Do We have a Choice?

Heaven and earth are impartial;

they see the universe as a straw dog.

The sage is non-judgmental,

she treats all her people like straw dogs.

The sage is like Heaven and earth;

to her none are especially dear;

nor is there anyone she disfavors.

She gives and gives without condition,

offering her treasures to everyone.

(Tao Te Ching)

I can only laugh when we rational folks come up with some objective reasons why we choose or quit an occupation; or even more absurd, the reasons why we supposedly fall in love, or out of it. The world is not what it seems to be. We feel our way through life and make up rational reasons later to rationalize what we have done in the first place. A force beyond our comprehension pushes our buttons and we sway with it like puppets in a marionette theater. 

Just watch for yourself how you are carried along by forces that appear random when you have reached an important cross-road: the crucial job interview when everyone appears all smiles and when the sun shines brightly. The third date with a lover when miraculously the birds are chirping and the butterflies are dancing in the air. Scents; the weather; the looks of hair, bodies, and faces; the moods people are in; meaningful symbols that pop up just when they matter the most. What appears random to the scientific mind is meaningful synchronicity for the spiritual traveler. We are not in charge, She is!

Every job, every relationship, every success, illness, or meaningful event is designed to help us live out our karma. But we don't need to be helpless puppets, or straw dogs as Lao-Tzu called them; we can wake up within the movie production; we can become its executive producer, scriptwriter and main character all in one go. Life is here to help us cut our subconscious karmic bonds. We can connect to the Tao, and get lifted up to the the next spiritual level, holding on to Her Hand every step of the Way. It is ok if our personal agenda got us to this point, as long as we wake up today and start the true mission we have been sent on. 

Perhaps some ties need to be cut when we wake up because they were stitched together by careless or even evil intentions. Perhaps we have to double our efforts to heal some ailing relationships. But mostly awakening is just about letting go. It is about realizing that love - or the cry for it - is behind everything. Bless everyone and everything that got you up to this point. Everything has been carefully planned to make awakening possible here and now. Past karma has been used up, and we have been shaken sufficiently to embrace our holy mission and return Home.

Swaying With the Music

William James, the famous psychologist, was lying one day in his cold New England room under his cozy blanket and was agonizing about the question whether he should get up. Then one moment he just got up and asked, "So what about my will? Somehow the decision to get up just happened. Why exactly did I get up?"

Believe it or not, his insight - simple as it seemed at the time - was in fact revolutionary. Scientist have run neurological studies of people who had a decision to make. Somehow the "system" knew about the decision even before the person became consciously aware of it. A light bulb literally went off in their head before they knew about it. The "system" knows and the "system" initiates while we are consciously explaining afterwards why we did what we did.

Consider this experiment. Some people were hypnotized and told to get up in the next business meeting and water the plants in the room while the business session was progressing. That's exactly what they did. You can imagine the surprise of the meeting participants. When they were later asked why they did what they did, they gave explanations like, "I suddenly realized how thirsty the plant looked. I simply couldn't wait." Not a single participant said, "You know what, I don't have the faintest idea why I did what I did."

The system knows and you just follow what a higher authority does convincing yourself that you are in charge. But don't get me wrong. I am not saying that you should stop looking for answers with your rigorous thought process; neither am I saying that you should stop listening to the intuition of your heart. I am also not saying that you should stop looking for love and try living a spiritual life. All I am saying is that the wholeness in you knows when you know what you know. You do what you do because somehow it is useful for you, making mistakes as much as having insights. Life unfolds through you in all areas of your life; even the seemingly unimportant question when to get up.

You are part of a movie. Just let it flow it through you. Make your perceived choices, struggle with heart-wrenching decisions; you can make it a mission to become somehow "enlightened". Experience the joy of moving psychological issues and behaviors out of the subconscious into the conscious. But in all that, relax as well. She is in charge; you only think that you are in charge. Get lost in the movie you call life and find your Self in it. Break trough imaginary walls in this divine Matrix. When every choice you face has literally become a no-brainer you know that you are Home.  Thoughts just "know" and feelings "feel" what the system experiences. Just as William James suddenly just got up, when you are with Her all you ever do is to sway with the music.

Leaving the Dark Night Behind

I am not what happened to me.

I am what I am choosing to become.

Carl Jung

There was once a proud and strong nation. People were furious; humiliated by the allied forces and angry at their own shifty political establishments and the lousy economy. But there was suddenly hope; the "Fuehrer" would be making things right again. They gathered late at night and watched forceful processions of soldiers and tanks; beautiful tall, blond women were marching as well. The fire was burning in massive vessels meters high in magnitude. They were enclosed by huge buildings constructed in the Greek-Roman style; they literally felt the power of the Fuehrer in the architecture. They were also tired as they had been standing for hours. But then he came and gave a rousing speech, delivered with the help of powerful speakers at a volume they had never heard before; he was full of power, hatred and force and he sucked them right in like a vortex. When he finally asked, "Do you want the total war?", they could only shout in unison, "Yes!"

