Listening inwards vs. Listening outwards

A Tibetan Singing Bowl - a musical and healing tool for the soul

Why are we not (as a rule) playing our true role in this world? Why are we sick? How can we eat junk food without feeling bad on the spot?

Its all about how well we listen inwards and how pre-occupied we are with what we hear from without.

As children we are in tune with ourselves. It is during this time that we start training ourselves to be out-of-tune. We do it to please others (Our parents, elders and friends). We do it to please ourselves (First taste of chocolate is usually enough ;) ). We learn from our teachers the values of discipline - to dogmas that we are taught, not to what our soul requests. We dream of being something exciting and end up "doing the right thing"...

It is all in the training. We train ourselves not to react badly to things we would rather not give up. Tasty and unwholesome foods are a good example. It may give us a stomach ache at first - but who would give up on a craved desert just to prevent an ache? We train ourselves to be good workers - at a job we would rather not work at. We argue that having a job in today's economy is nothing short of a miracle so who are we to be so thankless? We train ourselves to ignore the minor discomforts that are our body's way of signaling that we are living wrongly. After all, it's not like a little headache ever killed anybody? We are too busy to stop and ask - why is my head hurting? And so we train ourselves to ignore this. Eventually the body will rebel at this habit but by then we will be really sick...

Habits are a seriously hazardous tool. We tend to grow into habit and then find it very hard to break it. We can cough a little bit when we start smoking but everyone knows its just till you get used to it... Getting used to bad habits doesn't mean not paying a regular price for this adaptation process. We do. Eventually the price is high enough for the body to start shouting again.

So what am I suggesting?

I believe it is about time we grew up a little as a race and took on the challenge of listening inwards. Listening to the minor aches and pains, to the instinct that says - its a bad idea, to our soul. Logically, we know what to eat and what not. Its time to adhere to that and then listen again. Not all that is healthy as a rule is good for us. Each of us is an individual and thus prone to reacting differently to common "Generally regarded as Healthy" foods. Its time to listen to the body's requests regarding physical activity, sleeping habits, furniture choices, work load and all the other habitual elements in our life.

More challenging but not less important: It's time to listen to our soul's voice in regards to our calling. Our profession is a crucial choice in life - are we listening now? Are we doing what our soul desires? Are we fulfilling our Dharma? Our destiny? Our happiness and our health depend on it. Our world too. If we work in the wrong profession we are rarely satisfied and it shows...

Who are you ? Part I

One of the oldest philosophical arguments is the one over the question: Are we born Tabula rassa (Blank slate) or are we pre-molded to some degree?

This question is a very important one if we want to fulfill our destiny in this world (Our Dharma as the ancient vedas call it -  assuming we have one of course). 

I have been studying this question for many years and my answer is: We are far from Tabula rassa... We come with many lives worth of experience and perspective and with a pre-formed notion of who and what we are. It is not that we lack free will to choose our profession and path in life. We are simply more ready for a certain path and so will more likely succeed in it better and with less effort.

How did I come to these conclusions? Well, it all started with my son when he was 5 minutes old 😊 . I chased after him from the cesarean to the ward where they let him rest for the first time. He was crying loudly till I reached him, then grabbed my two fingers strongly, looked me right in the eyes, stopped the crying and I could almost hear him say "What took you so long?'... The depth in his eyes in that moment did not seem to belong to a 5 minute old baby. It felt more like a 70 year old man looking at me right then.

A few years later, I realized another point that made my argument above stronger: Everyone knows what they are not. Ask anyone if they would like to be a profession they are not and in the majority of the cases you will get a very clear "no!". They never tried it out, have no experience with it very often and yet it is clear to them they are not this. Ask them what they are (And not right now - their optimal choice of profession) and they will more likely then not remain silent. Once in a blue moon I run across someone that is living his or her dream. Working in just the right profession and feeling realized and fully alive. Most people we all know work in the wrong profession and are either bored or they hate their job.

With this information in hand I have searched for the answer of "Who am I?" for many years. My own personal journey has helped me as well as several teachers. Each contributed a piece to the puzzle. 

The first challenge was to find a way to get to this hidden information. Asking the question directly did not seem effective so I chose to look for the symbolic counterpart. Within each of us are one or more archetypes by which our essence is defined and from which we can deduce our profession. Using archetypes instead of common professions removes the blocks from our psyche. They make it possible for us to face our true nature without the masks or social dictum or other blocks that may hinder it otherwise. Even with archetypes as a guide to the truth it takes some trickery to remove the final resistance from our mind. 

