Unity of Opposites

Duality is an everyday experience which we move into on awakening. If I experience sadness, I am aware that there is the opposite of that and vice-versa. Everything has the flipside, thus duality. Some people take this as an experience of fragmentation and they can never find stability in life, thus it is the source of their unhappiness. So if something joyful comes to them, they always live in the fear of the sadness that might me awaiting them round the corner. In this way, they never live their experience of joy to the full, causing deep unhappinees in their psyche. This because they constantly live in fear that something will happen to unbalance them. This sometimes becomes pathological and does not let them experience long periods of peace.

Many spiritual traditions have unfortunately encouraged this way of thinking by creating a chism between what is good and what is bad. The duality is emphasized and people are encouraged to choose one part which they call ‘good’ if they are to be happy and save their soul. This has harmed many because it has created a conflict within some people since it has created a psychological struggle which to them ends at death.

In every spirituality, there are the rules of the religious part which is so to speak, the rules of the club which empasizes the duality part. However, every spirituality also has the mystic part which goes beyond, with the belief that duality is not the real human experience. The personality is experiencing wholeness through integration of the opposite poles. Thus it does not experience it as a split in personality but deeper integration and maturity. By rejecting one part one can never experience unity of opposites.

An example of this is the relationship some people have with their sexuality, where they are afraid of thoughts that come to them and struggle to reject them. This is an experience of opposing attitudes that come up of their own accord. Because of this, many people go through life riddled with guilt which is often misplaced. They can only achieve balance if they accept all their experiences as sacred, not to be suppressed or rejected. This can be done by unlearning some of our beliefs and basing our spiritual life on the mercy of God.

When in a conflicting situation, it is wise not to suppress one part but to allow both sides space to manifest in ones life. If we believe that ultimately all human experience is one of unity, it is only there that we can find balance and happiness, thus allowing conflict a place in our life.

Our Spiritual Identity

Where am I? Who am I? Where am I going?

The baby is totally connected to the body. It has no dilemmas with identity and is living the pure human experience. It is identifying with its’ true self by deriving its’ identity through the body. One cannot experience God through the mind. The baby’s smile is indicative of its experience in the human body where it is happy to be. In time, the baby begins to have different experiences because of exterior stimuli. This will create a different experience or identity called the false self which comes about because fo the reflective process and it is through this process that we suffer and feel pain, thus slowly losing touch with our initial process of joy. In this way we set off on a complex journey with a different path of identity.

The False Self is an imaginary self which we create as a by-product of the reflective process. This creates a world of its own, full of emotions and mental activity which gives us a false identity of who we really are. We then carry this false identity throughout our life, thinking and believing it is whom we really are. We then start with the internal dialogue which causes us to suffer because we are never satisfied and at peace because there is this sense of lack and the more we shift into this persona, the more lost we become because the mind continues to create situations where we then get lost because we cannot find ourselves and become slaves to internal dialogue.

We relate to the world and people through this internal dialogue – hurt, hopeless, extremely good etc. Therefore, we filter reality through the internal dialogue using the skills and mechanisms we have experienced in our life. People have difficulty relating because they create a world of their own i.e. I know who I am because of my problems.

We get to a point in our life where we have to take a decision. We might experience a deep crisis of identity which might require us to take a decision. This illusion of false self cannot feed us any more and we come up against a wall. This is the most fruitful moment because crisis will give us the opportunity to decide the path we wish to follow. It will show that the previous path we followed did not give us life. This will then initiate a process within us which will want to transform the way we live. Difficult experiences in our life like shock, degressions, end of a relationship, loss of a job etc will freeze our mind and internal dialogue. Our mind can no longer cope with these experiences of life and shuts down, thus giving us the opportunity to go back to the pure experience of the baby. The true self of human experience makes a comeback bringing us intense and short periods of joy, reflecting the connectedness with my being. Like the phoenix , new life comes out of the ashes. We then start to move again into a dynamic of human experience.

