Accepting and Transcending Our Nature

I remember how Krishnamurti once remarked how ugly greed is. In particular, he asked whether we have ever noticed when some people simply wolf down their food? His observation stayed with me because when it comes to eating, I am such a wolf. I can be mindful about eating; I can deliberately slow down, but I can't change my nature, I love tasty food, and it simply disappears in no time at all. 

For some reason all of this was going through my head when I read chapter 14 of the Bhagavad Gita. Lord Krishna distinguishes there the different natures in people, "sattva": the serene, happy and wise; "rajas", the passionate and compulsive, and "tamas", the ignorant and slothful. For the record, the passionate people are the ones who wolf down food and love it spicy. Yup, that would be me.

Fact of the matter is that we all have different natures when it comes to different areas of our lives. Someone might do a fabulous job when it comes to keeping the house clean, but might be a bit lazy when it comes to other work. Someone might write serene spiritual poems, but lust after women. All of us have potential, and all of us has some spiritual homework still ahead. 

The beauty of life is that events and people show up just as we need it for our respective soul development. Life is perfectly aware of our nature and always gives us that what we need to advance to the next spiritual level. Life lets us to discover the passion in the stuff we don't like, and - eventually - let's us reach peace and serenity in those areas of our lives that we once were so passionate about.

Says the Blue Lord, "Sattvic knowledge sees one indestructible Being in all beings, the unity underlying the multiplicity of creation." A spiritual path teaches us this vision. It gives us little problem sets and instructs us every step of the Way. Let life tell you what homework still lies ahead for you personally. Don't just say, "I must be mindful like the Buddha, or stoic like Lord Krishna wants me to, and loving like the Christ mandates." This spiritual super ego is unfortunately part of the problem statement. No, accept who you are deep down inside, and let life dance with you. You may feel spiritually advanced in some areas, but life teaches you that you have only repressed your passions thus far. You may be "lazy or ignorant" in some other areas of our lives, but  life kick you in the butt, and show you that work is the Way.

Eventually peace and passion will penetrate all aspects of your life, for that is the road a spiritual path takes you. Says the Blue Lord, "That which seems like poison at first, but tastes like nectar in the end - this is the joy of sattva, born in a mind at peace with itself." Accept your nature, dance with life and learn to appreciate serenity, peace and happiness every step of the Way. Along a spiritual path it is quite simple really, she who see the Blue Lord in everything and everyone is Home already.

The Tao of Passion

Flowers do not struggle to bloom.
Water does not struggle to flow.
The sun does not struggle to shine.
Struggle is un-natural -
be like nature and go with the flow.
(Zen quote in Spiritual Networks)

We sometimes think of a spiritual path as a dance - you often follow the energy of your dancing partner and are gently swayed to places, but on occasions you lead as well.

You are part of an energy vibration wherever you are; the environment you are operating in and the people you interact with. When people you care for struggle you cannot help being under the negative influence, just as you cannot help rejoicing when they flourish. Life is an eternal up and down. Learn to be aware of these moments and give yourself the space and time to digest this energy flow. Just as with the weather, there are days when you carry an umbrella, days when you wear sunglasses and days when you better stay at home.

Be open to every situation that comes your way and the energy will flow right through you. It is the resistance to these energy fluctuations that bring trouble. Besides, there is a lot you can do to actively manage these energy fluctuations. Allow yourself to be surrounded with positive energy when the lifting gets heavy. Do the things you love to restore your energy balance.

Observe yourself, when you are doing something you love, you can always find a limitless energy supply inside of you. When you are passionate about something, the Tao will always be in harmony with you. But then, when whatever it is that you have to do becomes a drag, know that you must be overlooking something somewhere. Love provides the passion so when you find that the going gets tough remind yourself why your mission matters to you and your loved ones in the first place. Similarly, when you fail to see the purpose just drop whatever it is you are doing.

