Work can and should be a joy. When you are really in tune with what you are doing you see the beauty of the Tao in action. Priceless connections with others manifest themselves, creativity flows out of you and become a fountain of love and joy. The trick is to know that you are successful already. You don't have to prove anything to yourself and others at all. Your success shines through and when you believe it others will acknowledge it. Your success is simply natural.

Find out what you truly love and want and let the Tao help you manifesting it. The Tao is a new perspective, it is a new way of looking at the world. As you stop looking for the glitter on the horizon you start seeing that you are standing on pure gold already. But you have to be empty inside. Let the Tao help you with this. You don't have to drop everything and become a monk in Tibet. All you have to do is to figure out what you truly love and the Tao will  show you how to find true love in the process. It is as imple as that. You will have a lot of fun and joy discovering who you truly are.

By Su Zhen and Christian

Just Leave the Movie Set Behind

It must must have happened to you that you were in big pain and you didn't know how to get out of it. You felt trapped. The harder you tried to get rid of this pain, the more painful the mental images were that entered your mind. Your heart was racing, painful memories popped up, and your mind entertained horrible scenarios. Like a truck stuck in the mud, the harder you hit the accelerator, the deeper you got stuck in it. Typically, time healed you. Somehow a few days later the problem didn't seem quite as overwhelming. You found a glimmer of hope somewhere, you calmed down, became hopeful and with it a remarkable turn-around started. The secret we want to pass on is that you don't have to wait at all. You can find a way out of your problems here and now. These are all energies flowing through you. There are bad energies and good energies, ego-created and God-inspired energies. The trick is to let the bad energies just pass. All you have to do is to find your idiosyncratic ways to put yourself in touch with the divine energies which are always at your disposal.

The problem statement is, who exactly is the "I"? When you are work, facing many deadlines and your boss comes to present you with yet another mission impossible, the "I" feels under attack. When you are at home and you are watching pornography just to let off some steam, the "I" feels aroused. Think of the " I" as a home entertainment center that can always flip channels, and with it, you access different energies. The "I" consists of your thoughts, your blood flow, the chemicals in your brain, your hormones, the memories that float to the surface and the meaning that the ego attaches to everything.  Often you activate these energies like in the example when you go home and consciously surf the Internet for videos that turn you on, and sometime life picks these energies for you, like your boss who puts even more work on your already crowded desk.

Imagine that you are an actor who has temporarily forgotten that he is in a movie set. Our spiritual discipline loves beating up on the "ego", but that doesn't get you far, the ego is you. All you can change is the energy that is circulating in your system and with it your blood flow, your hormones and your brain chemicals will change as well. You can only quiet the ego if you get in touch with something inside of you that operates beneath the surface. You can access the quiet voice inside, you can get in touch with God's energy. With God's energy you suddenly have access to symbols that heal rather than attack; your system slows down, you see solutions rather than problems and you experience love, joy and peace.

Meditation can connect you with this divine energy, as can nature or perhaps something idiosyncratic to your spiritual journey that can get you in touch with this energy. Without being able to flip to God's channel, you will be trapped in your mind. You cannot get out of your pain when you are trapped in a negative feedback loop. The more you stretch your thinking, the more you get stuck in the mud. Your mind and your thinking just extrapolate the problems they perceive, the attack that you think you experienced or the hostile ego symbols that you chose for yourself. Alternatively, your mind can reflect the love that surrounds you and it can express the boundless creativity that is inside of you. The choice is up to you how you want to put your mind in use. Your mind will just follow the energies that you or life have activated.

Meditation connects you with divine energy instead and starts overriding the worries of your mind. When you tune in with your True Self during meditation, you very fast experience how your worries disappear as fog does when the the sun comes out. Think about it, what exactly does meditation do? It calms your blood-flow, releases stress relieving chemicals to your brain and quiets down the noisy voice in your head. The actor is given a chance to remember that she is in a movie set. At this moment you understand that your pain and your problems are just illusions. They have been created by your mind and your environment.

This is why we encourage you to meditate regularly. When you meditate, you connect with God’s dimension, you connect with a higher energy, you connect with your source, with insights and inspiration. In real life, you are way too often thrown out of equilibrium by events that you perceive as negative and then you only make it worse by trying to override the pain with the help of alcohol, porn or mind racing. Learn to let go of bad energies by first accepting that they exist and then by letting them pass through your system. Find a way to sourround yourself with good energies and avoid the energies that drag you down.

Regular meditation introduces you to another dimension of life; it puts you in touch with the divine energies that you can access whenever you need. Heaven is here and now and you can always experience this state. Heaven is not when you achieve some goals in your life, or when you possess some special ability; the here and now is Heaven as long as you have the ability to connect with your divine energy inside whenever you so choose. You don't believe us? Stop everything right now. Count your blessings for a moment. Do you really experience more than you can handle? Isn't God generous and gives you everything that you truly need? Aren't you surrounded by love? These insights come from your heart. Your mind will never be satisfied and will look out to the neighbor's yard and will prove to you that the grass is much greener over there. Get in touch with your divine energy instead; your life will thank you for it.

