Quitting the War Inside of US

The war is over if you want it, the war is over now.
(John Lennon, Happy Christmas - The War is Over)

You come home on a Friday night, the workweek again has been harder than expected, and the colleagues had been particularly annoying this morning. Almost without realizing you grab the bag of chips, take the salsa out of the fridge and start munching to your favorite TV show. It is ok, you will be hitting the gym tomorrow, right? Hey, something is missing. Oh, of course, the glass of wine which soon enough becomes two and more.  What happened to your good intention to only eat healthy food and lose 20 pounds with more exercising?

Do you know the expression "cycling"? The idea of cycling is that you are caught in a back and forth without getting anywhere for a while. In a sense these Friday night episodes which feel so liberating at the time are nothing but an attack on yourself. We chose food as a theme, but the war with yourself can have so many more facets: drugs, gambling, shopping, sex; you can fill in the blanks. The storyline is always the same, it is your subconscious telling you, "Hey, you are not happy, do something to make yourself happy."   And the ways you choose to make yourself happy is actually making things worse. Unless you manage to avoid an escalating vicious cycle you suddenly have an  addiction to deal with.  You want to use your willpower to solve the addiction issue, but the battle inside saps all your psychic powers.

You cannot win a war against yourself -  how should that be possible -  but you can let the internal tensions fade into oblivion over time. Step one in the detoxication program is to cut harmful stress out of your life as best as it is possible for you. It is the tension that you experience in your life which give ammunition to the darkness inside of you. The "system" rebels against the captain; the subconscious battles the conscious you. What you can try to do is to protect yourself better by surrounding yourself with people you love and by choosing a work that allows you to pour your heart and soul into. After all, if you are truly happy, the "system" will have little to attack.

The next step is to just accept the war inside. On a hangover day, instead of giving power to the voice that wants to beat you up, perhaps you can ask instead, "So what went wrong this time? What can I do differently next time around?"  Yes, if you observe yourself, you will find the war inside you consumes you even more energy than the hangover itself.  Just like in all other events in your life which you have opinion about; it is these value judgements that cause your sufferings and depression.

Start being mindful when the dark side takes over. Just observe step by step how you are let down into the basement of your being. Listen to the soothing voice that whispers, "just let go, you deserve a little happiness". Being mindful when you give in to temptation  will probably make you better prepared not to fall into the same trap next time around.  And if you do, it is no big deal as well.  You climbed out of the hole before, so you can do it again. There is a Chinese saying, “not any kind of fish can prosper in water which is completely clean". The same is true of life. Sometimes you need your struggles to make the adjustment that was overdue years ago.

On the hangover day, after you find the broken China on the floor, just monitor how you feel. Monitor how long it takes before your spiritual energy replenishes itself. Observe the pangs of guilt, the fears that you may be doomed forever. You never are. The irony is that the force that battles with you and gets you in the mess to start with, will afterwards beat you up over it. This "war inside" is in fact fascinating to watch.

 Have you been ever stuck with a car in the mud or in the snow? You probably know what to do then. You put a mat under the wheel that is connected to the engine and gently rock back and forth. The back and forth motion slowly develop traction for the tires and with one big jump you are out of the hole and on your way. Use your cycling experience in the same way. Observe how you are creating your own suffering by starting the war inside.  You will only do this when have no idea what you are doing.  The Course in Miracles writes: "When you have seen this real world, as you will surely do, you will remember Us. Yet you must learn the cost of sleeping, and refuse to pay it." That's exactly it. Remind yourself of the costs of being asleep and you will certainly reach the day when the war inside is suddenly over.


By Christian and Su Zhen

The Path of Darkness and Light

When Maharishi Mahesh Yogi traveled in the Unites States, an aspiring young spiritual traveler saw him standing with a number of disciples at the airport. She mustered all her courage and went up to him and introduced herself. They talked for a short while and at the end she asked him if he had any advice for her. He smiled and replied "As a matter of fact, I do". He took a piece of paper and wrote one word on it. Enjoy! She immediately understood what it meant. When she returned home she tabled her holy mission and started embracing life instead.

If your heart is attracted to activities that our society or spirituality looks at suspiciously, what will you do? You struggle to stay away, but it seems that there is an invisible force that is driven you towards it. Don’t be afraid if this is happening to you. Follow your heart and engage in these activities with an open mind. What choice do you have anyway. Just let go of the notions of good and bad and do what is right for you and your spiritual path.

