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Five Unconscious Beliefs that May be Holding You Back

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“Words can inspire, and words can destroy. Choose yours well.” ~ Robin Sharma

We do not see the world as it is, but rather as we are. The thoughts, beliefs and expectations we hold about ourselves, others or life in general are what we spotlight and amplify in the physical world.

For example, if a person repeatedly thinks the thought, “No one ever helps me do anything, I always have to do everything myself,” it will eventually turn into a deep-rooted belief. Once the belief is strongly held, that person will start to recognize every situation that reinforces the belief.

Eventually, the power of belief and intention takes over and starts to draw situations to that person that reinforces the thought. They find themselves in circumstance after circumstance where no one is helping.

There are certain life lessons that we may have heard over the years that have gotten embedded in our subconscious. Often, a belief is so deep in our unconscious mind that we may not even know that we hold the belief, because we have never taken the time to confront it.

Because of this, we may be participating in a limited belief system that is having a negative effect on our life without our even realizing it.

Here are five “life lessons” that we may have heard that need to be confronted and unlearned in order to help us live a happier existence:

1. Money is the root of all evil

Has money motivated people to be greedy, power-hungry, or participate in any number of unspeakable acts? Yes, of course. But is this the money’s fault or the person’s? When we really think about it, money is just a piece of paper. It is the person holding the bill who decides whether to use it to make the world a better place or a worse one.

Since we live in a society that requires money to live, we must not look at money as the enemy. Greed, power, selfishness, etc…yes… but money… it’s just a piece of paper. When we see money as evil we limit our own ability to use money as a means to help others and live a fulfilling life ourselves.

2. Nothing in life comes easy

start-changing-nowLife is formed off of our expectations. If we are always expecting everything to be so difficult, we can’t complain when things actually are. Yes, there will be unplanned events, difficult days, and times when we will be forced to face our fears.

But, if we remember that our success rate at getting through a bad day is 100% so far, and when we look back at something we were going through 5 years ago and realize how trivial it seems now, it puts things in a different perspective.

Life doesn’t always have to be hard. Think of failures and obstacles as opportunities for growth and redirection. If we expect the best case scenario in all situations, we may actually be surprised to find that most things aren’t as hard as we thought they would be.

3. A leopard never changes its spots

Life is about change. We aren’t the same person we were 10 years ago. We aren’t the same person we were yesterday, even. Everyone has the power to become a better person. If we wouldn’t want people to hold us to the same person we were in the past, we must give others the benefit of being able to evolve and mature as well. Expect the best from people.

Yes, there may be some times when we are disappointed with the actions of others, but there will also be those people who learned from their mistakes, and decide to turn their mistakes into their reason to change.

4. You can’t depend on anyone but yourself

everything-possibleThis one can be tricky, because essentially it is true. Really, the only person we have control over and therefore can depend on or expect anything from is ourselves.

However, the problem comes in when we become so attached to this idea that we refuse to accept help from others, because of pride or some other ego-driven reason.

What most people don’t realize is the act of receiving is just as important as the act of giving. Both actions keep the flow of energy moving to and through us. So yes, depend on yourself, but when someone comes along that is happy to help us with something, let them.

Help in our lives can come from any number of ways, and we must be open to all of it in order to receive it. We must not only give joyfully, but receive joyfully as well.

5. Time is limited

All we really have is time. And by the time runs out, we won’t care about not having enough time because we will no longer be here. Anytime we tell ourselves that something is going to take too much time to accomplish something, we set ourselves up for failure because time is going to pass regardless.

Either we can spend it working towards something we really want, or we can spend it thinking about what we want, and then talking ourselves out of it because it’s going to take too much time. The present moment is all that truly exists, and we can either spend it taking action and doing something we love, or we can waste it talking ourselves out of following what we really truly want out of life.

Take the time to confront every belief that you are holding. Make sure you aren’t holding on to something that is actually making your life less fulfilling and harder. Just because we’ve heard a phrase a million times doesn’t mean it has to be true for us.

Make your own life lessons. Expect amazingness. Make the “impossible” possible.

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A Philosophical Inquiry into the Wisdom of Mahatma Gandhi

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Gandhi was a paragon of virtue, an icon of iconoclasm. He was the type of person who took the world for what it was, took inventory of his own personal power, and then did his absolute best to be the change he wished to see in the world.

