Category: Spirituality

Save Yourself from Pain: the Middle Path of Moderation

I have a lot of patients these days with what I term as ‘Excess Personality Disorder’. This afflicts strong willed individuals who range from the completely hedonistic and materialistic (those who identify, define and classify their world in terms of material things, money and social status) and those whom I describe as the Metropolitan Ascetics (the stoic with the ‘I am more superior then thou’ attitude. They type that embrace the life-style a sadhu would be proud of while holding down a successful corporate job).

The reason why both ends of the spectrum end up as my patients, apart form the fact that they can afford me, is the manner that they choose to define themselves which results in the loss of the remainder of their being. Identification and focus on one aspect of one’s life simply results in the excess of the point of focus to the detriment of every other facet of one’s being. The materially minded get totally lost within their material and physical selves neglecting all else and the spiritually focused tend to neglect their physical and material aspects. In both it can be noted that the emotional aspect is neglected causing an emotional void on certain facets of existence not intervening on their chosen personality path causing a massive imbalance.

Scientifically under the ambit of Western Psychology it has been experimented and proven that humans require certain experiences in life to grow into their personality. Maslow’s theory clearly defines stages of human development which need to be transcended in order to proceed to the next stage of development. If every stage is not transcended in its proper order then there will always be something amiss within that individual a form of imbalance.

Philosophically the ancient Hindu’s slotted in timelines for every human to go through life with certain goals to be achieved from education, through marriage, family and the fulfilment of social obligations till the time came that one needed to withdraw form society and work on their soul in mediation. Both the Western Psychologists and Ancient Indian Philosophers clearly stress that there is a time and a place for everything and everything needs to be taken care of as and when the physiological, emotional, psychological and spiritual need arises or the natural order is affected, which results in an imbalance.

Western physicians focus on ‘homeostasis’, which is perfect functioning within a human being’s internal physiological functions. Energy therapists go beyond that as they factor the balance of not just the physical but also the emotional, psychological or spiritual quotient. In order to understand this in greater detail is is necessary to understand the basics of energy anatomy: every individual has auras(energy surrounding the body) and chakras (points within which energy bodies, nadis/meridians converge). Every chakra controls a particular physical organ and every chakra also has an emotional, psychological and spiritual phenomenon associated with it. If one does not satisfy every aspect of human desire and experience one tends to then have an imbalance, which immediately translates into physical pain, which is linked and causes emotional and mental trauma to highlight the imbalance.

Energetic diseases and pains are the bane of most Western physicians for they are unable to detect the cause of such pain with X-Rays and MRI’s. I term this stage of pain as “Mystery Pain” as most patients I get come to me after being fobbed off by a “proper doctor” who is unable to diagnose anything. Proper doctors tend to treat such patients as hypochondriacs if rich (as its tolerable for patients who can pay to waste a doctor’s time) and poor patients are treated with disdain and dismissed as lazy (as they need medical certificates and letters to be able to shirk work). Such patients come to me as a last resort as they have nowhere to turn with their pain. I do agree it’s a tough call as this pain is undetectable in the initial stages as it is concentrated in the energy body. However, if not dealt with holistically (physically, emotionally, psychologically and spiritually) it tends to suddenly manifest in the physical body and has the capability to metamorphisise into something disastrous overnight.

The body always gives us the blessing of pain first to take note of the imbalance and correct what needs to be before it evolves into a physical manifestation, which you cannot ignore. I consider pain as a signal from the soul to set right one’s being and live life by satisfying every urge and feeling as long as there are no repercussions of pain and suffering to others. Believe it or not if you do cause pain and suffering to others you may be able to shut out your mental voice or your consciousness, but your soul will inflict upon you a reminder in pain which you will have to deal with in one way or another. In extreme cases when one is very disconnected from one’s soul one feels nothing for years or one manifests an accident or incident which will force you to deal with the pain and uncover and re-visit what you have neglected.

So how can you avoid pain? How can you live a balanced life? How can you be happy and healthy? Embrace every aspect of your existence and satisfy it but do so without causing anyone else any grief or pain is great but still a bit unclear. We live in a material world and need a more practical answer, which resonates with our lives to be able to live a pain-free, balanced, healthy and happy life.

