The Tao doesn't take sides;
It gives birth to both good and evil.
The Master doesn't take sides;
she welcomes both saints and sinners.
(Tao Te Ching)
How would you feel when someone implies that you are not attractive? What if you "accidentally" upset someone who is important to you? Or what if someone you love suddenly falls really sick? What if you have to deal with someone who is mean?
Walking the Tao does not shelter you from the yin and yang of life. Darkness and light necessitate each other. Often your spiritual journey starts in earnest because you can't take it anymore, because you are tired of running into a wall and you scream at the world and God "why me?", and for the first time that you can remember someone actually answers.
Walking the Tao is a journey of healing. The light shines away the darkness over time, fear is being replaced by peace, a foul mood turns into joy and laughter. When you read about the Tao you are likely to hear so much about the good stuff, the joys along the Way, the miracles, the synchronicity. Yet, a little darkness has to be part of the Way as well.
After we walk our spiritual path for a while, we unload most of the accumulated pain, we experience joy, happiness, love, goodness, beauty and light wherever we turn. In fact, we can become addicted to that feeling. So one day we will naturally realize that this good stuff is another kind of limitation as well. While we are on earth, Heaven on earth will have to be an utopia. This notion would reject suffering which is part of life. By portraying us as magician we would put ourselves above others which is simply not the case. We are all one.
With the realization that the yin and yang is part of life we manage to open ourselves up. We welcome everything, good and bad, with equanimity. We become vulnerable. No one expects you to suffer; no one wants you to be weak in the presence of evil, but please show respect and love for everything that She brings your Way. By being open to good and evil you become a true master. We suddenly let go of the notion of how things should be and we walk the Tao whole-heartedly, only to find that everything is perfect as is.
By Christian and Su Zhen
Showing posts with label Yin. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Yin. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 10, 2013
Sunday, September 8, 2013
Authentic Love and Authentic Power
I remember once a professor of moral philosophy asking, do we really have the right to look down on BDSM (the practice of sadomasochism)? After all, if one loves to get abused and the other is happy to abuse, who are we to judge them? Actually, I have a hunch that this is the direction that we as a society are taking anyway. Many of us "liberal" folks would say, well, if this is their notion of fun, so what. Some like it spicy and hot, some like it not.
Yet most spiritual travelers will also ask when it comes to BDSM, so where is the love in this stuff? That is certainly true, but where is the love in the stuff that we sometimes think, sometimes say and sometimes do? Yet, we think what we think, we say what we say and we do what you do anyway. Even if we were to repress the dark stuff in the name of spirituality, the negative energy wouldn't go away. It would just linger in the dark chambers of our being, ready to pop out once a blue moon. Fact of the matter is, we have to accept the yin and yang of life, the beauty as well as the perceived ugliness. We have to make our choices, have to let life define the notion we have of ourselves.
You may say, but what about self-improvement. Sure, you can put yourself in a different environment. Sure, you can hang out with new friends, and sure you can learn to say more positive things. But understand as you are trying to become a better you, you naturally will violate something deep inside that minds what is going on. A spiritual path is really a desire to be free and a desire to experience love wherever we are. Sure, you have the right to look for Heaven on earth, and you know what, you are sure to find it as well. Where there is a will, there always is a way. We even have a name for it - Tao. Life is designed to bring you home, back to the Source.
Yet, as sure as there is a Tao, as sure it is that you will stumble at times. You walk towards the light and your demon forces you to take a step back; you step out of the light and your angel encourages you to choose love instead. No matter what you to, the yin and yang of your soul will follow.
Taoism is this study of yin and yang. A step towards darkness is viewed as such, just as a step towards light is viewed as exactly that. A Tao master would state matter-of-factly that many of the the submission fetishists are people who use power excessively in their day-to-day operations. You find judges, police, business executives, college deans. So they just play out yin symbolically in their sex lives to compensate for all the yang that happens in their day to day activities. You may find that repulsive, but it is as it is.
Walking the Tao sets you up for the optimal experience of love and spiritual maturity. Be mindful of everything you do, say, react to, in the same way as you observe everything that is going on in your environment. Monitor but judge not. Let the yin and yang of psychology unfold to the fullest moment by moment so that you will be free of conflicting energies when you come home at night. Draw the sword once in a while when it is necessary and push back when you face unreasonable demands. Don't wish to be good, figure out a way of living that allows you to be good! I have no advice to give you how you should live your life, I just claim that authentic power and authentic love are always at your disposal. Empower yourself and enjoy the love that always surrounds you.
