The Art of Coming Home

Jesus was fasting for 40 days in the desert. The devil appeared and asked him to turn stones into bread, but Jesus said, "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God." The devil then tempted him to change the power of gravity and lastly, to take over the world. In all cases Jesus declined and the devil was gone forever.
(New Testament)

If you run after possessions you run away from your True Self. Yet, if you don't allow yourself any luxuries, you may repress your intrinsic desires instead. And if you constantly run after sex you probably try to drown out the restlessness and emptiness inside; yet, by becoming a nun in the name of spirituality you may in fact be just be too afraid to face the lust that slumbers inside. The same with power. If you crave it you probably don't recognize the power that you already possess. Yet if you keep on turning the other cheek, as Jesus once demanded, you may in fact be afraid of the Clint Eastwood inside who wants to be expressed.

So where does that leave us? What are we to do if we are spiritual travelers? What is the True Self and what are nothing but repressed desires? There is in fact an easy reality check to know what is truly going on. As long as you perceive drive, greed, lust, avarice, anger, you have to deal with it. If you think you can just pray and meditate it away, you may be fooling yourself. Look for the authentic needs you can express with spiritually kosher means: a promotion at work that expresses your talents, a soul-partner who fulfills you sexually or perhaps even an open relationship. And what exactly prevents you from getting the house, vacation and hobbies of your dreams? This is your spiritual path; you find out what is kosher for you and what is not not. When you are where you want to be, peace will be with you; but until then, let life lead you to the expression of your True Self.

While peace and love is the ultimate measure of success, studying the demon who pops out every other full moon is the other. Why do we have anger fits on occasion? Why do we you experience emptiness and restlessness, and why do we at times do the opposite of what all the spiritual literature tells us to? Find the slumbering conflict inside that still hasn't entirely come to the surface. What authentic desire might we still not have granted ourselves? Instead of beating us up over it, we can very much try to understand what the demon wants.

The Art of Coming Home is the observation that there is a red thread right in front of us that helps us with our mission. Walking the Tao doesn't take the pain away that everyone else experiences. We have to adjust along the Way and change can be hard at times. We have to be entrepreneurial even though we may be averse to taking risks, and we certainly have to face all our fears. And sometimes we have to say no to what is meaningful to us. So while the pain is there, the rewards are bountiful. As we travel the Way, we feel how the pounds are dropping. We experience how our posture straitens and we realize how we become ever more light-hearted. Excess baggage that we have carried around for years is falling by the wayside. We travel light along the Tao and every step of the Way fulfills our authentic needs.

I started this note with Jesus' three temptations. All his temptations were about power. As we all know, Jesus ended up doing the opposite. He said no to the ego wherever he went and created a spiritual spark in half of humanity. That was his way of resolving his power struggle. What is yours? I am not saying that you have to become another Jesus - we already had one. Just become the whole, empowered and loving person that you are born to be in whatever niche that might be. Say no to your ego on some occasions, express your desires in others; try to understand what your demon wants from you. All of this is easy to accomplish, just dance with life. Peace and love may not always be with you, but ever more often as you walk the Way. Holding onto Her hand is a blissful journey indeed!

The Journey Towards Wholeness

The greatest challenge in life is discovering who you are. The second greatest is being happy with what you find.
(Quote from Spiritual Networks)

There are times when we are greedy, there are times when we are selfish and there are times when we are horny. We are human, period. Sure, we can aspire to be divine, to be all-loving and as innocent as children. However, fact of the matter remains that we still will be "here", contemplating how it would be if we were "there". And that's typically where the problem starts. There is a voice inside of us that beats us up if yet again we failed to be "there".

Accept these feelings inside just as they they are. Naturally, that doesn't mean you should take advantage of someone in order to advance professionally. It also doesn't mean that you need to stuff your face when you are hungry, or cheat on your soul mate when you have the opportunity to do so. All your acts can remain as spiritual conscious as they have always been, but still acknowledge the fire that burns inside; otherwise you are overlooking something on your journey towards wholeness.

I remember an interesting "aha moment" when I was in graduate school. I was playing a card game with my room-mate who was quite competitive. I remember becoming quite intense myself and always asked myself, "Why exactly is that? This is only a stupid card game!" I always blamed my competitive room-mate for igniting this reaction in me, but truth of the matter is that my interaction with her should have told me already then what I know today: a lion hides in that sheep that I had perceived. Today I see my life's mission in finding that wholesome personality that represents all aspects of my being. Just as it is described in the Garden of Eden, the lion lies peacefully next to the lamb.

Life makes you whole. Spirituality provides you with the mission statement but it is life that gets you there. Acknowledge all your inner tensions and do something creative and beautiful with it. This is the promise of your a Creator: suffering is meaningless; no matter what your conflicts, drives and desires may be, a door will always opens up for you designed to fulfill all your authentic needs. Life is here to show you who you truly are, and make you whole.

Perhaps the problem statement can be summed up that way: you have been on a quest towards holiness and minded all those reminders that you are human. Yet, when you look back and reflect on your past, you probably find that you have been on a subconscious journey towards wholeness all this time. Make it a conscious one by going after your authentic needs and discover that holiness is always near-by.

Mind the Dark Force

The spiritual community has made a big step forward by putting the God versus devil struggle a bit in the background and instead internalizing the divine as well as destructive force inside ourselves. The ego versus soul discussion has made this transition complete. Yet, we still feel something is missing. Does is really make sense to feel bad about our desires, the aspirations of what we want to have or what we want to be? Isn't there a good versus bad ego in us? Why can't we celebrate the innovative ways we find to express our desires while still operating in harmony with the cosmic design?

Anastasia (in the ringing cedars series) spoke of the dark force and this expression made a lot of sense to me since I feel its presence in me as well. No, it is not the desire that is the problem; the problem is that the existing dark force inside of us starts running with your desire and literally takes you for a ride. So I would differentiate the Cosmic force (the Tao), the self and the dark force to express the eternal struggle of good and evil inside of us. What do you think?