As human beings we have no choice but to live in the material world we do and we also have no choice that we are spiritual beings and connected to more then the physicality of our existence. So how do we the spiritual being in the material world gain balance? The answer lies in doing both. Living in the material world and enjoying material things to the fullest, by enjoying and bringing on happiness our emotional being is also satisfied. But at the same time we need to regularly connect to our spiritual nature, experience happiness and gratitude (again fulfilling the emotional being within us) so as to attain a material-spiritual balance.

I remember reading a passage from a book on the industrial revolution in England. I read it years ago but it stayed with me for years as I thought it was ridiculous as it said that the middle class enjoyed the best health and a happier existence. Today having actually meditated on this I agree with this statement. I am sure it can be attributed to the fact that the middle class were spared the excesses presented physically, emotionally and psychologically by poverty and the excesses easily procurable by the wealthy. This actually sheds light to the key of all avoidance of pain: the middle path – MODERATION. Life must be lived in moderation.

What is Love – A critical evaluation

February 14th is a day that instigates people into states of emotion that I classify in two ways. The first which for that specific day may seem positive I term as ‘drama’. The second emotional reaction to the day is “grave trauma” and seems to affect all those not actively involved in the drama.

The “dramatists” are those who feel obligated to make efforts to buy cards, gifts and plan romantic dinners to prove to their partners that they appreciate them adequately and love them absolutely as per the guidelines set by mass media. The “traumatised” are those without partners or those neglected by their partners who spew forth feelings of “unloved”, “alone”, “unworthy”, “depressed”. Then there is the lot that feels they have not been appreciated enough as their generous overtures have been rejected or have not been able to live upto the expectations of their partner or those who feel their partner failed to live upto their expectations.

Now all this trauma triggers of an entirely different twist to the “commercial activity post valentines day” when psychologists, psychiatrists, councellors, therapists etc are retained for months to mend broken hearts and spirites.

Its quite funny actually that a day with no real connection or significance to anything has gained so much importance. Even the Vatican has clarified in 1968 by removing the feast day of saint Valentine, as the only corellation they could find between any Saint Valentine (they have accepted a few by that name) and 14 February is that is the date that one of the Saint’s called valentine was buried. WHat is even more interesting is to quote the Vatican “…since, apart from his name, nothing is known of Saint Valentine except that he was buried on the Via Flaminia on February 14.”

So why does Valentines day have the power to generate such intense human emotion? quite simply because we have allowed it to become what it is. The fact that we are bombarded by express and subliminal messages continually about “Love” does not help as this is in reality a very powerful human emotion.

Love is the foundation of our being. Every human being loves and is loved. Every single human has the ability to love. Animals too can love but humans a special ability as they can connect with God/the Divine/ The Supreme/ Mother Nature etc. and that is said to be the highest form of love. That higher love trickles down into our very being and we share this love with all.

We have love for those we are related to for which there is a scientific and psychological basis. We are also capable of love for those we are not related to such as our friends as they through words and actions have endeared themselves to us. We feel love for our pets, plants and even our profession’s, ability to do certain acts and our physical/material posessions. Why should be ashamed of admitting to love houses, cars, clothes, shoes etc.

We are even capable of feeling love for complete strangers be it some people suffering the brunt of a natural disaster, an accident or terrorist attack across the world, a child begging at yoru car window, an actor or singer, an admired sports personality, a sexy model, a hallowed prophet or saint, historical personalities, a cute baby in a diaper advertisement and so on.

At times we can even love fictional characters like cartoons, characters from movies and TV serials. At times great love is felt for the entire earth we have all felt this when we have seen a great sunset, a rainbow, a starry night or even on a sunny day when we have looked up into the sky. The ability to love is infinite there is no end to what we can feel love for. We are born to love its in our energetic make-up.

Love is an energy the more we love we are loved. We are always loved. Every single religion preaches God’s love for us. We are also told of angels, fairies, nature spirits and other beings which surround us all the time and shower us with love and protection. Everyone has at a certain time of their life had the one near horrifying accident where they would have been knocked down by a speeding car, or drowned in an unexpectedly ferocious wave, or fallen down the stairs but for something inexplicable that held them back at the last second and saved them. How does one explain that if not by some form of divine intervention or assistence from an invisible being.