Have you experienced this dark night before? The 2 am moment when depression sucks you in;  or the phallus symbol that whispers in your ear, "I give you this power if you give me your soul"; have you felt this anger that sweeps you off your feet? The temptation that is impossible to stand up to? The fear that you want to stop somehow? The greed, that tells you you need to have this object, this person, this power or this status? If you have experienced this moment in the dark night then just perhaps you have some understanding for the German people who experienced mass madness when they elected Adolf Hitler as their Fuehrer. 

I would conjecture that most of this evil stuff that happened before, and is still happening as we speak, is mostly subconscious. Many of us are just driven by programs that are beyond our conscious control. If you look carefully it is not that hard to notice when people are somehow on auto-pilot and are just reacting to triggers that move them around like puppets. Some are the good cops in this theater play - for example the greatest nation that defeated the Nazis - while some are the bad cops - the many Germans in World War II who committed terrible crimes; yet most still just follow subconscious programs.

A spiritual path is the awakening process from this dark cloud. Like Buddha, we start rewiring our brain. Like Jesus we start understanding what symbols stand for and confidently state, " Get thee behind me ego". Like Lao-Tzu, we start recognizing the yin and the yang around the Way. We are taking off a mask that we have worn pretty much all our life. It is hard work, yet it can be done. We are not robots and once we start opening up towards life we will have many friends who are happy to help us remove layer after layer of psychological protection. It is hard work and that is the reason why so few of us are really bold enough to go all the way. Yet, it can be done. Leave the dark night behind together with us.

The System Knows Best (Revised)

I posted this note below 3 years ago and only stumbled on it after someone had dug it out the archives. There certainly was wisdom in this note; all you are responsible for is to cut out interferences along the Way; the magic has to come from a Force well beyond you. But then, 3 years into the path, perhaps I am less critical of mistakes along the Way as well. Storm clouds are part of the Tao. The thunderstorm transforms you as much as the ensuing rainbow. Rain or shine one thing is clear, the system knows best :)

The System Knows Best (September 22, 2011)

Think of your conscious mind as the tip of the iceberg, but there is a much much larger mind attached to it below the surface that you can, in principle, tap into. The System is your intuition reservoir, the question only is how exactly can one establish an ongoing communication channel? You can't, at least in my experience, all you can do is to wait for these priceless messages that some call intuition and others revelations. There is one thing though that you can and have to do, and that is to cut out interferences. You can work on all your hang-ups, hesitations and fears. They cloud the communication channels and hold back the personality you truly have. The good news, all your daily tasks are all about conquering your fears and other interferences one by one. Once you have cleaned them up, if something like that is possible at all, you can experience your infinite energy reservoir in your daily life. Until you reach that point the rule of thumb should be: when in doubt, the System knows best.

Wholeness

What is your favorite letter in the alphabet?
Answer: W
It is double you
:)

I was contemplating yesterday's note on wholeness as I drove home, when my son asked me what is the favorite letter in the alphabet: W, he said, it is double you! Wow, isn't it amazing how connected we are. Yes, W stands for wholeness and it is the double you: the conscious part as well as the subconscious. A spiritual path is all about getting all the wisdom, beauty and spirituality out of the basement of our being while shining away all the dark matter that troubles our soul.

Let the Tao make you the wholesome person that you are.

Freud and Spirituality

The great question that has never been answered, and which I have not yet been able to answer, despite my thirty years of research into the femine soul, is "What does a woman want."
(Sigmund Freud)

I was reading a book about the unconscious by Antony Easthope and can't say much about its quality given that I have no training in psychology. I thought it was interesting and well written; one thing I would say though, I find it sad to see that Freud - just because he was so smart during his days - still obsesses our experts. Is is really that hard to see that Freud was a classic male voice of the 19th century? Try today's female perspective instead - not one that has been trained by the male-dominated psychology discipline - but one who thinks about love, happiness, social connections and what we really want with a fresh set of eyes. Well, I guess we already have it, it is called spirituality :)

My spiritual journey started a few years back when I observed that you not only send yourself subconscious messages, other people do too. Say you think of something and someone comes along and reacts to your thoughts. Once you start looking for it you will find this inter-connectedness everywhere. We are one, as they say, and you can very much experiment with that concept. It is a lot of fun really.