He was a shining example of living by example, and he was not afraid of challenging the powers-that-be. In this article we will break down seven juicy nuggets of Gandhian wisdom through a philosophical lens.

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Maybe by standing on the shoulder of this giant we can see even further than he did. And maybe we too can become the change we wish to see in the world.

1. “Be the change you wish to see in the world”

“The inner world is the world of your requirements and your energies and your structure and your possibilities that meets the outer world. And the outer world is the field of your incarnation. That’s where you are. You’ve got to keep both going. As Novalis said, ‘The seat of the soul is there where the inner and outer worlds meet.” ~ Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth

Being the change you wish to see in the world is no walk in the park. It requires ruthless courage in the face of steadfast cowards. It requires being healthy, honest and proactive. We all, for the most part, want the world to be a healthy place to live.

We can all mostly agree that we’d like to live among people who are loving, caring, and compassionate. So when it comes down to it, being the change we wish to see in the world means being healthy, honest, proactive, loving, caring, and compassionate people.

A tall order, indeed, but being the walking personification of change is not (and never has been) a small order task. It is each of our task, and our task alone, to find the “seat of our own soul.” There, where the inner and outer worlds meet, we can begin the much needed work of being the change we wish to see in the world.

There, where ego meets soul, where finitude meets infinity, where mortal meets God, we can begin the difficult task of being the walking personification of healthy, honest, proactive, loving, caring, compassionate change.

Or, we can just continue to hit the snooze button of our lives and keep going through the same old unhealthy habits of our forefathers. The choice is ours. Gandhi can show us the door, but we’re the ones who have to walk through it.

henry-ford2. “What you think, you become”

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” ~ Aristotle

Gandhi knew the power of the mind. More specifically, he knew the power of habits. Like Aristotle he was a king of good habits. When faced with an unhealthy way of doing things, the only way to change the way things are done is to become healthy, and that requires healthy habits.

If we can cultivate healthy habits (mind, body, and soul) then we can become a beacon of health in an unhealthy world. If we think we can make a difference, then we will make a difference. But we must also make it a habit.

Things don’t just happen magically. They take hard work and a nose-to-the-grindstone attitude toward life. They take proactive perseverance, especially in an inactive and inert society.

In a world dominated by sheep there are people who can wear wolf masks and people who cannot. Gandhi was a gentle wolf amidst herded sheep. He knew when to be a wolf in sheep’s clothing and when to shed his sheep clothes and unleash the wolf within.

Like Tom Robbins said, “There are people in this world who can wear whale masks and people who cannot, and the wise know to which group they belong.”

In order to become the type of person who knows “to which group they belong,” we must make a habit out of our thoughts, and we must make our thoughts healthy.

3. “Learn as if you’ll live forever”

“If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things.” ~ Rene Descartes

wisdomDoubt is the key to learning as if you’ll live forever. Certainty only leads to a closed mind. That does not mean we cannot be mostly certain about things, but leaving room for doubt, and having a healthy understanding of how probability works, is the secret to open-mindedness.

The important thing is to keep learning, to remain circumspect with our knowledge, to not become stagnant in our thoughts and ideas about how the world works in relation to how we think it works. Like Einstein said, “The important thing is not to stop questioning.”

On a long enough timeline there are infinite timelines. Or so it would seem to us finite beings perceiving an infinite reality using finite brains. And so, as French critic Charles Du Bos said, we should be “able at any moment to sacrifice what we are for what we could become.” And what we could become is nothing short of everything.

Indeed, learning as if we’ll live forever could eventually lead to us living forever. Maybe it already has led to that, and we’re just not directly aware of it yet; or maybe not. The key is healthy doubt, and the ability to consider things without prematurely placing all our eggs into just one basket.

4. “Your health is your true wealth”

“Health is the constant movement of all things from emotional climate to physical condition. This is the systemic view of life that emphasizes the circular interconnections that link and sustainably regulate all members of a system.” ~ Bradford Keeney

Health cannot be stressed enough. It is the essential concept agreed upon by wise men since time immemorial. Health is not only true wealth – dwarfing any amount of stopgap money or makeshift success, it is also the cornerstone of happiness.

Indeed, without health there could be no genuine happiness. Healthy mind, healthy body, and a healthy soul: these are the critical ingredients in the recipe of true wealth and happiness.

The healthier we are in each, the more our wealth will grow and the higher our happiness will ascend. The healthier we become in each, the more likely we are to become, like Gandhi, the change we wish to see in the world.

