Don't Fight Your Boss

Shanti is a hard working woman, responsible and loving.  She works as a domestic helper for rich families. When you ask her she would tell you that she has the best job in the world.   She walks nobly; she is visibly proud of what she is doing.  Shanti has a beautiful soul which shines through in all the little things she does.

Since she has been always working for very rich families, she has been influenced by their style and standards and over time has become quite proud of her status and her attention to detail. With one family in particular she felt her immaculate nature was greatly appreciated and rewarded. But since her husband moved locations she had to start work with a new family and from that time on her life hasn't been as smooth as it used to be. Deep down inside she felt that her standards were a cut above the ones of her new boss. She had to change employers several time since she always quarreled over something. As time went on, resentment was building in her.

Can you see how Shanti is creating suffering for herself?  This is how most of us are. We  create suffering, we identify with a role and mind if others don't live up to our expectations. We don't act according to the needs of the environment but according to our own ideas and expectations and wish the world would rotate our way.  We are not in harmony with  life. Yet the world we live in is in fact a mirror. A perfectionist is encouraged to let go from time to time, while a sloppy guy is encouraged to pay extra attention instead. So Shanti should be listening to the signals she is receiving and should be open to change. Her peace of mind depends on it.

Does this story sound familar to you? Are there certain people and situations that drive you up the wall?  Do you ever try to understand why people are doing things in a different way? Perhaps you can think of the people you work and interact with as your mirror. They all have a message for you, and given that you have put yourself in this situation, in a strange way you are sending this message to yourself. So pay attention whenever there is tension somewhere, and pay especially attention when you react very emotionally. Be open. Once you have a close look at your mirror, your perspective can change quite quickly. You will like the way you look, the Tao is working hard to make it so.

Su Zhen and Christian

Growing Out of It

I remember a conversation with my roommate who said that one of her male friends complained that he no longer gets the looks from women on the street the way he used to get. So he seemed to be loosing his sex appeal as he was getting older. Yes, looks and our body are certainly things that we all identify with. As as we get older we find that we are losing something. You may call that yet another ego indulgence which we should just ignore, but it doesn't quite work that way. The ego is us; we have to accept the way we feel.

Or take another example. A woman feels threatened at work. Some very good people have been laid off recently and she wonders whether she will be next. Her husband reminds her how good she is at what she does. He reminds her that he is fully employed so she would have time to look for a new job even if she got fired. But no avail, her worries continue. It is as if all the assurance from her spouse just doesn't register.

We spiritual path travelers reflect on our ego. That's what we do because we want to find out what lies beyond. Just don't mistake 'reflecting on' with judging. "Thou shall not be vain" is the voice of the spiritual super ego of our middle-aged guy in the example before. No, you can't just decide that you shouldn't be vain. Many in our spiritual community make that mistake because we think that this is what our 'True Self' wants us to do. Don't presume anything. Embrace the events that are coming your way. Let life - the Tao - take you on a ride to help you let go. Life will peel your ego like an onion if you let it.

 When we feel fear we mostly keep going nevertheless, right? Just as the woman with the murky job employment prospects will probably go back to work the next day and will put her best foot forward. So she "feels the fear and does it anyway" as Susan Jeffers demands in her excellent same-titled book. In the same way, just feel and experience the so-called vanity, the greed, the lust or whatever it is you think interferes with your spiritual path. Just accept whatever it is that is going inside of you without judgement. That way you actually have a shot of growing out of it.