Think of the Tao - as we always call it - as a giant virtual reality show that mirrors your own belief system back to you. Believe in greed and competition and you will find it, in scarcity and sin, and you will find it too. Believe in abundance, peace and love and this too is something you can attract for yourself. Sure, you can try to "game" the system and attract whatever it is your heart desires the way the Law of Attraction folks recommend. But there will always remain an element of fear and restlessness because you are not taking the core spiritual issue by the horns: we are here to realize that we are not an ego.

                            Tao                  ego


Tao                    Divine                Matrix

subconscious    Holy Now          Freud


In the diagram above I have tried to show the interaction of the Tao, the ego and the subconscious. Once the Way starts interacting with the ego you have a glimpse of the Matrix that mirrors back to you whatever it is you aspire. When the Way meets the subconscious you are left with the holy Now. The consciousness melts in the holy Now while the subconscious receives everything it desires.

The scientifically correct - though quite narrow - world of studying the ego in its interaction with the subconscious in isolation of the spiritual world is the environment Freud started exploring. You can study it and will certainly learn a lot of important things about yourself. Don't get lost there though. It is lonely, it is dark and love is unfortunately not experienced in this world.

By Zeitgeist

PostScript: When I deposited this note I found an interesting Freudian slip, the auto-correction of Apple changed the word feminine of the above Freud quote into famine. I am sure it says something about my own attitude about what women really want given that my type is exactly the same analytical, mind-driven male perspective that Freud represents. So what! You find the mistake, you override it and you apologize in a post-script. That is what a spiritual path is all about. You decide on a direction, you take the journey, sometimes it is uphill, while often it is downhill. Don't be afraid of your subconscious. There is incredible wisdom hidden beneath. Sure there are some dark corners but after a little cleaning and after opening a couple of windows, all you find is love there :)

When the Self Experiences Itself

Without self-knowledge, without understanding the working and functions of his machine, man cannot be free, he cannot govern himself and he will always remain a slave.
(G. I. Gurdjieff)

                                Self            self
 
Conscious              Holiness     "I"

Subconscious        Tao         nature/soul


We spiritual travelers contemplate the Self - that's what defines a religion or a spiritual path. Yet, there is little we can consciously do to experience this Force. Except perhaps by cutting out interferences along the Way and learning how to be still. Just as the Bible says, "Be still and know that I am God."

The conscious self is our perception of the "I". We have a notion of ourself and we can  observe how this notion is changing over time. By putting God - the Self - on an altar we are unfortunately caught in the yin and yang of duality. We are bound to alternate between our notion of Heaven and hell. That's what the ego does, playing merry-go-around games with itself while drowning out the communication channel with God that is always present. Blessed are those who consciously perceive the self and are fine with what they see and experience. If you have reached this wholeness to experience that stage you probably are already walking the Way.

The subconscious Self is the Force we should keep our eyes on in the spiritual community. When we talk about the Tao - the Way - and synchronicity then that's exactly that, little nudges of connectedness that the Self sends to experience itSelf. This happens in interactions with people, "coincidences", or often as a thought or a memory that conveniently pops up just at the right time. It is a magnificent experience. Everyone who is on a spiritual journey is bound to experience this Force.

The subconscious self is harder for us spiritual travelers to deal with. We frown on some longings and fight the stuff that comes to the surface. Biological programs, suppressed longings, preferences and aversions; let's accept our nature, what else can we do anyway?
There is so much wisdom in our body - our nature is the communication channel of our soul. Honor every feeling and action just as much as you respect your thoughts.

The unconscious - by definition - is something that can't be analyzed; it can't be willed and can't be schemed. First allow the stuff the hides beneath bubble to the surface to find                                               out what it is you are dealing with. The psychologist G. I. Gurdjieff had a little trick to get this stuff out. He made a group of students completely drunk and then - with the help of creative dances and targeted provocations - helped them to "let it all hang out".

We have no problems with the "reasonable" desires and we are not shy about expressing them, yet, what about the stuff our community frowns upon? The lust, the greed, the anger or the lack of love. They too want to be expressed. Why do you think life confronts you with the situations that trigger these emotions and reactions. No one wants you to be irresponsible and act against the notion of your Self, but there also has to be an understanding that the Self is exactly that - a notion of holiness. The system beneath may have a different vision. Find a way to bring the two belief system in unity. When the Self merges with the self and when the Way becomes your nature you are finally Home.

The Elephant in the Room

Once upon a time, there lived six blind men in a village. One day the villagers told them, "Hey, there is an elephant in the village today."

They had no idea what an elephant is. They decided, "Even though we would not be able to see it, let us go and feel it anyway." All of them went where the elephant was. Everyone of them touched the elephant.

"Hey, the elephant is a pillar," said the first man who touched his leg.

"Oh, no! it is like a rope," said the second man who touched the tail.

"Oh, no! it is like a thick branch of a tree," said the third man who touched the trunk of the elephant.

