The Best of all Worlds

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

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

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

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

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

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


By Christian and Su Zhen

On Faith

Since I am a Numerologist, I took six business cards for a meeting today just because the Number of the Day happens to be 6. When I put them into my suit pocket, I discovered that there already were business cards in it, and when I counted them I realized that exactly 6 were lying inside. The message of the Tao in this case is pretty clear: everything you think you need, you already have. Do not worry about anything!

The Law of Attraction folks tell you the modern version of Jesus' claim 'if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, move from here to there and it will move.' The question of course, how do you get the faith that it does? Maybe it is helpful to turn the story line around. The trick is to find out that this world that looks so real to you simply doesn't exist the way you perceive it. This is something you can experience very much for yourself. I have noticed this in my interactions with others. To my surprise, as I changed my thinking about them, their behavior changed with it. Everything that you experience is an outcome of your belief structure.

'Nothing real can be threatened, nothing unreal exists. Herein lies God's peace', the Course in Miracles claims. Make this thesis your working hypothesis. Everything you see and experience in this world is a perfect opportunity for you to heal. You want something, while others want something else. Find the Path of the Golden Middle - the Tao - that works for everyone. You don't need faith at all to test this hypothesis, just try it. Your thesis is, everything is perfect as is if only I let all the parts interact the way they are supposed to. You can try that anywhere, at home as well as at work. How difficult is it to have faith in something that happens to you over and over again? Take the first step and let the Tao do the rest. Your faith will strengthen along the Way.

You Are a Hero

When the Global Financial Crisis broke out in 2008, my colleague told me a funny story. He said that he must have looked a little pale when he went to work on the day Lehman Brothers went under because his wife said to him, 'Why do you look so depressed? You should feel like a soldier who finally has the opportunity to prove himself in battle!' Well, little did I know then that I would be that soldier who had to march against forces that seemed larger than life. My spiritual journey started in earnest around that time and the first few steps seemed scary. No matter where I looked, at home, at work, everywhere really, monsters seemed to pop out of dark corners. In retrospect, these monsters have always been around, but for the first time I took them all head-on. Life makes you a hero, and as each experienced Tao traveler knows, you set yourself up for it, so just do what you were born to do.

All the monsters were all smokescreens in the end. Life can turn a little theatrical on you just to force you to make a decision. Left or right - you are bombarded with endless choices until one fine day you get the hang of it. Choose love is the imperative and when in doubt, experience how the Tao makes the conclusion as plain to you as 1 2 3; but a little struggle you have to expect in the beginning just because you still have psychological baggage to throw overboard. A snake that shakes off her old skin has to wiggle a little, right?

I also was never alone. When your spiritual journey signs you up for something, giants will walk next to you as you will soon discover for yourself. Expect help just in the nick of time, even from your so-perceived enemies. You will learn along your journey that every voice matters - loud or soft, intimidating or hesitant, friendly or rude. The Tao leads you beyond good or evil. Your story will also have a meaningful ending for you just because the ending was written eons before you were born. Whatever happens will propel you to the next spiritual level. There is nothing to fear; an experienced Tao traveler is not even afraid of fear itself because it simply doesn't exist if you don't believe that it does.

Freedom of Choice

If I asked you what the square root of 1 is you might say it is 1, since 1 multiplied with itself is 1. Some of you might also say it is -1 because the same can be said for this answer. Actually, I once read a book on imaginary numbers in which the author claimed that it might be a good analogy for the spiritual realm, but I leave this discussion up for a different day.

