Life will never cease to present us with experiences which challenge our entire conception of being, with tests which we must accomplish, with goals which are to be achieved, and with challenges to overcome. Such is the nature of life, and the person who cannot accept this and make the best of it is doomed to a life of misery. I thank God I no longer feel the resentment I felt when I believed that all was mine, when I boasted and bragged in a vain attempt to uplift my own broken ego. I am thankful that now I feel somewhat at peace without believing that everything is all sunshine and roses, so to speak. The dual nature of the very dimension in which we live in is the cause of life’s misfortunes, as well as the cause of life’s greatest blessings. Nowadays, many modern-day spiritual seekers equate maya, or illusion, one of the main concepts in the Hindu philosophical system, with negativity and all that is evil and deceitful. This is not the case however. Even the good which comes about is simply the effect of another cause, the effect of our karma. The law of cause and effect is in itself dual in nature, and our very nature as humans, not to mention that of everything else on the planet we are all so familiar with, is also dual.
We need only study the basic qualities of the atom, the very essence of everything physical. Maya is the illusion of duality, the illusion of good and evil. It is interesting to ponder whether the tree of the knowledge of good and evil that got Adam and Eve expelled from Eden might really be a representation of the knowledge, or consciousness rather, of duality which we now experience. Perhaps, prior to consuming the fruit of the forbidden tree, Adam and Eve were not ashamed of their naked genitals because physical sex as we now know it was not needed. When God kicked both Adam and Eve out of Paradise he cursed woman with the prophecy that she would bear children in extreme pain for eternity, which could mean that the need for survival, or the animal instinct of attraction and sex, began at that point. This might then also signify the beginning of the birth/death cycle as we know it. Perhaps Adam and Eve were not incarnated human beings like you and I, but rather the complete state of the primeval soul, with both its masculine and feminine qualities connected a whole, in oneness. More on this can be studied in Hermeticism, as one of the seven Hermetic principle is one of gender. Physically, we are either born male or female, and when these dual forces are connected in intercourse a new soul, a new field of spiritual consciousness, is summoned into a new human life, to balance and unite never-ending dual forces which strike a blow at every corer and which must be endured and overcome for a lifetime.
We are filled with joy when a new life is received by its loving and excited family, and yet we mourn when our loved ones die and return to that place of infinite life, to the life source from which they originally came. We surely know that death must come, and that it is as natural as life. This life, along with the death that comes to us all at the end of it, is an illusion. It is an illusion in the sense that we are not confined to this physical reality, and in fact physical reality is subject to change with enough spiritual power which is derived from continuous contemplation and mindful meditation on the oneness of all things. None of this is intended to give one an impression that this life should be discarded and treated as a mere game, as a distraction before the real reality which is yet to come. This is not what is meant. On the contrary, this life was given to us so that we may reconnect with the Divine consciousness which was inherent to us before the curse of Eden. When we practice living in oneness with ourselves and the world around us, the positive side of life will begin to stand out to us because we will have begun developing a true sense of joy, of a joy that transcends both pleasure and pain.
This joy is omnipresent and is not confined to the laws of time and space since it is the joy of connection with the Divine Spirit, the source from which all laws come into existence. This joy, like nothing else, allows one to live happily in this life without anxious or desperate expectation of the next life or dimension he might reach, or of the next moment or day, month or year. During this life, we must not dismay at the troubles which confront us. It is essential to our will that we actually practice putting into practice what we know to be the right thing. How can we know what is the right thing? We all have been blessed with intuition, just as we all have instincts, animalistic instincts to be more specific. We all are born under the veil of illusion. If we allow life’s circumstances, whatever they may be, to make us forget our Divine spiritual nature then we will base our lives on ideas of separation. We will see the world as a battlefield and we will feel the need to strategize at all times, to formulate schemes to get ahead of the rest of them, of the apparent competition. We might be highly motivated and might be achieving things and acquiring tons of possessions, and we could be doing it in an honest way. Even then, the root of this desire to achieve and to accumulate might be the cause of a deeper desire to become better than the neighbors and just about everyone else in the world for that matter. When we have billions of people in the world who are approaching their every situation with this kind of mentality, then we only need a system which pushes further (organized) division upon the masses in order to ignite the flame of hatred and violence which is much needed in the plans of the orchestrators of such disasters as the biggest and bloodiest wars of human history. Unfortunately, we do have such a system in place, globally.
