The Spiritual Aspect of Tenacity

Being tenacious means that we know where we want to go although we do not always see the path clearly. How tenacious are we in our life right now? We have to be comfortable in our chosen path so as to be tenacious. We have all chose a path to achieve wellbeing in mind, body and spirit. What other tools can we use to smoothen our path?

To be tenacious we need to be flexible as well as soft (the part that helps me to see very clearly with deep vision). By connecting to the soft side of the heart centre, we access that energy that is welcoming, opening, transparent and non-judgmental. There is no fear but a sort of child-like strength.

The Heart chakra generates love. Hard love or tough love sometimes entails that for a brief period in a difficult situation the role of being tenacious is taken over by a third party until the person concerned is able to be tenacious himself once again.

Our soft side has vision. We can see clearly and far away. It teaches us clarity and depth. The hard side wants immediate results. The softer side does not generate love only but also compassion which is unconditional love. Tenacity cannot be attained without compassion which respects and motivates the reason to grow and gives us stability. Compassion is generated by a clear mind and open heart. A sense of flexibility which is flowing and child-like. There are no emotional blockages. Compassion totally accepts without any condition. It is the refined love of the spiritual person – the God DNA.

The Spiritual Tool of Letting Go

We are like the serpent, removing old skins as well as old habits and discarding old ways of relating. What comes out of this process is yet unknown. This process, like that of the serpent has to happen slowly and fully. It has to respect our psychic openness. If we let go a little, we can only receive a little and the process will be stifled and we will experience ourself in fits and starts and this will depend on the degree of our openness and letting go, to allow for the new us to enter. For sure, if we make the commitment with ourself to change and put in the effort, it will happen and we will receive. However, if during this process of receiving we put up blockages, that which we receive might upset us.

Primarily we have to do the process of letting go which has to be a smooth one that respects our rate of progress. For some, letting go sometimes happens in times of crisis, but do we have to go there? The spirituality of letting go is the spirituality of humility – of acknowledging. The way we experience the Divine is the way we shape our path.

We need courage to let go of some of the spiritual ideas we have which might have been instilled in us when we were young and for which we might not have been psychologically prepared. We have to know ourselves so well that we take steps in our life that are respectful of our psychology. Spirituality has always got to be open to life and respectful to who we are. Like this, our spiritual process is faster because it is totally respectful of who we are.

Our discernment on our experiences in life will form our spirituality and stabilise us. If our spirituality is always pulling the carpet from under our feet it is of no use to us. We have to integrate our spirituality with our personal experience. This will teach us how to let go. The spirituality that places us in a box with one set of rules is not respectful to the evolvement of our own spiritual experience. Our spirituality grows from our reflective experience which we test with the spiritual tools that we have learnt, thus becoming a source of growth in our spiritual life, helping us to experience the love of the Divine which is expansion and our experiences are always new which then work to build us up. The experience of Life is not the same , so we cannot stick to the same ways of dealing with it. The more we allow and the more we let go, the more we will experience things in a different way.

How Do We Integrate Things That Bother Us

We can integrate things that bother us by unlearning learning. As we start to change spiritually and become more stable, we start to allow what had been repressed to come out. We suppress because we always try to find a balance (sometimes dysfunctional) in our situation for which we pay a price by suppressing what is legitimate. This dynamic makes us weak because we decide to prioritise balance in a dysfunctional way.

Usually by prioritizing peace we suppress our true feelings in our subconscious. The women’s role in society is usually to coalesce things together for which she pays a very high price to keep the peace at all times, sometimes at the cost of self-sacrifice thus giving women a lot more to unlearn.

Since women have now taken responsibility for their own happiness, the result is quite dramatic as all the suppressed emotions a woman kept to keep the peace will now unleash.

Female psyche has two aspects. That of the Destroyer and that of the Giver of Life. We will begin to notice that women will take a stand which is not wrong as their spiritual progress depends on their taking a decision to be true to themselves which might cause conflict. This is all part of the process to find a new balance whereby she can express herself with power thus seeking relationships on a basis of justice and respect. Guilt destroys our spiritual life because any spiritual path grows only when there is a space of free responsibility. Remorse is different and builds the spiritual life in a constructive way.

Solving Problems with Shape Shifting

How do we normally deal with problems and challenges? Is it not often done through stubborn determination as dictated by our mind? And what about an alternative way ....