5. “Have a sense of humor”

“Humor must not professedly teach and it must not professedly preach, but it must do both if it would live forever.” ~ Mark Twain

A good sense of humor is the saving grace of any philosophy or worldview, even bad philosophy. Indeed, as long as your philosophy isn’t overly serious, humorless, and you don’t take yourself too seriously, your philosophy can be saved from mediocrity.

It is only when our philosophies are overly serious and without humor that our philosophies become mediocre.

Like Ludwig Wittgenstein said, “A serious and good philosophical work could be written consisting entirely in jokes.”

snake-eating-itself-om-nom-wait-funny-pictureWhy is this? Because the universe is constantly changing and evolving. A philosophy or worldview that takes itself too seriously and becomes too certain of itself, kills itself simply because it is attempting to pigeonhole the universe into a static and fixed thing, which it can never be.

But all we have to do is add the crucial element of humor to the equation and our philosophy or worldview is suddenly saved from itself. It goes from a snake eating its own tail to a snake laughing at its own tail. And a laughing snake is infinitely more tolerable than an eating snake. Is it not?

6. “Our greatness is being able to remake ourselves”

“Give up defining yourself, to yourself or to others. You won’t die. You will come to life. And don’t be concerned with how others define you. When they define you, they are limiting themselves, so it’s their problem. Whenever you interact with people, don’t be there primarily as a function or a role, but as the field of conscious presence. You can only lose something that you have, but you cannot lose something that you are.” ~ Eckhart Tolle

keep-your-coins-i-want-changeThe secret to greatness is flexibility: in mind, body, and soul. The greatest thinkers are the most cognitively plastic. The greatest athletes are the most physically flexible. The greatest sages are the most spiritually elastic. Remaking ourselves is no easy task, but thinking of it as a game of flexibility can be a very effective strategy.

Like Picasso said, “It takes a long time to become young again.”

The self is constantly changing anyway. The important thing is to become adaptable to, and not fearful of, such change.

Like Julian Baggini wrote, “’I’ is a verb dressed as a noun.”

Picture yourself “verbing” through the cosmos at the speed of light, dressing and undressing, losing and unlosing, all the nouns and pronouns that make up the universe bursting all around you like a kaleidoscope.

Indeed, you are not merely a human connected to God, you are an infinite connection forever Godding, forever remaking yourself, since the “beginning” of the universe.

7. “Find yourself in the service of others”

“Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it.” ~ Gandhi

Escape the linear. Discover the cyclical. Remove yourself from the dead-stare of coercion, victimization, and the subliminal urge to bend others to your will. Move instead into the open countenance of cohesion, compassion, and the holistic desire to bring people together.

We need more than heroes who simply leave paths for others to follow; we need heroes (like Gandhi and MLK) who leave guidance on how others can create their own paths –the more “paths” the better.
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Diversity is the key to healthiness within nature as well as within culture. When we disclose the world with the purpose of freedom it leads to further disclosure, and by the same action we free others from enclosure into disclosure.

Personal freedom leads to the need to empower and free others which leads to other free people which leads to accountability which leads to sustainability which leads to a healthy community for all.

Before we know it we are living in a community of people whose foundation is the maintenance of healthy relationships. People who stand up, in resistance, to people whose foundation is the primacy of money and production.

Economics must be secondary to the primacy of relationships in order for a healthy, sustainable, happy society to emerge.

Like George Lichtenberg said, “In each of us there is a little of all of us.”

Indeed, we find ourselves by helping our fellow brothers and sisters discover liberty and freedom for themselves. We free ourselves by showing others that the healthier way is always a relationship-based lifestyle over an ownership-based one.

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Religious or Spiritual its Only Perspective

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 “There is no need for temples, no need for complicated philosophies. My brain and my heart are my temples; my philosophy is kindness.” ~ Dalai Lama

You are the most powerful being in the Universe. The entire universe as you see it is completely dependent upon your perceiving of it to exist. Without your awareness, nothing in the 3d physical world can be perceived, which means that you are literally creating everything that you can see, touch, hear, smell and taste inside your own mind.

Other people you meet only exist because your perception of them exists. Now, because you are the most powerful being in the Universe, your belief and intention is the most effective thing in creating your reality.

