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Year: 2015

Transcending Tough Times

Transcending Tough Times

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When life burns you down, it is only so you can rise from the ashes and fly.

The last two weeks seem to have been difficult for many. This is not surprising, considering that Mercury has been retrograde since Jan 21. Mercury going retrograde can wreak quite a bit of havoc. For starters, it changes one’s perspective on things. One suddenly becomes aware of things that weren’t noticed before, and decisions are questioned. As if that wasn’t enough, Mercury rules communication – so this can mean that communications aren’t effective, and no one is really ‘hearing’ what the other is saying – it is all getting misinterpreted. Put the two together – a shifted perspective and an incapacity to really listen – can be quite a disaster, right?

There could be other factors, of course – I am not an astrologer, and this is just my novice understanding of it. But it seems quite relevant when I look around me.

It seems to me, that for a lot of people, old structures and conditioning are falling away. Now if you have been meditating for a while, this might be bearable, but for those who dwell in the mind, this could really feel like your whole world is falling apart. A shift of perspective might help, but more than anything else, to be able to transcend the panic and the chaos would be deeply healing.

Come Back to the Heart

The mind creates all these structures to create an identity to play with. You think you are a ‘good’ person. Now you have to believe all good things about yourself, and reject all bad ideas about yourself, because they don’t fit in with your identity. You might be hurting people, destroying lives, but you will not notice it, because you would rather believe that you are a ‘good’ person. When you come face to face with these aspects some day, your whole ‘world’ will seemingly shatter, because the identity you spent decades creating, you now realise was all just a lie.

But this is how it is. You are none of these things – good, bad, intelligent, intuitive, happy-go-lucky, vindictive, weak, strong…. and so on. Everything changes. Everyone changes. So do you. You are a different person every moment, and it is hard to define you. But that is not what the mind thinks. The mind likes certainty. It likes to play with labels.

It is the mind that is influenced by the planets, Not the heart. If you come back to the heart and rest in it, there will be greater peace. I don’t say there will be any less chaos. It is just that you won’t be running helter skelter, lost in your insanity.

For more on resting in the heart, read this one –

Don’t Create Another Structure

When you are falling apart, it is important to just fall apart. If you create another structure to replace the old, then the whole cycle will have to repeat again. What do I mean by that?

Now assume that a person has a tendency to be a workaholic – he tends to identify with his work, he is good at it. Suddenly the planets collide and that identity is questioned. He makes a few blunders at work, loses the respect of his colleagues, and loses respect for himself even, who knows? That’s an old structure falling apart. He could meditate on the pain this brings, on the uncertainty it throws him into, and let it all fall away. When he gets back on his feet, he will work far better, with much less ego and a deeper understanding of himself and life.

BUT. If he instead, allows the mind to try taking him out of his mess, he will just create new structures. Maybe he will change his field of work, believing that this field isn’t good for him anymore. Or maybe he will develop a new hobby and identify with that. ‘Oh I don’t like work so much, I am a great photographer and/ or I love traveling’. Or maybe he will fight and struggle, trying to reclaim a lost identity, going from therapist to therapist to bring back the ‘old days’. Irrespective, he’s started another cycle which will take a few years to ripen, mature and fall apart again.

This is just an example, your story is different.

Meditation is Very Important

Any spiritual sadhana is critical during this phase. As I just mentioned, the mind can take you on a mad, delirious trip when structures are falling away. To be able to step back and witness all of this without getting pulled into the drama is so, so important. It is also essential that one does this practice for the sake of practice, and not as a desperate attempt to find a solution – that will only amplify the problem.

If you have a daily practice – Reiki, yoga, or something else, do that. Spending some time along with that, meditating deeply for 21 minutes or more, will be very beneficial. These times are a gift – they offer you an opportunity to break the shackles of the mind and be free to see life for what it is. Do you really want to let this go?

The Five Chapters

The Five Chapters

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Last weekend, Kiara Windrider shared with us this wonderful story, the Five Chapters, telling the tale of a soul’s journey. This is the story of every soul. It touched me very deeply, so I write about it now.

The First Chapter

You’re walking along the path of life, unconscious, unaware of the big hole up ahead. You fall into the hole. You’re upset at everyone, angry that there was no warning, that the hold hasn’t been repaired. It is everyone else’s fault. 