As westerners we usually get deep into the nitty gritty of the issue and try to figure out how to solve it. By doing so we get sucked into its energy in a downward spiral often leading to frustration and depletion of energy – having solved nothing. We use our minds for solving the problem and get aggressive with controlling the outcome trying hard to find a solution.

If we are in tune to Nature we can learn a better way of dealing with problems. Shamans know very well how to tap into the archetypes of animals and plants to read between the lines of what these can teach us.

Take for example the panther - a fast runner but it instinctively knows when to slow down when need be. When searching for prey such as a deer what does it do? It is expert at shape shifting itself into a trunk, blending with it so that it could be inconspicuous and ready for action when appropriate. It can walk slowly if its prey is a slow animal and at the right time is able to run fast after it. The panther does not force itself into controlling the situation and is ready to take its time as long as need be. It knows that in the dark reality changes from that in the light and it uses this fact also to get its prey.

From this we can learn that the universe is more fluid, nothing is fixed as we think it to be. Like the panther, our psyche can expand and contract accordingly and be able to see a problem from a different aspect. Every problem has an exception to the usual patterns and we can appreciate this fact to deal with it, knowing that it is not a fixed entity needing force to crack it down.

We lost the skill of adaptation due to thinking that our mind needs to get in the way. Like the panther we need to be aware that reality is fluid and not fixed (as when seen through dark or light) - like the panther we can shape shift to what is required - and like the panther we can integrate with an environment making it less hostile and more manageable.

Article and Photo by Mary Attard

The Dynamics of Temptation

Temptation is an inner dynamic (counterforce) which pushes us away from our commitments. Something happens within us that goes counter to our needs and moves us towards our desires. In the realm of temptation we fall into the desire trap.

‘Desire is the root of all suffering’ – Buddha.

We need to distinguish a healthy desire. This will give me a wholesome experience. This desire is linked and is aligned to my real needs. A desire which is not linked to my real needs becomes a temptation to deviated me from my path. We always know when we feel weak or strong and the dynamics of temptation go directly opposite to how we are feeling. Therefore, if we are weak, the temptation will be very strong and vice versa if we feel strong the temptation will be more subtle.

To build ourselves up and take a commitment, we need to take small achievable decisions every day which are accumulative over time, thus building up a discipline. As we become stronger, the temptations would be small and subtle and would try to deviate us from our commitment and break the resolve of the discipline. A whole chain reaction is then set into motion and within a day or two we go back to square one.

‘When I am weak, then I am strong’ – St. Paul 2 Corinthians 12:7-10

Vulnerability knocks out the ego, so when we are weak, we are more alert whereas at our strongest mode we lose our sense of proportion and judgment, as well as respect for others, so the temptation there will be insignificant and subtle and it will then be our downfall. Awareness keeps us balanced in this dynamic.

We must put praise where it belongs and never allow ideas of grandeur to set in and to go to our heads whereby they then take a life of their own.

The Spirituality of Perception

Without proper perception, our way of seeing will be flawed and we will not be grounded in reality. We perceive through our senses, so perception is on the level of consciousness which is at the level of senses. We base our life on perception and constantly transform knowledge into wisdom.

To perceive properly, we need to have all the channels clear. Up to now we have perceived through the senses. That is how we acquire knowledge and information. This information is then processed through the mind whereby we come to a conclusion. Our sense of perception is linked to our personal experience and emotions, so it can sometimes be flawed since our experience is not a direct one and we are using emotion, as well as experience as an intermediary to filter it. For right perception we need direct experience to find peace and stability which will then influence every aspect of our life. We should not opt for less than direct experience.

Meditation take us into an area of our psyche which is not influenced by our senses. It bypasses the habitual way whereby we relate to everyday experiences. When direct experience becomes a habitual practice, we move into transformation because we no longer have control over the process since we allow the situation to speak to us on a level that is clear and clean because we will not be using our senses as a filter. A situation can create a range of possibilities, but experiencing the situation directly will allow the situation to speak to us in a different way.

Some people are viewing 2012 through their perception of fear. Through a direct experience, it will be perceived that it is an experience of transformation and co-creation. Our thoughts then become manifested in reality because we open up to a higher dimension which because my thoughts are aligned with source, they will then be manifested. People who are not aligned will still manifest their thoughts but if these thoughts are directed inward, they will self-destruct. We have to be responsible for our thoughts, transforming knowledge into wisdom, giving us a direct experience with what is. Perception has to help us remain balanced whatever happens.