Religion teaches us that we need to believe in someone else’s experience of God in order to find him. Also, that we need to practice certain rituals or sacraments in order to get closer to the all that is.

This is all good and well, but technically, if we are the most powerful being in the universe and our intention is the one calling the shots on our physical reality, is it really necessary?

Do we actually need something outside of ourselves in order to get closer to what we already are? Can we actually create and become our own religion by our intention alone?

“Spirituality is universal. Religion is a perspective.” ~ Amy Jalapeno

We are all walking perspectives. We are part of the all that is, but we are a tiny fraction of it. As Rumi put it, “You are not a drop in the ocean. You are the entire ocean in a drop.” If we think of ourselves in these terms, we see that we essentially are our own walking religion, whether we realize it or not.

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Our intention is the one that is deciding what is sacred and what our version of prayer is. For some, going to a conventional church or temple may be where they feel closest to their own presence and are more easily able to get in touch with their spirit. For others, being outside in nature does this same thing. Also, we are the ones who decide what our version of prayer is.

Some may think of prayer as a means of communicating with source energy, and therefore their means of prayer is simply talking. Others may find that meditating in complete silence is the way to effectively listen & talk to their version of God.

And some will find that when they are creating something is when they are closest to feeling their own spirit. The act of creating something then becomes their own personal sacred ritual. There are no right or wrong answers here.

We can quite literally customize our own religious experience based on our own perspective. We can create God in whatever image we choose. Our temple can be anywhere we want it to be and our method of prayer can be anything we wish.

The rituals we choose to practice can involve anything we want them to. The more our consciousness evolves, the more most of us are realizing that God or religion is a completely personal experience.

the divine is within you

Yes, it is nice to hear the teachings of the great spiritual teachers of the past and to resonate with their words, but at the end of the day we must become our own teacher. It is only through our own hearts are we able to decide what is “true” for us.

We must be the ones to decide what is the best way for us to get in connection with our own spirit, and by doing this we are able to customize our own religion to suit our own needs.

Yes, if we decide that participating in an organized religion is best suited to us, then that’s fine… but it is no longer necessary. We quite literally can become our very own organized religion if we wish.

When we stop to think about it, there is really nothing that an outside religion can offer us that we cannot offer ourselves. If it is the teachings we want, all the religious teachings in the world are at our fingertips at any given moment through books or the internet.

Technically, no outside entity is required in order to get closer to our spirit. Church can be inside our very own body if we want it to be, and anything we do can be sacred as long as we intend for it to be.

We are the creator of our own reality, we make the rules. No longer are we required to believe in anything to be what we already are….

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Horizons: A Bridge Between Heaven and Earth

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 “When we look up, it widens our horizons. We see what a little speck we are in the universe, so insignificant, and we all take ourselves so seriously, but in the sky, there are no boundaries. No differences of caste or religion or race.” ~ Julia Gregson

Ever felt so crushed and weighed down by an unknowable feeling of depression or as if your head were so stuffed with so many flies buzzing about up there it felt like a Wall Street crash at the height of panic?

Quite often, the place we live has a much bigger impact on us than we might realize, and the thousand and one layers of electronic messages, the average humming chaos of the human mind; not to mention the historical memories of the land; the wars, times of conflict and invisible scars a place may carry, can often leave us responding to a web of energy that appears to have no place or resonance with our own agenda or the positive energy we desire to manifest.

The feel of the ley lines and the energy the people who inhabit a place collectively carry may have just a big an impact on us when entering or living in a place for a long time, at least as much as the physical appearance and layout does.

Time spent in London or any big city, for example, is likely to crowd and confuse the usually un-spoilt energies we exude compared to time spent in a cabin tottering on a mountainous range that lifts above the usual bickering and mess and tangle of every day life.

There is already much evidence that points to the influence of Wi-fi and other such technological ‘advances’ that are proving to create the most unwelcome ‘God Helmet’ that can cut us off from our primal purity and keep us stuck in the mud and vibrating on the most basic of levels.

In most cases, the poetics of space are not easily changed, or even tapped into until a person gets stuck in a place due to the complicated circumstances that life presents us with. So what to do about it?
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In Tibetan Buddhism one such practice utilizes the direction of the gaze during meditation to rectify most moods with the simplest of methods.

As Sogyal Rinpoche suggests ~ “Whenever your mind is wild, it is best to lower your gaze, and whenever it is dull and sleepy, to bring the gaze up.”

