By Andreas Moritz
The currently experienced widespread economic crisis and political/social uncertainty seem to threaten our very survival on this planet. However, any attempt to fix the symptoms of our crumbling economy, our sickness industry, and our own lack of worthiness and security merely prolongs the agony and, in fact, drives us deeper into the abyss of self-annihilation. While focusing on the world’s problems and on our own personal problems may offer a sense of tangibility, such an approach remains as ineffective as trying to chase darkness out of a room when switching on the light is all that is required to make us be secure and safe. As simplistic as it may sound, to swiftly and effectively solve the root causes of our problems requires a major overhaul of our way of perception.
The soul, being the main reference for knowledge and experience in our life, is also the mastermind behind our thoughts, feelings and actions. Attending to the health of the soul is perhaps the most important thing in a person’s life. The soul is backed by a universal power that, if we permit it, can accomplish anything from healing ourselves to healing our planet. Every experience in life has an influence on everything else. Our personal beliefs and viewpoints determine our individual reality and the way in which the world presents itself to us. If you know and feel in your heart that everything in your life is meaningful and necessary for your inner growth and development, then each experience of yours will serve as a means to further your spiritual and material abundance, however irrelevant the same experiences may seem to another person. On the other hand, if your interpretation of life is an unhappy one, your experiences will most likely be characterized by frustration and constant disappointments.
Food For The Soul
The soul’s primary “food” is the feeling of joy and happiness for no particular reason. The soul uses this food to increase love, wisdom and abundance in your life. Real happiness is the natural result of balance and harmony among all the different aspects of life, including the body. The body along with its five senses plays a particularly important role with regard to spiritual growth and increasing soul awareness. If used sensibly and in a balanced way, the senses of hearing, touch, sight, taste and smell can be a tremendous source of happiness. When happiness is the fuel and motivating force behind our desires and intentions, there is no end to growth and expansion of love, knowledge, creativity and strength.
Without such happiness, however, we stumble in darkness and are vulnerable, insecure and restless. The final recipient of happiness is the soul. Happiness is generated when the soul sees oneness permeating differences, when lovers unite in ecstasy, or when an artist merges with his piece of art. Even the smallest pleasures that we experience in life can further the integrity of life. They tune the ego, the intellect, the mind, the senses and the body, and they create more harmony and joyful interaction between them. This re-establishes health (wholeness) in its truest sense. Doing what pleases us feeds the soul. By contrast, doing what displeases us starves the soul and disconnects it from universal love and universal energy.
The soul plays a vitally important role in every person’s life. Any weakness on the level of the soul or self-awareness manifests itself as difficulties or disturbances on the level of the mind and as an imbalance in the body. Nevertheless, these difficulties, whether they relate to problems in a relationship or become manifested as self-harming tendencies or physical illness, have a deeper meaning and purpose than is obvious. They serve as corrective measures to steer the course of life in a more fulfilling and rewarding direction.
Life — A Learning Process
Life is like a school. Every illness, whether on the mental or physical level, is a learning process and helps us to correct what we consider mistakes from the past. Karma is a Sanskrit word for “‘action” and is often seen as a form of punishment for past “sinful” actions. This limited interpretation of karma, however, does not allow for a deeper, more relevant, meaning to emerge. Action just is, neither negative, nor positive, yet it always causes a reaction. If we deviate from the laws of nature in some way, karma is there to put us back on track. This self-correcting mechanism should not be interpreted as punishment, bad luck, or fate. Karma returns to us to further align our soul with its ever-perfect source.
Each difficult situation in life can offer us a wealth of information about other people, the world, and ourselves. In truth, we are always presented with the right kind of problem that alerts our soul to make the much-needed changes in our life. Discomfort or suffering indicates that something basic within us needs to shift before happiness and satisfaction can return. If we have deviated from the path of natural law, other laws of nature will help us to correct our “mistakes.” This can be quite painful and distressing at times, but it does the job.