Love and passion give you energy and the supply is abundant. Whenever you find that love and passion, know that you are in tune with the universe and limitless energy is flowing through you. Enjoy the Tao of passion.

By Christian and Su Zhen

The Magnificent Obsession

Have you ever talked to someone who obsesses about money? Everything that comes his way is analyzed from the perspective of what is in it for him. Or have you ever met someone who wants to climb the professional ladder at any cost? Every colleague who comes his way is either for or against him. At best you would call driven people like that egoistic; in the extreme you would conclude that they are in fact insane. They will trample on love left, right and center, if they have to, in order to get what they want.

Every obsession is tunnel vision - you go after what is meaningful to you at the exclusion of everything else. It turns out that you are on a road towards your goal that becomes self-fulfilling. Money begets money, power begets power and lust begets lust. Consider this psychological experiment. People where primed with money symbols, like seeing dollar signs on a TV screen, or having Monopoly money lying on a coffee table in the background. Afterwards the experimenter went into the room and "accidentally" dropped pencils. It turned out that the people who were primed by money symbols were less helpful in picking them up compared to those who weren't.

Obsession is a road towards your destination. This begs the question, if you are a spiritual traveler, can you be on a road towards God? Can one in fact have a tunnel vision for God? Just based on our observations, a spiritual path leads you out of the tunnel instead - traveling the Tao is about opening up to everything that comes your way. A spiritual vision lets you see curves where you perceived edges before; it takes judgement out of contested issues, and idiosyncratic ego symbols transform into universally accepted expressions of love.

The magnificent obsession is the love with what is; a realization that everything matters, yet nothing does. Spiritual travelers are like artists who look at the magnificent painting called life and get the gist out of every situation: love or a cry for love.The magnificent obsession is open to everyone at any time. Let go of what clutters your mind for but a moment and She will take you in!

Clean Up Your Act

Sacrifice is a notion totally unknown to God.
(A Course in Miracles)

You hear often in the spiritual community that we have to abstain from lust, greed, competition, status, and what have you. Is that really true? You probably have areas in your life as well where a fire is bubbling below the surface and you feel that you have to negate something within in order to comply with our kosher spiritual notions, or have you?

Shadow work is the willingness to open the hood and having a look at the engine. If something inside feels abused by your notion of spirituality than you have to respect that voice even though the desire appears dark to you. When it comes to shadow work it turns out that you have two subconscious forces to deal with, the "holier than thou" voice that minds that you even dare to listen to your shadow, and the demonic side that encourages shadow work because it surmises that it can take you or a ride down the dark alley.

A Tao traveler faces everything that comes her way, no matter how kosher or dirty it appears. Dealing in dark symbols is always tough, and chances are you face turbulence in your life whenever you engage with them. The problem is you just don't know whether it is the "holier than thou" part of you that sabotages you or whether the Tao wants you to change direction. Typically it is both. Simply accept this rocky period. What else can you do, sweep the dust under the carpet? If life confronts you with these temptations they must be meaningful to you. The Tao only cares for your wholeness and peace of mind.   So be ready to get your hands dirty a little, but with the aim to clean up. The intent has to be a kosher one when you do shadow work, otherwise your demon will take you for a ride.

You don't have to sacrifice anything along the Tao. If you have a desire you want to express you will find a way to do it without undermining your spiritual journey.You only think you are missing something if you haven't quite connected with an authentic need. All your authentic needs will be satisfied along the Way. Perhaps you have to transform lust into sexual passion, greed into a creative outlets, competition into just having fun while playing and status into respect for what you do and who you are. Along the Way everything you do is authentic - this is your Way, your idiosyncratic journey. Along the Tao you can have it all.  Don't be afraid or ashamed of any of your desires; just let the Tao purify them for you and then run with them.

