Meetings with Souls

When you walk on the spiritual path long enough, you will come across your own soul. This "meeting" is an awesome experience. Try to imagine how many lives you have lived on earth, how many death you have gone through, how many separation you have come across; all that information is stored in your "system" - deep inside - which by the way explains your deepest longings. The mission statement of your life, which sometimes can be explained by the struggle that your parents go through, sometimes by your upbringing, but sometimes by nothing really that you have encountered in this lifetime. You still have homework to do that are remnants of your previous lives.

Congratulations if you come to this point because it means that you are having the chance to release all these pains and start experience complete freedom. Once you have dealt with all your pains, all your karma and dharma (the soul's mission statement), you are free to roam the country as God's co-creator without any constraints attached to you.

It is like finally you can release all burden you have carried along with you and get back to your original light. Yes, we are all made of light. But during our life here we have forgot who we are and identify ourselves as a human form. As a human, you will experience birth and death, disease, old age and separation. If you have identified yourself with these experience, your life becomes so heavy. Meeting your soul gives you the opportunity to clean up all these pain and memory. And more wonderful, after the clean up, you will feel so light and joyful! So please allow yourself to cry, to laugh; be prepared to experience a wide range of emotions to let the stored up energy out of your system.

When you reach that stage of development, one area of confusion might be that you start confusing your own energy with that of other people. When you get together with other people, you can feel their accumulated energies and pains as well. In fact, you can sense their thinking patterns, experiences and suffering so vividly that you can easily make the mistake of mistaking them with your path. There is a remedy though, you can learn to experience every energy movement just as a wave that comes and goes. It is very much like you put on someone else’s coat, you have that dark feeling, if you mistake them as yours, you will have difficulty to take off because it is not yours anyway. These souls just want to be seen and get the help. Keep them in your heart, pray for them and leave them to God’s guidance. They are in good hands. People struggle only because they identify with a wrong identity. Their suffering is illusion. Everything that happens to you and everyone else is just a play. Don’t take it too seriously. You can slip out of every coat as easily as you slipped into it. When you experience this fact you will enjoy tremendous freedom. Life is but a game, enjoy!

By Su Zhen





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Puppets of the Tao

We all tend to blame ourselves for our shortcomings. We hate that we are not able to accomplish whatever we set our minds to. In my own experience, you should never worry about what you might have overlooked in the past and never blame yourself. If something doesn't work out despite your best efforts, the Tao has probably better plans for you and She always knows best.

There was a time when I wanted to be a 'better mother'. I certainly knew what I should have done instead, but I was unable to fulfill my high expectations. Yet after this rocky period, I realized that I didn't really have a choice at all at that time. A strange force was in control of me and I didn't have the ability to break away from it.

Last night I was reminiscing and first I started again blaming myself for not having been a better mother, but then out of a sudden I started forgiving myself as I realized that I did the best I could at that time. I also remembered the mistakes my parents made and I realized that they probably also tried doing their best. That is what every generation does. We repeat the cycle our parents started and we try to improve on it. But then we leave some homework for our children as well.

We are also biased in our thinking. We zoom into the mistakes that we make but forget about all the good stuff we do. Blame and guilt are very negative emotions - they drain your energy. Forgive yourself and others as best as you can and then try to move on.

You can only truly forgive others if you are able to forgive yourself. If you have a balanced view of yourself, you will also be able to apply the same to others. Try to appreciate your short-comings and enjoy how they enable you to be much kinder with others. Everything is perfect as is. Every yin comes with a yang attached. For every Dalai Lama there is a Mao Zedong; for every John F. Kennedy there is a Adolf Hitler. The Tao creates hurricanes as well as sunshine. Accept and value the forces that are beyond your comprehension and put your best foot forward in all the things that you can affect.

On occasions we are just pawns of the Tao. Too often, we think we have the ability to decide what we can do. Often this apparent degree of freedom doesn't really exist. The Tao is the puppet master behind the scenes and we have to do whatever it is what we do, because our karma and the evolution of the world dictates it. Forgive yourself for the mistakes of the past, reflect and try to do your best next time around. One day you will break free from the chains and if not you, your children will because you have laid the foundation for them.

By Su-Zhen

The Tao as a Signpost

The Zone is not so much a thing to attain as it is a signpost on the journey back to the Source.
(Larry Miller with James Redfield in 'Exploring the Zone')

When you come across the Tao you will have reached the beginning of the end of an ancient journey. Sure, you still have ego to burn and you still will have your down days, but most of the time you will see a blazing sun that follows you wherever you go. Many writers tell you about the Law of Oneness and the existence of karmic laws that ensure that every good deed comes back to you very much as you will have to pay for all of your sins, yet, all that talk is academic. Along the Tao you can see the Law of Oneness in action. Time shrinks and you can literally put the pieces together. I ask you, if you can see how a certain action drags you down and another lifts you up instead, how hard will it be to choose the latter? You also start seeing how others run after worthless metal that glitters in the background, just as they run past precious stones lying right in front of them. To finish the ancient journey once you have reached that stage is easy as 1 2 3 - nothing can keep you from this birthright once the Tao has got a hold of you.

