It is through a soulful link to our spirit and through the underlying principle that, though each challenge comes uninvited and is always most inopportune, we need to 'actively' accept all our disappointments and setbacks with an open heart. Accepting under duress and acquiring a 'poor me' victim status are not viable options. It doesn't score us any points but this resentful passivity does make us sick. It forces us to make mistakes - sometimes irreparable ones.
A Star Chart To Rate Our 'Now' Moments
When we embark on a healthier lifestyle, unless we are unwell, it is not because we anticipate benefits 'now'. We do so mostly in a bid to ensure a healthy future, as if good health were synonymous with long life and with satisfying, happy, long life.
We plan 'the future', as if we knew what the future would look like by the time it becomes the 'now' moment under our feet.
On the heels of the first universal misconception discussed in Who's in charge of this mess? comes another enduring, misguided endeavour which is also millennia-old. It is that of interpreting moments and circumstances, our own actions, as well as those of others, through 'glasses' that are seldom rose-tainted. More often than not, they are gray, if not downright bleak black. Like the children that, deep inside, we forever remain, we habitually slot events into three categories:
1. good= euphoric, bubbly, feel-good stuff = a reward
2. bad = low, dark, feel-bad stuff = an undeserved hardship
3. Indifferent= better luck next time. Whatever!
Interestingly, we are as equally surprised when something 'good' comes our way as something 'bad'. We accept God's plan, but mostly resentfully. We swallow our bad luck if only to not wallow in it for too long. We pump the air in a gesture of exalted thanks aimed at Good fortune on the rare occasions she deigns to drop something 'amazing' or 'awesome' on our lap.
For those of us who choose to believe in the theory of karma, the only alternative to that being that life is random, the truth of the matter is that the moments, events, circumstances, actions and re-actions that pop into our awareness should always be considered neutral - as neutral as a rainfall. They should be considered as mere 'happenings' of the sort that happen to the best of us as they do to the worst of us, but always for a [karmic] reason.
Bottom line:our thoughts and our actions cause effects in our lives. These effects can be compared to ripples. Ripples, in themselves are neutral. They merely... ripple and eventually they dissolve. But before we can aspire reaching past first step on the continuum that leads to contentment, it is up to us to align our thoughts and our actions with an inner process that, generally speaking, our ancestors have failed to develop correctly. What some of them had understood of that inner process has been long lost in our race's struggle to 'achieve' and to 'be someone'.
Some years ago, while trying to clarify a point on a forum I was moderating, I came up with a little analogy that has helped me understand better the relationship between the soul - pure, clean energy - and the ego-persona/energy field. It went like this:
Imagine a pond and, lying at the bottom of this pond, there is a quartz crystal. This crystal has been there for quite some time and, peering at it from the edge of the pond, it appears dingy green, perhaps from pond slime.
In my mind, our ego/ego-persona/our energy field is symbolized by the murky pond water while the crystal symbolizes the soul, always of pure energy - always. Yet, in spite of its diamond-like inherent purity it is unable to shine, to guide us, through the turbulence created by the emotional murky clutter reflected generated by our undisciplined ego. This state of affairs results in degrees of negative energy clouding our energy field. From this stems our pre-conditioned responses to the 'now' moments as they present themselves in their natural, neutral state.
While I was working this out, I initially thought that the crystal WAS green because it had become contaminated by pond slime. Thus, I thought what needed to be done was scrub that crystal clean to allow it to shine freely, as crystals do - but I was wrong. The crystal, our soul, NEVER becomes impure or contaminated. It always remains pure energy. It is just that its energy cannot shine through the stagnant water of the pond.
So what needs to be done is simply purify that water till it is all clear and then the crystal's energy and brilliance can radiate through the water, all the way to the surface, even as it remains at the bottom of the pond.
When interviewed on the topic of how successfully he managed his own temper, the Dalai Lama explained, "You see when I get angry or irritated due to very small mistakes of some other people, then I just express that and then finish, but sometime when it is a more serious form of anger, I try to separate myself from anger, then watch my anger, that emotion... then immediately the strength of anger diminishes. [... ]
You cannot have some sort of special practice for each case, but you must build your basic mental attitude in a healthy way, like in the case of a healthy body where, if the immune system is strong, then some virus or germs can't disturb you much, so similarly, your mental attitude has to be calm, then, if some disturbances come, even if some negative emotions come, they remain for a very short period, all the emotions remain on the surface, and do not disturb much, in depth."
Though I am not a Buddhist and though I do not dabble in any fashionable ersatz of Buddhism, I can but assume that the special practice to which the Dalai Lama was alluding could be but a variation ofBeing quiet - Accepting - Being Grateful - and transmuting the emotion of anger to that of universal Love,not necessarilyfor the person in front of him, but for the soul prisoner of that body-suit of flesh and fluids. And that transmuting of emotions amounts to cleaning out the pond water so that the crystal symbolizing the soul can shine through our emotional clutter and turmoil, and be reflected on the mirror-surface of the ego.
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