If you want to think you are alone you can, if you want to feel unloved you will but if you make that little effort to be a bit consious and aware you will feel the unseen and never experience ‘alone’. Every known religion states that there are always higher invisible and even at times visible beings and creatures about you all you need to do is feel them and ask for them to let their presence be felt to you.

Where love goes wrong most of the time is confusion in the feelings of “love” blended with our human need for a “partner” for the purposes of sex. We need to acknowledge that we are conditioned to expect all encompassing love from our sexual partner. Love and sex are a combination that are not exclusive to one another.

Until the Victorian era most of the world was good to have sex to procreate and enjoy sexual urges. It so happened that what became the social “norm” in England was imposed on their entire Empire as appropriate and this set off a whole chain of events to alter the course of sex and its expression. Love was the accepted emotion and sex something unmentionable. It began to get infered with time that sex was exclusive to love if it was to be in a acceptable form and then somewhere down the line things got so convoluted that even references to sex were always partnered with love, as can be noted from the term “making love”.

The true essence of love, divine love in sex was lost through the ages to the common man. The importance of sex is its ability to be the easiest way to connect with the Divine. This is because the ‘Kundalini’ or fire energy which is within us all gets activated and during the act o sex and reaches its pinnacle during the state of orgasm. Saints and sages meditate for years to reach that same level of connection which they define as “Samadhi” or the ultimate connection with the divine. It is just as simple as God gave us an easy means to connect with him he did not deprive those who were not meant to devote their entire being to him of that deep spiritual experience. A sign of Gods divine love for us another kind of love that is neither accepted or acknowledged.

It is due to this that sex has always been dealt with in spiritual scriptures as sacred. However its quite ironic that it is not a marriage that makes sex sacred but the sex that makes the marriage sacred. In order to experience the sacredness or “Samadhi” it makes common sense that one must like ones partner and feel respect for ones partner. All of which leads to trusting one’s partner without which it would not be possible to experience the ability to leave body consiousness from the act of sex and going beyond into the realm of an inexplicable spiritual experience.

The reason why we tend to feel a deep emotional attachment and a lot of love for our sexual partner is simply the fact that we are bathed in the bliss of divine love which we tend to relate as caused by our sexual partner. We also have so much divine energy within us that it is pretty impossible to feel anything but love a that time.

We really have no problems with love or finding it or giving it to others. Our problems all arise from the mental modifications from our social interaction with books, movies and all the subliminal messages we are bombarded with everyday by the mass media.

Do not let anyone or anything tell you what love is. Gauge it by what you feel within. Love is many things but not an act of giving or receiving flowers, chocolates, jewellery or any other gifts or a fancy dinner just because a calendar says its 14 February. Love just is within everything and everyone. Every act we perform is capable of being an act of love. Every relationship we forge is capable of being love. The ability to give and receive love is there. The choice is ours we choose to give and receive it.