Paradoxically, I have found peace because I have always been dissatisfied. My moments of depression and despair turn out to be renewals, new beginnings. If I were once to settle down and be satisfied with the surface of life, with its divisions and its cliches, it would be time to call in the undertaker... So, then, this dissatisfaction which sometimes used to worry me and has certainly, I know, worried others, has helped me in fact to move freely and even gaily with the stream of life. (Thomas Merton)

Spiritality of Struggle

A challenge dissolves the way we are and makes the boundaries more fluid, we are feeling a certain uncertainty. We are challenged by the way we look at our self and it takes us to an unknown place. So the challenge gives us the possibility to take a step forward and allow our self to roam more freely in the way we are. It involves a bit of sadness and fear. We start to wonder what is happening inside us.

There is different ways of coping. One thing for sure is that I feel lonely, that is what makes us uncomfortable but this is normal. A challenge is unique to us and the loneliness means this is a lonely path; we start to learn different type of skills if we accept the path of loneliness. We are alone in what we have to deal with. In reality, nobody can understand us. It is one of the best ways to engage with myself in a different way.

Aloneness, I choose, loneliness I don’t choose and it becomes a struggle, but it will start to push forward the start of creativity, the direct effect of loneliness is that the challenge becomes bearable; we get the strength to survive the day. It takes us to the point of who we are and this is not a bad thing.

Our main problem is that we don’t take responsibility of our life; all of us have to face issue bigger than we are use to sometimes. To find the way out, we need first to have a basic attitude of survival. We need to do everything to survive like reading, swimming, walking, sports, etc ... and then we need to be creative, we need to take the attitude that we want to learn from the challenge we’re facing, or we want to creatively find a way.

Sometimes we can’t solve all the problems. Sometimes it is ok to carry an issue. Creativity will tell us if it’s not the right time. It gives us a deep consolation. We can live with an issue without trying to solve it.

Remember that the most important thing is the attitude. It is ok to be lonely; it is ok to have an issue. We allow it to be, we accept this part of us we don’t understand. When I can’t understand myself, how can I expect someone to understand me? And then something happens. We learn to see our self differently because this issue has made us different. We have to realise that this is ok, that we can’t find a shortcut and some issue takes time to evolve.

There is nothing better in life to understand who we are, to accept the grey, the white and the black, It is ok to be the way we are. It brings us a deep sense of peace and we no longer struggle.

The experience of peace is the building block of our life. Carrying the burden is the learning process, and something new happens. We can be at peace even if we are not complete, therefore we need to have compassion for our self and for the others. Compassion is loving without understanding and it takes us beyond our problems.

Self Identity - Intimacy

Self Identity is born with us and will stay until we die. We are all trying to understand who we are and this question is so important that we would do anything for the answer.

Our environment, family and friends will push us to use the self destruction or the self loving. When we choose self destruction, it leads us to a low self esteem and depression. It is a direction we take as we choose all the things that make us unhappy (films, relationships, books...), and we’re ok with it because of low self esteem, we think we are not worth being loved. This idea is reinforced by people, or by a belief system. Some people will put us down to feel comfortable; some are aggressive because they want to take our power.

At some point we need to realise that we are worth being loved. It is a tough challenge, and we need to build a spiritual path with a strong foundation. When we’re not respecting our self, when we are not using life affirming ideas, we are losing contact with our self and we remain on a superficial level of intimacy.

Intimacy is the way I see myself in truth, it is a deep and honest view of who I am, and being honest is not easy, sometimes, but if we aren’t then we lose touch with our truth. It is a decision, there is no magic. Small incremental decisions every day will help us to stay on a life affirming path. And to be able to do that, we need think about the exception. If we live in a cloud, there will always be one day of light. When we think of that particular day, we go there and we stay for a moment that is how we open a window. When we choose life affirming energy, we find the seed that will help us to start something we think is impossible.

Le'ts activate our free will and we will discover our own spiritual path.

The Wheel of Life Harmony Center

Five Gateways - Our Journey of Ascension

Deborah Marshall-Warren - Hypnotherapy