Bearer of the Light

Have you ever had this experience that you feel incredible pain inside but as soon as you try to look into it, the pain somehow dissolves. What exactly goes on here?

It is this curiosity, this intension to understand and observe, that separates the ego from the pain. When you feel pain, you believe that you are this pain; however, as soon as your attention switches to observe what is going on inside yourself, you become the observer and you connect with consciousness. You realize who you really are instead and that is the point when the pain starts dissolving.

What do you want to be?  Whatever you want to manifest is fine. Just be aware you actually have the power to choose and to awake from this dream that can be perceived as painful at times. You are the eternal awareness behind all these ups and down! As soon as you realize this, your light shines through the darkness. Be brave to face this human experience but please never forget your true identity; this fountain of joy, love and light is always at your disposal. Pain can in fact be quite useful this way. When the going is good, it can be hard at times to step out of this movie than if you struggle a bit. 

Whenever you are able to drink from this fountain of joy, love, and light, you are a torch bearer and bring the light to the people around you. You probably asks us how exactly does one drink from this spring? Life will get you there! Face honestly and openly everything that comes your way. Be aware of what is going on inside of you when the going is good just as much as when you get hurt by life's events. As soon as you observe, you connect with our Source. Your self starts separating from your Self and that is the point when you see the light shining through. You remember who you are. Joy, love, and light shower on you and everyone you are with.

Share this beautiful secret of humanity. Help the people around you to see through this veil, break out of their pain, and share the love, light and joy with others. Bearer of the light, what should you be afraid of? 

By Christian and Su Zhen 

The Bar Has Been Raised

You know what happens in a high-jump competition? Just when you pass the hurdle, it will be raised on you. Does your life feel like an endless high-jumping event? The work-requirements go up, the resources you have access to get fewer and fewer; new and younger colleagues are moving up the rank fast, and in all that you realize that your children and significant others need more of your time, care and attention.

This would be a good time to connect with a life-coach. Someone who reminds you of your bigger picture and helps you to redefine your priorities and objectives. A Tao master could help you as well. After all, our motto is that everything you require to be happy and successful is at your finger-tips. You are always safe and sound, and all these people who you think annoy and challenge you, are really here to help you.

Start with a life-coach first though. Create yourself a little breathing space to look for alternatives, a new way of looking at things. Your problem is that you are on auto-pilot running after things that your parents, your friends, the advertisers, and society at large tell you are important. You are running like everyone else after the stuff that glitters on the horizon and are trampling over the gems that are lying in front of you in the process. Sort out your priorities a little, become more confident and efficient at what you do and start getting in touch with your soul. Once you have completed the warm-up exercise you are ready for the a Tao. And this is when the true fun will start.

Why do you think the bar has been raised on you? You have put yourself into this position. Subconsciously you want to run against a wall to remind yourself that there must be another way out there. You want to remind yourself that you are like a donkey running after the carrot never to be reached. Today is a good day to stop; drop everything and remind yourself of your happier days. We are telling you that you can have it all. You can experience these feelings of joy, love and well-being any time, at home, at work, everywhere really. But first you have to stop and reposition yourself. The life-coach will get you the breathing room to get ready for our magnificent journey, a first step into freedom. For the homecoming-tour, the Tao will take your hand. And when She gets started you will be in for a breath-taking ride.

The Gratitude of a Tao Traveler

As a Tao traveler you will one day reach the point where you realize that everything you really need you already have. You understand that in a way everything is just perfect as is and you will feel content and happy. I remember a point at the beginning of my spiritual journey when I was not happy at all. Somehow I had everything that one can dream of and I was still not happy. I had no idea what was wrong. But over time it dawned on me that I really live for the now, the people that come my way, the material presents the Tao sends me, as well as my time in solitude and with nature. Today my heart is full of gratitude and it would mean a lot to me if I can share this zest for life with you.