The Power of the Ego Versus the Power of God

I observed a strange curiosity in my bookshelf the other day. I saw how two books in red were standing on either side of the Course in Miracles which is in deep blue. I actually had sorted the books by size so the color coordination was nothing but a coincidence. Suddenly I observed that the title of both red books were about power. How ironic, I thought to myself, the Course in Miracles is about discovering the Kingdom of God when you say "no" to personal power. So these three books attracted each others like magnets, force and counter-force perfectly aligned.

There is something ironic about the color combination too. One of the two books has an interesting fact on the power of the color red (Ian Robertson's "The Winner Effect. How Power Affects Your Brain"). Based on observations from the 2004 Olympic Games: players with a red outfit won 62 percent of the time, while those with a blue outfit won 38 percent of the time. Red is the color of passion and aggression, while deep blue is the power of serenity. Well, in olympic games aggression definitely gets you results. But remember that these games were invented by us to measure the strength of ego. In "real" life, I would claim, the power of serenity, love and cooperation will get you much further. But don't take my word for it, give God's laws a try and see if you can repeat the miracles  that ACIM talks about. My hunch is you will be amazed.

The Picture of Dorian Gray

You may remember Oscar Wilde's Picture of Dorian Gray, the story of someone who schemes and lies himself through life but who magically keeps his innocent appearance. Only much later does he realize how ugly he looks beneath the facade - it is a monstrous vision indeed!

There is a lot of wisdom in this book. Unless you are a magician, after 40 years you are responsible for your face, as Eric Fromm once remarked. But I think this erosion of natural beauty is not so much about the ego which our spiritual community loves to attack; true "ugliness" originates from crimes committed against life. The stealing, cheating and scheming, or perhaps worst of all, the robbing of innocence. If you just run after your ego's passions you can look old at times, worn down perhaps, or sometimes just plain, but with a little wind in your back, with a little success, you get your old fire and your youthful look back. In contrast, the schemers, criminals and cheats can only hide their ugliness if they even manage to fool themselves. Still, the "ugliness" will come out one way or another, sometimes in form of an illness, or sometimes with bad breath. But there is good news, you can always let go of your psychological baggage if you embrace life instead.

We have no right to attack the ego, the ego is still an expression of life so let people fulfill their mission if they feel the passion to do so. We can only give advice to those who are sick or find that they no longer recognize the person in the mirror. The uplifting message we can tell them is that Oscar Wilde's scary story is just fiction. Everyone can turn this ship around; just stop going upstream and go downstream instead. Experience how easy and how much fun it is. Going with life is natural and easy, while going against life is evil. You know that "evil" is "live" spelt backwards, right?

Accepting Your Drives

When Sattva predominates, the light of wisdom shines through every gate of the body. When Rajas predominates, a person runs about pursuing selfish and greedy ends, driven by restlessness and desire. When Tamas is dominant, a person lives in darkness, slothful, confused and easily infatuated.
(Lord Krishna, Bhagavad Gita)

When you are greedy it doesn't make much sense to tell you that running after name, fame and profit doesn't become you. When you are full of lust it doesn't make much sense to remind you that you are not your body. When you are worried it doesn't make much sense to advise you against taking out insurances and protections. Spirituality wants you to be generous, pure and worry-free; yet, if you are not, pretending to be will only create a super-ego. All you will do that way is to push the tensions and unresolved conflicts under the surface. Don't bother with artificial spirituality, live your life instead. Like a magnate you attract the situations that allow you to express yourself.  There is no wrong or right, there is only your next choice that allows you to advance spiritually to the next level. This is why living the life that presents itself to you is the best of all worlds - perhaps not from a happiness perspective, but certainly from the perspective of your soul development.