"It is like a big hand fan" said the fourth man who touched the ear of the elephant.

"It is like a huge wall," said the fifth man who touched the belly of the elephant.

"It is like a solid pipe," Said the sixth man who touched the tusk of the elephant.

They began to argue about the elephant and everyone of them insisted that he was right. It looked like they were getting agitated. A wise man was passing by and he saw this. He stopped and asked them, "What is the matter?" They said, "We cannot agree to what the elephant is like." Each one of them told what he thought the elephant was like. The wise man calmly explained to them, "All of you are right. The reason every one of you is telling it differently because each one of you touched the different part of the elephant. So, actually the elephant has all those features what you all said."

"Oh!" everyone said. There was no more fight. They felt happy that they were all right.
 (Hindu Wisdom)

Freud had astute observations about himself and his patients, yet he was one of the blind men that told us about the elephant. Freud discovered the ego and analyzed it for us. He was bold enough to talk about sex in an utterly sexually repressed society, yet he was not bold enough to talk about the Spirit. Erich Fromm once described one of Freud's dreams where Freud experienced love as a dried up - dead - rose. Yes, Freud analyzed life with an razor-sharp intellect; unfortunately sometimes life bleeds to death during this operation.

Freud made the subconscious a household name, but it was Jung who made us realize the elephant in the room. Not only did he help us understand the incredible wisdom and power that is hidden deep inside of us, but he was also willing - buried by lots of intellectual blah - to admit the presence of the Self. We have passed a century since this discussion started and have added plenty of insights from the New Age movement. Today we know of the elephant in the room. Yet everyone will have to see and feel all parts to really know all about it. That is exactly what a spiritual journey will do for you.

For many of us the path is a journey through all four quadrants: intellect, ego, subconscious, and Spirit. We tend to know the New Age "ego - True Self" debate pretty well, but unfortunately it is just that, a debate. You have to experience your ego dissolve in the presence of the Self for yourself. This is your spiritual mission. You have to feel it, breathe it, struggle for it, and come to appreciate it. Eventually the "I" transcends into "I Am". This may happen in front of the burning bush, may happen after falling in a deep depression, or might happen on a trip to the local grocery store. Until then, monitor the workings of the "I", see how your state of mind interacts with the environment you are operating in, and do whatever you can to also be in touch with your Spirit. For many this connection happens as they pray or meditate; some discover the Self in others, very much like the Chinese sage Lao-Tzu did when he described "The Way".

The Bhagavad Gita is an intellect driven spiritual journey. Lord Krishna tells Arjun on the battle field that you can cut through the distortions of the ego. The goal of the spiritual warrior is find out the demands of the Way - your personal dharma as the Hindus call it - and just do it, whether you like it or not. The Gita was written for Gods. If you go down that path make sure you listen to the voice in your head as much as you listen to the wisdom of  your subconscious. Women and children have a better access to this Voice then men do.

Imagine an iceberg with the ego and the intellect above the water line. Spirit and the subconscious would be the giant mass below it. There are angels and demons hidden there, archetypes as well as fears and monsters. Freud's optimism that we can catapult many of these forces into our conscious mind was justified. Yet he wanted to squeeze these insights through the male intellect while the true reality is so much bigger than that. Woman and man have to merge, child and adult have to walk together, intellect and subconscious have to be in harmony, within and without have to be on the same page, and the ego has to be guided by the a Self. This is a giant task but you have a life-time to work on it and you have so many friends and angels cheering you on.

We invite you to join our journey towards wholeness. Nothing is sacred while everything is sacred; we feel and understand at the same time ; we discover every external occurrence in perfect harmony with our internal state of mind, and we see every sister as a mirror image of ourself. Discover that we are God together with us. It is a Herculean task but it is a lot of fun too. There is a unifying force linking intellect, ego, Spirit and the subconscious: love. You can love the intellect that Lord Krishna gave us, you can be proud of the "I" that has already traveled so far and just needs one more step on the homecoming journey. You can love the Spirit that prevails in everything and you can love the innocence, purity and strength of the child, woman and hero within, just as you can appreciate the incredible energy reservoir of the demon. Discover the wholeness inside. It is as plain as the elephant in the room.


                                         Intellect



Ego                                     Love                          Spirit



                                      Subconscious

The Symbol of the Snake

The Tree of Life and Death by Berthold Furtmeyr is a remarkable display of the story of Adam and Eve. It shows Adam slumbering in the Garden of Eden with the snake climbing up the Tree of Life, while two women were distributing the fruit to others: Eve from the Tree of Death and Maria Ecclesia, the mystic Bride of Christ, from the Tree of Life (see below).