The Tao traveler is happy about the things that come her way and of course feels sad when something is taken away. But she is not working very hard to get it back because she has learned that no material possession gives lasting happiness anyway. Besides, as the next present from the Tao comes along, she is way to occupied to mind the previous loss. A Tao traveler enjoys and cherishes the people she encounters but has no aspiration to keep them forever. The Tao decides who she can travel with. I will certainly cry when it is time to say good-by, but I have learned the hard way that it is not I who has control over these things. Besides, just imagine the joy when an old friend returns later in the journey.

A Tao master learns that living in the now is all there is. With this realization, her heart is full of gratitude for all the arrangements of the Tao. You have no aspirations for the future, no regrets of the past. Life completely flows through you and gets used up completely. Your mind is way too busy processing things. All your psychic energy gets used up in the now and there is none left to scheme, to anticipate and to fear. You don't use things to hide your insecurities and your restlessness. You don't hang out with people just because you are afraid of being alone. Instead, you absorb every present that comes your way to the fullest and with it comes an incredible gratitude for everything that comes your way.

The life of a Tao traveler is easy and content. I enjoy my time in solitude with meditation, writing, nature walking and music. I am so charged up by those activities and then enjoy sharing this divine energy with others in all my daily interactions. I let the Tao decide how to spend my day, when to give and when to receive Her energy. The Tao is literally flowing through me.

Come on, please join me celebrating and sharing the wonders of life with everyone. Let's sing and dance and appreciate everything and everyone that the Tao brings our way today. Let's cherish everyone who makes our life so colorful. Let us thank the Tao for every opportunity to merge with Her. Let's shout out loud

LIFE IS WONDERFUL!
I AM BLESSED TO BE WITH YOU!
I AM THANKFUL THAT YOU FLOW THROUGH ME!
THANK YOU GOD, THANK YOU TAO!
THANK EVERYTHING AND EVERYONE!
I AM!



By Christian and Su Zhen

People as Mirrors

Have you ever noticed that the people around you are just like mirrors? They tell you so much about yourself. It maybe difficult to admit, especially if there are traits that you dislike in others, but if you really look closely, you may discover similar traits in you that you hadn't appreciated before.

Su Zhen used to have problems with some of her family members. She disliked their poker faces, the way they treated others and even themselves. Sometimes she saw facial expressions that looked like the world was owing them a million dollars. So it was no surprise that other people kept their distance whenever her family members were in that mood. But then one day she discovered exactly the same facial expression in herself. It was then that she discovered that she had to acknowledge the same issues in herself. So if you ever spot a strong dislike, observe yourself carefully. Most likely, you are sending an important message to yourself.

The other way to experience the world as a mirror is to observe how you treat people. The way you are treating people often tells you about your relationship with yourself. If you don't trust other people, you probably don't trust yourself. If people you work with have little confidence, you may lack confidence yourself. If you are harsh with others, you most likely are harsh to yourself. If you cannot connect with others, you may have difficulties connecting with all of your personality aspects yourself. If you can't forgive other people, most likely you haven't forgiven some of your past mistakes.

Make this approach your working hypothesis for a while. Try to internalize everything that you have treated as external events beforehand. Take all the obstacles that come your way as an opportunity to heal yourself. If you can recognize this link, it will be easy to make the right adjustments in your life and peace will penetrate you with every step along your healing path. If instead of expecting changes in others, you change yourself, you will observe how the world is changing with you. Try it, you can run little experiments with that concept and see for yourself whether it works. The world you perceive is a function of your own internal world - as you adjust internally, your perception of the world will change with it.

When you are in front of the mirror you have a choice to look for wrinkles and you can look for your beautiful smile. This choice is entirely up to you. In the same way, perhaps you can experiment with our theme and experience the concept of oneness for yourself in that you look for the good side in people. Sure it is a process, but it is so much more fun than looking for 'mistakes' in others. If you lift others up in this experiment, you are in fact lifting yourself up. Christian started running these experiments at his work were he endowed colleagues who weren't very confident with more responsibilities and always looked for the next opportunity to make them excel at. He found over and over again that by lifting other people up, he in fact raised himself up. You can gain confidence by encouraging others to gain theirs. Fact of the matter is, if you give others the wings to fly, you realize that you are flying yourself. We have coined this approach the Christian power of positive thinking. Try it for yourself. The concept is about looking for the smile in your mirror instead of the frown. Try it and see what you will find.