An Aghori master - this is the discipline of studying the not so holy activities - once gave three pieces of advice for embracing the darker aspects of life: Never hurt anyone, don't keep any secrets, and never regret.The reason behind it is pretty straightforward. If you engage with the not so holy activities you in fact do what your ego tells you to do. But the capricious fellow will soon beat you up for following his advice. However, if you follow these three rules your ego will have no ammunition. After all, you don't hurt anyone's feelings and he can also not accuse you of keeping secrets. Of course he will tell you that you jeopardized your spiritual path forever, but if you felt that you were following Her cues, just ignore the chatter in your head.

Trust in the good intention of Tao; She must have some plans for you if you try your best and still can't shake these temptations. Follow your heart and Her cues; let yourself experience them with courage and consciousness. You might get on a rocky path but that may just mean that the ego wants to sent her on a guilt trip just as it has sent you on this dark alley in the first place. Whatever you do, just get done what you have to. If you follow Her path, you will always be offered an outcome that leads to liberation, wholeness and love. At this moment, you will be amazed by the Tao’s wisdom and foresight.

A spiritual path is a journey designed to discover that you are so much more than who you currently think you are. These so-called dark experiments are there to open your eyes and understand that you are not your desires. Where is the harm in that? Moreover, if you accept that you are driven like everyone else by subconscious forces beyond your control, it will be so much easier to tolerate the journeys of your soul siblings. "Been there, done that" is a holy mantra for all of us. Break free from your self-imposed limitations and patterns. Understand that there is a good seed in every bad thing just as there is a seed of destruction in every success and you will be whole.

By Christian and Su Zhen

Venture into the Unknown

What do you do if your heart is attracted to something that our society or our spiritual community frowns on? Especially for us spiritual travelers an encounter with our darker side can be quite problematic. We say being greedy, competitive or full of lust is not good, but then we have to accept that sometimes we are just like that. But at the same time, we recognize that these experiences cannot define us, just as being loving, peaceful, or blissful is passing us like cloud as well.

You struggle to stay away from whatever it is that you think is tempting you, but it keeps on coming back like a boomerang. It seems like it is an invisible force that is driving you towards it. Don’t be afraid if this is happening to you. Follow your heart and face what life brings your way. You will certainly encounter moments of pain, doubt and darkness, but you have no choice anyway. Hiding behind your spiritual mission would only postpone the inevitable encounter, while facing your demons is often the only way forward. If you observe yourself for a long time, it seems that at different stage we are learning different themes. Take your chance and learn what comes your way. Don’t waste your time and experience everything like a dream. Be open to the experience and realize what is going on inside of you.

Sri Ramakrishna, the Hindu mystic of 19th century India, was manifested divine love, yet when one of his disciples refused to kill a cockroach because that went against his notion of spirituality, Sri Ramakrishna in fact told him that he had to kill it, just to show to him that killing is part of life as well. Similarly, why don't you consider your encounter with the dark side as your lesson plan to get suppressed stuff out in the open. Dance with life, and if you are alert enough, if you are there, you will know what the Tao has in store for you. Be brave, walk into the dark; adventure to the unknown.

Every reaction has a counter- reaction; that is the Law of the Tao. When you are drawn with a lot of force towards something, it means the Tao is in action. Jump into the flow and follow the Tao. Trust in the Tao's good intentions; She always has a plan for you. Don't worry about what our society or spiritual community thinks, you walk on your path with an open mind and open eyes. Your resistance comes from your expectation of what is supposed to happen and you judge certain outcomes as bad. But as a matter of fact, you never really completely grasp what is going to happen, and what the Tao has in mind. There is something mysterious and incredibly creative about life. Release your control of life, and let Her take you for a ride.

Follow your passions and understand how your path can heal you and everyone who walks with you. The Tao will always give you an opportunity to pour your heart and soul into something that you believe in. Tensions can be transcended, conflicts can be understood and wounds can be healed. If you ever find yourself throwing dirt on love while following your passions you know for sure that you have overlooked something. Wherever She treats, love abounds. Follow Her path towards freedom, peace and joy. Venture into the unknown and let Her surprise you!

By Christian and Su Zhen

Taking the Last Steps Across the Bridge

If you are trying to resist temptation, you may find yourself feeling the forbidden desires more strongly just when your ability to resist them is down.
(Roy Baumeister and John Tierney, Willpower)

When an addict tells you that from here on he will stop his destructive path because he has finally figured out how much he values life after all, you will be happy to hear this new-found commitment, but you will nevertheless be doubtful. Too often have you raised your hopes only to find that a little pressure or a simple reminder of the old drug-filled world immediately brings a relapse with it.

