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Being a Lotus in the Pond

Garima Roy
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Being a Lotus in the Pond

“The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.” ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

The effect of crowd culture on our Spiritual well-being

“Crowd is Untruth” ~ Soren Kierkegaard

frostIn today’s time and age, the crowd culture is influencing each one of us, one way or another. Embellished by mass production, advertising and manipulation, it is a brainchild of profit makers and we are the mindless consumers.

One isn’t born mindless; it is a slow and gradual conditioning process. Technically, each time you fall susceptible to a certain kind of crowd behaviour, you unconsciously sell a bit of yourself. You might be selling that part of your mind and soul which you never had the chance to explore.

Anatole France said that, “If fifty million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing.”

Ultimately, the disappointing consequence is that it affects our ability to think for ourselves. And if one doesn’t know how to think for oneself, one can never be familiar with that sense of self-assurance and inner peace. Crowd culture is making us spiritually weaker.

Having a sense of self and individuality is necessary for being spiritually intelligent

As Francis Vaughan puts it, “Spiritual intelligence is concerned with the inner life of mind & spirit and its relationship to being in the world…In addition to self-awareness, it implies awareness of our relationship to the transcendent, to each other, to the earth and all beings.”

There are several hurdles and blockages in one’s way to become spiritually intelligent. The idea is to know that such blockages exist and then eventually work on eradicating them.

slavery-modern-slaveryIt is necessary to stand for yourself because those who stand for nothing fall for anything. Individuality requires courage and true individuality comes from deep within. We all know, individuality which is defined by the exterior appearance and materialistic possession is short-lived, and when it arises from the centre of a being, never fails to touch hearts.

One who falls prey to the crowd culture, however, will never be able to reach that level of spiritual awareness and connect to the self and the spirit.

If you choose to go the popular way mindlessly, you might not feel like a misfit and have that temporary sense of belonging, but in the longer run you will psychologically depend upon the reactions and opinions of others. That, in all likelihood, is mental slavery. And a mind that is a slave will never be able to grow and evolve.

Emancipate yourself from mental slavery, None but ourselves can free our minds. ~ Bob Marley

Many consider standing against the crowd an act of rebellion. Being able to stand for yourself and following your own stream of thinking just means that you are aware of yourself. You unconsciously damage and erode your consciousness by neglecting your right to individuality.

You never give yourself a chance to connect with your spiritual self. Connect with yourself. Being yourself is the first step towards being a spiritually intelligent soul. You become a free-soul and you carve your own path to joy and happiness.

You don’t live with the pressure of seeking validation and experience a sense of independence that is good for your soul. Also, the moment you choose to be yourself, you attract like-minded people, and together you develop the right perspectives and positive strength to help others in realising their inner potential and making this world a peaceful place.

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Robert Frost
Commercialism

The Art of Wu-wei and The Power of Effortless Action

Gary Z McGee
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The Art of Wu-wei and The Power of Effortless Action

“The Sage is occupied with the unspoken
and acts without effort.
Teaching without verbosity,
producing without possessing,
creating without regard to result,
claiming nothing,
the Sage has nothing to lose.” ~ Lao Tzu, Tao Tê Ching

How do we become a person, let alone a sage, who has nothing to lose? How do we achieve such a state of liberation that all things just seem to happen with effortless ease? The irony is that we are more likely to achieve something if we let go of our need to achieve it. But how do we make ourselves not want something that we actually want?

Wu wei Taoism's most important concept

How do we let go of wanting to win gold at the Olympics but still remain focused on winning gold at the Olympics? Quite the conundrum, indeed. But there may be an answer, albeit an elusive one, in the concept of Wu wei and the power of Spontaneity.

Wu wei is one of Taoism’s most important concepts. It is sometimes translated as “non-doing” or “non-action.” But a better way to think of it is the “Action of non-action.” Wu wei is a cultivated state of being effortlessly in alignment with the ebb and flow of the cosmos.

It is a kind of “going with the flow” that is characterized by great ease and awareness, in which – without even trying – we’re able to adapt to any situation that might arise.

