Showing posts with label chopra. Show all posts
Showing posts with label chopra. Show all posts

Wednesday, October 30, 2013

A passion for Life

"You are the secret of God's heart."

There's a spirit awaiting your presence. Enter into it. Find what you may about life, love, yourself. Make your motto courage. "Know that love and tenderness are not powerless; patience and tolerance can produce tremendous change.
Yet these energies have to be used, not in submissiveness or resignation, but in passion," writes Deepak Chopra in his book, The Path to Love.

A passion for life is a passion for wholeness, for unity. It is the recognition that the world contains all things, side by side. Passion is the freedom to choose, to live in experience the things that are essential to a human existence.
This passion for unity is a passion for the male and female contained within the self. Like the marriage of Siva and Shakti, both the male and female are within, and both are vital.

"For men this may be the advent of tenderness, nurturing and trust. Having a woman always to supply these qualities is not enough. Male attributes of force and violence have become grotesquely exaggerated in this world because men leave the feminine energies to women...Vulnerable may be then seen as a human quality, not a weakness that makes a man only half a man. Competition based on ego will diminish...the ability to cooperate increases...Spiritually man is the complement of woman... By welcoming Shakti, a man truly is Siva."

In the Judeo-Christian tradition woman is made from man's rib, therefore at creation, the two are one. They join again in marriage and become one,  flesh of my flesh, reads Christian scripture. It is to be seen that in spirit, and in the ultimate reality, man and woman are alike, whole and unified, each with their unique emphasis. He and she joins to form 'we'.
 The world has not claimed there to be too much tenderness, too much friendship or love. The continued separation of creation, forces into opposition that which is destined to be together. Alienation becomes the tragic result, resulting in various self-destroying behaviors.

Chopra writes further, "A woman needs to allow herself however much time it takes to use Shakti energy to accomplish what has been reserved for the male ego. Shakti runs in everyone, but women have been given their femaleness [and unique creative ability] to accentuate the difference between themselves and Siva."

The ways of Shakti are the solution for many.  Allowing these spiritual realities to suffuse the self is the key to a whole, unified way of life, befitting of a human person.

The Marriage of Shakti and Siva
"Our minds," says Chopra, 'are conditioned to seeing male and female as polar opposites. It is totally inadequate to call Siva male and Shakti female since these terms limit God, who is limitless [in creation].
Siva and Shakti have been married together since the dawn of time. They are the divine whole that chooses to express itself by taking the appearance of male and female. You and I may do the same thing: my body may be male, my inner identities, spirit; thus by taking on Shakti, my whole soul includes both Siva and Shakti." paraphrased

Qualities of Siva and Shakti:

* Siva is silence. Shakti is power.

* Siva is creative. Shakti is creation.

* Siva is love. Shakti is loving.

"These qualities are not opposites, they are complements. The Vedic teaching is that out of the "divine sexual act, the world was born; therefore the feminine as the birth giver, is the natural vehicle of power... The silence of Siva who has no need to intrude, conquer, overcome, or aquire. 
Although he is called the 'destroyer of worlds' in the Bhagavad-Gita, what is meant is that Siva absorbs the universe back into himself at the end of creation. 
Siva, one of the three primal gods of India, along with Brahma and Vishnu conceive a particular form of the divine. Siva is best understood as a silent awareness that permeates everything. The creative potential of Siva is greater than any single expression, even that of galaxies or the world itself."

How can this be? It may be seen through a practice sometimes called second attention working through the sixth sense, intuition, sometimes also called sight or gift. In reality there are continuous signals everywhere which may be perceptible at any time through an intuitive or meditational process.

"The Indian mind is not linear,' writes Chopra. 'It finds no contradiction in making Siva the destroyer and all knowing creator.'
'Siva wants to be known. It is the god's greatest sign of love. Entering into passion, you express your own nature and nothing less."

Thursday, January 29, 2009

The Dharma, The Tao, The Way

The terms Dharma, Tao and the Way are familiar spiritual descriptions, often tossed around which come from several spiritual traditions, both East and West. Yet as the well known Indian physician and author, Deepak Chopra writes in his book The Path To Love, what may seem as separate is really not so, through interbeing. He discusses these traditions as long living in the human world, that they are in his view, rather more unified, that they inter-be as one.

"Dharma" is also translated as "law" or "righteousness." In India, today someone who follows the family tradition of work, worship, and social behavior is said to be in his "dharma." Modern Western society is not dharmic in any of these ways, since our children feel free to choose very different occupations from their parents', along with new codes of behavior and new places to live. In both East and West the rootedness of a dharmic society has been undermined in this century.

However, Dharma is more than social convention; it is a living force that can bring you through the many threats and challenges of life. Your ego [western term, from the Latin meaning self or I] does not believe this for it cannot find dharma; ego is not guided by love, and dharma is intimately tied to love. In the West, the closest concept to dharma is grace [one, whole, universal], the loving presence of God that keeps humanity under divine protection. When Jesus spoke of God seeing the fall of a sparrow, he was referring to dharma. In China, the same concept emerged as Tao, the middle way, which was seen as an invisible but real power that organizes all life. Being in tune with the way is the same as living within dharma. The Christian term the Way is likewise. Jesus exhorted his disciples to "come follow me."

"Every spiritual tradition has taught that success in life depends upon finding the Way and ignoring the distractions of external things. Your Ego, however, insists that your survival depends upon paying total attention to the outer world. Its primary tactics--vigilance and defensiveness--are the very antithesis of surrender in the way. Your ego, a perception of which, causes you to believe that separation is necessary..." In reality separation is not ever necessary; it is something chosen or not.

Being in dharma however, "heals separation by making us [inter-being] a reality," not as a 'unit of two,' but as a whole, oneness, a universal spirit. Chopra explains further, "You are acting in dharma whenever you allow rather than oppose. Allowing results in statements such as these:

* Is there something you need?
* How can I help?
* I see what's going on with you.
* Go ahead.
* I understand what you mean.
* You're right.

"Unity makes another person's viewpoint completely clear; you understand someone who is outside yourself." What makes this possible is the realization of inter-being, that what you value, esteem, follow isn't something outside yourself, it may be only outside of your ego. Thus "following your dharma in the deepest sense means not only obeying the laws set down by society or adhering to rules of religious conduct--there is no fixed formula for finding the Way..." Set spiritual guideposts for yourself, thus making this newer, broader meaning of dharma essential.