This I found can be achieved in several ways:

1. Going back to cavemen era. This era was populated by archetypal professions. You had a cook (Not a hundred derivatives of the cooks as in modern times), An artist, a healer etc. Those were simple times and this was reflected in the list of professions. Finding yourself in the era using guided imagery is much simpler then trying to deduce your profession from a long list of "google professions page".
2. In the same manner, any age past can be used. Each with unique professions at their best or correlated in our personal minds to a profession we own. As an example, thinking of the Artist most people today are concerned with not being able to make a living and so most deny this archetype. Send such a person to discover him or herself in the renaissance period and they will most likely be thrilled to be called artists.
3. Another way is to seek inspiration out side. In characters from books, moves, theater and life. Everyone has such images in his mind. Saved in there to inspire us. Those who inspire us by doing in the content of what they do (No in the "how" they do it) reflect archetypes within us.
4. The fourth and Last of my main tools (Though some endeavor to invent other tools of their own). Seeking moments in our past when we felt that a certain chore or challenge or action fit our bill. Reflected our essence. While we were engaged with this task we felt that it was an accurate place for us to be. Remembering those moments can help us glean archetypes that have thus shown their faces.

Who am I?

The internal and external factors which form and define us and the freedom to truly be ourselves

In seeking purpose I often come across people who find it hard to define who they are. What is their role in this world? What were they meant to do? Identifying the essence goes through a fascinating journey but often gets stuck at that very basic question. When one can't identify one's own essential being, it leaves a vacuum hard to fill. In this article I will address that question regarding the influencing factors.

If you were born in a faraway land and raised by a herd of wolves – how would you be different from today? Would you have reached the same values? Profession? Family? Obviously, it is hard to answer that question or even imagine a life beginning like that although there are such stories. Moreover, it is hard to identify all the factors that influenced our identity over the years in a way that we could imagine being without them.

In this article I would like to review the most meaningful factors and examine them from a spiritual perspective, one that relates to the fact that our deepest essence is that of a soul and therefore arrives profoundly formed even before we are born, from previous lifetimes.

First, the more familiar factors:

Parents, family and friends – the major influence on our identity comes from the adults who raised us, normally our parents. To an extent they are the deepest role models. Quite often people find themselves acting "just like their parents", usually to their disappointment. Many youngsters promise themselves they won't grow up to be like their parents, and they often go as far away as they can in areas in which they were revolted by their parents' behavior, only to find themselves unconsciously acting just as they promised themselves they never would.

The rest of the family's influence is usually less dominant in the early stages of life, but growing up, siblings and other close relatives play a significant role. We turn them into a source either of imitation or of endless clashes and thus factors that mold us by fire.

Childhood friends often have a very strong influence. During adolescence it is sometimes even stronger than that of our parents. Since at this stage of life they might not be any more aware of their essence and role in life than we are, their impact can be random and often very confusing.

Teachers throughout life can add depth and inspiration when we come across such teachers.

Social norms have a very strong impact on us even indirectly. Some professions lost much of their prestige like teaching (important or not – this is a stigma educators are fighting now-a-days). Many teachers naturally deny this fact. Another profession suffering from being "non-profitable" is art. On the other hand, professions which suffered from a low image just a century ago, such as surgery, became very popular. Choosing the path should reflect our being, especially if we want to succeed and even more so if we wish to enjoy our occupation. It turns out that people define themselves by socio-economical needs rather than by their true essence.

Despite all these factors, it is clear that they are not all it takes. For instance, it is known that twins growing up in the same environment with the same parents and social circles can still turn out very different. It seems as though the missing link is much more significant in our self-definition than all of the external factors put together. When we think of ourselves we have a "feeling" of something being just right for us. Many times it is not in our conscious knowledge, in which case it is a feeling of some unseen destiny. Sometimes it is discovered spontaneously and sometimes with the help of a mentor. Either way we can thus get much more clarity as to the important question of "Who am I?"

Without dealing with how to find the answer to this question, in this article I'd like to ask a much more basic one: what is this unseen factor which enables us such knowledge?

Believers would define it as the soul, that same component in us which is part of the Divine Whole. Atheists usually have a hard time accepting the possibility of such a factor even existing. In spiritual circles, the idea of the soul is taken seriously, not necessarily in a religious way. My experience in life enabled me to open many windows to the soul I am. I've experienced things considered "esoteric" in a way I could no longer rule them out. They left me with the understanding that there is a certain layer in us which came to this world ready-made and not just as raw material. Among those I shall mention a few which many might have experienced but may not have bothered to deepen their understanding of the experience:

1. When my first child was 5 minutes old, I looked in his eyes and the depth reflecting from them was great. Even then they had that look asking "Where have you been?" (The fact that I ran all the way to the nursery trying to catch up with the nurses, didn’t spare me that look…). As soon as he grabbed onto the finger I held out to him, he relaxed.
2. When he grew up and his sisters were born, we saw how each one of our children expressed abilities in different areas. They were exposed to the same toys more or less and the same parents (more or less J after all, time leaves us slightly changed with each passing day) and yet their abilities were very different from one another.
3. My personal experience with past lifetimes turned a "weird" area into part of my occupation. It was "too true to argue with" – even for a rational type like me.

One way or another I came to a realization which is common in spiritual teachings, and that is that our existence here occurs in a number of dimensions, one of them being physical and another spiritual (there are more but not for this article). The spiritual dimension, AKA the soul, is the "I" we all identify with when we do what's really important for us and for the world from an inspired place.

In the coming articles I will address different meanings of this understanding as well as techniques which enable us to make use of this information in order to recruit these dimensions for a fuller, healthier and happier life.