Infinity says we’re everything, finitude says we’re nothing. Between the two, we flow. It’s in this in-between where the power of spontaneity can be utilized, where we are both the seer and the seen, the Universe becoming aware of itself. The spontaneity of Wu wei is a different sort of energy than we may be accustomed to conceiving. It is not an energy that can be forced by the will. It is the noumenal experience of being in flow with the cosmos.

It is effortless and frictionless, despite needing a little effort and friction. And it is actually a letting go of our attachment to our goals so that we are in a better place to achieve our goals. It must be a free flowing process of intertwining synchronicities.

twist

But we must not be overly serious with our goals and aspirations, instead we must be sincere. We must trump our insecure seriousness with sincere humor. To be authentic we must be sincere, rather than overly serious or insecure about achieving a particular goal. One can be sincere without being serious. This is the wisdom of Wu wei.

It’s analogous to growing a flower. All we can do, as good gardeners, is prepare the soil (the mind, the body, and/or the soul) and provide the proper conditions, and then let nature take its course. If you force a flower to open prematurely, you destroy it. Similarly, if you prevent it from opening, you destroy it. It must be allowed to grow with its own intelligence, in its own self-organized direction. This is the essence of Wu wei.

Our best effort is to become attentive gardeners, to become aware of a process that we may never understand, but to allow understanding to come as a natural progression of open-minded awareness and to give into the Flow state, as a creative microcosm gives in to a greater creative macrocosm.

Like Shunryu Suzuki said, “We must have beginner’s mind, free from possessing anything, a mind that knows that everything is in flowing change.”

Wu wei is spiritual blood. It spills from the heart like a razor just sliced open the wrist of the soul. Wu wei is the search for lost time, but it is also lost time. When we are in the flow state of Wu wei, we are caretaker & destroyer, teacher & student, hungry ghost & slithering wraith. Like Alan Watts said, “Change is not merely a force of destruction. Every form is really a pattern of movement, and every living thing is like the river, which, if it did not flow out, would never have been able to flow in. Life and death are not two opposed forces; they are simply two ways of looking at the same force, for the movement of change is as much the builder as the destroyer.”

modern-geisha_taoist-circle

But even words are merely trickster symbols that do no justice to the concept. Their only purpose is to trick us into higher imagination. The imagery is the thing, rising up from the words that just as surely kill it. Even this article kills it, and doesn’t quite grasp the elusive and poetic balance of the Wu wei experience. This article is admittedly a vain attempt, at best, to explain an elusive and sacred concept.

Louis G Herman wrote about a similar concept in his book, Future Primal: “Thuru: the process by which things become “what they are not” and, in so doing, paradoxically, become more themselves… this is something similar to the dynamic interplay of yin and yang in Chinese philosophy or the unification of opposites in the flow of the Tao.

Western philosophy has a related concept in the dialectical exploration of the in-between – the flow of awareness from thesis to antithesis into the larger truth of synthesis, which in turn provokes a new antithesis. And so the beat of Thuru goes on, embodied in the shape-shifting trickster of mythology.” Wu wei comes from spontaneity. Spontaneity comes from Wu wei. It was not fire that Prometheus stole from the gods, it was Wu wei: the language of the gods. And the fire rages mightily on.

When we are caught in the ephemeral flow of Wu wei, we are caught in sheep-clothes with a wolf-heart, right-brain firing its tender nurturing toward imaginary ends while the left-brain stamps its iron bars of open-close linearity. Somehow a balance is maintained, despite the lock-down of rules, goals, and vicissitudes.

A frivolity of life subsumes the condition, and a new world rises up from the traditional; an army of imagery dances across our imagination, across the observer’s imagination, tying knots into each others thought-stream using love-strings and slipknots, loopholes and bon mots; until there is a web of life living, ever-so-shortly, in the span of a few seconds of give and take, inhale and exhale, sleep and awake, life and death. It’s the magic of the flow state. It’s the all-cylinders-firing of “being in the zone.”

Like the great Jazz musician Charlie Parker advised to aspiring musicians, “Don’t play the saxophone. Let it play you.”