We advise you to be mindful of everything that is going on inside of you as well as in your environment. When you realize that you are greedy, accept this first and then see what to do about it. Your drives have to be burnt up. Some desires you express, some you repress in the name of spirituality, and some you simply transcend because you have outgrown them. The serenity associated with the state of Sattva has to be earned, you can't will yourself towards it. When you experience the state of Tamas at some stage of your life, rise and get the hidden energies to the surface. When you experience the state of Rajas, go and get the conflicting energies out of your system. The state of Sattva is when your infinite energies circulate in equilibrium. Sattva is also the understanding that the world is already perfect as is. You have to do very little in that state - your mere presence makes it perfect. Sattva is your true nature, keep experimenting and expressing yourself and you will discover it. No one can keep your birthright from you.

The Veil

Has it ever happened to you that you opened your eyes and saw, seemingly for the first time, stunning beauty in front of you? You are asking yourself, "Why didn't I see this before?" Could it be that your thoughts, you worries, your expectations prevented you from seeing the world as it is? We Tao folks advise you to keep an eye on what lies in front of you and deal with each situation as it comes. Well, actually this advice is pretty meaningless. Either you see the world as it is or you see the veil, a world interpreted through your thoughts, worries and expectations.

 So what can you do? Learn how to fall in love with the Now, the world as it is. Everyone has satori moments - the moment in time when the world stands still - but to make this experience a lasting one you first have your job to do. Burn your passions by creating the stuff you were born to do. Transform the raging fire inside and transform this energy into lasting serenity. Face your fears and worries to the best of your abilities. Step towards the sea with an army of adversaries closing in from behind and say, "Sea, in the name of Moses part now", and if it doesn't, laugh heartedly and jump right in. We can't promise you that you will get what you want, but we can promise that a world beyond expectation is waiting for you if you open up to it. Follow your life's mission, keep your eyes open and the veil is lifted for you.

I Am, That I Am

The ego is the psychological institution that builds armor around you to protect you from what is. Most of this job was done for you; by your parents, by your friends and foes, by the country you are living in and the epoch you are born into. But then as you get older, you start building your own castle in the sky. The person you have to become; the goals you have set for yourself to finally be happy. And then there is the stuff under the surface that you don't really want to be aware of. And when it finally pops up you wonder what all that is about.

"I Am" is the realization that you are either happy now or never will. It is the observation that no matter where you look and turn, you are always perfectly protected and loved; you need no armor at all to deal with life. "I Am" is also the nod towards your shadow; the understanding that all your drives and passions are bubbling up from this source. Let the Tao remove all the armor from you and connect you with your energy source while cleaning up the clutter  in your basement. The holy Now guides you home, all you have to do is to open up to life. I Am - That I Am!

Try

Where there is desire
There is gonna be a flame
Where there is a flame
Someone's bound to get burned
But just because it burns
Doesn't mean you're gonna die
You've gotta get up and try try try.
Pink, Try

Pink's song sums up our spiritual journey pretty well. The desire is our mission statement, the reason why we were born in the first place. We have to face our desires just as we have to face life and do something with it. Our journey is about transmuting our passions, about healing our split mind. As our physicists remind us, energy can never be destroyed but it can be changed. As we translate our raw passions into creativity and love, we reduce the blazing fire into an eternally burning flame. A complicated mix of ego fantasies and authentic needs are being translated into love for what you are doing, love for the people in your life and an ongoing feeling of peace and fulfillment. What was passion before has become serenity instead.

We also have to allow life to make our subconscious drives plain to us so that we can stop living our lives simply as marionettes. As we step on our spiritual path, choices become available that we never had access to before. Soon we realize that all these flames and burns are nothing but virtual reality. Choices certainly imply that we make mistakes from time to time, but always we gonna get up and try.  A spiritual path is really about experimenting with the so-called reality that we were born into and that everyone else seems to be perceiving. It doesn't exist. We can step outside of it completely and as we do all we suddenly perceive is love and peace. A spiritual path is an intersection of "reality" and virtual reality. You have nothing to lose, but everything to gain. So please don't negate your desires, let life show you how to make them holy. And until you reach that state,  don't forget to get up and try, try, try!