Try to be thankful for all the blessings you have in your life. Appreciate the presents that God gives you, day in, day out. Recognize the many things your soul siblings are doing for you. This focus will connect you with the divine energy that is always yours to tab into. When you focus on gratitude and thankfulness, life will surround you with love and affection. On the other hand, when you run after ego symbols, you will not be able to appreciate the abundance life supplies you with. You are the creator of your own world! You are the actor who feels the emotions as she experiences the ups and downs of life, but deep down inside she smiles because she knows that she will be part of a magnificent love story in the next movie set. Be always in touch with your divine energy and create your own movie full of fun, joy and love.

By Christian and Su Zhen

Anger Management

Anger is a very powerful energy. Most of us use it in a very destructive way. A lot of people are killed every year just because the anger has reached a boiling point at which you just loose control. Have you ever observed in yourself what exactly triggers your anger?

There are many reasons why we lose our temper. An important one is that we feel that we are not loved. Everyone wants to be loved, everyone want to be listened to and cared for, everyone longs for acceptance from others. There is so much suppressed and sometimes open hostility between family members because family is the place where we know it is our birthright to be love. When this authentic need is being violated frustrations build until one day you are going to explode.

Anger is a very negative energy that builds up over time. In your day to day interactions with friends, colleagues and strangers something in you might be triggered and then steam suddenly bursts out into the open. How can we be aware of this destructive energy building up in us and release it in an acceptable, or perhaps even a constructive way? Accumulating your anger energy is not good for anyone, the longer you repress it, the more destructive it becomes. It is always much easier to deal with this energy when it is in the early stages. Mother Sage has suggested in the Spiritual Networks community that you can release your anger on a weekly basis. She recommended hitting a pillow or screaming in a running car where no one can hear you. When Christian was a student, some of his colleagues were screaming out of their dorm windows during exam time just to let off some steam. At work, several of his stressed colleagues practice power work-outs or kick-boxing. Whatever works for you, try to get all the frustrations out of you.

Observing yourself when you get angry is another very potent method to deal with it. For example you may observe how you lose your temper whenever you are tired and your children put demands on you. Afterwards you will feel guilty just because the children didn't really do anything wrong. See for yourself that just observing anger in motion can be very therapeutic and reduce its impact on you because you decide not to get carried away by it.

Once you monitor your own anger rising and falling, it is so much easier to see the same phenomenon in others. With this understanding forgiveness is so much easier. A spiritual path is really mindful living, that is, learning to be aware of anything that is happening in you and others. With this understanding you will find that your anger energy will get triggered less and less. You will also better understand how to deal with people and treat them with the care and respect that they deserve.

They say don't let a good crisis go waste. The same holds true for anger. Experience this emotion, negative as it is, fully and then transcend it. There is only one true emotion along the path and that is love. Everything else you can experience as a transient shock to the system that soon gets digested and released like bad food typically is. You can in fact manage your anger no matter what your circumstances are, please try it.

By Christian and Su Zhen

The Bar is Being Raised

Did you know that children in wealthy households are not any happier than children in poor household if it comes at the price that both parents are overworked? It turns out that children of middle-class parents with secure jobs are the happiest; yet, these jobs are disappearing. The traditional middle-income family is getting squeezed by globalization. Income inequality is rising steadily, with poor as well as rich living in pressure cookers; only the pots are different, the pressure is the same.

There is income stagnation in the developed countries, while the rich get richer and the rest is getting poorer. In contrast, wages are rising in the poorer countries across all income spectrums, yet with it, there is increased competition, loss of traditions and social values. Increased wealth seems to come at the expense of lost happiness in many other areas of life. Apparently an price to pay for industrialization.

Stress is on the rise and with it come diseases such as heart-problems, high blood pressure, diabetes and even memory loss. There are even reports that claim when you experience stress on a persistent basis, your system's ability to handle fear is breaking down. Panic attacks are the norm, as are psycho-therapy and the use of anti-depressants.

The bar is being raised, but that only means that you as an individual have to become more focussed. The 'system' encourages you to find yourself. It is no problem to be occasionally distracted when you are full of energy and can compensate for the loss in direction, but once your 'system' starts shutting down on you, you have to become focused as a laser to stay afloat. And there is the good news. Because once you start thinking about your priorities you find that they are love, creativity and self-expression. You suddenly find that your search for God has started for good. The journey towards wholeness and healing starts just because you have run into a wall before and now you need to pick up the pieces. Accept all the trends society and the global economy send your way - Love, happiness and God are waiting for you. I know this journey home can be confusing and hard at times, but we are here to help you find who you truly are.

Addiction - All in it Together

Why are we addicted to something? Everyone is searching for feelings that we know are our birthright: happiness, love, peace and safety. Yet, too often we experience anxiety, emptiness, loneliness and meaningless instead. An addiction starts because some artificial mean can provide us a temporary substitute, a short-lived bliss experience, an escape from our dreaded negative emotions.

