Discover Love in Everything

 

A few days a couple of writers distributed this chart in slightly different forms in the Spiritual Networks community. One claimed it was taken from the Judeo-Christian framework while the other claimed it was Taoism. Unfortunately we spiritual travelers often only see a hierarchy in this concept. We look down on the desires of the body; we at best tolerate the longings of the soul; and we run after that illusive Self that somehow has to be realized. We believe that we can will ourselves to God but mostly discover that life doesn't quite work that way.

The way of the Tao is to experience the yin and yang of life without getting lost in it. Every moment is an opportunity to see and experience what truly is and not what appears to be. Our body was given to us to experience the divine Matrix and to discover our Self. Life is tailored perfectly so that we can express the longings of our soul. Emotions come and go; some point the Way while others are distracting.Thoughts sometimes pollute us, and sometimes bring beautiful insights. The longings of the body are sometimes in the Way and sometimes are the Way.

Our will can be used to cut out interferences. Actually, when you experience the Way you don't have to will a thing, everything is magically connected and taken care of. Along the Way we have a natural interplay of body, soul and Self. There are times when we see the Christ in our interactions; there are times when we see the divine Mother and there are also times when we merge with our divine Lover. Body, soul and Self can be in holy communion every step of the Way and this communion can certainly include sex. Writes Osho, "Tantra loves, and loves unconditionally. It never says no to anything whatsoever, because everything is part of the whole. And everything has its own place in the whole and the whole cannot exist with anything missing from it." 

Discover love in everything - realize your Self with your body and soul!

When the Observer Holds the Reins

Walking a spiritual path is about learning how to get in harmony with all our experiences, whether they might be physical or emotional, or whether they happen on a spiritual or an intellectual level.

To be in harmony requires to be completely present at this special moment. We feel our body, we perceive our emotions, we hear our thoughts and we are connected with our spirit. All this happens at a time when we are completely immersed in the occurrence of the moment. To say that we have an information overload would be putting it mildly - we are one with the Flow when all that just melts into one feeling of lasting connectedness.

There is an observer at work when your agenda fades into the background. Everyone has to have an agenda, that is what the concept of the "I" is all about. Before we walked the Way we perceived and felt things differently. With tunnel vision you just zoom into the stuff you want to get out of a situation. But in doing so you often overlook things that the "I" considers as non-essential, though a spiritual traveler would tell you they matter a lot! The tunnel vision also often puts you out of touch with your emotions, body and spirit.

The agenda of a spiritual traveler is not to have one. Over and over we have learned that tunnel vision brings trouble. Again and again we realize that we cannot really root for something given that we ourselves don't really know what constitutes "good" and "bad". When we get in tune with our body, emotions and spirit, we feel the situation we are in and the thoughts become a conclusion rather than a precursor of the situation we aspire to be in. When the observer holds the reins, the Self is projecting Itself through us. Whenever this connection is there, we feel peaceful and harmonious and we are sure to walk the Way.

By Christian and Su Zhen

Meditation and True Self

There are so many things that we identify with, like our body, something our parents may have said about us, our perceived attractiveness or lack thereof, our role as parents or children, our social status or profession, our emotions, and so much more. All these identifications are subject to change. The young beautiful girl will eventually become old and lose her physical attractiveness. The powerful manager will one day be over the hill. Your status will vanish when you get fired or someone else becomes the new hot shot in your company or your community. You work hard to keep your position, but the fear that you one day might lose it all will remain. People with low confidence and perceived weaknesses might fall into the trap that their lack of confidence makes the negative outcome self-fulfilling. They might keep looking for evidence to prove that they are victims of life, or they might with hard work and the help of positive psychology turn their life around. All along they will identify with some role, be it that of a loser or a rising star.

Sooner or later every role will be transformed. While the mother will always identify with her role, it will still be hard for her to accept when her children grow up and move out. All ego roles are fleeting in nature and we are here to learn that we are not any of that. You are not your changing emotions, whether it is happiness or sadness, whether it is exuberance or depression. You are neither a boy, nor a middle-aged man. You are not your thoughts, not your fantasies and not your desires; the list can go on and on. Life will teach you eventually that you are not any of that, but you can take a short-cut and come to this realization here and now. In meditation you get a glimpse of who you truly are. When your thoughts come to a standstill you can liberate yourself from all the prisons you have created for yourself and merge with the Source. At this blissful moment you get a taste for who you truly are.

