Enlighten Your Inner self
THE SIX INNER TEACHINGS:
(This article requires the understanding of 8 trigrams of I ching).
Aroon presents his understanding of this fascinating material for personal transformation and growth through the teachings of Tao-(Based on William Spear's Analysis few years back presented in UK).
In Feng Shui, we have always talked about external changes in the environment to bring about harmony, happiness and bliss in our lives. However, unless we change our inner Bagua, our external changes do not last. This comes from the teachings of Buddha.
Buddha developed 84000 antidotes for various problems and divided those into 16 branches, 8 categories and 173 topics. Buddha teachings included languages, medicine, science, technology and so on. His inner wisdom teachings received less importance. Over the years, all the external teachings like languages, science and technology were changing as they were upgraded but the inner wisdom teachings remained the same.
In Afghanistan, they built 173 Buddha statues to represent the topics but the Taliban destroyed them. The reason was annoyance at the fact that we were so concerned in spending so much money to improve the statues, something so innate, when the local community was struggling to make a living.
To maintain the old cultures and powers, things like Taro cards came up.
Transformation and change within us can take us beyond our external world. Our consciousness is bigger than our external world.
ithin the cosmic energies of Yin and Yang, we have the eight trigrams of I Ching, which represent the 4 pairs of opposites with a symbolic relationship within the trigrams of each pair. The connectedness between them is explained below taking into account the inner wisdom teaching.
The first pair is Heaven and Earth (universal opposites).
Heaven _______
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_______
Heaven relates to Philanthropy –spiritual essence is the ability to give or part with what you possess.
Earth ___ ___
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Earth relates to Partnerships-about everything. You make a partnership with, like your spouse, your dog, your bus driver etc. As we go higher and higher in level of giving, we shift the relationship by doing it more quietly. At lower levels of giving, one likes acknowledgement in a way of giving a name of the donor for the donation given. At higher levels, we begin to give away things, which are very important to us and create difficulty for us on the material level. Anonymous giving is a non-thing. Nature of non-things (like laughter or smile) is that the more you give the more you get back. Most important Non-thing is your TIME. Give an hour or two of your time per week, (your most valuable possession) without anyone knowing it at old people’s home or children’s home. As long as you give things unconditionally, you get three or four times back in return. Giving to empower others and to be in partnership with others for their freedom, like reading a story to a blind person, is pure unconditional giving at the higher level. According to Dalai Lama, this type of act creates stores of accumulated merit and you do not know how you will be repaid for this. The merit in this type of giving takes us beyond the ordinary life. The reward could be intangible but much greater-like you missing a plane, which would subsequently crash or you missing a boat, which would sink.
The second pair is Fire and Water (Organic opposites).
Fire
_________
___ ____
_________
Fire relates to Illumination or development of fame and recognition. Modern world is driven by popularity ratings, critic’s reviews and everyone wanting to come more into focus as to what others think of you. Politicians, actors, actresses, artists-they all strive to get this external benefit. Very few genuinely illuminate others with their own light.
Water ___ ___
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Water relates to Journey. Journey has little to do with your job. This process of journey is driven by what lights us up. In the lowest level of Journey, we always think about what is going to happen to me, how I am going to benefit from what I am doing? The real transformation comes when you start thinking as to what contribution can I make to the world with my work. When a painter or a poet really lights up or gets illuminated at the highest level, his or her ego disappears. The post-it note for Fire should read-It is none of my business what other people think of me. A carer has nothing to do with what others think of him. A post-it note for Water or your Journey should be –quit worrying about making money, if you seriously want to become a poet or a painter. Journey does not take a vessel. You are the vessel.
The third pair is Mountain and Lake (Elemental Opposites)..
Mountain _______
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Mountain represents wisdom or inner knowledge
Lake ___ ___
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Lake as it’s opposite element takes you to the highest level through creative expression and procreativity or fertility.
Invariably there is problem in the area of Mountain, when there is a question of infertility in a client’s home. Making a correction in the area of mountain can elevate creativity. Wisdom comes from emptiness. We must meditate to create emptiness. If we do this often in a day, the rest of the day will be great.
For fertility, the cure is through meditation. If the couple sits in meditation with stillness, out of that comes activity and growth.
Wisdom comes from creativity like removal of writer’s block. The connection to creativity is through our ability to stimulate wisdom.
The last pair is Wind and Thunder (Impulsive opposites).
Wind ________
________
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Wind relates to Blessings-or area of wealth or Fortunate Blessings.
Thunder ___ ___
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Thunder as it’s opposite element relates to elders and family. At external level, wind relates to wealth or money.
At the highest level or inner level, wind is the ability to change greatest liability into greatest asset or blessing.
People who win a lottery begin to be drawn into external life and get attached to alcohol, gambling, drugs and unhappiness whereas a person who has lost a leg in a accident starts thinking inwardly and is happier with the thought of being grateful for what he has in life. For inner wisdom, look at the elders, father, parents and pay attention to grandpa and granny. Embrace your elders unconditionally and find out two things about blessings you have received.
When you are served cold soup by your mother, instead of complaining, thank the farmers who grew the peas, bless the food and enjoy. At highest level, accept what comes to you as a blessing no matter how difficult it is.
Life itself and death itself is a fortunate blessing.
Recognise that we have a relation with not just our own elders but also all the elders in the world.
These are inner transcendental cures for self-transformation and meant to merge the opposites as explained above.
The Six Inner Teachings of sicknesses and their antidotes
1. GREED: - has been compared to hunger. It never disappears and its antidote is GENEROSITY. Be generous to overcome your weakness of greed.
2. NEGATIVITY or Gossip: We love watching falling stars. We bathe in the source of negativity. We enjoy talking about how others failed in life. This negative attitude blocks us from opening our kindness. The antidote for this weakness is NO HARM. It takes tremendous discipline of speaking or thinking of others and seeing yourself in the same difficulty. Discipline dissolves meaningless chatter. Put yourself in other person’s shoes when the other person is in difficulty. Be comforting to others and not critical of others.
3. SMALL VIEW- precisions, exactness, attachment to perfection are the examples of small view. ‘Now it is 12 o’clock and it is lunch time’ –is a small view. Separation from bigger wheel of time is small view. The antidote for this weakness is PATIENCE. There is nothing bigger than now. Patience gives us a bigger view.
4. LAZINESS- Cooking with microwave, buying lottery tickets and feeling upset for not finding parking right outside the house are examples of laziness. The antidote for this is EFFORT. Enthusiasm is effortless effort, which overcomes laziness.
5. SEPARATENESS- The illusion of separate minds is a sickness or a weakness. The antidote is MEDITATION. Through meditation we create connectedness to all beings and through meditation we help those who are suffering. MEDITATION brings you back to harmony of ONE only and ONE being. Meditation teaches you to feel connected equally with all living beings-close relations, family, friends, pets or even plants-in fact anything with life force.
6. IGNORANCE- is arrogance or truth about not knowing. How to admit that we don’t know. Antidote for this weakness is WISDOM. Wisdom is beyond life and death.
The way in which we change from inside out is not by detachment but by non-attachment.
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