This is your Movie

Islam has an expression that had a lot of meaning to the Western Mind during the medieval times,'Insha'Allah', or translated, 'God willing'. In the extreme this philosophy implies that everything that happens is God's providence. We are just pawns in the Cosmic Play. Few Westerners believe this deterministic outcome today, but then, many spiritual path travelers also don't believe the other extreme, namely that we live in a 'random' universe. To us, the truth lies somewhere in between. We are the creators of our destiny, but we experience this creation within the interplay of others who are, in a weird way, part of us. 

So the way I would describe the idea is that we are neither spectators in a cinema, nor are we a little actor in giant movie studio. We are producers, directors, actors and spectators at the same time. The law of oneness you can actually study. You can literally see how this world responds to your changed expectations and perceptions. Thus, it can hardly be a random world. The question whether you are actually able to create your destiny or whether you are just a pawn in a preprogrammed movie set is unfortunately something that you can never settle theoretically. Someone can always come along and claim that whatever you just did wasn't really you, but only you thinking it was you. Well, this would be kind of easy, wouldn't it. My life experience suggest that at the end of the way we are always responsible for our actions. My hunch is this is your movie, so let's hope it will be a blockbuster.

Evolution of Conciousness

The new spiritual age has come some way in understanding our dark side. Gone are the days when we blamed the devil for our urges and temptations. We have developed the ego concept instead and are increasingly willing to look inside ourselves, even in the dark corners. The next step in our spiritual and psychological evolution will be to embrace our "dark side" rather than suppressing it. Debbie Ford makes this case convincingly in her "The Dark Side of Light Chasers". Actually, we have every reason to be proud. Our so called shadows often are remnants of millions of years of evolution. We have evolved from fish to reptiles to mammals and are on our way to join the Source consciously. Our past is imprinted in our brain and our DNA and journey goes on.

The past is part of our mind, but it contains our destination as well. Science tells us that our brain is a replica of the evolving macrocosm. Our spiritual path is a journey into our core. In order to understand where we are going we need to understand where we are coming from. Just observe what is going on in your brain, the urges, the so-called temptations, the interaction between instinct and rationality. Observe, understand and become whole. That's when you will be taken onto the next level of consciousness.

The new spiritual age is a mix of spirituality, psychology and philosophy. Understand where you are coming from, understand the metaphysical forces that guide you and understand your mission in life. Your urges and desires are what they are, bring them to the surface, don't fight them and gently mold them to let the life energy flow into the direction you want it to take. The goal is to live in perfect harmony with yourself and your soul. Nothing gets suppressed, nothing gets judged, and all the energy is used efficiently.

Vasana

vasana: tendency or desire

Whether you believe in reincarnation or not, you will probably agree that people tend to be endowed with very different character traits, likes and dislikes. If you have children you will observe that from early days they come attached with completely different personality traits. I admit, it's kind of obvious, but for me this idea that we all have to live with our individual vasana has hit me only recently. We have to develop these vasanas and live them out in most cases, and have to suppress them in some cases, just as we choose.

I started thinking about this theme when I read Neale Walsch's Conversations with God. In it, God explained the process of spiritual self-discovery with the colors of the rainbow. As the intersection of the basic colors give you the color white, you have to literally live through and express all rainbow colors, i.e. everything God is not, in order to discover Him. Just imagine what this implies, you pretty much have to throw all moral standards out of the window. You just don't know what is wrong or right; what you have to ask is whether a particular action is useful for your development or not. Obviously, only your own soul can provide you with this answer.

Consider 3 historic figures, Alexander the Great, Napoleon and Hitler. Only Alexander succeeded with his mission in life to conquer the world. At the end of his short life he had accomplished and seen everything. The world as was known then was pretty much his. I am sure that at the end of his life he was just fed up with the whole conquering business. Napoleon on the other hand tortured himself for the rest of his life in exile. Allegedly his last two words when he died were France ... Grand Army. How sad! Quite frankly, I don't even want to know what went on in Hitler's brain in the hours before he shot himself in the dark bunker. Alexander was done with his rainbow color, Napoleon & Hitler weren't.

Take another example, sex. I re-read Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer for this blog and was surprised to see how boring these sexual episodes were. Already at the age of 40, he apparently was bored to tears with sex. I am pretty sure when he died at the age of 90, he had other things on his mind than sex. This rainbow color was done as well.

Unfortunately, I can't tell you what this all means for you personally. If you conquer the world, sexually exploit others, or aggressively climb the ranks of a corporation you may satisfy your vasana, but you also create bad karma which you have to deal with eventually. Still, if your longing is planted deep in your soul you might not have another choice. Just get it done with once and for all. Go all the way in whatever you do Sadhguru says (Mystic's Musings). Don't judge others and search your soul for your mission in life.

Ego: Friend of Foe?

Since ancient times, all spiritual leaders have told us that there is a Divine in us that only shines through if we keep our ego at bay. How do we keep our ego under control? Does is even make sense to control it? I don't think it does. If we try to put ourselves (i.e. the us controlled by our mind/ego) down because some spiritual etiquette tells us to, we will likely as successful as pushing a basketball under water: it will come back with a splash!

Step 1 in this process should be to observe our ego at work. I think this is possible. After all, it is easy for us to spot when people we talk to have an agenda that they push trough: you suddenly hear raised voices, there is a tension in the air, you see frowns, small lips, etc. Not to mention that their line of reasoning suddenly looks forced. We can watch the same signposts in us when we try to have it our way. Using our observational skills, we should be able to observe our ego at work without judging it. Just observe over time if this fellow, your ego, is your friend or your foe.

Step 2 in this process should be to find out whether you like your ego at work. I find it a bit naive to say that once you step back and let the Divine path take over, you will get whatever you wanted to get and then some. Your old wants (power, money, sex, etc.) were created by your mind/ego; your new wants will likely be quite different if you get a hold of the Divine path. Just experiment and find out for yourself if you like what you see when your ego is kept silent.