Our mind cannot remain still - it is always running after something. While it is occupied, the mind feels good about whatever it is working on, but deep down inside we know that something is missing. Everything our mind clings to doesn't give us happiness, love or peace. So instinctively we want to put our mind to sleep. Alcohol can do this job just fine. As we drink, we suddenly feel very relaxed and enjoy the temporary relief of a quiet mind; but alas, once the impact fades, our crazy mind starts acting up again. A pattern will develop and we will reach for the bottle again and again until this habit will eventually run our life and we will feel like we are controlled by an external force. Once sober we feel even worse than before because the voice we wanted to shut up in the first place now beats us up over our digression instead. The cloud of emptiness gets bigger and we need larger and larger shots to get the same feeling of peace and bliss until one day we can't break free from that negative energy pattern any longer without help from others.

We all have the tendency to run away from our negative emotions or try repressing them by some external means. Facing them is hard: the anxiety, the fear, the lack of love or the emptiness. Addiction is just the end of the spectrum when you you have tried to bottle up all the demons inside only to find that they come back to haunt you with a vengeance. If you are addicted you will be more desperate than the rest of us, but the problem statement remains the same for everyone. Our mental crutches look more elegant, but everyone escapes something at some time; only few have the guts to face all the turmoils that are brewing deep inside.

We are all the same. We seek help from the external world to get what we think we need. For some this pattern is more constructive than drinking: people go hiking, exercising, hanging out with friends, working hard for success to quieten their fears, accumulating money to 'buy' safety for the future. Most of us are multi-faceted and most of the times we manage to heal our lives, with the occasional blind spot for our darkest fears or the occasional misstep when we project our fears and anger onto others. But then there are these occasions when people like you and I hit a wall; the problems become just too overwhelming to face them and our usual escape mechanisms break down. Addicted or not, a fork in the road is reached at these turning points and they are deeply spiritual in nature. You have not only the chance to turn your life around and become 'normal' again, but actually the potential to transcend to a much higher spiritual level. The downside though, you have to be willing to face your darkest fears at this holy moment.

So if you are addicted, understand that you have received a wake-up call that you delivered to yourself. You are not a loser, you are just a step away from a spiritual journey from which there is no turning back. Once you have faced your darkest fears you will in fact be a step ahead of many of the so-called normal folks. Sleighing the first monster is hard, but soon you realize that none of these monsters really exist. It doesn't matter which destructive pattern you might run after, alcohol, drugs, sex, gambling, medicine, video games - it is all the same. Perhaps you even need external help to climb out of the hole that you dug for yourself. That is ok, just remember that you are in fact a step ahead of many when you tackle your addictions now if afterwards you keep climbing along your self-discovery journey.

Becoming 'normal' again may sound appealing to you right now, but use your opportunity to aim higher than that. You are just one step away from becoming a spiritual traveler like us. We are not any different from you - all that we have figured out is that if you always like a heroine face the demon that comes your way, the lack of love, the restlessness, the emptiness will soon pass like dark rainclouds swept away by the bright sun. Life rewards you amply for sleighing our demons for the very reason that they don't exist. Look right past them and see for yourself that there is only love, peace and joy wherever you look.

Most of us start our journey when we come across something difficult to handle. We have discovered that no matter what, addiction, distractions, false desires, mind racing, etc., are all part of the same movie plot; the choice between the journey home or into nowhere; the choice between love and your ego. You are not a loser, you have set yourself up for this hard journey because deep down inside you know that you can tackle this wake-up call. Congratulations, your life is going to change soon in a way far beyond your comprehension. Truth of the matter is there are no 'ordinary' people; there are only people who choose love sometimes and those who choose love always. You can safely put your stimulants away; in the presence of love, peace, joy and safety, they will feel like stale idols indeed.

By Christian and Su-Zhen

Welcome the Pressure Cooker

For many a spiritual path implies a way to peace of mind. "You deserve",  the spiritual path traveller argues, "peace of mind all the time!" Well yes, once you are 'there' you can leave in eternal peace, but until then all you really can do is to contemplate how to get 'there'. How do you surrender to the Tao? How do you open yourself up to the new world that wants to meet you? Perhaps the pressure you experience reminds you of how full you still are of that force that you do not want to associate with. Recognize this force while the temperature is rising and you actually  can experience peace right here and now. Once you feel resistance know that this doesn't have to be so. Welcome the pressure cooker!

Professionally, I happen to work with financial markets and can recommend this job to any spiritual path traveller out there. Boy, this job keeps you humble! You feel tiny compared to these apparently incomprehensible forces that drive the markets. Never ever can you really claim success in your investment strategies because the next day already you can be caught on the wrong side of the trade. As you understand that you are drifting in a tiny boat in a giant ocean, there is suddenly freedom and calmness. Embrace the Tao moment by moment and the ego will have nothing to cling onto.