This is where much of the world is at. We’re deeply conditioned to give our power away. Everything is someone else’s fault. We believe that people or incidents hurt us, and not that we chose to get hurt. Being a victim gives us the freedom to be upset without having to do anything about it.

The Second Chapter

You’ve now become aware that there is a hole on the path and are afraid of falling into it. You fall into it anyway. This time you take responsibility for the fall, not blaming anyone else for it. But you hate yourself for the blunder, beating yourself up over making the same mistake over and over again.

This happens when we first turn our attention inward. We realise that the choices are ours to make. But we’re trapped into patterns by years of conditioning and habit, and make the same mistakes again. We haven’t learned to accept life and ourselves, so the anger that was once turned towards the world now turns inwards.

The Third Chapter

You’re now aware that this is a habit, and there is a possibility of falling into the hole. So when it happens, you are not surprised. You are in acceptance, so there is no blaming or judging, merely a focus on getting out of the hole. 

Once we become more accepting of life and people, much of the pain disappears. Difficult situations are just a happening, an old pattern waiting to drop off. And until that happens, we patients navigate through it the best we can. This means we allow ourselves and others the space to make mistakes without making an issue out of it.

The Fourth Chapter

You are walking. You see the hole. You walk around it. 

When an old pattern drops off, life might still present us with similar situations. But when we are in awareness, we catch ourselves before we repeat old patterns, and instead of reacting unconsciously, we now respond in awareness.

The Fifth Chapter

You choose another road, there is no hole.

Once we’ve transcended the need for the drama, the need for learning new lessons, life brings a shift. We now have greater space in our lives for beauty and peace, we can dance through life. The difficulties drop away and learning comes through love and harmony instead of hard knocks.

Every aspect of our life moves at a different pace. So while say, we might be at chapter 5 with our anger issues, we might still be at chapter 1 with forgiveness. There is a time and place for everything, so of course, we may not shift from chapter 1 to 5 overnight. But awareness, awareness, awareness is the key!

Here’s a video of Kiara narrating the story.

Positive, Negative & Beyond

Positive, Negative & Beyond

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Today’s version of spirituality is largely just playing out one side of duality. ‘Spiritual’ to most people, indicates a state where one is always happy, positive and unaffected by everything around them.

This of course, sounds better than being negative. Ordinarily, a person faced with problems is weighed down by them, and unpleasant incidents float around in the mind, causing agony and frustration. Not a pleasant place to be.

So, once these people have gathered enough strength, or enough frustration, whatever the case, they switch to being positive. They refuse to be bothered by situations or people. They choose to be grateful for everything they have in life, and focus on only those things that bring a smile to their face. Sounds good, right? But is it?

Life is like a pendulum. You can spend some time on one extreme, but sooner or later you are going to swing to the other end. It is only a matter of time. That is why, people who become ‘positive’, always smiling and full of life, eventually have to come face to face with their own darkness.

The problem with positivity is that it is not all inclusive – it lives in denial of darkness, which means one lives a lie. Positive people eventually start having big problems with all the ‘negative’ people in their lives. In extreme cases, they pick up the diseased energies of everyone around them. Crowds are a nightmare.

Then they get together with other positive people and try to figure out how to throw the toxic people out of their lives. But that never happens, because it is through these people that life is trying to show them a mirror.

Both positive and negative people are just trying to solve the same problems, in different ways. Both are making the same mistake – assuming that there is a problem. Because, there isn’t.

As I mentioned, life is like a pendulum. We all swing from one side to another. Either you can live life experiencing intense emotions on both sides, or you can settle in the center with very little or no movement, experiencing neither misery nor ecstasy. It is your choice, both are ok.

It only becomes a problem when we reject what is happening. When we resist the flow, then we either need a positive or negative way of thinking to make sense of what is happening to us. This resistance creates either mental disturbance, physical disease, or both.

To truly transcend a life situation it is important to look at, acknowledge and accept every aspect of our selves, and of our lives. It is as it is. This is part of your story, a story that you wrote yourself before your birth because you had some lessons in mind.

Every emotion you experience is important and needs all of your attention. Every situation in life is important and needs all of you, so that you can get the most out of it. Life is not about ‘not getting affected’. It is about getting affected with abandon. Because in reality, you are that which fire cannot burn and water cannot drown, you are that which was never born and will never die. You are just playing. Might as well play it right, right?