The journey of a spiritual traveler is remarkably similar in that there will be a phase towards the end of your journey when a a war will be brewing inside of you, with the self battling the Self. The reason for that is simple. There is a force inside of you that tries to prevent you from taking these last steps and will put all its remaining eggs into one basket, the last area of specialness that is dear to you. You will have to be mindful and vigilant at this stage otherwise you will waste a lot of time with an endless back and forth. This is where the comparison with the addict comes in, willpower alone will probably not get you over the bridge.

Have you heard about the Radish Experiment? A group of students were given the instruction to eat radish in a room with freshly baked cookies while waiting for a test. It turned out that in the test students had to work on a puzzle afterwards and those who had already used up their willpower on withstanding the cookie temptation dropped out earlier than students who were allowed to eat cookies in the waiting room. So it turns out that willpower is a muscle, you want to use it on occasions, you may even try to strengthen it over time, but you can't strain it for too long otherwise you will give in fact give even more power to your temptation.

There is only one guaranteed way to take the last few steps over the bridge. Simplify your life, surround yourself with things that give you spiritual energy instead. Find projects and people that you are passionate about and let this mission put you on auto-pilot. The Tao will present all your temptations as simple choices for or against your sacred mission and your love for the people and the work will get you over the bridge without problems. So what is your calling in life? Once you have decided on something, trust that your soul siblings will show up shortly afterwards. As a matter of fact, your soul siblings signed up for their mission eons ago to take those few steps with you. All you have to do is to drum up that little will-power to follow their lead. Let love show you the way.

Take a Walk to the Dark Side

I was drawing with the boys the other day out of a book that had step by step drawing instructions for ghosts, witches and similar Halloween folks, and the character they chose just happened to be Mr. Hyde. The boys were asking why he looked so sad and angry and given that I had little appetite to start a discussion about shadow personalities with kindergardeners, I said that Mr. Hyde felt sad and angry because his friend, Dr. Jekyll, didn't want to associate with him. They asked me how the story ended and I had to admit to them that Mr. Hyde got more and more destructive to get Dr. Jekyll's attention, but he never succeeded until the day when they both got locked up. They were sad to hear that, but then felt better when I told them that it was just fiction anyway.

I would guess that we all have a shadows personality, the demon on the other side of the shoulder, sitting just next to the angel.The spiritual path traveler has the added problem that he probably condemns his shadow; he doesn't want to associate with him and feels guilty about his dark drives. Yet, listening to the advice that I gave the boys, perhaps Mr. Hyde just wants to be acknowledged and wants to be understood.

A light worker has to have a shadow, so please understand that what you are going through is normal. Ask and the Tao will always tell you why your demon exists and why he acts the way he does. But you have to be willing to look towards the shadow, otherwise Mr. Hyde will never go away and probably scream louder and louder in the process. Hang out with Mr. Hyde and experiment with the dark forces until you understand them. When you understand the psychological forces as play, you perhaps can even incorporate some of your shadow demands into your persona without undermining your spiritual journey.

Eventually you will find a way to keep your shadow at arms-length, because the problem statement will never change, Mr. Hyde wants to march in the opposite direction of the light worker. Of course you will find this arrangement that works for you; this is your problem, you gave it to yourself to gain wholeness. Spiritual path travelers have powerful allies who help you finding and defining yourself. So relax my friend, wholeness is waiting for you. Take a walk to the dark side and find the way that keeps your shadow at arms-length permanently.

They say that the Christ and the Buddha at one time on their spiritual journey just said no to their ego. Three times in total the temptation came and went and then it was gone forever. This feat is hard to replicate and we ordinary mortals feel guilty that we don't have the willpower like the Ones we aspire to be. I have a slightly different experience. After a long struggle, a dark symbol appears, it flashes by you like a vanishing dream and at that point you just understand what the demon is up to. Willpower is required to get you to that stage, the never-ending back and forth, the dance of shadow and light, but the last step is as much an insight as a decision to abstain. Just like that the insight strikes and the ostensibly never-ending struggle is over!

Who is Talking, the Tao or Fear?