I am pretty sure that many have discovered the Tao in recent years just as I have. Larry Miller and James Redfield call it the Zone, Neale Walsch's calls it 'Conversations with God', Gary Zukov calls it 'The Seat of the Soul', Eckhart Tolle calls it the Now and the Christians call it Holy Spirit; it doesn't matter what name you give this Force; fact of the matter is that once you start interacting with it, it ceases to be a religion and becomes a life philosophy instead. At this point you are literally enlightened despite the 'I' that still needs to synchronize a little with the Force. The Tao shines the way always. Stop worrying about enlightenment would be my advice - enjoy the magnificent journey instead.

Who is Talking, the Tao or Fear?

He was an aspiring spiritual path traveler, but somehow minded his receding hairline. When a colleague had a convincing hear transplant operation done, he decided he would give it a shot as well. When he told his mother about it, he was surprised about her opposition, 'Son, you have to accept your genes', she barked into the phone. He went for the first operation nevertheless, and dutifully took the medicine that some claimed could on occasions have serious side effects. Everything would have been perfect - his wife loved the results - had it not been for the fact that he banged his toe into a door in the morning of the operation. That seemed odd given that he happened to be a very well-coordinated athlete. More than that, his foot injury disappeared as magically as it came on the day when his scalped healed from the operation. 'This must be a message from the Tao that 'you are not your body', the spiritual aspirant concluded and promptly canceled his follow-up operation and quit taking his medicine as well.

What do you think? Do you think this was a message from the beyond to our spiritual aspirant, or was this a self-imposed injury that just reflected the insecurities of deviating from the path of righteousness, as expressed by the mother's protest or the spiritual super-ego, 'Your are not your body?' Of course I don't know either, each spiritual path traveler has to figure out these issues by herself, but I would say that in my experience it pays to take a few risks. The Tao is never vicious, but your fears are. The longer you travel a path, the better in tune you are with these decisions. You have got to wiggle yourself through life. Actually it was Sadhguru who said, 'whatever you do, go all the way'. There is no harm accumulating a little bad karma in the process. You need a little pain sometimes to remind yourself that we are here to wake up.If you faced eternal sunshine, you would only get complacent, right?

Guilt

Someone in my spirituality forum (Personal Development Forum for Smart People) said that you could kill a person in the morning and still ascend to Heaven in the afternoon and I actually understood where he was coming from. I suspect that  few people these days would subscribe to the Bible phrase 'Vengeance is Mine, says the Lord', yet, many of you will probably believe in the laws of karma, i.e. once you pull the trigger that there is nothing to stop the bullet and the impact which will in the end be an attack on yourself.

I have a hunch that even the law of karma is nothing but guilt that eats itself deep into your subconscious and that wants to be re-lived and digested. If you find a way to make it disappear, either by psychologically off-loading it, or by knowing that this force that made you pull the trigger now wants to beat you up over it, but that this force is not you, then you will be ascending Heaven in the afternoon. Heavy stuff!

The Fantastic Four

They say one can reach God on four paths: Knowledge (jnana), action (karma), devotion (bhakthi) and meditation/channeling our life energies (kriya). Quite frankly, up to recently, this meant very little to me. I started out thinking that knowledge might be my path, but you cannot help concluding that God is beyond thoughts, so the intellect seemed of little use. Action is often led astray by the ego. Bhakthi is easier said that than done. God has to be held above everything in this world. OK, but what if you do not feel that way. Lastly, meditation just never worked for me. Most spiritual fellow travelers just asked me in amazement, what do you mean it does not work? I just did not work because my thoughts were always in the way. A lost cause one might conclude.


Recently it struck me that the Fantastic Four are actually surprisingly intertwined. As you progress along one, all other avenues suddenly appear as well. Karma and knowledge are two faces of the same coin. If you manage to overcome your ego in your work, suddenly amazing insights about yourself, others and the spiritual path become available to you. It is possible to work selflessly, it requires attention and concentration, but it can be done. By the way, an easy trick is creativity. When you are creative you focus on your project, your baby, the ego is naturally pushed into the background. As your awareness about yourself and others rises you will feel things on a much deeper level - your emotional dimension opens up - the requirement for Bhakthi. Meditation becomes easier as well. By living a more selfless life and gaining spiritual insights along the way your mind becomes less cluttered. Lastly, at least in my case, this period coincided with a resurgence of life energies. It was as if suddenly new pipes opened up in my body.


Will this path lead me to liberation? I do not know, but I was encouraged when I read this story in Sadhguru's Mystic Musings: One day, one Jnana Yogi, one Bhakthi Yogi, one Karma Yogi and one Kriya Yogi were walking together. Usually these four people can never be together, because a thinking person has complete disdain for everybody else. A bhakthi yogi, full of emotion and love, thinks that jnana, karma and kriya yoga is just a waste of time. Just love God and it will happen. The karma yogi thinks that everybody else is just lazy. One must work and work and work. The kriya yogi just laughs at everything. The whole existence is energy. If you don't channel your energies nothing is going to happen. Then it started to rain and they all ran looking for shelter, they found an ancient temple. As the storm grew more and more furious they all moved closer to each other inside the temple. Suddenly they felt a huge presence. Lord Shiva Himself was there. They all cried out together, why now, we have pursued you for years and nothing happened. Lord Shiva replied, at last the four of you got together. I have been waiting for this for a long time.