What really got me about this picture was the snake as a symbol of the phallus climbing up the tree. Indeed, it displays Adam as being driven by a subconscious force. We think we are the master of our destiny while from a divine perspective we are still asleep. We have to respect the force of the phallus until the day we wake; before that, we simply have no choice.

While the snake in motion displayed as a phallus is a symbol of our human struggles, the erect snake is often displayed as a symbol for enlightenment. I recall a movie about the Buddha where he sits lost in meditation, and as it starts raining, a cobra moves up to him and covers his head from the rain, hovering over him in an erect pose. That's indeed the symbol of enlightenment, displaying the dissemination of the life force through the erect body into the brain rather than losing it in the act of ejaculation. Well, it is not really lost. but it takes both yin and yang during the sexual act to become one. Whereas enlightenment transcends both. Just as the bible says, when your two eyes become one, your body will be filled with light.

The last symbol that in a sense combines both cases is the symbol of the snake that bites its own tail and forms a circle. This could be called the symbol of the Tao. The Tree of Life and Death displays duality, Taoism transcends good and evil. The circle encompasses yin and yang, subconscious and conscious. The circle may not represent our notion of holiness, but it is whole. From a divine perspective all aspects of life are "perfect", may they be subconscious or not, male or female, enlightened or not.The circle comprises them all and that is Taoism.

That Which Tastes Like Poison at First

Do you know people who sabotage themselves at times? Who knows, perhaps it was  a father lashing out at his son telling him that he is a  good-for-nothing, or a nasty remark of a relative telling a little girl that she is ugly at an impregnable age. Unfortunately these words can burn themselves like vicious memes into our subconscious and we take them for granted like God commands without the ability of our intellect to overwrite them when we are older.  The good news is, just as these irrational programs can get installed you can uninstall them with the help of targeted symbolic acts. Please read Alejandro Jodorowsky's excellent book Psychomagic for many case-specific examples.

So when we talk about the subconscious mind we really talk about two different things, a mindless computer that can work for or against you, as well as a divine source of wisdom and guidance. Every spiritual traveler will have felt this wisdom,  sometimes even heard a guiding Voice deep inside. Sometimes we receive divine messages from our environment. We call this external communication channel the Tao. You get step-by-step instructions to help you understand who you truly are and encouragement to tackle your mission in life.

A spiritual path is really a cleaning up with all these subconscious programs that hurt your Self-discovery, while at the same time learning to get in touch with your inborn Self-connection. One fine day you discover the red carpet the Tao has always laid out for you and from therein all you have to do is to follow it. Still, despite this divine touch,  you are not any different from all the others. You too have to tackle insecurities, overcome fears and deal with confusion. Sometimes the divine Voice will tell you to cut out stuff that seems like fun to you, but it will be explained to you  why this particular activity would stand in the Way. So in a sense a spiritual path is like an ongoing therapy course. Every resistance along the Way is yet another sign to reposition your self in order to connect with your Self.

The psychologist/mystic Gurdjieff once said that if you follow a spiritual path you manage to avoid living like a pig and dying like a dog. This sounds a little extreme, but I am sure every spiritual path traveler understands the truth behind it. If you experience your Self while living, it is hard to get carried away by life's fickle temptations, just as you have little to be afraid of when you die.

The Bhagavad Gita puts this theme in the following way:
That which tastes like poison at first, but tastes like nectar in the end, this is the joy of a mind at peace with itself. Pleasure of the senses seems like nectar at first, but is bitter as poison in the end.

 Follow the signs of the Tao and you already are reunited with the Source. Life becomes an ongoing feedback mechanism and your subconscious understands that you are completely taken care of. All life demands of you is to stay away from the poison and enjoy the nectar instead. That is not hard to do, is it?

Life is a Present, but Only if You are Present

Being mindful allows you to track down what appear to be subconscious processes, disentangle them and bring them out in the open. Say you lie in bed, your partner is fast asleep but since you are lying next to each other, you can feel a touch on your body. You feel sexual energy rising in you, you feel relaxed because it is Saturday and you have a long weekend coming up, you are touching yourself, you picture your favorite sexual act and you effectively begin to masturbate.

When you think about it, there are actually many things going on in this scene. A lot happens between the moment you wake up and the time you masturbate. Waking up is obviously out of your control, as is the experience of the touch of your partner and the fact that sexual energy is rising in you. You may be a person who always feels sexual energy most intensely when you are relaxed. Knowing the mood you are in helps you understand how you are likely to react. Once you are mindful of what is going on inside, you suddenly realize that you have a choice in touching yourself and a choice in creating exciting sexual mental images. Before you were just on an autopilot that led to masturbation even though many of the processes weren't subconscious at all, be mindful gives you a choice in what experience and lets you experience everything more intensely.