He was an aspiring spiritual path traveler, but somehow minded his receding hairline. When a colleague had a convincing hear transplant operation done, he decided he would give it a shot as well. When he told his mother about it, he was surprised about her opposition, 'Son, you have to accept your genes', she barked into the phone. He went for the first operation nevertheless, and dutifully took the medicine that some claimed could on occasions have serious side effects. Everything would have been perfect - his wife loved the results - had it not been for the fact that he banged his toe into a door in the morning of the operation. That seemed odd given that he happened to be a very well-coordinated athlete. More than that, his foot injury disappeared as magically as it came on the day when his scalped healed from the operation. 'This must be a message from the Tao that 'you are not your body', the spiritual aspirant concluded and promptly canceled his follow-up operation and quit taking his medicine as well.

What do you think? Do you think this was a message from the beyond to our spiritual aspirant, or was this a self-imposed injury that just reflected the insecurities of deviating from the path of righteousness, as expressed by the mother's protest or the spiritual super-ego, 'Your are not your body?' Of course I don't know either, each spiritual path traveler has to figure out these issues by herself, but I would say that in my experience it pays to take a few risks. The Tao is never vicious, but your fears are. The longer you travel a path, the better in tune you are with these decisions. You have got to wiggle yourself through life. Actually it was Sadhguru who said, 'whatever you do, go all the way'. There is no harm accumulating a little bad karma in the process. You need a little pain sometimes to remind yourself that we are here to wake up.If you faced eternal sunshine, you would only get complacent, right?

On Interferences

Our task is but to continue, as fast as possible, the necessary process of looking straight at all the interferences and seeing it exactly as it is.
A Course in Miracles

If you are plagued by interferences along your spiritual path - whatever they might be - face and accept them and don't fight them. Instead, experiment with your dark desires. See what happens when you withstand your temptations and then see what happens instead when you indulge. Repeat this cycle several times over until something clicks in your head. You may never outgrow interferences in the way that they become meaningless to you, but you will most certainly outgrow them in a way that they become a simple choice with clear implications what they imply for you. Most mothers quit smoking and drinking when they are expecting - cutting out spiritual distractions will become a similar straight-forward exercise.

A spiritual path is about energy sources opening up to you and making you so much more powerful as you drop old psychological baggage. The path is also about becoming aware of subconscious drives and about channeling these energies into a new purposeful direction. The reason why cutting out interferences becomes a nobrainer is that you will feel in your bones a massive drop in these new found energies when you revert back to your outgrown behavioral patterns. No one is willing to bear this pain, so once your new energy centers open up there is no turning back on your spiritual path.

With spiritual growth everything becomes a simple choice for peace, love and serenity. This world has been created to provide you with the energy to jump-start your journey home. Interferences imply conflict and they imply soul searching and she who searches finds. Accept your interferences, harness their power to transform yourself and then cut them out.

When Willpower Meets Temptations

In an experiment a group of people were asked not to touch the cookies in the waiting room while others had no such temptation. All participants were then asked to solve a challenging puzzle. The group whose willpower was tried before gave up earlier. Apparently they spent all their willpower trying to resist eating cookies so there was little willpower left to tackle the puzzle. Willpower is like a muscle, it gets tired as you use it.

A spiritual path traveler will face temptations; things that one thinks one shouldn't do, but  you do them nevertheless just because they feel great only to find that you are left with a bad conscience afterwards. We all remember Jesus and Buddha's temptations before they reached their final liberation; why can't we do it we ask and promise ourselves that next time we will try  twice as hard.

My personal view is that you should stop banging your head into the wall. Let the cookie example speak to you. If you promise yourself to stop doing something for the rest of your life, you exhaust the willpower you have right there just because 'for the rest of the life' happens to be a very long time. Instead, try understanding what the consequences of your actions are and start analyzing what happens when you follow your 'pernicious habits' and what happens when you stay clean instead. Passion versus peace, sensation versus serenity; experiment and the trade off becomes very clear to you. In my experience your drives and desires fall of naturally along the path, if something is struggle then you are not quite ready for the next step. Keep trying, keep analyzing what your trade off is and how you can express your uniqueness and the answer will come to you. Very much like a mother will stop drinking and smoking when she discovers that she is pregnant, a spiritual path traveler quits what interferers with her peace and serenity for the very reason that there is no alternative.  