I want to discuss faith instead. This is a concept which is hard to accept; we want to see things in the modern world not just blindly trust in some scriptures or tradition. I am a scientist by training so I have some understanding for this view. Yet, I would argue that you can very much penetrate and experience the world that our ancients talk about, it is just impossible to prove its existence to someone who doesn't want to embrace this perspective. Let me give you an example. Say that you see meaning in numbers, meaning in text sequences that you encounter wherever you go. To you they contain coded messages from the 'beyond', hand-picked and delivered just for you at this holy moment. Our scientists will tell you that you are fooling yourself; they will tell you that your brain is wired to find meaning in randomness. I tell you that both views are correct; anyone could perceive the holy world as well, but unfortunately faith precedes the perception. If your scientific mind feels violated by that statement, I would like to remind you that every scientific discovery starts out with a creative conjecture. Consider yourself a scientist who gives the faith hypothesis a shot and is willing to look herself with an open mind. I tell you that everything you see satisfies your mind as well as your heart in the spiritual realm.

The point is that you can only discover the world behind our experienced reality for yourself; sure, you can try to give pointers to your soul brother very much as I try to do right now, but a rational minded scientist will always be able to give you a counterpoint which of course will be logical. So there is no point in having a God debate. This debate is as useless as discussing whether 1 or -1 is the solution to our math problem. When you experience one world, you eclipse the other. God gave us the freedom of choice; no one can be forced to experience oneness yet everyone who looks for it can see it clearly for herself.






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Faith and Truth

Truth is real in its own right, and to believe in truth you do not have to do anything.
A Course in Miracles

When my wife was at graduate school she wore a t-shirt that greatly amused me. It showed a giant blackboard with complicated formulas written on it, and two professors were standing in front of it. The one professor highlights a break in the formula on which it is written 'and then a miracle happens' and then says to the other, 'I guess you need to be a little bit more explicit in this step'.

Religion is the conjecture of the 'I' that the sky is the limit to our spiritual development. There is nothing wrong with that approach. Every researcher has to do the same thing to experience scientific break-throughs of any sort. It is useful to be dreaming, it is just not ok to shut your eyes to reality if the evidence that you expect doesn't show up. 'By their fruit ye shall recognize them and they shall know themselves', the Bible says. Truth is something that the Tao will show you; open your eyes and see for yourself what happens. 

The Moses Challenge

What a daunting task: you have led your people in freedom. 600 000 souls trust you, have accepted you as a savior and there you are, trapped by the water and the incoming Egyptian army. When Moses raised his magic staff, nothing happened. It seemed as if his magic powers had left him for the first time. Moses put his staff down,  took the hand of his sister and they both jumped into the water. Behold, the water parted.

If Moses was able to perform a miracle, why wouldn't you. How much easier is your task, because you can create instead rather than destroy as he had to. I wouldn't have had the faith that God is on the side of the Jews and that He stands ready to destroy the Egyptian army. I have however the faith that I have the creative powers to heal, to become whole, to be mastering any situation the Tao brings my way. I have the faith to be lifted up by my brothers and sisters as I lift them up. Stepping out of slavery is a bloody business, I am happy that this journey has already been completed for so many of us. Now comes the much easier task, the task of accepting our Sonship. The task is to show that we already have, that we are all one. To show this is not really a miracle, it is just showing reality as is, rather than remembering the twisted perceptions we once had. Accept the Moses challenge, you can do it.

A Scientific Inquiry into God

The philosopher Karl Popper came up with the black swan example. You can test the hypothesis that 'all swans are white'. Just keep on looking until you find one which isn't. In fact, as it turns out there are black ones, so so much about the hypothesis. 

A God debate is meaningless since the construct of the universe that you perceive mentally has been established  as a multiple equilibrium outcome. Believe in the randomness of the universe and your separation from everyone and you will be proven right, believe in Oneness and the idea that the universe is a learning device established just for you to bring you home and you will be right too. The point is that everything that you perceive goes through your mind. You are the creator of the world around you and you have the choice to just decide which world exists in 'reality'.

If you discuss with someone whether  -1 or 1 is the solution to the problem 1 = X times X, you will both discover that both solutions quality. The person who zooms in on -1 cannot criticize the one who picks 1 instead. The God hypothesis has to be lived and only you will know whether eventually a black swan shows up which will then induce you to go with the atheism hypothesis instead.