Try to be present when something is happening inside you, say sexual energy surge in you like in in our example. How do you react to this energy surge? How is your mood when you experience it? Are you angry or pleased, anxious or relaxed, are you in a good or in a bad mood? Try to be present when these processes run, or otherwise you will be just dragged around by these emotions and energy and will end up acing like a slave. Are you a master of your emotions and actions or are you controlled totally by the robot inside?

To become a master of your emotions and your actions can be learned. Try to be present when these energies surge in you, feel how different emotions work on your body, and try to understand why you have these reactions. With your total attention and total presence, with the gaze of your love, these emotions calm down like a purring cat. Please practice this by yourself, you basically can see the transition of your emotions in action. You can experience how pain is transformed into love and joy; anxiety into peace; anger into forgiveness.

Please don’t suppress your emotions. Accept them as they are. Try not to judge them and label them as good or bad. Take them all and in experience them as they are. The problems for most of people is that they are controlled and dragged around by their emotions. The emotional, mental and physical dominos are falling and afterwards the outcome gets labeled as good or bad. When something is labeled as good, you are happy to experience what is going on and you want them to stay with it as long as possible. On the contrary, when the emotions are labeled as bad, you don’t want them, you try to get rid of them and you afterwards beat yourself or someone else up over them.

If you really watch these emotions and observe them carefully, you will find that, as a matter of fact, these emotions come and go by themselves. But if you resist them, suppress them, or try to control them, they will stay longer. Just be present with them, you will be able to transcendent these emotions, understand them and yourself, and experience life

With your presence, the intensity of every emotion will become strong and you will also gain back the feeling of liveliness. Do you recall how you experienced life as a child? Can you feel the breeze when you walk in nature? Can you see the flowers blooming all over the places? Can you taste the flavor of food? Have you ever experienced talking to your loved one and feel the love flowing back and forth between you two? Have you ever experienced the pain when someone you really care is walking out of your life? Yes, these situations trigger our emotions and sensations. If you are present in these happenings, you will connect with the lively energy of these things. You cannot help feeling that life is wonderful and exciting because you are lively there participating every thing.

Dear friends, please get out of your mind and your auto-pilot and join life instead. Leave the roller-coaster of emotions, just experience the first push, the psychological trigger and experience how the stimulus is fading naturally when you just observe. Life is a present and a blessing, but only when you are present will you be able to get it. You have lived in the illusionary world full of worry and fear long enough. Join the real world and be ready to receive your present.

By Christian and Su Zhen

You Simply Are

In an experiment people where hypnotized and told to get up in a business meeting at a particular time and water the plants. Indeed, in the middle of a business meeting these people got up and watered the plants. When they were asked what made them do it, they gave all kind of reasons such as 'The plant suddenly looked really thirsty'. The point is that they had no clue why they were doing this bizarre behavior, but they felt they could explain it nevertheless. Not a single person said 'You know what, I have no clue why I did what I did'.

You simply are; you are driven by all kind of things. The scent or the height of a person, the intensity of the sunshine, the prevalence of clouds, the background noise of laughter, engines or birds, the way you have slept, the amount of coffee you have had, your hormones, the lunar and solar fluctuations. You take it all in and you make your all the choices in your day under the influence of all these factors and then you wrap some rationality around why you do what you do. You make decisions and then explain mentally to yourself why you made them.

There are a number of ways we can deal with this insight. We can shrug and say 'whatever'; we can try to understand and analyze all these biases to the best of our abilities in order to make better conscious choices. Or we can conjecture that we are just part of a magnificent movie plot, that is, we are being set up for a reason. The latter approach is the philosophy of the Tao. Everything that happens to you is perfect as is from the perspective of bringing you home. There is no need to explain anything consciously and rationally because everything just happens the way is supposed to along the Tao. While the spiritual journey starts with decisions, with many wrong turns along the Way; soon enough you just wander along the path subconsciously. It is the journey home, the connection with the Source which is effortless, thoughtless, but full of joy and peace.

Facing Inner Demons

You probably have areas in your life where you feel less comfortable and where you have to overcome inner resistance in order to advance. If you mess up, often subconsciously, it just means that your conscious will has to do a little more convincing to get the subconscious mind to come along. Facing inner demons is hard work, but in the end they can be overcome if you are persistent and if you always put your best foot forward in whatever you do.

Dealing with your perceived shadows is similar. You might choose to ignore them, you might choose to embrace them and you might choose to find a creative outlet of your inner tension, that is, to transcend the tension altogether. Either way, resistance and guilt will be flaring up given that the very notion of a personal shadow implies that your perceived holy part doesn't want to have anything to do with it. Remember, the negative signals you are getting along the way are messages that you send yourself. They just reflect your state of mind.

