Welcome to the "Real" World

Walking on a spiritual path is a way to a new reality. Have you ever wondered why there are so many conflicts and struggles in our life?  If we observe carefully what is going on, we can find that we all live in an artificial, mind-made world - a fantasy world really. We accept "reality" as is, yet we never question whether our believe system has caused it. Instead we think there must be something wrong about us when we are not able to meet the expectation society has set up for us.

 We never question our role in society. Like robots we go and do our job day in, day out, apparently not questioning whether we are happy or not. One day we may have "made it", actually fulfilling the expectation society has for us. However, we can never get the peace, happiness, love, joy and abundance we are dreaming of. Until that blessed day when a new soul connection opens up. That's when the spiritual path starts in actuality.

The "real" world is wild and full of energy!  It doesn’t care much about the rules and regulation of our society. It invites us to thrive in it. As a spiritual traveler, we are most excited when we get a glimpse of this new world! A new, authentic life is waiting. We eagerly experience everything life brings our way, regardless whether it is up or down, happy or sad. We live intensely in success or failure, health or sickness. Drop all your expectations and discover the magic that is waiting for you.

By Christian and Su Zhen

Stairways to Heaven and Hell

I caught up with an old friend yesterday who also works on self-empowerment themes and she introduced me to a fascinating psychological framework. When I listened to her, it sounded a bit like a stairways to either heaven and hell. Imagine a triangle which has fear on the top, blame and escape on the right and pain on the left. The way one would descend into deeper and deeper problems and struggle if one is afraid of life, that one projects all problems onto others (blame) or tries with the help of medication, alcohol or other addictive measures to avoid life. In life's negative feed-back loops one would experience increased pain and the fear of life would go up even more and down one goes until one day one needs help from others to be lifted out of the hole again.

The polar opposite is a triangle that has love as its top, has learning on the right of the triangle and thrill on the left. You start out with the assumption that you are loved by life, you experience life as a thrilling experience but every little mishap along the way you use as a learning experience to adjust and will thus be able to cooperate with life with an ever increased level of intensity. Life and you become friends, you realize that everything that comes your way is in fact nothing to be afraid of, but instead another opportunity to choose love and to say yes to life.

I liked that way of thinking very much because it describes the Tao. Along the Tao, life hollers at you day in, day out, 'hey, don't be afraid, the monsters that you see are not real. We are your friends and we are here to help you and love you.' You can experience the Tao for yourself and it doesn't really matter whether you face fear in many areas of your life or not. When you move upwards on this stairways you will experience a tremendous gain in energy and happiness for the removal of fear is the gain of love. As the Course in Miracle states, there are only two emotions, love or fear. And yes, love is always yours to choose.