So, from this practice we can assume that, even when we are not residing in the clouds, our heads as empty and spacious as the most advanced Buddhist monk we may still catch a glimpse of the resting mind and find a way to clear it. To raise one’s gaze to the horizon, simply by the angle in which your eyes are set can make a huge amount of difference to our clarity of minds.

It is also, as we know from most mainstream religions, the direction from which the divine usually approaches. This type of meditation is also included as Tibetan ‘Phowa’; where the meditator visualizes the deity appearing before them and filling them with their heavenlylarge light.

This meditation can be used for those who are dying, but as in The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying can also be a daily practice for oneself; cleansing karma and ‘preparing’ us for our inevitable death, whether it is imminent or not. The deity’s location? A little above the third eye, with the gaze turned up.

Taking raising the gaze a step further, we can also refer to what the author of The Poetics of Space and the lover of French poetry, Gaston Bachelard had to say on the matter of ‘high up places’ and both the direct effect as well as the associations the creative mind has with castles in the sky – ‘the attic is a metaphor for clarity of mind.

The basement, on the contrary, is the darker, subterranean and irrational entity of the house.’ (From The Cultural Studies Review) The attic represents pure rationality in comparison to the irrational basement, the root chakra where the basest of urges passes through…

But say that the horizon – from lack of mountains or hills, canyons or forests – is not located on a raised angle, and in fact the gaze need only look straight ahead to find it? Still a bridge between heaven and earth, the horizon will still create the same effect and is well known throughout literature as a place where the imagination sings.

‘Walking off into the sunset’ has often been used as the final curtain of happy endings, and usually signifies the journey untold, in this world or the next.

And how many times has any one of us experienced shivers down our spine from looking past all present notions at a seemingly endless line stretching out ahead of us; a line signifying the end of an endless road that knows no boundaries, imagining ourselves as the legend of Columbus might’ve, journeying to the unknown.

It is an invitation to oblivion, and a journey that might end where we fall off the edge world, or into another time and space entirely.

Orihime.(goddess)Or perhaps that shiver might’ve been induced when we have found no distinction between the two planes; instead seeing them mold into one in an eternal romance, or mirrored to perfection as a bridge over a river, or on a glass-like lake?

The horizon has always been a sight that triggers ancient memories; a timeless image that provokes our dusky souls and connects us to the divine both within and without. Time spent in nature can often simply be spent gazing up at the star-lit sky or hued horizon in order to centre us; to remind us we are an expression of God; that our hearts mirror what we see before us.

The universe resides inside us as well as in the glorious and un-reconstructed scenes that are constantly reborn and play out. The horizon invokes that speechless knowing that time forgot, no matter what square of earth we may be standing on in the present moment.

It is something we can always call on, even in the depths of a concrete jungle, or the height of a Wall-Street-crash.

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The Orphan Archetype: The Final Hurdle

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“Loneliness is the absence of the other. Aloneness is the presence of oneself.” ~ Osho

The Orphan archetype has survived throughout history as one of the most common but fraught life paths of the fool’s journey and treads a thin but tragic line between good and evil.

The orphan’s depth of suffering means the elation of achievement soars even greater and it is for this reason that many an orphan character has littered the pages and screens of children’s literature and film.

Harry Potter, The Lion King, Oliver Twist; on one side of the chasm lies distrust and betrayal, the other; detachment from the need to be accepted by others, standing out from the crowd and even, if all goes to plan… spiritual enlightenment.

It is because of this that most of the world’s religions have an orphan as their central focus; although when it comes to the prophets it is Buddha alone who dives in to the full extent of the orphan’s suffering in order to transform the lesson of brutal abandonment, into one of spiritual attainment.

Many writers, artists and political figures have also experienced the harsh truth of losing a mother or father in the early stages of life when nurture and unconditional love are at the forefront of our needs, resulting in many a brilliant (if not emotionally unstable) individual.

Sylvia Plath, Malcom X, Virginia Woolf, Aristotle, John Keats… The list goes on, and it is here that the orphan often molds into the rebel or the visionary, where the individual uses the intensity of human experience to give birth to creativity.

colorful-deathThe term ‘orphan’ is loosely used by Jung as one who has experienced the act of abandonment by a parent at some point in their childhood, (whether the physical death of one or both parents has actually occurred), and it is for this reason that EACH AND EVERY ONE OF US have the opportunity to use this to further our spiritual paths.