Saying No to your Ego

The regular reader of this forum knows I am not exactly a proponent of the ego bashing that some believe in. You are you, so taking on the perceived not-so-holy aspect of you is as perhaps as effective as boxing your mirror image. Yet, our older and wiser spiritual brothers, Jesus and Buddha, had to go through their last temptations before they gained their freedom back: Jesus said no to power, while Buddha said no to sex, so the question is what spiritual lessons could their final temptations have in store for us.

Sometimes we see our sisters and brothers do things and we stay quiet and what we really like to express, if we could get a chance to say it, would perhaps be, 'No my friend, I know you better than that, this is not you!' In the same vein, there are occasions when we observe a tendency in us, an urge and desire and while we listen to this impulse without condemning it, we suddenly feel this isn't us. 'Get thee behind me Satan' is too strong in my opinion; the feeling is more like a soft voice that whispers 'Ah, there we go again'.

On Willpower

And if you find resistance strong and dedication weak, you are not ready. Do not fight yourself.
(A Course in Miracles)

Roy Baumeister and John Tierney quote a study in their book 'Willpower' that shows that willpower works like a muscle - if you use it, you will get tired at one point. Everyone has a temptation, and if you think you can travel your spiritual path with willpower alone, you are either a stoic or a super-hero. A spiritual path is a lifelong commitment, if you want to bang your head into a wall over that time you are in for a big headache.

It doesn't have to be that way. Explore your dark side, every misstep will bring you precious insights about yourself and why exactly you have these desires in the first place. Every of these insights will give you the opportunity to reposition yourself and try again. There are no mistakes really, only learning opportunities. This way your temptation should fade into oblivion over time.So rest your willpower muscle, a spiritual journey should be a happy stroll instead.

On Becoming Whole

There is a battle going on inside of us, the fight between who we want to be and who we are. Negating the human aspect in us is like trying to push a basketball below the surface, it will always come back with a splash. But then, what does it mean to embrace the ego or the animal inside yourself, does it mean you have to live out all your urges and passions? Based on my experience, you will always be able to re-channel your existing drive onto a higher spiritual plane, thus burning off your vasanas without compromising your soul. As a matter of fact, you can argue that this struggle between humanity and Godhood is what defines you and only you have the opportunity to express this tension in a beautiful and unique way. A few examples in this direction: becoming a CEO of a non-profit organization for the power hungry, becoming a spiritual writer for the professors inside of us, or practising tantric sex for those with abundant sexual drive, etc.

The problem that many spiritual path travelers have is that they keep on reading about the alleged enlightened stage of others, forgetting that they are still on a different spiritual plane. In my experience, you build up a massive 'Jungian shadow' or a 'Freudian super-ego' in the process. The way out, embrace all the aspects of your personality, while still making the right choices consistent with your personal Tao. This way, you will get the entire persona up to the next spiritual level.

But there is also a time when some of your vasanas will drop off naturally. "Been there, done that" is a holy mantra in my opinion. Don't torture yourself about the question whether this time has come for you or not. Your Tao will let you know when it is time to move on to the next level - that's what the spiritual journey is all about. Enjoy your road towards wholeness. As Jung once said, I'd rather be whole before being holy.

Futility

When we really ask what drives us we have to conclude that with every right-minded passion there is a dark one attached to it. In the olden days we dealt with them by declaring them sinful. We built up the psychological punishment mechanism that gave us some protection to do the right thing. But boy, when we crossed over to the dark side, we did punish ourselves. After all, we humans are powerful, whatever we believe in, we manifest into our lives. Then came Freud's insight about the superego along. I think this concept is still relevant for us spiritual path travelers today. By speculating what our True Self is all about, we create a superego in us. Actually, the superego is the modern day sin concept. If you know what your higher authority in you wants and you nevertheless give in to your temptation, you generate psychological conflict in you.

The other option you have is understanding where exactly your behaviour will lead you. I have often told the fairy tale of the fisher and his wife which is a classic story of the ego-driven desire. A fisher finds a golden fish who offers 3 boons, and his wife uses them to first get a bigger house, a palace, then a kingdom, and lastly, the fourth wish, to become God. While the first three wishes are granted, she ends up in her old fisher hut when the fourth wish is uttered. Futility! When we follow our dark passions we know where we will end up. We can see it in people who have been down this road, and we can feel it in ourselves. Yes, it is hard to stop the car and turn it around, and yes, there still will be conflict, but it is our choice, we do not need to appeal to any higher source in us and accumulate psychological baggage in the process. We reposition and channel our frustration into a more productive area. After discovering that your road leads to nowhere, no temptation can get you anymore.