The Power of Storytelling and a Chinese Folktale – Losing Your Vision
In this series of blog posts we will unfold the Chinese folktale entitled We are All One. If you have not yet read this Chinese folktale then click on this link We are All One. Then when you read this inspirational story then you might come back to this blog post. This Chinese folktale is used to ground you in what is foundational to this Personal Development and Beyond blog (PDAB) which is the view, leading to the direct experience, that We are All One. This world view is not simply a philosophy but as a result of a direct revelation of the ground of existence. It is the knowing that really perfumes the writing of these blog posts. Folktales, fairy tales, parables and mythological stories are filled with wisdom. Wisdom is not simply more intellectual knowledge. wisdom is not what my teacher Osho referred to as Logic Chopping. Wisdom does not arise simply because you know the words that invite such wisdom. Wisdom is beyond the words. You can learn all you want about motherhood but never know what it is like to give birth and raise a child. Wisdom is a form of birthing experience.
In this Personal Development and Beyond blog post I invite you beyond mere logic into an awareness of the wisdom mind and the power that the wisdom mind has to heal the majesty within you that is sometimes deeply pained by the circumstances of your everyday living. This is the pain of losing your true vision allied with meaning and purpose, losing your ability to have insight, losing your ability to be a visionary and become one who is a true seer. A true seer is one who sees from inside out.
In the Chinese folktale We Are All One there is a rich man. This could just as well have been a rich woman. Each of the characters in this story, as in all folktales and fairy tales, can be taken to represent an aspect of your psyche. The rich man is experiencing more and more pain in his eyes. Metaphorically speaking this is the experience where you are becoming blind to the richness that is within you.
Losing our Vision
This is a process that we all go through. The poet William Wordsworth declared this beautifully in these lines from his poem Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood
Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting; The Soul that rises with us, our life’s Star, Hath had elsewhere its setting And cometh from afar; Not in entire forgetfulness, And not in utter nakedness, But trailing clouds of glory do we come
We come into his dimension of time and space and we are filled with the richness of our natural ability to flow as the movement of Love in form. We come trailing clouds of glory. We are in fact well informed, because we have not yet caught the disease of the eyes that will become more extreme over time. In the movie Avatar, the final frame of the movie has the hero open his eyes that allows him to see the world, not as a collection of separate things, but as a sacred unity. This experience of sacred unity is the invitation from this Chinese folktale called We are All One. This way of seeing the world is the way in which small children have their eyes open to wonder. It isn’t that their eyes change over time but the what changes is the way of seeing the world through the opposites of right and wrong. The view of the world changes as the sense of the separate self develops and the eyes begin to lose the vision of Oneness that allows us to say and live the true story that We Are All One.
The rich man in the Chinese folktale We are All One is still rich. However, over time he becomes blind to the richness that is available within his environment. The rich man has a disease of the eyes and the eyes are the mirror of the soul. He is thus not at ease with the way he sees the world and his ability to change his world view. All his advisors are unable to help him. All his advisors are representatives of what is already known but of no real help. This is like living in a dynamic where everything is known and everything is kept as it is so that we might feel safe but not necessarily envisioned. However, this experience of being human cannot leave out the vision of the soul. What cannot be left out is the vision that you, as a unique expression of Love in form, are here to radiate and embody in form. This is the true meaning of being well informed.
The rich man, who cannot see the richness of his life, suffers. We are told in this Chinese folk tale that his suffering deepens. There seems no way of alleviating this suffering. No none within the house of the rich man knows what to do. So there is only one thing left to do. This is to go out into the wider community and offer something in return for receiving the gift of healing. In this Personal Development and Beyond blog this invitation to seeing, to insight, is the invitation to find true meaning and purpose out of which arises a vision for the future. This is what this writer and storyteller calls soul vision. This is the ability to see the foundational dynamic beyond the idea of the sense of the separate self and to know and to live from the direct experience of We Are All One.
The pain involved with the disease of the eyes and the vision for the future intensifies for many people during midlife prior the life transition that is the 2nd half of life. When caught in the full blown life transition that is termed midlife crises the advisors to the richness that is within you seem incapable of helping you. You try all the solutions that have worked in the past but the sense of unease heightens and the pain and confusion deepens. You cannot see a way out. You begin to lose hope. You begin to long for what you once had. You act out. This is part of the experience of the life transition known as the midlife crises. It is what this writer and storyteller calls having your eyes opened. All your skills, all the advice you have accumulated to date, seems not to hold the answer. These are the advisors who my one time teacher Osho calls the logic choppers. These are the dynamics within you that are used to everything being solved by logic or more cerebral information. It takes the symbolic invitation from stories such as this Chinese folktale to invite you to open your eyes beyond the opposites of cerebral knowledge.