Divine Energy

Walking the Tao is about working with energy. You can learn how to perceive an energy exchange, how to read the energy of a situation and even how to transform it. You can not see the energy, but you can perceive and sense it. Reading the energy of a situation or a person requires your attention and sensitivity. This skill is certainly something that can be mastered over time.

We are all made up of energy, we are all one in an invisible way. So you can in fact study the concept of Oneness by studying energy. Experience how you are influenced by the persons you get in touch with, by the environment you are operating in and the energy exchange of each situation.

Say you go to a party. As soon as you walk into the door you can sense that you are getting high and excited. So you literally feel this the energy of this situation. Monitor how you feel the next morning as well. You may have had alcohol at the party, you may not be able to sleep well in the following days, or you may feel extremely tired next morning, you may find that your body feels tight. So perhaps next time you don't want to expose yourself to this kind of energy anymore even though it seems to be so much fun when you are part of it.

You have a choice in exposing yourself to the energy that works for you; the kind of energy that doesn't just give you a temporary high but a permanent lift. You will know what kind of energy fields these are. It may be the presence of your soul partners; it may be a loving or creative work environment. Find something that ignites a fire in you, but one that burns permanently. You must have experienced the difference between serenity and passion. One is permanent, the other is a temporary high. The trick is to be in touch with the permanent and uplifting energies as much as possible.

Nature will connect you with this uplifting energy. The greener the environment, the better the effect. Music can have the same effect too. It is always easy to tell how your emotion is changed according to the music you are listening to. Different music radiates different frequency. The books or articles that you read have the same effect too. Spending time with good friends or children lifts you up. And if you are really blessed, meaningful work can give you this lasting energy connection as well. Giving and thinking of others always connects you with positive energy. We often talk about the Tao. The Way is really an energy connection. There is a divine connection moment by moment that you can tab into. When you have seen glimpses of this fact you are on your way to become an energy master.

You will probably feel anxious or will be in a bad mood after you read or watch news because most of time these media only broadcasts negative stories. Start studying your energy dynamics after particular events. Schedule downtimes that allow you to evaluate your energy states. Soon it will become normal for you to stay with the uplifting energies and avoid the negative one. You will discover the Way as an ongoing purifying process. A high energy field will build and soon you will avoid anything that interferes with it like the plague.

An energy master will develop over time. Follow the divine energy and see where the journey gets you.

By Christian and Su Zhen

Just Keep the Rascal Occupied

Our spiritual community loves to beat up on the ego. Everything is so simple, there is the ego, the 'I' that wants something, and then there is the soul, the True Self, the love we can read about in spiritual books and can oftentimes feel in ourselves. Well, when you contemplate on the ego concept, who do you think is doing the contemplation? It is the ego, isn't it? Fact of the matter is that you are you, just as I am I, and that is all we know with certainty. Figuring out which part of me is the 'I' and which part is my True Self is an academic exercise in my opinion unless, of course, you have a really good intuition, which some women do have.

The path of the Tao is to realize that every moment is priceless, every moment is an opportunity to be connected with a Force beyond our comprehension. It is actually not that hard to perceive that divine connection. When you are holding Her hand you just know. You can experience this divine connection everywhere, at home, at work, when you interact with people, when you enjoy nature, when you express your creativity - everywhere really. At this blessed encounter you do not need to question your ego, it simply gets sidelined, burned up in the holy Now.

I think of the ego as the rocket that propels you into outer space. Eventually the fuel tank burns out and will be disconnected from the space capsule. The capsule simply gets going in outer space since there is no resistance. Yes, the ego does burn out if you keep headed in the right spiritual direction. When you walk the Tao, there is no resistance either. Just keep the rascal occupied and let Her show you the way. Along the Tao, passion is transformed into serenity, while the desire to get your agenda fulfilled becomes the love for what you do and the people you care for. Do not worry about your ego, keep instead the divine connection going and your spiritual life will be blessed indeed.