I hope we can all take a moment to realize that separation and division leads to conflict and bloodshed, to hatred which spans out over continents and centuries. This is why it is imperative that we all unite, regardless of differences. Although this world is dual in its nature, it was given to us so that we may exercise our perception of the oneness within ourselves as well as everything which surrounds us. When we practice this on a regular basis we become more peaceful, we become less concerned with proving to everyone that we are right, we become less attached to possessions and to positions, to titles and to monetary gain. When we see that even nature and the animals are all part of this oneness, we understand that there is a much deeper purpose and meaning to just about everything. When we start to appreciate the connections and the synchronicity which weaves everything together in the wonderful web of life we begin to see magical things happening, even if they are simple things. Perhaps these things have been happening all along and yet we have failed to notice, since we have been so caught up in the duality of things, in enjoying physical pleasure and avoiding all pain. We are unconsciously attached to both. They make up our daily preoccupations. Christ has advised us to worry about the present moment only.
Pain is often needed in order for purpose to flourish. Too many us of today are afraid of positive pain, and for this reason we give up on having a purpose. We find it much more comfortable to conform and to settle for things and situations that we know we are meant to rise above. Little do we know that by robbing ourselves of our purpose we rob ourselves of our joy, that unconditional joy which is an essential part of who we really are. When we ignore this joy, everything becomes monotonous, and not seeing the deeper purpose, the joy of the oneness behind all forms, we turn to petty physical pleasures for satisfaction, yet we never do find it. Similarly, every little thing which we do not like becomes a tragedy which we cannot bear.
There is no greater evidence for the oneness of everything than can be found in spiritual religion. People who claim a religious label yet do not follow their own faith in reality, and yet judge others who identify as followers of a different faith, claiming to know the ultimate truth. The esoteric wisdom of every religion points to the same thing, and ignorant fools are the ones who fight and kill in God’s name, no matter how they may call God or what religion they may claim. In truth, we are all partly fools and partly geniuses. We all possess God’s divine wisdom, but we are all susceptible to the bonds of material servitude, which will take hold of us if we are attracted to the illusions of pleasure, or if we run with passion from the jaws of pain. We must stand strong and endure whatever may come, and we must acknowledge that in this world, just as no man is purely good or purely bad, the same is true of every situation. The worst possible tragedy can not be seen as bad or unfortunate in the sense that one can always learn a lesson. When one learns a powerful lesson and it is internalized it has the power to transform one’s life forever. Such is the nature of life. Everything, pleasure and pain, comes and goes in cycles, and it is all meant to teach us something if we only open up to the teaching and we stop becoming attached to our emotions or our sense of entitlement. Jesus taught us not to make treasures on this earth, Buddha taught non-attachment to anything and that life is suffering, yet one must rise above it. The Tao is the Way past the duality represented in the yin and yang symbol, which also has a dot of the opposite color in both the black and white side, representing the good and bad which is apparently inherent in everything. The Vedanta teaches us that everything is duality, yet the Atman or the spirit, the spark of God within us is the oneness which encompasses the whole of life, the bright light that can help us break the perception of illusion which surrounds us. The Kabbalah teaches that God became divided from this world through an ignorance of His power, and that our physical plane is a manifestation of infinite desire. All useless and torturous desire can cease if we can only find our connection to our true desire, to the only true desire of all creation: to reunite with the Divine Source, the become one and to break free of the chains of duality which seem so real. After all, the very word ‘religion’ comes from the Latin ‘re-ligare’, to reunite.
~ REBEL SPIRIT ~
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rebel eye 