Healing the Disease of the Eyes
It helps to know that there is a dimension available that gives you true vision and is in alignment with the richness within you. This richness and vision is available when you connect to that aspect of yourself that is willing to remember the wisdom of old as represented in this Chinese folktale by the grandmother of the Candy Peddler. She is the one who knows the way of the healing herbs and is not simply someone who knows about what might heal. She is in connection with the Wild Old Woman within. She knows what the real disease of the eyes is about. It is about the loss of vision due to the absence of meaning and purpose.
The essential disease is the unease that is felt by the identity we call the ego. This is the separate sense of self that is a boundary that we tend to protect at all costs and which we maintain before all else. The more energy we put into the establishment of the ego as being who we are the more we lose our true vision and the more unease we feel because we are heading for a doorway that we tend for the most part to ignore. This is the threshold place called death. In this Chinese folktale the rich man is symbolic of the true Self. This true self is your essence. Without your ability to connect directly with this essence you are in fact seeing in the dark. In the words of the Bible
For now we see through a glass, darkly, but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.
This seeing through a glass darkly is the way of the world. It eventually becomes a way were all our advisors cannot help with the disease of the eyes because they have no direct experience or direct experience of the journey to what true vision reveals. This is the vision that heals the unease that we feel about our identity with the time limited form of the body within this dimension of time and space. The eyes need healing of this perception of separateness. It is at least useful for the rich man who is almost blinded by his attachment to his ego and its related desires to know that there is a different way of seeing. First we have to contact the one who knows about sweetness. This is the person in this Chinese folktale who is that aspect of yourself and who in this story is the one called The Candy Peddler.
OTHER GREAT CONTENT
Here is some other material that will further your personal and spiritual development and your understanding of the various stages of spiritual development.
life transitions
SPIRITUAL THEMES IN YOUNG ADULT BOOKS – Many young adult books can provide the spiritual information young adults need to assuage the loneliness of their passage; some of the possibilities are presented here.
SPIRITUALITY IN HIGHER EDUCATION – The study shows student life is enhanced if students engage in “inner work” through activities such as meditation or self-reflection
MIND PERK – More personal and spiritual development articels from leaders in the field of spiritual development and spiritual growth
Spiritual Words of Wisdom – Where is your Heart’s Treasure?
The Light of the World by Holman Hunt
In this Personal Development and beyond blog I like to share spiritual words of wisdom from all kinds of sources that have inspired me. I have over a long period of time been in recovery from my Christian upbringing in Northern Ireland. I have down the years resisted any spiritual words of wisdom from the Bible because of associated shame and guilt. When I was graced a certain revelation early in my 20’s I was a practicing Buddhist and I might have become a monk except that I met a woman who took me places that religious texts could not reach. The strange thing for me was that all the symbols within that revelatory experience were pertinent, not to the teachings of Buddhism, but to the teachings of the Christ. I didn’t want them to be. I wanted them to be Buddhist. However, over the years I have sought to reconcile the teaching that were central to my upbringing. Even though I resisted them I found myself being inspired by the teacher called Jesus of Nazareth. I still find his teachings inspiring.
In this personal development and beyond blog I also like to share personal experiences that have impacted my life in one way or another. These are often experiences that have challenged me to grow and which I have resisted because of feelings of shame and denial. Sometimes I choose, however, to make a change because of circumstances that I feel need to be changed. This blog post shares with you an experience I had which, in part, influenced my return to my homeland in Ireland. One of the reasons I returned from England to my homeland of Ireland was because of my sister Mary’s death. Related to her death was her funeral service. Related to the funeral service was the teachings invited by several self-established religious teachers who quoted some spiritual words of wisdom from the Bible with what seemed to be one intention. This was to scare the assembled mourners into accepting Jesus Christ as their only Saviour and thus avoid the fires of hell. Speaking to friends and family afterward I found that I was not the only one who was appalled. It is now referred to in the family as “that awful funeral.”
I personally feel the way in which the spiritual words of wisdom from the Bible are being promoted are, for the most part, doing dishonour to the Teacher of Love who was the Christ and the historical person of Jesus of Nazareth. I am not a Christian in the sense that I attend any recognised denominational church. I am not one who is at the stage of spiritual development that is termed Formal/Institutional One doesn’t have to be a Christian in order to recognise spiritual words of wisdom from the bible and, in fact, the willingness to identify with a specific label very often ties you to the sign post. That label allows you to cling to the words rather than propel you into take the lonely journey invited by the life of the one called the Christ. Over identification with the words of any religious teaching often leads to fundamentalism which as we see can lead to the very opposite of what the teaching is intended to invite you to live and to be.
