A Sign and A Conversation with God

Self-posssessed, resolute, act without any thought of results, open to success or failure. This equanimity is yoga.
(Lord Krishna, Bhagavad Gita)

Albert-Laslo Barabasi in his book 'Bursts' told a fascinating story about the freedom fighter Gyorgy Szekely who rose ranks from a nobody to knighthood when he slay an Ottoman war hero in a battle of Hungarian forces with the Ottomans in Belgrade during the medieval times. The church wanted to start another holy war against the Muslims to free Constantinople and chose Gyorgy Szekely to lead an army, mostly consisting of peasants, to march against the Ottoman forces. This was a break with tradition in many ways. Knights received special privileges for the promise to fight wars, so it was a new step to involve large forces of poorly equipped peasants. The aristocracy was in fact worried that if you arm the suppressed, they might use the opportunity to start a revolt. This was exactly what happened after a small army of Hungarian knights eradicated an outpost of Gyorgy Szekely's peasant army. Furious, he went after them and after a drawn out fight, the peasants won over the knights.

While this was obviously the end of the holy march on Constantinople, Gyorgy Szekely gave the peasant soldiers a choice. Either you return home to your oppressed life as a peasant, or you end this once and for all and help him fight against the aristocracy. He put up two crosses, one to mark the spot next to him to continue the mission, the other if someone wanted to lay down their arms. Well, pretty much everyone had enough of this misery and all they really wanted was to go home. But then the amazing thing happened, the second cross fell down. And while a monk put it up again, it fell down three times in total so that the superstitious peasants ended up thinking that fighting with Gyorgy Szekely was a holy mission. A freedom fight endured which started out promising but after a couple of months Gyorgy Szekely was captured and all the surviving peasants fled home.

Gyorgy Szekely was tortured to death in a gruesome fashion as it was customary in the medieval times and this is were Albert-Laslo Barabasi's story ends and my imagined Conversation with God starts. Just imagine what most have gone through Gyorgy Szekely's mind when his life departed. He probably accused God why it had to end that way when the sign of the fallen cross was so clear, and God may have reminded him that he was an important wheel in history that may have even set the Protestant movement in motion in outrage against the corruption of the Catholic church as well as the privileges of the prevailing aristocracy. It may have contributed to the fall of the Kingdom of Hungary, the birth of the Habsburg empire and that these ripple effects could be felt into the European world wars as well as the birth of Communism. He was probably told that he was just an instrument of the laws of karma that have to work their way through before the world was rife for the Second Coming. I am sure that this must have been a meaningful conversation for a medieval night with a holy mission; don't you think?

I find the story of the sign which sent our freedom fighter and those that affiliated with him into certain death an important insight. A Tao traveler neither anticipates to be successful, nor is she afraid of losing. Winning and losing, good and evil simply don't make sense from the perspective of a Tao traveler. A Tao traveler just is. You are connected to a Devine Force that leads you and you are secure in knowing what to do and that what you do is beyond good and evil and will most certainly be spiritually meaningful to you. Everything just is, and from the perspective of the Tao traveler, is just perfect.

On Fate

In the investment business you see really talented people not making it. What I find so amazing is that few really want to face this fact. All kind of excuses are identified why these particular investors were stubborn, made mistakes or whatever else it is that people come up with. Tell them that perhaps it was fate and they will likely roll their eyes. It is hard for the 'I' to accept defeat, so we come up with all kind of explanations of why defeat is not an option for us personally. 

You know the expression 'Hollywood ending' for the simple reason that in the US the hero is not supposed to die. In the Greek tragedy the heroes did die, but the Greek found solace in the fact that the tales of the hero would live on in the minds of future generations. So even in this perspective there is ego involvement.

The path of the Tao is a different one. Empires rise and they crumble and the Tao traveler is a happy by-stander in all cases. Sure, your ego has involvement, but you have always the option to step out of it. Find the spiritual meaning in all the events and see for yourself whether they manage to make you whole and bring you to the core of your being. The journey of the Tao is not really a philosophy, nor is it a religion, it is an experiment. Try and see for yourself whether it is true.

On Fate

He was a spiritual aspirant and had made amazing progress in his journey in recent years. 'It must be true', he thought, 'the great empowerment wave it here'. It was then that Angel Gabriel visited him and said 'You have made great progress and I am here with a message from God telling you that He is well-pleased. At this stage of your journey you have a choice. You can remain at this level for the rest of your life and you are all-set for all of your earthly desires, or you can accept to go insane at this moment, setting off a spiritual chain reaction where you son will be - empowered by the fear to end up like you - reach spiritual heights not seen by humanity in a long time. What do you pick?' The spiritual aspirant responded, 'You know how much I want to be free, right? Just do it!' Archangel Gabriel smiled lovingly and responded 'I knew you would' and when he disappeared the aspirant ran out on the street and told the world about the coming Kingdom of God.

The point of this story is that we have little idea why events unfold the way they do. But most people who are affected by fateful events have sooner or later a hunch why they are facing these fateful events. This insight gives relief to the karmic burden and can be experienced by believers as well as non-believers just because we instinctively give meaning to all events in our life. I remember when I had just started my spiritual blog and when I was translating my stories to my family in Germany, I said 'Well, I guess Papa will not be interested in hearing them given that he doesn't believe in God'. He screamed at me with an intensity I have never seen in him before 'What do you know!'. Sure, it was a dumb statement on my part, we are all spiritual deep down inside.

The Optimistic Tao Traveler

Are Tao travelers optimists? Well, it depends on what your notion of an optimist is. If you believe that everything will be coming your way exactly as you want it just because you are connected to the Tao, you will probably be in for a negative surprise. No, Tao travelers are optimists in the sense that they have learned that everything that is coming their way is spiritually meaningful, and not random at all. We know that these events make us to the persons we aspire to be and we know that in every challenge there is a blessing in disguise that will materialize sooner or later.

Mira Kirshenbaum presents in her book 'Everything Happens for a Reason' the adverse events that many of many of her clients had to face, as well as showing their way of coping and of finding meaning in their fate. We humans have a big capacity to shoulder adversity as long as we understand why it is that we have to suffer. For a Tao traveler this spiritual meaning will always be there. You feel that all aspects of your daily occurrences are deeply interwoven and that no matter what, your trusted connection will always be present. You will also learn that each and every situation is a perfect healing opportunity and the chance to transcend to a yet higher spiritual level. Along the Way, you cannot help but to be perfectly at peace and in harmony with everything that is going on in your life, though you will certainly be sad on occasions. The Tao offers you peace, knowing that He who sent you has given you the means to cope with any situation. Happy travels!

The Best of all Worlds

Try to convince someone that we live in Leipnitz's best of all worlds and chances are you will get an earful. "Ah yes, and how do you explain holocaust"? they will say. Or, "How could a God ever allow children to die?" I would have nothing to respond to any of this. The only thing I can observe is that we are all driven by our subconscious urges back to our core, our Source. If you truly embrace everything life throws at you to the best of your abilities, if you 'feel the fear and do it anyway' as Susan Jeffers recommends, if you express your dharma -as the Hindus express this force of destiny so succinctly - you cannot help becoming whole. Life washes you clean if you just let it.