Having all encountered abandonment during the developmental process, (which interestingly happens around the time a child is able to fully comprehend death), we are given the opportunity to detach ourselves from the human experience and remind ourselves that we are in fact spiritual beings learning lessons in order to advance.

But is the orphan’s experience one might chose throughout the many lives of a soul as he/she transcends the many lessons of being human? Or is it simply another wrung in the ladder?

One perhaps that many empaths select in order to experience the depths of suffering to help others come out of theirs? Or perhaps it is just a roll of the dice, an accident that happens despite past life contracts and life review deals, and one which we must shoulder to the best of our ability.

Whatever the reason, it’s no secret that the role of the orphan tests to the limits, and brings us to question the battered shreds of meaning in our tattered lives. The child’s worst fears come true? One twist in the plot that Disney and many other children’s writers have dared to approach. The loss of a parent…
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And with that we come to the downside of being an orphan. The traps one might fall into on the orphan’s journey, and what makes the darker side of the path all the more nightmarish. The victim complex is a hole any of us may get trapped in for hundreds of lifetimes if we’re not careful, and it is here that many orphan types seem to dwell.

The rejection of the crowd and the search for a surrogate family tempts us like the mirage in the desert. We can spend our whole lives searching to fill the hole that our absent parent left, and be led into the labyrinth of the psyche in a most destructive way.

The psychological pitfalls of the orphan archetype certainly proves the ‘danger factor’ of this particular life path and show it is one not to be taken lightly. But it is here that we can ask: What are we really here for? To be ‘happy’ and in a state of acceptance but ultimate stagnation? Or to accept our fate and blossom without the safety net of society?

The family may mean love, but it can also mean stifling expectations and commitments that distract us from our true potential and let us stay comfortable for that little bit too long. Before we know it, life has passed us by.

The experience of the orphan – if we only let it – can bring about travel and adventure, a hermit-like solitude that brings us closer to that shimmering silence of the whole; to places we’ve seen only in our dreams.

“The child of destiny has to face a long period of obscurity. This is a time of extreme danger, impediment or disgrace. He is thrown inward into his own depths or outward to the unknown; either way, what he touches is a darkness unexplored.” ~ Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces (Childhood of the Human Hero).

quote-you-have-to-believe-in-yourself-that-s-the-secret-even-when-i-was-in-the-orphanage-when-i-was-charlie-chaplin-340171Could the orphan’s experience also be likened to the dark night of the soul or belly of the whale depicted by Joseph Campbell when charting the hero’s journey? Is it the final and potentially most painful encounter we can possibly have with suffering that will ultimately make us stronger – unstoppable even – but incredibly weak and fragile on the way?

For now the positive aspect of the orphan is the type of person who is a mystery, however cute and humble they appear to be. Chaplin’s Tramp or the innocent Oliver Twist each have a light and fair-weather tale to tell of the orphan, though they are often seen as the epitome of the archetype.

As is Aladdin, although the star of the Arabian Nights seems much more concerned with status and riches to be such a spiritual brand of orphan, and in doing so becomes a much more modest and ordinary child of destiny.

Despite this ‘ordinariness’ in each case, the orphan becomes an understated but very pure type of hero, and one that performs the most godly of acts on a daily basis; taking life as it comes and appreciating the present moment for all it’s worth. If this is to be a happy tale the orphan – like all of us, above anything else – needs love.
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And so we can safely assume, without dream and the myth telling us as much, that it is love and only love that can lead us out of the dark recesses of the shadow orphan and into the light. A higher love that is unattached to the other; to parent, sibling or spouse.

As Hinduism teaches us, at the end of the tunnel we find ourselves, and we alone can save ourselves from the cold night. Once we have passed through the many stages of suffering; of loss and grief, of loneliness and bitterness, of confusion and compromise, we may finally rejoin the path and even transcend it, without a reliance on any external factor at all, whether it is the pleasure of the senses or a desire for love.

We all need love, there’s no debating that, but once we have detached from the desire for it, only then may we relish in the deep inner well of everlasting love. ‘God’s’ love can be mirrored inside and out; a nirvana, paradise or heaven that goes beyond bliss or the ‘absence’ of suffering.

A love that doesn’t end the moment a loved one is taken from us, but everlasting love and compassion for ourselves that connects us to the whole for eternity. A bond that can – and never will – be broken.

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