When Strive is the Problem

The 

FORCE
is with us

regardless
of our
direction.

(davidWELLENS, Direction, Spiritual Networks)

The ego is a psychological force that drives us places. Sometimes all the striving is a perfect opportunity to express ourselves creatively, and sometimes we are simply running away from our SELF, and that hurts! The trick of our spiritual journey is to recognize in which direction to head. Backwards, forwards, or just resting where we are. There is always a perfect response to life's demands that is associated with peace. Don't worry though, just as davidWELLENS reminds us, the FORCE is always with us, so even if we miss a few steps along the WAY, we always will be pointed in the right direction. 

I had this insight when I read "Romancing the Shadow" by Connie Zweig and Steve Wolf, as they described the case of a "successful" woman who sometimes in her forties woke up to the fact that all her life she had made her powerful - and sometimes overpowering - father as her role model, while sidelining her more artistically inclined and depressed mother, who crumbled under that masculine power. Needless to say, she did well professionally, but sometime along her journey she realized that she would never have children on her own and that made her quite upset. She had to teach herself to embrace her femininity, and managed to make friends with her mother late in life.

The girl who grew into a professionally successful woman followed all her life a path that she figured was her, only to find that she ran away from her SELF. She wanted to get places, and as she reached them she discovered that her heart was empty. Despite her best intentions, she ran away from her SELF by striving. Maybe some of us spiritual travelers fall into the same trap. We are running after the ideal of enlightenment. We want to be "there", not "here". Our society has primed us that way. If you want something, go and get it is our mantra.

There are times to strive, and there are times to let it be. You have to satisfy self, soul and SELF all at the same time. Go inside and listen to the quiet VOICE and ask for directions. Observe the signals that you are receiving from your environment. Once you know in which direction to go, peace is with you every step of the WAY. 

What Should We Strive For?

What do we want to accomplish as spiritual travelers? Sure, we want to experience God, but there is probably little we can do about besides meditating regularly and cutting interferences out to the best of our abilities. 

Should we strive for manifesting everything our heart desires the way the Law of Attraction folks encourage us to? Well, we can try to but having everything our heart desires is unlikely to make us happy either. We cannot visualize the missing God connection; we don't know what peace truly is and are thus unable to manifest it.

What we can do instead is to live life as a Tao master; that is, welcoming life moment by moment. Like an artist we can discover divinity in everything life presents to us. Like a mother we can recognize love wherever we are. God is next to us every step of the Way; all we have to strive for is to be open to the next moment and we can see Her.

Saints, Lazy Bums, and People like You and Me

Sattvic workers are free from egotism and selfish attachments, full of enthusiasm and fortitude in success and failure alike. Rajasic workers have strong personal desires and crave rewards for their actions. Covetous, impure, and destructive, they are easily swept away by fortune, good or bad. Tamasic workers are undisciplined, vulgar, stubborn, deceitful, dishonest, and lazy. They are easily depressed and prone to procrastination.
(Lord Krishna, Bhagavad Gita)

As I read Lord Krishna's description of how different people are and how differently they approach their life's mission and their careers, I came up with the title saints, lazy bums and people like you and me. Truth is we all have our saintly moments, our periods of striving and greed, as well as times when we are lazy. I am sure that you have have your serene moments in some areas of your life - a state of perfect equanimity. I am also sure that you have your thrills your strives, as well as your egotistic and lazy moments. Fact of the matter is that different personalities come to the fore dependent on where you are and with whom you interact. You may act saintly in your church community, but then you go out and "kill" your opponents while playing tennis. Meanwhile at work, you may be somewhere in-between.

Repression is the biggest challenge for us spiritual travelers. So often have I fooled myself in believing that I was Zen in all my interactions only to observe that the demon popped out at 2 am on a full moon. Taoism can help you with that problem. Along the Tao you experience everything that comes your way with  full-intensity and complete engagement. Lust meets love, greed meets generosity, and evil meets life-affirming actions. You observe yin and yang at play and you transcend both forces in the holy now. Taoism would say that there is a time for serenity, a time for strive and a time for laziness. Along the Way we welcome everything. Life comes our way, we embrace it, deal with it and digest it. Along the Way we let go of the old baggage while the new one just doesn't stick.