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Wu wei
Vonnegut quote
Taoist circle

Why Thinking Logically Imprisons You

Nikki Sapp
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Why Thinking Logically Imprisons You

We often come across phrases in everyday life, “statistics show…”, “odds are….” or the medical field’s favorite, “research has shown…”

Many times, phrases like these are used as a precursor to a statement to imply that because something has happened a certain way to a majority of people, that it will also happen to you that exact way.

When we make assumptions about the way things will go for us based on things like statistics, polls, or comparison to others, it is safe to say that we are thinking “logically”.

But what if we chose to start approaching our life less from a logical viewpoint and more from a creative standpoint?

think out of the box

How would looking at our life less from an “I’m a realist. I know what the research has shown” perspective and more from an “I am creating my life as I go along through my thoughts, beliefs and attitudes” perspective, change our life for the better?

“The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift” ~ Albert Einstein

It is important to first realize that both ways of thinking, logically and creatively, have their place in the psyche. For example, things like walking, driving a car or eating food when done thinking logically would be beneficial.

However, when approaching broader life issues such as human interaction/communication, job/money making opportunities, dating/relationship issues, outlook on life, or problem solving etc…, creative thinking may be more advantageous in ensuring that we live the life that we TRULY desire.

creative thinkingIn a society where it is not only uncommon to follow your dreams but sometimes even looked down upon, it is no wonder that so many people give up on their true goals and ambitions only to settle for a relationship they are less than thrilled in, or a job they hate but doing because it has good insurance and a 401k plan.

More often than not, people try to keep status quo. They find themselves settling for circumstances that will at least “keep them up with the jones” because logical thinking tells them that this is what is required to be fulfilled and happy.

As Deepak Chopra said, “The universe has no restrictions. You place restrictions on the universe with your expectations.”

If we believe this statement to be true, then it is safe to say that if we EXPECT to live the life we have always wanted, then why shouldn’t we be able to?

The single most debilitating emotion we as humans possess is fear. Whether it be fear of change, fear of failure, fear of what others will say or even fear of success, fear is undoubtedly the number one thing that holds people back from going after their goals.

Fear often disguises itself as logical thinking. When left unchecked, this logical thinking will run amuck labeling opportunities as “risky”, lofty goals as “unrealistic” and thinking outside the box as “silly”.

At what point did it become unrealistic to go after a life that you love? Have we become so jaded as a society that we actually expect for things in our life to be less than amazing?

If we are expecting things to not be that great then what hope do we have for things to actually be great? If we expect and accept that things will go for us just like they have for our parents, grandparents, friends etc…, as a form of logical reasoning, are we then selling ourselves short?
reality-quote

Does Logical thinking Imprison Us?

When we think logically, we imprison ourselves with limitations. When we think creatively, we open ourselves up to solutions and limitless possibilities. When we approach our life from a creative perspective, we will start to see failures as opportunities for growth and redirection, and we will spend more time pursuing endeavors that utilize our specific gifts and talents.

Creative thinkers feel in complete control of their lives, and expect to be successful because they expect to always be growing as a person. These expectations and beliefs will then manifest as outer reality.

Logical thinkers expect that things will go exactly as the data has shown, whereas creative thinkers know that the universe is filled with limitless potential, and just because something has happened a certain way for one person, it doesn’t mean that it will happen that way for them.

It is so important to remember that not only does the universe want you to be happy and in love with your life, but it also needs you to be. Your gifts and talents are completely unique to you alone and when utilized properly will be your gift to humanity.

Two Simple Steps Toward Authentic Freedom

Gary Z McGee
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2
Two Simple Steps Toward Authentic Freedom

 

“There are only two mistakes one can make along the road to truth; not going all the way, and not starting.” ~ Buddha

This quote, attributed to the Buddha, holds the two keys toward achieving authentic freedom. In this article we will break down these two components, while creatively analyzing how and why they always work as long as they are followed.

buddha-freedom1) Starting

“You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment.” ~ Henry David Thoreau

If, as Johann Wolfgang von Goethe wrote “Whatever you do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it” then it behooves us to be bold with our dreams and aspirations. Not starting is only dreaming. Starting is acting on the dream.