The Course in Miracles claims that there is a good way of measuring your spiritual progress. See how much the people in your vicinity smile and laugh. Sometimes you yourself don't understand where their merriness comes from. It is the healed part in you that communicates with your environment at that moment. Have fun, be merry and if you catch yourself occasionally with arms crossed and a frown on your face, use the opportunity to reposition yourself. The Tao always extends Her hand to you moment by moment. Just use this priceless opportunity to dance with Her instead. Life is so much fun and so exciting if you can don't take yourself so seriously. There is only one thing that is important, make sure that the soul siblings standing next to you participates in the joy and laughter. Enjoy!

By Christian and Su Zhen

Express Your Self

Everyone is born with a gift to share with this world. It doesn't matter what kind of gift it is. What does matter is that you need to find out what kind of present you have to share with others. If there it is one guarantee in this world it is that you will find a way to share your talent. More than that, your happiness and peace of mind will depend on it.

This present could be your love for food. You may love food so much that even the trip to the market is full of joy for you. As you touch the ingredients, and literally caress them, you anticipate how the people you love and care for will enjoy them. Cooking is a form of meditation for you and your heart is literally singing all the way to the dinner table. When Christian's father-in-law turned 80, his sister-in-law was cooking for the family and some friends, and as she made a toast she said with tears in her eyes that for her this banquet was an expression of her love for him and all the people who were present. This is the devotion you can have for anything you do in life. Just imagine your bliss if you can make a career out of what you love doing.

Your present could be writing, as we do for you right now. Imagine your pen or your IPad as your lover. Every day you feel inspired and without this creative expression of your Self you feel that something is missing in your life. We feel like being a messenger of God when we write for you. To be the best at what we do, we have to deliver Her true message. As a matter of fact, we even have to rearrange our lives for our mission. Sometimes you can't hang out with your friends for too long, otherwise you may miss the divine phone call. You may even discover that you have to have a pure lifestyle to keep this divine communication going. But you will drop all the interferences happily to be ready for this moment of joy, creativity and love. For us it is certainly not about the success - we leave all that up to Her - it is about receiving the present of expressing our True Self.

Your divine calling could be landscaping; you could be a farmer, a singer, a musician, a researcher, an engineer, an educator or artist. You could enjoy healing people, caring for others, protecting the environment or endangered animals. You could be involved in community services, or the government. The list goes on and on. We are moving into a Creative Society where with the help of technology and Social Media everyone has a shot at sharing their divine present with others. Find that activity that fulfills you and makes you truly happy. A profession should be a calling that allows you to express your creativity, your love for what you do and should allow you to celebrate the connections with people that you care about.

Dear friends, have you found your sweetheart yet? Surely you have a hobby that gets your heartbeat going, that puts a smile on your face and allows you to share your radiating energy with others. We are all here to share our presents with this world, whether it is a big or a small contribution, but we all have one. It is ok to start out as an amateur and to keep your regular job to pay all the bills, but get started on sharing your present. The Tao will find you a way to make a living out of it eventually. But the Tao can only help if you take the first step. When you ignore that present and if you do not do your best to share it, you will feel that something is missing in your life and that heaviness will grow over time. Kindle that fire inside of you and let the Tao help you sharing your light with others. The Creative Society is waiting for you. When it comes to your present, the whole Universe is rooting for you, so please express your Self!

By Christian and Su Zhen




Sent from my iPad

Addiction - All in it Together

Why are we addicted to something? Everyone is searching for feelings that we know are our birthright: happiness, love, peace and safety. Yet, too often we experience anxiety, emptiness, loneliness and meaningless instead. An addiction starts because some artificial mean can provide us a temporary substitute, a short-lived bliss experience, an escape from our dreaded negative emotions.

