I received a phone call this morning from a gentleman on a quest to change his life. He, like many, had been living a life consumed by actions he knew no longer served him. He said to me, ” I am ready to walk the spiritual path.”
Throughout the world people are reevaluating their values, goals, aspirations & beliefs about life. As global consciousness expands, awareness of the spiritual path or conscious living is spreading like never before. The quest for the Why and What of life is growing, creating an existential crisis for many. Not quite knowing how to integrate the spiritual and earthly energies. So many contradictions, so many questions. Does one mean I have to give up all pleasures of life? Practice abstinence, be a vegetarian and live in poverty? Or is it possible to have both? One path is renouncing all and living on a mountain top, but there is another way. A way that says “yes” to life.
Since being here in Koh Phanang, Thailand at the Agama Yoga Center (www.agamayoga.com), I have been studying the art of Tantric Yoga. I can say that it is the most advanced teachings on spirituality and its application to modern life that I have ever been exposed to. So, if you are like many others and feeling the pull to pursue a more conscious way of life, make the decision to do so and attract the teachings to you. There are many more “modern day” examples out there than ever before. Beware however, it may take some initial inertia or will power to make the leap, but once in, you may never look back.
May your life be filled with love, joy and gratitude for all that is.
Namaste
CLIMBING FOR THE COCONUT
We can imagine that a coconut, which is high in the palm tree, is like our spiritual reality, and that its shadow on the ground is the physical reality. Our physical reality with all of its physical objects is simply a shadow of the spiritual reality from which this material reality is manifested.
We see the shadow on the ground and seek to grab it, just as we seek to accumulate riches, objects, relationships etc. But the shadow passes through our hands and we are left with the sand on which it was projected. In the same way we are left with nothing after all our efforts to find happiness through the material world.
After a number of years of vainly trying to find happiness, seeking after shadows of these coconuts on the sand, one day it occurs to us to look upward and we notice perhaps for the first time the coconut high up in the tree. We begin to realize that the shadow is the result of the coconut and that, if we can get the coconut, we will also have its shadow. It is not so easy, however, to climb the palm tree. It takes strength, stamina, perseverance and much practice until we are able to reach that height. This is the process of meditation and all spiritual effort. Once we realize that we will have both worlds – spiritual and material – when we obtain the spiritual, then we begin to direct our energies in that direction, withdraw our attention from the shadows and start directing it towards the spiritual realities from which those shadows are created.
