On the Temptation to Give In

On a sleepless night, I googled 'self-hypnosis' and found a number of interesting entries: how to make you fall asleep with self-hypnosis, how to gain self-confidence, how to experience a tremendous orgasm, how to seduce others into sex, how to change gender and how to grow a bigger penis. Whether any of these programs work I honestly cannot tell you, because hypnosis has never really worked for me. Perhaps my will is just too strong, but I have to admit that when I looked into the spinning wheels at 2am in the morning, I felt attracted to the idea that one could just let go and let a different force take over.

Viktor Frankl was a holocaust surviver and reported in 'Man's Search for Meaning' that whenever he saw inmates smoking cigarettes you knew that they would be gone in a few days. Cigarettes were a currency in the concentration camp days, so when you saw someone lightening one up, you knew that he had given up on life. Burning money figuratively and literally was a powerful symbol of giving up on life- 'I am done brother, you can take me whenever you like!'

I also remember someone in the self-help community I used to visit stating that he was done with all the light-working and that he had found another cult instead that goes in the opposite direction: devil worship. I told him then that while the devil is nothing but a psychological force, it nevertheless is a pretty powerful one. 'So you are not lost even if you join the cult', I said, ' but with every step that you take down this road, turning around the car will get harder and harder'. I never heard back from him.

I have a number of times compared the spiritual journey to stairways - you can walk upstairs and you can walk downstairs, it is your choice at each step of the way. Always walking upwards, always consciously choosing to follow the light, requires effort. Most of the time we try to do our best with the occasional letting go on a Saturday night when we know that the heavy lifting will start on Monday mornings anyway. So despite our occasional step back, we tend to drift upwards towards the light almost naturally over time, cheered on by our soul siblings in disguise.

I think that every moment we have a shot at turning the car around, just as every moment we have a chance to say no to the soothing voice that wants to lull us into sleep so that we are to drowsy to notice that we are falling into the spinning vortex. Your spiritual siblings stand next to you and with every step that you take towards darkness, they will scream louder and encourage you to reach for their stretched-out hands. Just take it, no force in this world is strong enough to prevent you from coming Home. All you have to do is to take the first step; the second will come naturally to you, as will the third.