In all three alternatives, if you are successful, you would expect the tensions and the subconscious slips to decrease over time as the subconscious mind slowly, but surely reprograms itself and accepts this new way of looking at the world. If the intensity of the negative feed-back loop increases over time, well, then you have to go back to the drawing board until you find a way that works for your whole self.

Lining up Your Drives

When you bring up Christianity in spiritual chat rooms, you tend to get a negative gut reaction pretty much independent of what you say. It appears that our church has destroyed way too much pottery over the centuries and it is hard to fix this psychological damage. But there is more more to the problem, by embracing Christian values, many try to aspire something they are not.  Aggression, greed, arrogance and many other emotions are swept under the carpet, and these forces simmer deep in the subconscious.

I have met Christians who do all the right things, but if you really look at them, they appear like zombies - absolutely lifeless. They try to live up to a mental image, but all their true emotions are swept into the subconscious sphere. Let go of the lofty ideals would be my advise, you can still aspire to reach that state if you like, but recognize the ugly emotions inside yourself and find creative ways to let off your steam.

Lining up your drives means that you need to find a way to express your conscious and subconscious forces at the same time.  Life has a habit of creating the situations and environments that allow you to heal yourself. Take aggression for example - a pro-football player after banging his head into others for 15 consecutive seasons probably reaches a sacred 'been there, done that' feeling. If your problem is intellectual arrogance, become a professor, and after sparring the best and brightest mentally for 30 years or so, you are perhaps ready to move on to the next spiritual level as well. You can fill in your personal challenge here, and I am sure that after a little bit of soul-searching you will find your idiosyncratic way of expressing your pent-up steam.

Line up all your forces, conscious as well as subconscious, and trust that life as is happens to offer a perfect opportunity to express them. If you encounter problems along the way, take it as a sign from the subconscious that additional creative outlets are needed. Every problem is an opportunity to penetrate a new spiritual dimension. The bigger the problem, the higher the upside would be my hunch. Life your life to the fullest and bring it all together. With it, you have a shot at becoming whole.

You Create Your Own World

The aggressive business person believes this is a 'dog-eat-dog' kind of world and he gets his wish. Why, because he will attract the characters in his life who are more than happy to play with him. When he is finally ready to move on just because he 'has been there and done that' and as he is no longer interested in competing with others and ruthlessly getting his way, his environment will adjust with his focus.

A woman believes that we are living in a loving and caring world and, after suffering a few bruises along the way, manages to creates her own reality. She surrounds herself with a loving family, has close and trusted friends and works in a caring environment. You may ask why she needs to suffer bruises first and the answer is that most of us deep inside worry that we will be beaten up if we are kind, loving and caring. Again, as your subconscious believes, so will you attract the demons that vindicate your deepest fears.

A spiritual aspirant believes the Tao sends him all the necessary information along the way and he gets his wish too. Bruises don't make any sense, since only  little nudges are required to make him change his behavior. The spiritual aspirant will most likely have similar demons as the caring woman who believes in love. The Tao is there to show you are you are invincible once you have conquered your fears and doubts. Everything that you encounter along the Tao happens to be an invite to align your subconscious with your conscious game plan. 

Using The Law of Attraction for Spiritual Growth

The Law of Attraction states that you attract everything that happens to you. The 'secret crowd'tries you exploit this law in order to get something.  I tend to use the LoA in an indirect fashion. Observe everything that happens to you, and try to monitor your subconscious game plan accordingly.  If problems hit you, that just means that you have to dig down deep and figure out which psychological hurdles you still have to take. Viewed from this perspective there is really nothing to fear. Everything that happens to you is just a perfect opportunity to become whole here right now.

What exactly do you know about your subconscious, well little to nothing, that's the whole point of the below-your-conscious-surface expression. The good news though, the environment that you are creating for yourself with all the personal interactions that you are experiencing speaks volumes about what is going on below the surface. Whenever I feel tensions in myself, or face resistance with people or in situations, I always ask myself 'What is the learning opportunity here?' Until the day when you are whole, that is when everything you do reflects your true - conscious as well as subconscious - being, you will always attract healing opportunities into your life. Welcome them and put your best foot forward and before you know it, the lesson plan will be completed.

The master of 'the secret' - if something like that is possible - will have everything. But will she have the secret to happiness? The Tao master will do God's will instead, moment by moment, and with it happiness is guaranteed. Peace and happiness implies ever-present connectedness with the Source. 

On Humoring Your Subconscious

The subconscious is vast, it knows so much more than the thinking I, but often has its own agenda. Understanding your subconscious is what our spiritual path is all about. The dark stuff that is hidden in the basement is, step by step, carried up into the light where it disappears. Similarly, as you begin to understand what your secret life quest really is, which happens to be hidden in your subconscious as well, you become so much more powerful.

