The Way of the Spiral

I can accept failure;

everyone fails at something.

But I can't accept not trying again.

(Michael Jordan)

How do we break a bad habit? Well, we can't! If we did today, it would be implying that we didn't do our best before. We always do our best!

What we can do though, we can change our perspective. We also can have insights why the bad habit is there in the first place. It turns out that the deepest insights always come when we stumble. Because only then do we open up to a new perspective. Never condemn the past; mistake or not, it too served an important purpose.

When you are on a spiritual path the spiral takes you Home. This Force is way too potent to stand up to and will naturally induce you to change course. There always is a way to adjust; you just have to find the Way.

Along the spiral there is back and forth; there is struggle, but the destination is pre-determined. The question is only how many iterations it will take to get you Home. Will-power is an overrated concept in my opinion, but Michael Jordan's advice is not: just clean up the broken China on the floor and try again. 

What other choice do you have anyway?

Reposition Yourself Towards the Way

Reshape yourself through the power of your will.

Never let yourself be degraded by self-will.

The will is the only friend of the Self,

and the will is the only enemy of the Self.

(Lord Krishna, Bhagavad Gita)

Perhaps it has happened to you that are struggling with your weight and you standing at an all-you-can-eat buffet and it somehow feels like the cake is screaming out your name. You eat a piece and afterwards you tell yourself that now that your day has been ruined you might as well have another one. What happens then? The voice in your head tells you that you are a loser; you may not go to the gym as you feel too depressed and it takes you a couple of days to muster the will-power to try again.

Have you experienced this scene? Do you have other areas in your life that lead to self-defeating behaviors? Don't be upset. It is just a process, that's all. You can always find a way around it and can go after what is meaningful to you. But there is more to the self-empowering theme; in the example above you have experienced the power to be aware of the war within. You have in fact met the observer!

A spiritual traveler is a person who has changed direction. Just as the person who decided one fine morning to lose a few pounds; you rearrange your position, you change your point of view and you now look in a new direction. Sure you will likely waver from this path from time to time just as the guy did who got lost at the all-you-can-eat buffet, but a few missed steps are part of the Way too. Finding the Way is all about experiencing the yin and yang of life. From that perspective, a missed step is as useful as the one that is on target.

No-one can keep you from God. The magnet is simply too strong and the pain of heading in an opposing direction is simply too much to bear. The moment you turn towards God you are already a changed person. Walk the newfound path, listen to the voice you hear in your head, connect with your intuition and try to recognize the symbols you perceive along the Way; you figure out who is your friend and who is not. Let your emotions bubble to the surface no matter whether you like them or not. Before you know it there is just the Self and a few irritating voices babbling in the background.

Beyond Duality

I remember a time when I was a young soccer player. I definitely had fulfilled the ten thousand hour rule of play time - the supposed cutoff point when you really get good at what you do. There were games when there was magic in the air. I remember one games when I scored 6 goals in one single game. But then I also remember other games, the times when nothing really worked, or when I was afraid to get injured and shied away from a hard collision.  So deep down inside I was afraid that I wasn't really cut out to become a professional soccer player. As I went to university I pretty much stopped playing altogether and never looked back on that decision from there.

I was young at that time. I had not yet discovered the lion inside of me. Today I know that at some moments when you are afraid you feel the fear and do it anyway. I also know that there are moments when you feel like loosing but with a surge in will-power you turn this thing around single-handedly. After all, this is what made Tiger Woods and Michael Jordan so powerful. The hunger to win and the will-power to make it so. But then, all that drive comes with a price attached. With so much yang energy you will find broken China somewhere. In Tiger's case, it might well have been his admission to get treatment for his sex addiction, in Michael Jordan's case it could have been the ego rant during his hall of fame admission speech. Whenever you will yourself to the top, chances are there is a price to be paid somewhere.

Do not get me wrong, I am not judging, I am not criticizing, I am just  observing. Every star will experience some imbalance along the way just as every ordinary citizen may question why exactly he is not up there in the limelight. There is no "right" way of living your life, there is only your way. We all are on a special mission. Just as the Bhagavad Gita says, "Do your dharma, however lowly it may appear, and leave the dharma of others to themselves, however prestigious it might be."

Discover the duality in everything, the yin and yang at work. There is a Way that shows you how to be superb at what you do without incurring any karma, without experiencing any yin and yang. Just understand that "superb" is in the eye of the beholder. Fame is something that a spiritual path traveler learns to be indifferent about. The public might still see a yin and yang at work in your life story, while you may tell your story very differently. Along the Way there is no duality, there is only meaning that somehow makes perfect sense. There is only "it is as it is", and somehow what is is good as it is.

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!

Why to Eat Cake when you are Dieting?

Will-power is a strange concept. Why do some people succeed in keeping their New Year's Resolutions while others fail until they stop bothering altogether. Succeeding in getting what you want is simple if you are close enough to your goal, but seemingly impossible if you still have some psychological baggage to throw over-board. I remember once a woman saying when she heard the expression sexual addiction for the first time, "Why doesn't he just keep his zipper locked up?" Well, that is as helpful as saying, "Why do you eat cake when you are on a diet?" Fighting an addiction or dealing with a pernicious habit is a psychological journey in which many things in the person's life will have to be adjusted. Let me give you a real life example.

A woman working in the financial industry had been overweight to start with, but unfortunately, was steadily gaining weight as the years went by. It never bothered her since her husband apparently didn't mind and she had the money to hide her weight behind tailor-made designer clothes. But then one day her sister went on a crash diet, coupled with an extreme work-out plan and everyone was stunned at her transformation. Given that our financial  analyst had always been the "successful one" within her family, she wanted to do the same. She had already succeeded in shedding 50 pounds when she suddenly realized that in all meetings and professional encounters she had her arms and legs crossed. No matter how much she tried, her arms and legs always moved on auto-pilot when she met somebody. Her husband happened to be a psychologist and explained to her that before the diet her weight had psychologically protected her against criticism. Without it, her vulnerability makes her feel naked, especially in front of her aggressive male colleagues. After that insight  she changed gears and focused on her self-confidence instead. After years of training and reprogramming her arms and legs started opening up, and as her defensive demeanor disappeared so did her pounds.

Addictive behaviours and pernicious habits have a psychological message for us that something needs to be adjusted. If you try to overcome them with will-power you are likely to run into a wall sooner or later. But as you tackle the underlying psychological problems it gets much easier. Eventually you reach a stage when you give the wall a little push and it crumbles. A spiritual path is exactly like that only you are a little further along in your personal development. Every obstacle you face, every step you miss has a message for you. You just no longer get upset when things don't work out for you, just because you have seen over and over that a little personal re-positioning immediately propels you to a much higher spiritual plane. Enjoy your travels and enjoy the cake!

Keeping Track of the Elephant

I enjoyed the analogy of the driver and the elephant in Switch: How to change Things when Change is hard to come by, by Chip and Dan Heath, the elephant being your emotions, feelings and desires and the driver being your intellect. Good luck driver if the elephant is moving in a different direction. In it, several studies were quoted that showed that exercising will-power wears you down over time. If you have withstood one temptation, the next one is more likely to get you.

This study resonates with me. I have long felt that the intellect should be the schemer, i.e. finding a path that works both for the elephant and your game plan as well. It is ok to exercise a little will-power to get yourself onto the journey, but sooner rather than later the elephant must find it in his self-interest to keep going. If he doesn't, well, then back to the drawing board. I am convinced that you will always find a creative outlet of your desires that is consistent with your spiritual path.