Spiritual Health and Healing

Spiritual Health and Healing is a continuous process of inner quest for the truth, insights, clarity, and wisdom. When we open our hearts and step into our own soul journeys we will experience all the beauties and wonders in the world. May the wisdom of stories, teachings, and practices in this book give you guidance in leading you to the door of the unknown and the truth that can be verified by you and only by you. The Experiential Spiritual Health and Healing Lessons The following lessons are derived from different traditions and serve to bring us harmony within the human race, as well as to bring peace to everyone and to every place. These lessons are experientially oriented, and show ways of revealing the truth within and among us. These lessons may touch us in different ways and on different levels, so it is important to remember that there is no right or wrong connection to these lessons. It is important to understand our own experience in relationship to these lessons as an essential process of spiritual healing. The only criteria we have for the lesson and its experience is to gauge whether we are content, compassionate, happy, and hold love and peace within ourselves and for others. Each lesson consists of four sections. The first section includes classic stories and personal experiences that touched the heart and life of the author. The second section includes the teaching and shared concepts from different spiritual traditions. The third section presents the ancient wisdom related to the topic. The last section integrates the lesson’s theme into everyday life and suggests very specific daily practices. Be Indifferent A way of peaceful and truthful living Story In a small fishing village in Japan, there lived a young, unmarried woman who gave birth to a child. Her parents felt disgraced and demanded to know the identity of the father. She was afraid to tell the truth, the truth being that the fisherman she loved had told her, secretly, that he was going off to seek his fortune and would return to marry her. Her parents persisted. In desperation, she named Satori, a monk who lived in the hills, as the child’s father. Outraged, the parents took the child up to the temple, pounded on the door, and handed the child to Satori. The parents said, “This child is yours and you must take care of him!” “Is that so?” Satori said, taking the child in his arms, waving goodbye to the parents. A year later, the fisherman, the real father, returned and married the woman. At once, they went to Satori to beg for the return of the child. “We must have our child,” they said. “Is that so?” said Satori and handed the child to them. Teaching Can we remain calm when people scream in our face? Can we not raise our voices when we get mad and angry? Can we keep the same happy and serene state whenever we have to face failure or success? Can we live life like Satori, to be indifferent when facing all life situations? The world in which we live is a school, and life itself is the only real teacher who offers many opportunities for us to experience. The lessons of experience are hidden, and we are not to overreact but to respond firmly rooted in peacefulness. What we are searching for, striving to achieve, and setting goals for only brings us temporary pleasure and sorrow, high and low, satisfaction and disappointment, as in the law of opposites and duality. If everything we encounter in the world is short-lived, what is the point to react differently or lose sleep over it? Our sorrow, fears and anger, regret and guilt, envy, plans, and cravings live only in the past or in the future. We cannot do anything to change the past, and the future will never come exactly as we plan and hope for. When we stay in the present, there is no struggle, no problem, never was, and never will be. When we release the struggle, let go of our mind, throw away our concerns, and flow and relax into the world, we then flow into being and burst into joy of an unreasonable happiness. Every time we look around at the earth, the sky, the trees, the desert, the mountains, the lakes, the streams and even people, they are nothing but the embodiment of our true Self. We are free from all the bondages of the conditioned mind. We are a part of the universe and a part of the whole. We are not different from anyone else and anything else, we are one. Why should we act differently? The practice of peaceful living is action in inaction – fulfillment of our dharmic duties and responsibilities while remaining in equanimity. We may act angry, sad, gentle, rough, tough, and even concerned but we are not affected by, or not to alter, our state of contentment, happiness, indifference, and consciousness. Action without attachment is always in the present and it is an expression of body, which only can exist in the present. We receive the world of abundance when we simply give and execute without attachment to the fruit of action. Then we can do anything when we find our hearts and we no longer create ripples in our mind. The mind, however, is like a phantom and never exists in the present. Its only power is to draw your awareness out of the present. When our mind resists life, the thoughts and emotions, and when something happens to conflict with a belief, turmoil sets up so we react to the expectation of others and our own mind. If we release the expectations that the world could fulfill us, our disappointments vanish. We would continue to do whatever is necessary to live in the everyday life. Living peacefully without reasoning, staying in the present, action in inaction, and being an impartial witness are the ultimate discipline. So act, feel, and be indifferent without a reason in the world. Ancient Wisdom Sutra 1.2: Yoga is the restraint of the mind to equanimity. Sutra 1.3: Then the impartial witness abides in its own nature. Once the mind has become purified through practice of meditation, the mind will not rush to interpret or dramatize the appearance; the customary inner chatter gives way to pure illumination of just what is. The impartial witness is the only one here to observe the outer or inner landscape. This is a very peaceful and happy state. This is yoga. Practice 1. Watch your thoughts and emotions indifferently, like watching a movie, but don’t get involved when you close your eyes during your meditation sessions. 2. Watch your thoughts or emotions when you face a life situation and observe impartially whether you react to the situation with emotion or you simply respond the situation calmly and peacefully. 3. Go to a yoga class you have never been to before or go to a controversial lecture to experience being open-hearted and indifferent. 4. Experiment getting mad or even yelling at someone or something, but beholding a grace and smile within. It is a bit extreme but great practice. Feed the Wolf Create your own destiny Story Once upon a time, a grandfather told a story to his grandson: There were two wolves living inside his heart and constantly fighting; one is filled with envy, anger, hatred and fear; the other one is full of joy, love, compassion, grace, and light. “Who wins in your heart?” the grandson asked. “The one I feed.” Teaching When we feed the anger we become the anger. When we feed envy we become envy. When we feed hatred we become hatred. When we feed fear we become fear. We human beings have similar downward spiral experiences in life when we are entangled in dramas and the darkness of our existence. We sometimes seem to not able to get out of the trap, the deep human suffering hole, because we do not actually realize that we feed the human suffering, the angry wolf, constantly and unconsciously. When we feed the light we become the light. When we feed grace we become grace. When we feed love we become love. When we feed compassion we become compassionate. When we stay high in spirit we experience nothing but light. We have the choice in life to feed th