It really gets interesting when the subconscious and the thinking I clash. This is where addictions and pernicious habits come in. In the morning the thinking I decides that something like the experience last night will never happen again, only to find that at night Mr Hyde comes out again and shows the finger to Dr. Jekyll.

There is a little trick that you can employ as you try to rid yourself of this struggle. The subconscious works very differently than the thinking I, all it really needs is a nod of acknowledgement that it exists. Just offer it a symbol, a token that it is there and that it will leave you, the conscious I, in peace. Perhaps you know the expression modus vivendi, i.e. a state that allows both parties to coexist. Find this modus vivendi that works for you.

Please note, however, that acknowledging the dark force inside yourself is very different from giving in to it. If you give the dark force a finger it will swallow you entirely. But based on my experience you will always find a creative way to keep the dark force at bay without picking a fight with it.

Who is Holding You Back?

Below your consciousness there is an infinite ocean of wisdom that you can tap into, but there are also chains of your past, the moral standards of society and your inbuilt rigidities. The story of the subconscious has been told often, but I had nevertheless an eye-opening experience when I was reminded of the movie Shine. In it a brilliant pianist breaks down mentally over his own desire to express his talent which conflicts with his father's insistence not to seek a public profile and to stay home.

On our spiritual path we try to recognize our so called higher self, but if we feel resistance or see signs that we are headed in the wrong direction, how do we know who is holding us back, our true self or our subconscious fears and limitations? I ran a little experiment the other day where I ventured to explore one of my personal taboos (suffice to say that it is embedded in the temptation triangle Power, Gold & Sex). It turned out to be quite an interesting field trip. When I left the building it seemed that it was just starting to pour. As I had no umbrella I decided to turn back. No way, I told myself, you get your errand done even if you get dripping wet. Well, the sky cleared up immediately. I then took the subway and found I was on the wrong line. Let's turn back my mind immediately barked; I thought about it and realized that I could reach my destination by just walking for a couple of minutes. Next came a teenager with a big AC DC t-shirt Highway to Hell. I started to laugh. It became so obvious to me that my subconscious played all these tricks on me. There were many more occurrences in this direction, but I guess you got the picture by now. The fears were all mine, the higher source removed all shortcomings instantaneously to get the learning experience over with.

It is amazing how much damage the subconscious can inflict on us, but I guess that is what our spiritual discovery process is all about. Set yourself free from the shackles of your past and jump into the ocean of wisdom. The next question, however, happens to be how we can rewire our brains effectively. If somebody has experience in this direction or has a good book to recommend, please let me know.

Cravings

Some of you may have heard about the 21 days rule: if you do something for 21 consecutive days, the new routine gets programmed into your subconscious. You can try this rule for all cravings, addictions or other pernicious habits you want to get rid of. With every passing day your confidence level rises that you will resist the next temptation.

The Law of Attraction seems to be at work as well: what you do and what occupies your mind, you attract further like a magnet. Likewise, as you steadily walk away from your habit, it slowly disappears from your life.

What is left, however, is the uphill task of making it trough the first few days. Only willpower can get you through that. It will get progressively easier, so stay the course!

Power of Intention: Aligning the Three Forces

I am quite an amateur in the now famous field of the Power of Intention. When I first heard about The Secret, I questioned whether all these experts who manage to bend the universe with their mental power really understood the origin of their desires. After all, aren't you running the risk that you are just on a magnificent ego power trip (see Willpower, 11/12/07) Meanwhile I do understand that mental manifestation has to become part of our repertoire as we wander along our spiritual path; since we are God's co-creators, the universe is likely to ask us from time to time to move a few mountains on our path.

From what I understand, the three forces at work are quite straightforward. You have to align your soul, your consciousness, and your subconsciousness and the universe becomes your oyster. Actually, discovering the soul part almost seems to be the simpler problem; after all, that's what our spiritual journey is all about. I still would argue that you have to discover your soul first before you become a metaphysical magician: "Seek ye first the kingdom of Heaven, then shall all things be added unto thee".

The force that I don't understand well -for obvious reasons- is the subconscious. How do you make sure that our subconscious doesn't undermine what our soul and conscious will want to manifest together. Joshua David Stone claims in Soul Psychology: Keys to Ascension that it takes 21 days to cement a new habit into our subconscious. The word habit implies that there is action involved, right? Can you heal yourself by telling yourself that you are healthy each day, but you obviously don't really believe it given that you are sick? Perhaps we should tackle the subconscious the way an athlete does when he gets ready for a season. You start at a certain level of fitness and build physical and mental strength every day until you literally explode during the playoffs. If you are telling yourself every day that you are better than the day before at whatever you want to accomplish and follow this affirmation up with the necessary actions, you should be able to imprint this idea into your subconscious as well. The Power of Intention should make your personal growth rate exponential in this case.