Passion for the Game of Life

Kevin Roberts had a heart-wrenching account of his struggle with video gaming addiction and his recovery from it. An alcoholic may try to stay away from liquor, but how do you stay away from computers and mobile phones in today's day and age? He found the answer for himself and communicated it well in his superb book "Cyber Junkie"; find a passion for life, find a passion for people, get a real life instead of a having virtual one.

Kevin has started self-help groups for the video gaming community and has reconnected with his passions for music, languages and teaching. He also described significant others, who were recovering alchoholics themselves, who helped him on his recovery journey. So he has made it his goal to repeat the same feat in others. That is indeed it! That is the way out of the hole we have dug for ourselves. We are here to pull each other up, and as we are fighting for the mental peace of others we are discovering that peace is penetrating us in the same way. This is the Law of Oneness at work, whatever service we provide to others, we really provide to ourselves. Find for yourself that if you are passionate about something or someone, the voice in your head gets something to do, at least temporarily.

Kevin described his therapy sessions when he hung out in a cafe with the Alcoholic Anonymous folks he played chess with him. They drank tons of coffee and smoked endless numbers of cigarettes in the process. I was thinking for myself, isn't that just trading one addiction for the other, but then I realized that this trick is similar to the aim of finding passions in your life; yes, drinking excessive amounts of coffee and chain smoking is yet another addiction, but it is at least a first step towards having a passion for life. Hang out with people you care for, find your creative outlets and if you can especially do this by filling yourself up with coffee then so be it.

Kevin also linked cyber and gaming addictions with the tendency to have ADHD or having a social anxiety disorder. An attention starved brain lights up with the never ending electronic and virtual triggers and instant gratifications of the video games. Similarly, when you are socially awkward, the elaborate set-up of the virtual worlds are tempting to get sucked into. It is a fantasy world of your making and finally you can master a world with the same finesse as your extrovert friends master the real world.

It seems pretty clear that the struggle with addictions and compulsive behaviors will only increase over time. Technologies will ever evolve and with every decade that goes by, the virtual reality that is so carefully crafted to our longings and fantasies will outshine the stale "real" one. The bar is being raised on every generation, but please don't get upset about it. We will rise to the challenge. These gimmicks are just there to make us wake up from our collective dream. When you start seeing a crack in the Matrix, soon everything implodes into nothingness, as you one day may discover for yourself.

Kevin described the mental break-down of a gambling addicted friend who suddenly heard "real" voices in his head. The fantasy land we crave, the running away from life all serve one goal and that is to cater to the voice in our head. Well, the voice in your head is not you as spirituality has claimed for thousands of years. So if you get this insight, even if it is the hard way by running into a wall, you will be a step ahead of the "ordinary" folks who still have to get to that stage.

The road towards freedom is three-fold. First you discover that running away from life, though so tempting, is a road to hell. There is someone important in your life who will scream loud enough for you to listen. It might be your parents, your partner, your children, your childhood friends, your boss. Someone will get through to you. And when this moment of truth hits you, a clean-up process and spiritual self-discovery journey will start that will last a life-time. Step 2 in this process is to reconnect with life. You then realize that your cravings are way too powerful and that they may never go away. The only way to sideline them is by drowning them with stuff that is even more important to you. You are in fact surrounded by soul siblings who pull you up, or even more powerful, soul siblings who need your help instead. Similarly, you suddenly discover that you have a gift to share with humanity and that your passion for expressing this creativity inside of you is stronger than all your cravings.

The first two steps are indeed the discovery of a Tao traveler. You suddenly see that life is the most amazing virtual reality show ever invented. Not from the perspective of catering to the demands of your " I", but rather from the perspective of taking your attention away from it. Along the Tao you sideline the voice in your head in the same way as the recovering addicts sideline their cravings with the help of coffee, or caring for others and caring for life. The Tao traveler is in the same virtual reality game called life as the addict is, only you operate on a much higher spiritual dimension.