Yet most spiritual travelers will also ask when it comes to BDSM, so where is the love in this stuff? That is certainly true, but where is the love in the stuff that we sometimes think, sometimes say and sometimes do? Yet, we think what we think, we say what we say and we do what you do anyway. Even if we were to repress the dark stuff in the name of spirituality, the negative energy wouldn't go away. It would just linger in the dark chambers of our being, ready to pop out once a blue moon. Fact of the matter is, we have to accept the yin and yang of life, the beauty as well as the perceived ugliness. We have to make our choices, have to let life define the notion we have of ourselves.
You may say, but what about self-improvement. Sure, you can put yourself in a different environment. Sure, you can hang out with new friends, and sure you can learn to say more positive things. But understand as you are trying to become a better you, you naturally will violate something deep inside that minds what is going on. A spiritual path is really a desire to be free and a desire to experience love wherever we are. Sure, you have the right to look for Heaven on earth, and you know what, you are sure to find it as well. Where there is a will, there always is a way. We even have a name for it - Tao. Life is designed to bring you home, back to the Source.
Yet, as sure as there is a Tao, as sure it is that you will stumble at times. You walk towards the light and your demon forces you to take a step back; you step out of the light and your angel encourages you to choose love instead. No matter what you to, the yin and yang of your soul will follow.
Taoism is this study of yin and yang. A step towards darkness is viewed as such, just as a step towards light is viewed as exactly that. A Tao master would state matter-of-factly that many of the the submission fetishists are people who use power excessively in their day-to-day operations. You find judges, police, business executives, college deans. So they just play out yin symbolically in their sex lives to compensate for all the yang that happens in their day to day activities. You may find that repulsive, but it is as it is.
Walking the Tao sets you up for the optimal experience of love and spiritual maturity. Be mindful of everything you do, say, react to, in the same way as you observe everything that is going on in your environment. Monitor but judge not. Let the yin and yang of psychology unfold to the fullest moment by moment so that you will be free of conflicting energies when you come home at night. Draw the sword once in a while when it is necessary and push back when you face unreasonable demands. Don't wish to be good, figure out a way of living that allows you to be good! I have no advice to give you how you should live your life, I just claim that authentic power and authentic love are always at your disposal. Empower yourself and enjoy the love that always surrounds you.
Monday, March 11, 2013
Sex and Spirituality: The Dance of Yin and Yang
You probably have found for yourself, when it comes to sex, men and woman are quite different. As they say, men are from Mars while women are from Venus. We are wired differently biologically, we role-play differently, we are powered by different hormones. Men are yang energy while women are yin. Men are inherently assertive, direct and to the point; men represent an outgoing energy. Women are receptive, consensus building and emotionally more intelligent; women symbolize the ingoing energy. Yet in all the differences men and woman are the same in that they aspire to find out who they truly are, away from the norms of the society and even away from the notions of religion and spirituality. Yin and yang energies are part of a homecoming journey. When they truly express themselves they will always find love and wholeness in the process.
You can to be in harmony with yourself; you can be in tune with your nature and sex drive. Unfortunately society has expectations about how this dance of yin and yang should look like, as have our spiritual leaders. If you are a man, perhaps you criticize yourself for your urge to chase women; perhaps you mind that you "always want it". Man's sexual nature tends to be more aggressive and that may be be hard to accept especially if this view conflicts with your notion of spirituality. We don’t mean to imply that you should do whatever you want to do, but try to express yourself in the bedroom the way you truly are and not how you want to be. You will learn a lot in the process. Sexual repression doesn't help yin, it doesn't help yang and may also not help God much. Men are attractive to women when they display their "nature". When men embrace their masculinity they are affirmative, active, assertive and strong. The same principles apply to women as well. When a woman is in tune with her feminine side she will become most attractive to a man. She is tender and gentle, passive, colorful, loving and beautiful. She embraces her body and is tune with her hormonal fluctuations.
As a rule of thumb, whenever you are aware of who you are, when you are in tune with your nature, you will be in harmony with yourself, with life and with the Tao. But whenever you have opinions about yourself, whenever you try to be what society or your notion of spirituality tells you, you are in conflict with yourself, your bedroom partner and the Tao.
Sexy men and women are those who are aware of their nature and are in harmony with themselves. They naturally attract more people to their life because that is how Tao works. The Tao is an energy exchange and if you open up to your true nature you activate every ounce of energy within yourself. You can observe that when the opposite sex meet with each other, the women becomes even more feminine while the men become more masculine. That is how the energy balance works. In this way, they are attracted to each other and complement and help each other to fulfill their respective roles. Both sexes need each other to become whole.