Whatever the dream is: painting a self-portrait, traveling the world, living off the land for six months, it doesn’t matter, begin it. Discover the genius, the power, and the magic in it.

Wanting our lives to be more fulfilling and complete and magical without acting on it is like a wannabe novelist always talking about writing a novel but never actually writing anything down. Not getting started is just a cartoon in the brain. Actually starting is emancipating the cartoon, becoming an aspect of the cosmic-joke rather than the butt-end of it.

dont-give-up

What if one day you wake up and you’re an old man or woman and you think to yourself, “Why didn’t I live the creative life I dreamed of? Why didn’t I write my memoirs? Why didn’t I travel the world? Why didn’t I paint more? Why didn’t I grow a garden instead of a lawn? Why didn’t I cliff-dive from the cliffs at Rick’s Café in Jamaica?”

The answer will more than likely be that you were afraid, or you didn’t have enough money, or you weren’t in shape, or you were too busy working, or you were worried about being perfect and never got around to simply being human. Don’t let this happen to you.

It will be heartbreaking. It breaks my heart everyday seeing people stuck in dead-end jobs, slaving away for money that never seems to be enough to live a fulfilling life. Hint: it will never be enough. Don’t wait for perfection. Don’t wait for “enough money.”

Life was meant to be lived now. Live it, for Christ’s sake! Quit people-pleasing and stringing yourself out on the illusion of perfection. Get out there and live the way you want to live, the status quo be damned. Like Rita Mae Brown said, “I think the reward for conformity is that everyone likes you except yourself.”

“The important thing,” said French critic Charles Du Bos “is to be able at any moment to sacrifice what we are for what we could become.”

Take baby steps if need be. Just begin the journey. Begin right now. What’s stopping you? Take inventory of your plethora of excuses and then toss them out the window. Defenestrate the shit out of anything and everything that’s preventing you from being the most full-frontal juicy creative version of yourself possible.

The first step will be the most difficult, enormously difficult in fact. All your doubts will come crashing down on you like the weight of God. Push him off. Shed the parochial. Kill every Buddha you see on the path. The steps will get easier and easier the more you liberate yourself from what’s been restricting you.

2) Going all the way

“Until the whole world is free to agree with you or disagree with you, until you have given the freedom to everyone to like you or not like you, to love you or hate you, to see things as you see them, or to see things differently – until you have given the whole world its freedom – you’ll never have your freedom” ~ Adyashanti

It’s not just that we’re on a journey; it’s that weare the Journey. We are not simply the bridge from animal to Overman, like Nietzsche would say; we are the “passage” itself. The glue that binds finitude with infinity is the man torn between being both an animal and a god. We are the tearing.

We are the passage. We are the walking personification of Flux. There is more to being human than choice, there’s vicissitude. The sooner we embrace these truths, the sooner we’ll be able to live the life we’ve dreamed of living.

clock This means we need to keep moving. This means breaking through mental paradigms like a wrecking ball breaks through brick and mortar. This means stretching comfort zones like a trickster god stretches Truth.

This means tricking ourselves out of whatever current condition has us conditioned to think that it’s the “only way.” We need such upheavals in order to individuate the ego and self-actualize the soul. Spiritual sophistication comes from constantly disrupting the current state.

Like Rumi wrote, “If you are irritated by every rub, how will you become polished?”

“The journey between what you once were and who you are now becoming,” writes Barbara Deangelis, “is where the dance of life really takes place.”

The dance of life is right now. Not a few seconds ago. Not sometime in the future. Right now! The question is: are you dancing or are you stagnating. Are you alive or just another member of the walking dead? I assure you, Somnambulant meandering does not become you. Don’t have conviction, have gumption.

Indeed, as Nietzsche once said, “Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies.”

Wake up! Smell the roses! They are the hearts bursting from the chest of every person who’s awake and living their dream. Get a good whiff, because that could be you. It should be you. It needs to be all of us, especially now.