On the other hand, if we live with more awareness and listen to the gentle whispers of the laws of nature, which are available to us through intuition or by following the directions given by our heart, we will reap great benefits and even attract miracles into our lives. Flowing with the stream of natural law requires no effort and no special skills, yet it generates much peace, stability and joy. There is no real need for us to know what is right and wrong or good and bad. Once we have learnt to live spontaneously in harmony with the laws of nature, mistakes will be as remote as darkness is from the sun. Mistakes are no longer perceived to be mistakes but are seen to be instigators of change and transformation. A life in harmony with natural law is no longer just human; it is also divine or higher dimensional.
Since the stream of natural law upholds life everywhere, nobody can withstand its force forever. In many cases any resistance to the stream of natural law is broken when the body or some of its parts begin to malfunction. This is the right time for soul healing and you may feel an urgent impulse to start searching for help. First, you may look for a “magic bullet” that promises to quickly take the problem away. Should the symptom-oriented approach fail, you may be coerced to look for the deeper causes of your problems. This can generate a sense of self-responsibility, which may alert you to the “mistakes” you have made and allow you to go through the difficult periods in your life with greater awareness. Once the “running away” or “I don’t want to know” phase is over, the qualities of patience and acceptance begin to unfold; these in turn become great assets in learning those vital lessons that are being revealed to us through an illness or difficulty. The lessons always turn up at the right time and they can open a treasure house of new possibilities and opportunities. Karma is not the cause of suffering; it is rather an opportunity to learn. It is useful to understand that the reason you make mistakes is due to the soul’s continuous search for completeness and oneness. Mistakes are hardly coincidental occurrences but parts of the essential plan to move life toward completion.
We All Long For Happiness
One of the most powerful laws of nature that motivates growth and evolution of soul awareness and causes every natural phenomenon is the pursuit of happiness. Not only humans are capable of experiencing happiness. Most of us may not be aware of how a rose or a lotus flower feels when it opens its petals to greet the warming rays of the sun. This doesn’t mean, however, that flowers cannot experience joy. Research on plants suggests that plants know the difference between love and aversion. Without the plant’s or animal’s love for the planet the Earth would be the most uninhabitable and incoherent place to live in. Man’s violation of the laws of nature and the subsequent disturbance of the ecological balance on the planet have negatively affected all the various life forms – from a tiny insect to century- old trees and human life as well. But wherever there is even a little expression of happiness mother Earth regains some of her balance.
Procreation in all species of plants and animals is triggered by their intrinsic desire for greater happiness and satisfaction. Similarly, all our desires and activities originate in our mind’s incessant search for happiness, which provides food for the soul. We all choose different ways of increasing our happiness. You may derive pleasure from playing music, painting, or riding on horseback. Other people get satisfaction from making pieces of furniture, writing books, or developing computer programs. Your interpretation of what brings true happiness or fulfillment may be anchored in becoming the next president of your company, your political party, or even your country. Many people link the achievement of happiness to the acquisition of more material wealth.
We all share this intrinsic desire to be happy. When we are seriously ill we consider the regained state of health to be the only source of happiness in life. Hence other factors like wealth or power are suddenly meaningless. If we suffer from poverty or lack of comfort, having more money seems to be the favored source of happiness. Although material wealth brings us satisfaction to a certain degree it is only short-lived; it changes with the inevitably changing situations and circumstances. This form of happiness rises and falls with the changes experienced in relationships, wealth status, or state of health. When we are attached to any of these, happiness will not be permanent. Whenever one of our fleeting sources of happiness begins to disappear, we also have the opportunity to let go of our attachment to it.
True learning in life is focused on the generation of freedom and unconditional love – two sides of the same coin. Unconditional love is sometimes found in the relationship of a mother with her child. It comes without attachment and dependency. Love, without strings attached, creates freedom and a deep sense of oneness with everyone, beyond the boundaries of time and space. The ability to love unconditionally comes naturally when we let go of fear, expectations, and sense of ownership of what we consider ours, including our own body.
People’s emotional attachment to objects like a home, a car, members of the family or a country is the major cause of conflict in the world today. By sharing unconditional freedom and love, we permit the river of life and abundance to flow unheeded through us. When we are afraid of losing what we have the river of life stops flowing, which creates a stagnation of energy within us. There is no point in trying to fill a cup that is already full. If we hold on to the content of the cup forever, we cannot try other and better tasting beverages. Any unresolved issue in your life is a form of stagnation and brings the flow of happiness to a standstill.