Step 3 is to outgrow all your passions. The Tao will show you that there is nothing to cling to anymore. Your fires burn out like the fuel tank of a rocket that is shot into outer space and as they drop of all that is left is the ongoing motion propelled by love. Love for what you do, love for your all your soul siblings and love for God. You graduate from passions to serenity. The voice in your head becomes still. Do not loose sleep over how this state might be reached, it will grow on you. If you follow the cues of the Tao, if you embrace life day in, day out with everything you got, you will graduate from the game of life. Peace will naturally penetrate larger areas of your life with every year that goes by. Do not aspire to become "normal" again, you can become so much more potent than that. The "normal" people are the ones who haven't yet reached stage 3 in our spiritual journey. Get ready for a magnificent journey of joy, love, peace and serenity. Let your problem help you find your passion for life - the Tao - and let Her lead you straight home. It is as easy as 1 2 3.

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

The Voice

For where your treasure is, there your heart will be.
(Luke 12:34)

A colleague showed me the other day a photo in a local newspaper that displayed someone who made it into the Guinness Book of Records with the biggest biceps in the world. When I looked at the arms I didn't really know what to think. I find body building attractive myself, but he looked a little like Popeye on steroids. They also had an interview with his wife who said, 'Well, it took me some time getting used to this size, but I now consider it normal and when I look at the arms of all other men I think to myself, are they sick or something?'

A spiritual path starts when you realize that there is a voice in your head which has little to do with you. The voice telling you that you are not loved, or that you will never make it. Or the voice that tells you that you need to be CEO, or that you need to have the biggest arms in the world. The good news is that once you have experienced only for a single moment that you are not this voice, you have reached the beginning of the end of an ancient journey. Reading others who tell you about your supposedly evil ego doesn't do it; you have to experiment this disconnect for yourself, at least once. But then you will learn to disengage more and more, and as you do, you experience joy, happiness and peace along the way.

You may ask how does one reach this magical moment of disconnecting with the voice in your head? Observe your feelings and see how they are sometimes at odds with what is going on in your head. Realizes how this voice is driving you into a wall over and over again. Experience the inconsistencies in your life - the disconnects of what you want from what the world reflects back to you. A spiritual path is very simple really: figure out who you truly are and what you truly want independent of what the voice babbles.

One thing is important though, never let anyone tell you what you supposedly have to do in the name of spirituality. Our spiritual community is very confused on this point. Who knows, perhaps the man with the biggest arms in the world follows his destiny to show others what we can accomplish with our bodies. Perhaps Steve Jobs followed his spiritual mission to start Apple to let the world experience the wonders of technology. Only you know what is your destiny and what the ramblings of 'the voice' are. Separating the two is really not that hard: 'the voice' tells you where your treasure is supposedly  hiding while your heart knows where your treasure is. All you really have to do is to listen to your heart; that's all.

Destiny

Chris and Janet Attwood wrote 'The Passion Test', which was a bestseller at the time. When I read it, I thought the authors had stumbled on a necessary condition for fulfilled work, but not a sufficient one. If you examine every six months or so whether you are still excited doing what you are doing, you perhaps forget that you shouldn't only be searching for the work that gives you always the highest satisfaction, but instead for the life project that you were born to do. If you don't know what it might be right now, relax, your destiny will find you; the question is only whether you are ready to embrace it when it comes your way.

"May God grant you your heart's deepest desires" is an old curse of the gypsies. Most of your life you are running after gold, only to find that it is copper and that the treasure you were looking for is laying by the wayside, but since you were too busy running after the sparkle, you missed it. Your passion is the lure of the false gold; it is your destiny to find your treasure after taking a few wrong turns. There is nothing wrong with following your passions, after all, what else can you do? Just understand that all the blood pumping through your veins is nothing but a precursor for a much calmer, much more peaceful and happier period. It is state of serenity that only comes when you feel that you have finally living your destiny.