When men and women meet each other and become one, they re-experience and rediscover the taste of oneness with God. When they love each other, devote themselves to each other and forget about themselves, they are in the Now - they travel the Tao. As a matter of fact, it can't get any more spiritual than that. There only is the Now, and the dance of yin and yang gets you there. You experience true love, harmony and creation. The biologists are right in their view that the "selfish gene" works hard in the background to propagate itself. But this is only part of the story. The other part is that the Tao works with this drive and leads you straight to love, to wholeness and with it, to God.
Yin and yang will always be a dance of different energies. This even holds true with homosexuality. When two partners of the same gender meet in the bedroom, someone will be passive and someone assertive, someone will be yin and someone yang. It takes two to tango and in this dance someone will always lead while someone will follow, just as in the bedroom someone tends to lie on top, while someone will be on the receiving end of this sexual energy. That is the eternal dance of yin and yang.
However, don't confuse aggression with assertiveness and don't mix abuse with submission.The dance of yin and yang holds the ticket to manifesting love. If you use the creative powers of sex to throw - symbolically or real - dirt on love, you will cut into your own power base and you will naturally deviate from the Tao. Have a look at pornography and see the ego symbols at display in most of them. Instead of a merger of souls it becomes a battle of body parts. The power of men over women is an ongoing theme that the ego gets exited about. They say that once the power of love transcends the love of power, (wo)man will be God. Make this your spiritual yardstick for everything and say consciously no to the power game when it conflicts with respect and love for your partner.
Discovering the love for power in pornography is not hard to do and, as a rule, men fall more easily into this trap than women to. Yet women are also at risk to fall into the power trap, beautifully ornamented by the appearance of love. Women are attracted by status and by looks. Men go out and conquor the world while women go out and conquer the men who conquer the world. Women are in love with the "alpha male" , the top male in looks, sports, entertainment, business, politics or society and they find all kind of reasons for themselves why it is not about power, but about love instead. If you use your body to get something you are neglecting your soul and you violate the spiritual harmony that way. But you know what, fall in love with whoever you think you love, and use your body however you like. TheTao will always show you the way to true love. Some relationships will lead to marriages, some marriages will lead to soul partnerships. You may "fall in love" for the wrong reasons, but life will always give you a change to heal and be healed. Don't condemn the "selfish gene", just observe and adjust and let the Tao lead you straight to true love and with it to God.
Enjoy the dance of yin and yang, and enjoy it in the bedroom as well. Find the true sexual expression of who you are and overcome the rules of society and your own notions of how yin and yang should behave. Let your body teach you who you are and not your mind. But don't get enslaved by your passion. Observe your ego in action and be mindful when the ego wants to throw dirt on love. Discover for yourself that we can understand our biological roots and our evolutionary strive for power. Be mindful of the chemicals in your brain that get released as you start the physical dance of yin and yang, the hormones that drive your actions and your mood, and the blood that is rushing through your system.
Power symbols may show up in the bedroom, aggression may meet submission in the bedroom at both party's delight. You have to accept what turns you on, yet understand that this just reflects a power imbalance in the rest of your life. Find out the authentic need expressed by your demon in the bedroom and work on it. Perhaps it is a wake-up call to be more assertive in your interactions, perhaps it is a reminder to ease up a little and to get in touch with your feminine side. Your bedroom can help you find who you truly are. Enjoy the dance of yin and yang, embrace sexual healing and find out for yourself how the power of love can replace the love of power.
This note is part of " A Demon in the Bedroom" series. Please also look for
You can to be in harmony with yourself; you can be in tune with your nature and sex drive. Unfortunately society has expectations about how this dance of yin and yang should look like, as have our spiritual leaders. If you are a man, perhaps you criticize yourself for your urge to chase women; perhaps you mind that you "always want it". Man's sexual nature tends to be more aggressive and that may be be hard to accept especially if this view conflicts with your notion of spirituality. We don’t mean to imply that you should do whatever you want to do, but try to express yourself in the bedroom the way you truly are and not how you want to be. You will learn a lot in the process. Sexual repression doesn't help yin, it doesn't help yang and may also not help God much. Men are attractive to women when they display their "nature". When men embrace their masculinity they are affirmative, active, assertive and strong. The same principles apply to women as well. When a woman is in tune with her feminine side she will become most attractive to a man. She is tender and gentle, passive, colorful, loving and beautiful. She embraces her body and is tune with her hormonal fluctuations.
As a rule of thumb, whenever you are aware of who you are, when you are in tune with your nature, you will be in harmony with yourself, with life and with the Tao. But whenever you have opinions about yourself, whenever you try to be what society or your notion of spirituality tells you, you are in conflict with yourself, your bedroom partner and the Tao.