Our mind cannot remain still - it is always running after something. While it is occupied, the mind feels good about whatever it is working on, but deep down inside we know that something is missing. Everything our mind clings to doesn't give us happiness, love or peace. So instinctively we want to put our mind to sleep. Alcohol can do this job just fine. As we drink, we suddenly feel very relaxed and enjoy the temporary relief of a quiet mind; but alas, once the impact fades, our crazy mind starts acting up again. A pattern will develop and we will reach for the bottle again and again until this habit will eventually run our life and we will feel like we are controlled by an external force. Once sober we feel even worse than before because the voice we wanted to shut up in the first place now beats us up over our digression instead. The cloud of emptiness gets bigger and we need larger and larger shots to get the same feeling of peace and bliss until one day we can't break free from that negative energy pattern any longer without help from others.

We all have the tendency to run away from our negative emotions or try repressing them by some external means. Facing them is hard: the anxiety, the fear, the lack of love or the emptiness. Addiction is just the end of the spectrum when you you have tried to bottle up all the demons inside only to find that they come back to haunt you with a vengeance. If you are addicted you will be more desperate than the rest of us, but the problem statement remains the same for everyone. Our mental crutches look more elegant, but everyone escapes something at some time; only few have the guts to face all the turmoils that are brewing deep inside.

We are all the same. We seek help from the external world to get what we think we need. For some this pattern is more constructive than drinking: people go hiking, exercising, hanging out with friends, working hard for success to quieten their fears, accumulating money to 'buy' safety for the future. Most of us are multi-faceted and most of the times we manage to heal our lives, with the occasional blind spot for our darkest fears or the occasional misstep when we project our fears and anger onto others. But then there are these occasions when people like you and I hit a wall; the problems become just too overwhelming to face them and our usual escape mechanisms break down. Addicted or not, a fork in the road is reached at these turning points and they are deeply spiritual in nature. You have not only the chance to turn your life around and become 'normal' again, but actually the potential to transcend to a much higher spiritual level. The downside though, you have to be willing to face your darkest fears at this holy moment.

So if you are addicted, understand that you have received a wake-up call that you delivered to yourself. You are not a loser, you are just a step away from a spiritual journey from which there is no turning back. Once you have faced your darkest fears you will in fact be a step ahead of many of the so-called normal folks. Sleighing the first monster is hard, but soon you realize that none of these monsters really exist. It doesn't matter which destructive pattern you might run after, alcohol, drugs, sex, gambling, medicine, video games - it is all the same. Perhaps you even need external help to climb out of the hole that you dug for yourself. That is ok, just remember that you are in fact a step ahead of many when you tackle your addictions now if afterwards you keep climbing along your self-discovery journey.

Becoming 'normal' again may sound appealing to you right now, but use your opportunity to aim higher than that. You are just one step away from becoming a spiritual traveler like us. We are not any different from you - all that we have figured out is that if you always like a heroine face the demon that comes your way, the lack of love, the restlessness, the emptiness will soon pass like dark rainclouds swept away by the bright sun. Life rewards you amply for sleighing our demons for the very reason that they don't exist. Look right past them and see for yourself that there is only love, peace and joy wherever you look.

Most of us start our journey when we come across something difficult to handle. We have discovered that no matter what, addiction, distractions, false desires, mind racing, etc., are all part of the same movie plot; the choice between the journey home or into nowhere; the choice between love and your ego. You are not a loser, you have set yourself up for this hard journey because deep down inside you know that you can tackle this wake-up call. Congratulations, your life is going to change soon in a way far beyond your comprehension. Truth of the matter is there are no 'ordinary' people; there are only people who choose love sometimes and those who choose love always. You can safely put your stimulants away; in the presence of love, peace, joy and safety, they will feel like stale idols indeed.

By Christian and Su-Zhen