Without the experience of happiness, real healing or completion in any area of life cannot take place, whether it physical, emotional, material or spiritual. The degree of happiness determines the degree of health and well being. Restlessness and disharmony are qualities that can motivate you to look for a deeper purpose in life. The deeper purpose is the acquisition of the ability to love and watch the consequences of love in action.
Love Thyself . . .
Love always begins with love towards oneself. The Taoists say that you cannot really love others until you love yourself. No matter how hard you try to heal physically or emotionally, if you do not love and appreciate yourself first, your attempts will bear only superficial results or may even fail completely. Self-respect, self-esteem, self-confidence and self-worthiness are indications of the kind of love one cherishes for oneself and for others. Low self-worthiness, on the other hand, fosters negativity, destructiveness and aggression. To learn the lesson of self-love is the single most important thing that any person can learn in life.
The quality of our thoughts, feelings and behavior towards others largely depends on the relationship we have with ourselves. The more we know and accept all parts of ourselves, including our faults and shadow sides, the more compassion and love we can have towards others. We all are of divine origin and thus inseparable from the rest of the universe. As you increasingly experience the uniting power of love you will begin to feel increasingly loving towards others and the natural world which in turn will attract towards you everything that is necessary to sustain your newly acquired “self-image.” You will also start looking for ways to nourish yourself properly, to find the right remedies for supporting an ideal state of health, and to choose adequate rest and exercise to maintain your well being. When self-image improves, any self-damaging behavior diminishes and health and happiness return. In this respect, the healing of the soul becomes the starting point of healing every other aspect of your life as well.
Viewed from a more superficial point of view, most of the episodes in our lives, the people we meet, the jobs we acquire, the skills we learn, and even the foods we eat, seem to occur randomly and without obvious connection to us. Yet on a deeper level of self, where every event is closely linked to every other event, the picture is entirely different. There, nothing occurs accidentally, mistakes never happen and everything is recognized as being purposeful and useful. Where self-love is present, life blossoms like a flower. Wherever it is absent, life withers away like a flower that is deprived of water.
The power of love is embedded in bliss. Can you remember an instant in your life when you felt so happy that you could embrace the whole world? Maybe you were able to save another person’s life or you passed your final exams with honors. Maybe you learned that the person you love most in your life loves you, too. When you are bliss, at that moment of total self-appreciation, you also feel a profound sense of love for the entire world. You are so happy that you exist, worthy of respect, worthy of love, and you feel like sharing this feeling with everyone and anyone. These are also the moments of perfect health. It is our innermost desire to prolong these moments until they are permanent.
Love is an energy that resides in the heart, but it can only be triggered or activated by external factors or other people if it is already there. It is more difficult for others to be loving and kind towards us if we don’t carry the love energy in us. Love follows the law, “like attracts like.” When even one short moment of love can make you happy and loving toward the whole world, the love energy in your heart is also strong enough to maintain the connection to your divine source, which is Universal Love. That’s when life really begins.
To be able to establish the divine connection, it is necessary is to be respectful and appreciative of all life forms. Universal Love is unlimited; where allowed, it expresses itself in all aspects of life, i.e., our body, the animals, the plants, and the Earth as a whole. To cultivate this love within us, it is essential to set aside enough time for our personal growth. Our body, with all its organs, systems and cells, requires constant attention and alignment to serve as a source of happiness and love. Each internal organ has its own body, mind and spirit. If its energy is sufficient, the connection to the rest of the body is flawless and perfect. To stay well connected to our divine source, every part of our body needs to be loved and appreciated for the work it does. When an organ begins to malfunction, it is a sign that we have neglected it and disconnected it from its source of love – our Higher Self.
We can create numerable opportunities to express our love. Whenever we pause for a moment and look what needs attention and care in our lives, the love energy within us begins to increase and connect us with Universal Love. The more you look for such opportunities the greater will be the love force within you. When you develop self-love – which should not be confused with egotism or narcissism – you become increasingly pregnant with love energy and are willing to share it with others and the world. This forever heals your soul, body, mind, and world.
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