Wholeness is dancing with life without involving the " I"

Jesus said to the Samaritan woman "whoever will drink from this well will thirst again, but the water that I shall give you gives you everlasting life"

The desires of the mind will give you highs, but you will never be satisfied. Sure, the successes are much nicer to experience than the failures, but both outcomes will leave you dissatisfied in the end.  The joy of dancing with the Tao gives you serenity instead; you feel completely satisfied during the experience and afterwards.

The question of course is what to do with this insight; you cannot negate your desires. Yet, if you allow the guidance of the Tao you can always find an outlet of your passions; express your desires creatively and the Tao chooses the environment that allows the transition into serenity.

Passion Versus Serenity

Norman Mailer in his 'On God' introduced an idea that really resonated with me. He said he had most energy whenever his angel as well as his demon were equally interested in a project. The ego is passionate, your Higher Self experiences serene joy, and you do best if you allow both parties their share. Passion is the force that jump starts you, the True Self is the one who confronts you with the choices that get you to your desired journey from a holistic perspective. 

The image I had in my mind when I reflected on this theme was that of a rocket. The rocket is the one that shoots you out of the orbit, and when the resistance vanishes disposes of its fuel tank. Shooting you into space can be thought of as passion's burning desire, while the effortless journey of the rocket without the resistance of the atmosphere can be thought of as the serene enjoyment of the True Self.It is the straight  direction that gets you into the orbit, if your trajectory is crooked, you stay within the earth atmosphere and no matter how powerful your fuel supply, eventually you will run out of power. 

Passion can only jump-start you, and it should. Whereas the Holy Spirit will work with your desires and will confront you with the necessary choices that allows you to catch up with your True Self. That way you live in the best of all worlds. You burn a little of your ego fuel, while you are directed into a trajectory that allows you to create in harmony with your True Self for however long you like to travel.

On Fantasy

What can be fearful but fantasy, and who turns to fantasy unless he despairs of finding satisfaction in reality? Yet it is certain that you will never find satisfaction in fantasy, so that your only hope is to change your mind about reality. Only if the decision that reality is fearful is wrong can God be right. And I assure you that God is right.

(A Course in Miracles, Chapter 9, 4, 10)

So what exactly is it that makes you passionate, that makes your blood pump through your system at hyper speed? Go and get it tiger, but do it without deviating from your spiritual path. If it is reality, you will find a way. If it is fantasy, the Tao will find a way to communicate to you that it is. You are God's co-creator, remember? Your problem was created by yourself so that you learn how to separate fantasy from reality. There are three kinds of people: those that make things happen, those that suppress what could happen and those that wish unrealistic things would happen! Be a maker, be a shaker and be the one who carves a new spiritual path.

Passions Never Grow Old

Both my father and my father-in-law managed to keep their passions alive well into their 70s: what is chess for my father is golf for my father-in-law. It is still a pleasure to see my father's mind at work when he is playing chess as well as to see the finesse of my father-in-law on the golf course.

Chess always has been an integral part of my father's life. Even before I was born, I was told that my father was helping in a move, and he did so by holding on to a cupboard with one hand and his chessboard in the other. When I was a boy he managed to beat me in chess with his eyes blind-folded, which made a big impression on me.

For my father-in-law playing golf has been about the connections with other people when he was playing, his business and social contacts and his many friends. He still remembers fondly the time when he got his handicap down into single digits. He played during the monsoon season in India, barefoot as his shoes were drenched in rain, and he played on the deserted course for days to achieve his goal. It is still a pleasure to see his puts magically rolling into the hole even though his eye sight is no longer the one it used to.

It seems pretty clear to me that passions never grow old as long as you manage to keep the fire burning inside. Age is no handicap for something you have practised all your life. More that that, without that fire you are likely to look old before your time. Seeing the two at play makes me quite upbeat about my sacred journey, the pursuit and sharing of the ancient secret of self-knowledge. I would think you can do that for quite a while.