Like Eco-theologian Thomas Berry wrote, “We will go into the future as a single sacred community, or we will all perish in the desert.”

secret

Going only so far, and not going all the way, is like only reading one book and then thinking you know all that needs to be known. Not going all the way is like living in one place and thinking you know the way the world works.

Going all the way means the more you know the more you realize how much you don’t know. Going all the way means becoming the journey itself and realizing that it can never end unless you end it. The journey is indeed the thing.

Keep going. Keep challenging yourself. Accept that there is no destination. The more we move, the more we become intimate with all things. Sidestep even God if he gets in your way, especially if he’s prepackaged. Keep the wind in your hair and the fire at your back.

Lick your wounds from time to time, but keep going. Go with a full heart that has been sharpened by the experience of stretching comfort zones, shattering mental paradigms, and flattening status quo boxes, and I assure you that a life well-lived shall not elude you. Godspeed!

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Bridge
Do not give up
Compass
Keep going

Transforming Loneliness into Solitude

Garima Roy
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Transforming Loneliness into Solitude

 

I don’t know if I’m unhappy because I’m not free, Or if I’m not free because I’m unhappy – Patricia Franchini, Breathless

Do you truly feel free? Deal with this question genuinely as within the answer resides the truth of your state of mind. Do you feel stuck in this trap of desires or are you genuinely content with wherever and however you are?

You may have found your dream job, partner, house but still you find yourself stuck in the labyrinth of loneliness and emptiness.

7071177807_eb814330cb_bYou feel restless day after day because your conscious mind wants to rise and grow. It doesn’t want to be stuck in time. Its a sort of isolation; not just from other people in one’s life, but from one’s life itself.

It begins with an existential crisis that encompasses existential loneliness, existential angst, existential fear and existential sufferings; all of it combined is a gateway to existential solitude.

“However vast the darkness, we must supply our own light.” ~ Stanley Kubrick

Loneliness, like fear, is an edgy emotion and you have to pass through it if you want to enter your inner world. It is an emotion that poets, writers, yogis and artist celebrate to undergo transformation. It’s a tool for spiritual growth.

Embrace loneliness – it is an adventure towards solitude. To find profound significance of life is an engagement with the centre that lies within each one of us. And there is no spiritual short cut to being spiritually intelligent.

i_am_not_myselfAnger, fear, disappointment and sadness all arise out of loneliness. Once you transform loneliness into solitude, your sense of peace never gets separated from you. However it’s a long way home and you have to do intense self-inquiry. Realise the thoughts and emotions that fill you with pain and restlessness.

It could be reminiscing past memories, future fears, suffered humiliations, love and friendships denied, failed goals. Accept those emotions. Disassociate yourself with the gloom factor present in those emotions and use it as a stepping stone to become a spiritually stronger and a better person.

Understanding Solitude in context of Ego

“A pale reflection of myself wavers in my consciousness…and suddenly the “I” pales, pales, and fades out.” ~ Jean-Paul Sarte, Nausea

Ego exists in order to be flattered. Your ego carries an identity and identifies with certain sources of joy. Any shift in the paradigm discomforts your ego and that leaves you feeling horrible. But do you realise that the root cause of suffering here is having a fixed sense of identity for yourself? The truth is in order to evolve one has to constantly change.

henrydavidthoreau122077You cannot cage yourself because of your ego. Your soul seeks freedom, but your ego has a hard time believing that you are not running after an identity.

You actually construct an emotional baggage by trying to maintain an image in front of your friends, maintain a certain kind of influence in office, have perfect social circle and so many other things. Don’t trouble yourself. Freedom means carrying the same self everywhere.

You are exactly what you are when alone. Denying this fact is denying your own existence. Once you embrace yourself with your loneliness, you become free. In that freedom, you experience solitude. Solitude is an opportunity to renew yourself, regain perspective in life and restore the body and mind. No matter wherever you are; in solitude you are at home.

As Walt Whitman said , “Alone…. And the soul emerges.”

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Free 
Existential Crisis
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