Many spiritual searchers ask how exactly does one get the faith to start looking for God? You know how a scientist tests a hypothesis, she starts with the assumption that the hypothesis is correct, looks at everything through these lenses and then dismisses the hypothesis when the evidence doesn't line up. So how exactly can one make the existence of God and the prevalence of Oneness a working hypothesis and truly believe in it until proven otherwise? A couple of ways. The religious way would be to study the examples of the historic Sons and Daughters who have walked this earth. If you are convinced that their experience has been real, you will trust that you can achieve the same. And then there is the way of the Tao, which has been my journey. The metaphysical world stretches out a hand towards you and the more you reposition yourself to the Source, the deeper and stronger this divine connection becomes.

 I have seen the Tao, but my word counts as much as the one of the atheist who claims that God is nothing but a mental delusion. This is your scientific inquiry. Give the God hypothesis a shot, and my claim is that the metaphysical evidence will soon present itself with overwhelming clarity.

Doubt

Every quarter I write an investment letter to our clients and I effectively have been doing that for many many years. Still, each quarter there is a day of mental anguish: "what if I have nothing worthwhile to say this time around, what if my writing style is not up to the mark?" This is what the mind does, it doubts and worries. While these persistent doubts are just annoying, I think the spiritual path traveler can actually learn something from them. This institution in your head that worries and doubts is the one you like to monitor, so when in doubt, there is your opportunity to be aware of what is going on in your mind. Faith is the realization that the same movie with only slight variations is plotting along every day and that based on your experience a helping hand is always out there. Most likely whatever happens today will be just perfect, and if not, a learning opportunity is around the corner and that situation will be ok too. Psalm 23 comes to mind:

 The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.
2 He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.
3 He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.
4 Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
5 Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.
6 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever.

The Spiritual Experiment

Richard Dawkins, the author of 'The God Delusion' once wrote that he could never accept the jump of faith in a God and I understand where he is coming from. Many modern day people struggle with this concept. Still, I would point out that all scientist make the same jump when they test a new hypothesis. They imagine it was true and then see whether reality is holding up to this new point of view.

Those of us who have not experienced God can only listen to the descriptions of those who claim they have. They say that the world we are living in exists if we believe in it, but folds like a Matrix once you have managed to step outside of it. The spiritual path traveler will make oneness as her working hypothesis, will experiment with this new concept for a few years and then see whether the perceived 'reality' merges with this new concept. I want to invite you to start this journey with me. It is like driving a car to the belt of a car wash and once you have heard a click just letting go of the steering wheel. Yes, 'magic' is bound to happen along the way, but life will get you to this point; you can keep your scientific mind set in the interim.

Vivekananda described how the rishis in India first discovered their spiritual insights many thousands of years ago. It sounded like they were discovering their yoga techniques like scientists and based on their experiences described the state beyond. Just imagine how far we can get today if the spiritual path travelers of this world start comparing notes in today's interconnected world. 

Faith

Richard Dawkins, the famous author of the Selfish Gene, once said that as a scientist he would never subscribe to anything that required a leap of faith. I understand where he is coming from and for me this attitude separates spirituality from religion. On a spiritual path you are led by a force that you can observe and study, and this force takes you to a higher spiritual plane. But eventually you have reached a point where you have constructed a way of perceiving this metaphysical force when you actually make this leap of faith and embrace it completely. To Richard Dawkins I would point out that every scientist who discovers a new way of looking at this world has to do the same. Of course, the spiritual path traveler has to be as honest as the scientist to admit afterwards if the observed experience doesn't stand up to the mental construct. But at this brief moment of testing your hypothesis, you have to have Dido's mindset:

I will go down with this ship
And I won't put my hands up and surrender
There will be no white flag above my door
I'm in love and always will be.

Dido, White Flag