Sexy men and women are those who are aware of their nature and are in harmony with themselves. They naturally attract more people to their life because that is how Tao works. The Tao is an energy exchange and if you open up to your true nature you activate every ounce of energy within yourself. You can observe that when the opposite sex meet with each other, the women becomes even more feminine while the men become more masculine. That is how the energy balance works. In this way, they are attracted to each other and complement and help each other to fulfill their respective roles. Both sexes need each other to become whole.
When men and women meet each other and become one, they re-experience and rediscover the taste of oneness with God. When they love each other, devote themselves to each other and forget about themselves, they are in the Now - they travel the Tao. As a matter of fact, it can't get any more spiritual than that. There only is the Now, and the dance of yin and yang gets you there. You experience true love, harmony and creation. The biologists are right in their view that the "selfish gene" works hard in the background to propagate itself. But this is only part of the story. The other part is that the Tao works with this drive and leads you straight to love, to wholeness and with it, to God.
Yin and yang will always be a dance of different energies. This even holds true with homosexuality. When two partners of the same gender meet in the bedroom, someone will be passive and someone assertive, someone will be yin and someone yang. It takes two to tango and in this dance someone will always lead while someone will follow, just as in the bedroom someone tends to lie on top, while someone will be on the receiving end of this sexual energy. That is the eternal dance of yin and yang.
However, don't confuse aggression with assertiveness and don't mix abuse with submission.The dance of yin and yang holds the ticket to manifesting love. If you use the creative powers of sex to throw - symbolically or real - dirt on love, you will cut into your own power base and you will naturally deviate from the Tao. Have a look at pornography and see the ego symbols at display in most of them. Instead of a merger of souls it becomes a battle of body parts. The power of men over women is an ongoing theme that the ego gets exited about. They say that once the power of love transcends the love of power, (wo)man will be God. Make this your spiritual yardstick for everything and say consciously no to the power game when it conflicts with respect and love for your partner.
Discovering the love for power in pornography is not hard to do and, as a rule, men fall more easily into this trap than women to. Yet women are also at risk to fall into the power trap, beautifully ornamented by the appearance of love. Women are attracted by status and by looks. Men go out and conquor the world while women go out and conquer the men who conquer the world. Women are in love with the "alpha male" , the top male in looks, sports, entertainment, business, politics or society and they find all kind of reasons for themselves why it is not about power, but about love instead. If you use your body to get something you are neglecting your soul and you violate the spiritual harmony that way. But you know what, fall in love with whoever you think you love, and use your body however you like. TheTao will always show you the way to true love. Some relationships will lead to marriages, some marriages will lead to soul partnerships. You may "fall in love" for the wrong reasons, but life will always give you a change to heal and be healed. Don't condemn the "selfish gene", just observe and adjust and let the Tao lead you straight to true love and with it to God.
Enjoy the dance of yin and yang, and enjoy it in the bedroom as well. Find the true sexual expression of who you are and overcome the rules of society and your own notions of how yin and yang should behave. Let your body teach you who you are and not your mind. But don't get enslaved by your passion. Observe your ego in action and be mindful when the ego wants to throw dirt on love. Discover for yourself that we can understand our biological roots and our evolutionary strive for power. Be mindful of the chemicals in your brain that get released as you start the physical dance of yin and yang, the hormones that drive your actions and your mood, and the blood that is rushing through your system.
Power symbols may show up in the bedroom, aggression may meet submission in the bedroom at both party's delight. You have to accept what turns you on, yet understand that this just reflects a power imbalance in the rest of your life. Find out the authentic need expressed by your demon in the bedroom and work on it. Perhaps it is a wake-up call to be more assertive in your interactions, perhaps it is a reminder to ease up a little and to get in touch with your feminine side. Your bedroom can help you find who you truly are. Enjoy the dance of yin and yang, embrace sexual healing and find out for yourself how the power of love can replace the love of power.
This note is part of " A Demon in the Bedroom" series. Please also look for
"Sex, Love and Power"
" Don't Confuse Mind Sex with Mind-Blowing Sex"
http://zeitgeistinma.blogspot.com/2013/03/dont-confuse-mind-sex-with-mind-blowing.html
By Christian and Su Zhen
By Christian and Su Zhen
Saturday, August 13, 2011
Transcending the Yin and Yang
Imagine a ball and you slice it with a long sharp knife into many, many two dimensional circles. The yin and yang of life is contained in each circle slice. There is a sex circle, a wealth circle, the power circle, and so forth. Within each circle you will never get anywhere since the bigger the ying, the more forceful the yang is bound to be. But once you transcend these circles in a different dimension, you will leave these forces behind. Transcending means leaving behind. You use the energy of the yin versus yang to propel yourself along a different dimension. As you move forward, you leave these forces behind like an old skin. Happy slicing!
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