By Su Zhen



Sent from my iPad

Standing Tall

About ten years ago my father in law introduced me to golf. I took a few practice lessons and had the most amazing insight, my posture was off. Before I could hit the ball the way I was supposed to, I first had to practice how to stand straight! Well, while my golf game had to wait just because our two boys were born shortly afterwards and there hasn't been much time to play afterwards, I have managed to work on my posture and can finally report that I managed to straighten my spine.Yes, there was some back muscle building involved and I also lost some weight which helped with the posture; and then there were many, many hours of walking and standing upright despite the fact that this posture felt artificial. Perhaps most important of all, I changed my frame of mind. For me a hunched over posture is a symbol of having the world on one's shoulders. The Tao now shoulders a lot of my weight, I just show up for work, day in, day out.

Have you ever noticed how straight children walk? It indeed would be sad to see children who already feel the weight of the world on their shoulders. Your body reflects your state of mind. As you change your state of mind, so does your body change with it. Do you know that within every seven years your body completely replaces itself? Just imagine the possibility to sculpture your body! Erich Fromm once said that after 40 you are responsible for your face. I would add that just as you managed to pick some psychological baggage up, you always have the option to throw it overboard. Change your mind, change your body with it.

Fighting Your Inner Demons (Continued)

He was a fairly liberal spiritual aspirant and somehow always minded that he was balding. So he signed up for a hair-transplant. When he told his mother about it he was surprised that she seemed to mind. 'Son', she said, 'you have to accept your genes'. The night before the operation he banged his toe into a door and, and like magic, the swelling of the toe only receded when his scalp had healed. 'Oh, it is a message of the Tao to stop hurting myself',  he thought. He promptly canceled the follow up operation.

What do you make of this story? Contrast that to one where a spiritual aspirant finally manages to beat his alcohol addiction. In this case you are fighting for the light, it is very hard work, but the direction is clear to you. If you make it and beat the addiction you will finally have a shot at being whole. In contrast, the case of the plastic surgery is the opposite. The resistance is coming from your super ego, here represented by the voice of the mother 'you are not allowed to tinker with your body' or the voice of God represented by the swollen toe 'you are hurting yourself'. Truth of the matter is that you are fighting your inner demons in both cases. In the plastic surgery case you are tinkering with your perceived dark side, while in the addiction case you try to rid yourself from your demons.

The question really is which authority has caused you to injure your toe? Of course it was a subconscious accident, but then, most spiritual path traveler agree that there are no accidents. It was the perceived holy side in you that minded. But then, if it minds, perhaps it is not so holy after all. I remember once having a 'Conversations with God' type of exchange with myself over one of my darker desires and I heard God's advice on the matter and everything this voice said was right, yet, it sounded harsh. It was then that I realized that I had an exchange with my super ego. Don't get me wrong, I am not saying that there is no God, all I am saying is that at the end of the day you are responsible for your choices. The Tao is here to tell you what implications your choices have, but you are the only authority in this universe who has the right and the duty to define who you really are.

Consciousness

You are the one who hears the voice in your head, Michael Singer says in 'The Untethered Soul'. Wow, what a concept!  Take your body for example, please run a little experiment and have a look at your body right now. Step in front of a large mirror if you have one. Have a look at your hair, your face, your entire body and listen to what the voice in your head says. Is the voice expressing any criticism anywhere? Perhaps too little hair on the head or too much hair elsewhere, too much fat in some areas or too little in others, perhaps something is wrong with your face? Just listen to the voice in your head and perhaps you are able to step outside of yourself at this moment and listen to the opinion of an important person in your life, but not really you. If you manage to do that than at this precious moment you have met 'I Am'.

You might say what happens if you love everything you see. Not much, I would think, how would you be able to observe that something is wrong with the picture when everything is as should be? Normally, when we observe that something is wrong we take action to get back to the harmonious state: we start a diet, we hit the gym, we live and eat better, we sign up for plastic surgery. Who is the authority who takes charge and does something to change the picture. It is the same institution as the voice in the head, isn't it? So it appears the 'I Am' can only appear if either the mind is still, or if somehow you manage to step outside of yourself and observe the 'I' complaining or taking charge.

I hope you observe as well that when you hear the voice that response to the voice of criticism and says "I must not be so vain,I need to accept myself as I am, or I should not consider plastic surgery,  you are still dealing with the same voice in your head which takes issue with the first voice in the head. No, the consciousness 'I Am' just perceives the voice and the plan of action, but otherwise there is stillness.