Deeds, Words, Thoughts…Religious Prattle or Powerful Tools

The moral trinity of “Good Thoughts, Good Words and Good Deeds” are incorporated in some way or another in every religion and are the core of every spiritual practice without which one has nowhere to proceed.
There is a huge misconception that Good Deeds are hardest of the three to perform and once satisfied the other two requirements pale in comparison. After all when you are doing good why should anyone care what you say and who cares what you think that’s private anyway as no one knows whatever your thinking.
Good deeds are considered such an achievement that they have been accepted and incorporated by society as something to aspire to. Every child if taught to admire a good deed and everyone aspires to be the good guy. When there is a chance to do something good-deedish most people jump at the chance.
Even the most hardened terrorists and drug dealers within their society will always try to confirm to the norms of what is a good deed, be it looking after the elderly or donating funds for an orphanage or to their cause which cause pain and anguish for others. In all honestly these days a good deed is simply an easy opportunity to be admired and feel important and special, an easy ego trip.
As society accepts good deeds, with exception to Afghanistan, Saudi and Iran where time has been regressed or has just been held on pause, Acts of violence or physical abuse are just not socially acceptable anymore. Even the man who beats his wife everyday knows this so he hits her in places others cant see.
Now lets examine how “words” effect an individual. Ever noted how you feel when you are complimented or when someone has encouraged you to do something. Just thinking back on the occasion you can feel the positive energy, the surge of invincibility and confidence.
Now think back to a time that someone said something to hurt you, deliberately, or not. It may even be an incident when someone said something and had no idea what that you would react very sensitively to something you were saying but all the same it caused you a great deal of embarrassment, pain or offence. Do you remember how you pondered and mulled over it for a while after it was said?
Just imagine you are one of those overtly sensitive people who cant let things go and what was said haunts you just cant get it out of your system. Such sensitive people are usually good at pretending they are ok but the fact that they can’t let go of what was said to them which eventually results in them getting angry or depressed and stresses them out.
A human being is designed in a way that it only functions at its optimal best at a certain level of physical, mental, emotional and spiritual balance. If the balance is lost then there is a lot more happening then most people can imagine. In very simplistic scientific terms the brain sends a message out to the nervous system that all is not well and then the body prepares for the flight or flight mode. So essentially the body is physically being pumped with adrenalin or nor adrenalin and a whole lot of other hormones which are not physically required by the physical body at the time. The excess hormones will cause anxiety, mood swings,
anger, depression and various other manifestations from the mental state of imbalance to the physical state. This is commonly referred to as a psychosomatic ailment an ailment, which commences a psychological symptom and culminates into the soma or physical body.
When anyone suffering from such an ailment visits a medical doctor the doctor can only treat the physical symptoms so the ailment goes unresolved as the cause is psychological and the person keeps suffering from the physical ailment until both the physical body and the mind are treated.
If the person does not get over what you have said then that state continues and the excess hormones and other secretions can affect them physically as their body does not require them they can affect organs causing physical illness, they will also continue to plague the person mentally and emotionally.
The affected person will not be able to function at their optimally best at work or within their relationships. They suffer psychologically to the extent that that they may not be able to function properly at work and may not perform at their optimal best and may loose out on a promotion or worse loose their job.
In summary words can actually cause more damage then acts of violence because particularly hurtful words can cause upsetting thoughts which in turn lead to physical upsets and if prolonged they may eventually get a very severe ailment in few cases it may even lead to death. You can also destroy someone’s personal relationships and careers. So do note that verbal abuse is far worse then physical abuse for the damage has more lasting effects.
Energy healers have known for a long time that every time one says something nasty, unpleasant or abuses another or even has an unpleasant thought their energy body is greatly disturbed and actually diminishes in size. Astonishingly the same applies to negative, unpleasant and abusive thoughts. The same thoughts most of us think are incapable of harm as they are personal and private.
A continual stream of negativity, anger, resentment and inability to forgive leads to cancer. There are so many people who claim never to have smoked a cigarette and have no genetic disposition to cancer and they still end up with lung cancer. This will seem like a strange phenomina to the practicioner of Western medicine but this can be proved when one views the effects of negativity, anger, resentment and inability to forgive on the energy body over a period of time.
This can be corroborated by Krilian photography in which one can prove every living being has an aura or an energy body that surrounds it and that every human is an energetic being and their words and thoughts have great power to assist or injure others. Whenever we have negative throught’s about someone we actually transfer that negative energy to those we are thinking of. If you find this hard to believe think of this as a corollary to the principles of attraction used in the very successful Secret franchise.
The basic concept in the Secret is to attract wealth and riches to you by sending out positive thoughts and meditating on what you want. So if we send out negative thoughts and feelings and constantly focus on them, we are meditating on that and actually projecting these thoughts to others. Similarly if we project these negative feelings to ourselves we self sabotage ourselves and our own physical health.
Thoughts are very powerful energetic weapons which can lodge in our aura and unless released they can work their way from the energetic body to the physical body and manifest as an physical illness. It is actually the thoughts that do the most damage for even when “words” are used as weapons it’s the thoughts that lodge in the aura and cause damage.
It an empowering to know that everything we do, we say and we think can be manifested. We have to power to do good or evil literally with our deeds, words and actions. If we do good we feel good and if not our consience gets to us at some point or another the same principle applies when we say good words and have project good thoughts.
If you believe in the theory of Karma, which literally means, what you reap is what you sow, you will reap benefits or losses in accordance with your acts, words and thoughts. Karma can also be used as a positive tool to alter your life if you want a good life as Grand Master Choa Kok Sui says the tools are at your disposal just do good.