Stay contained, calmly attentive within the self no matter what happens outside of the self. Though many changes occur, the best course of action is that which appeals to the heart. For in volatile times as well as calm the heart knows how to proceed. The heart knows what to do and how to do it. Be led by your heart in all circumstances. In containment, connect to and listen to your heart and follow its lead. From a place of heart centered calmness let right action spring.
Waking up to the news of the world today, the synchronicity that presented itself was this quote from THE MOTHER.*
“If, in the presence of circumstances that are about to take place, you can take the highest attitude possible—that is, if you put your consciousness in contact with the highest consciousness within reach, you can be absolutely sure that in that case it is the best that can happen to you. But as soon as you fall from this consciousness into a lower state, then it is evidently not the best that can happen, for the simple reason that you are not in your very best consciousness. I even go so far as to affirm that in the zone of immediate influence of each one, the right attitude not only has the power to turn every circumstance to advantage but can change the circumstance itself. For instance, when a man comes to kill you, if you remain in the ordinary consciousness and get frightened out of your wits, he will most probably succeed in doing what he came for; if you rise a little higher and though full of fear call for the divine help he may just miss you, doing you a slight injury; if, however, you have the right attitude and the full consciousness of the divine presence everywhere around you, he will not be able to lift even a finger against you…”
“I have had innumerable examples of the power of right attitude. I have seen crowds saved from catastrophes by one single person keeping the right attitude. But it must be an attitude that does not remain somewhere very high and leaves the body to its usual reactions. If you remain high up like that, saying, ‘Let God’s will be done,’ you may get killed all the same. For your body may be quite undivine, shivering with fear: the thing is to hold the true consciousness in the body itself and not have the least fear and be full of the divine peace. Then indeed there is no danger. Not only can attacks of men be warded off, but beasts also and even the elements can be affected.”
Be so empowered,
Chuck & Jan
*Taken from the book POWERS WITHIN, Selections from the Works of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother, pp. 65-66
Don’t jump the gun. Practice patience throughout the day. Hold back what seeks to burst out of you until you are sure it is right. Sometimes a moment’s pause is all that is needed to thwart a lifetime of pain. Sometimes a few extra breaths are the answer to a moment of panic or anxiety. Sometimes just sitting still is the best solution to an urge to get up and run. In quiet patient waiting, things become clearer, things change, and a new perspective has the opportunity to reveal itself. Take a moment. Breathe. And then breathe again. Then decide a course of action. In patient waiting, let your heart decide.
Go down to the wellspring of life… – Photo by Jan Ketchel
On the eve of the summer solstice, the most enlightened day of the year, President Trump abruptly cancelled a retaliatory strike upon Iran.
The year is cyclical and repetitive, punctuated by seasons that mark life’s beginning to its completion. The summer solstice elongates the light of consciousness at its highest peak, a supreme opportunity to be in alignment with inner truth.
Perhaps under the impact of solstice energy, President Trump was influenced momentarily to be patient and acquiesce to the greater good.
I threw the I Ching this morning, with the question: Where are we now in the cycle of the Tao and how best to promote fulfillment?
The I Ching responded with hexagram #48, The Well, with moving lines in the fifth and sixth places. The model for The Well in nature is the tree, whose wooden roots penetrate the earth to draw up the water that sustains its life. The well, in ancient China, was accessed by a wooden pole that dipped a bucket into the water, which was raised to nourish all.
The I Ching warns that carelessness in raising the bucket can be disastrous, such as, “if for instance the military defense of a state is carried to such excess that it provokes wars by which the power of the state is annihilated, that is a breaking of the jug.”
On an individual level, the I Ching counsels that, “every human being can draw in the course of (their) education from the inexhaustible wellspring of the divine in (human) nature. But here likewise two dangers threaten: a (person) might fail in (their) education to penetrate to the real roots of humanity and remain fixed in convention… or (they) may suddenly collapse and neglect (their) self- development.”
Interestingly, the future work proposed by the I Ching to solidify the best use of the well is hexagram #18: Work on what has been spoiled. That hexagram has us address the contents of the shadow or personal unconscious that create decay within the personality, as well as the attitude of the ego in a state of avoidance or inertia.
The two moving lines of the hexagram are extremely hopeful. The nine in the fifth place states that the water in the well is exceedingly pure, fed by a spring of living water. Thus, the channel to the living spirit is available in the hearts of everyone. However, what is lacking here is the volitional drawing from this wellspring of wisdom. Though the knowledge and right guidance are available, they must be drawn upon to arrive at right action.
The six at the top takes it to that final step: “One draws from the well without hindrance. It is dependable. Supreme good fortune.” All are empowered to draw from the inexhaustible guidance and nurturance of their inner well, situated in the higher truth of the heart chakra.
Thus, the I Ching highlights in these accentuated lines that the guidance we truly need is readily available within our hearts. We are primed to receive it, since we already have available to us the tools to procure it. The time is right to exercise such actions.
These tools include, reading the synchronistic signs that appear to guide us through our days, as well as the dreams which foreshadow the opportunities for self-development each night. In the calmness of meditation we open directly our channel to spirit.
Specifically, the I Ching asks us to face the source of our guilt. By facing and addressing the issues behind our guilt, the water of our inner well is clarified to nurture our fulfillment. Sometimes we must undergo shocks to our well before we are fully ready to deepen our fulfillment. This is the work of recapitulation that fully frees our energy from the ‘impurities’ of the past.
The time is right for deepening fulfillment through drinking the pure waters that await in the deepest caverns of the heart.
Seek the tao of you, peace of mind and body, within the self, that is calm and stable, a sensation of being yourself, of being right within your physical body, in alignment with your spiritual energy. Let nothing overly disturb you in the tao of you. Tune down your attachments to things outside of you, and tone down your inner energy. Let everything arrive as it will. Know its necessity and its meaning, and without attaching to anything let it be dealt with and attended to in a calm and stable manner. Know yourself more often as a calm and stable being by reminding yourself that you are fully capable of accepting life as it arrives and fully available to experience it as it is, one day and one step at a time, in calmness. Such stability within the self will naturally reverberate outside of the self, and where you go calmness and stability will follow you, tao within and tao without. That’s how to get right, within and without.