Let me say at the outset that I do not read the Bible. Neither do I read any other religious texts. As readers of this Personal Development and beyond blog will be aware, my inspiration for this writing comes in large part from mystical poetry. This is mystical poetry from all traditions and none. I have met people who can recite the Bible chapter and verse. I met them throughout my young life living in Northern Ireland. I have met those who quote their religious texts but when I ask them to tell me what they know of these teachings they are confused by the question. What they know is what they ‘know about.’ ‘Knowing About’ something is not insight, nor is it integration of the text with the personal experience that the text invites them into and the experience from which the text was originally written. I have never been to a Bible Study class. Thus I am not an expert in the Bible and neither do I claim to be or would wish to be.
However, I do claim to be and wish to be, a lover of wisdom. There is much spiritual wisdom to be had from the teaching of one of the worlds greatest wisdom teachers and one of the world’s greatest Lovers. I also want to share this wisdom as a kind of counterbalance to the nonsense spread by those who invite the teachings of Christ through emotional manipulation of guilt and fear. This says more about them than the people they are trying to ‘convert.’ I confess that this sort of manipulation makes me angry. Here are some great words of wisdom from the Bible. It is one of the great spiritual teachings of the world.
Where your heart is there shall your treasure be also.
This finding of the heart is a key personal development and beyond teaching. This is life coaching at its best and spiritual life coaching at its best. If you were to make this line the foundation of your life’s direction, I honestly cannot see how you could fail to live the wild and precious life you are intended to live. However, most people turn this spiritual wisdom statement around and hope that it works for them and the culture that we live in the west certainly promotes as its focus…
Where the treasure is let your heart be also.
1. Where Is Your Heart
The heart is an invisible compass. The energetic that pulls that compass is the energy of Love. When your heart is not in something then you feel less enthusiastic and less motivated. There is a huge volume of material available on the issue of procrastination and how to overcome it. The view of this Irish writer and storyteller is that procrastination is often a sign that your heart isn’t in it and that your head is intent on averting the heart’s promptings. Procrastination means something belongs to tomorrow. The heart has its focus on the present and the invitation to presence.
2. Your Heart is Your Expert
We spend so much time in our heads that we have no sense of the way in which the heart guides us. We often know what we don’t want to do and we ignore our inner guidance system and seek advice from so-called experts. It is good to seek advice. In certain areas of your life there are people who are dedicated to serving you in that way. If you wish to build a house then it is best to ask an architect to make a plan and engage a builder. However, when you have issues about your sense of life’s direction it is best to go inward and trust the promptings of your body. If you decide to use a life coach or a spiritual director make sure they focus you on trusting your inner guidance system and not their personal agenda. A life coach can help you focus but they cannot, and should not, tell you what you ought to do. Your heart is your true focus and guide. Wherever that points, begin to trust its promptings.
3. Where Your Heart Points Can Sometimes Be Scary
The heart is expansive. The ego likes to play safe. It is the heart that leads you into what, in this personal development blog that I call the beyond. The heart is the bridge between the the personal and the higher aspects of yourself that connect you to the Universal or what I sometimes refer to as the impersonal. The ego likes to live within in its established comfort zone. It like things that are familiar. The heart loves expansiveness. It is a kind of energy that wishes to go where no man or woman has ever gone before. It loves creation and is the movement of Love into higher and higher forms. This feels scary because it takes you into the unknown but it is this moment that keeps you feeling alive and authentic. Thus the heart invites you into change and we all know that change is scary for most of us, including this writer and storyteller.
4. Your Heart Knows While Your Head Supposes
There is what is called cerebral knowledge. This is knowledge of the head. This is the world of facts. It is the world of information. It is the world of ‘knowing about.’ You might, for example, be a teacher of Bible Study and you may have read the spiritual statement that is the foundation of all wisdom teaching that tells you
God is Love.
However, there is a vast difference in knowing that statement intellectually and knowing it as experienced in your heart. The heart knows what the head can often only suppose. When I listen to people who claim authority in certain matters of religious teaching their focus on the above statement tends to imply that
God is Loving.
The statement that God is Loving is not the direct knowing that ‘God is Love’ To say that God is loving suggests by its very nature that there is subject and object. That is to say that there is an experience of duality. God is Love does not have this subject/object duality and neither does the experience. To say that ‘God is Loving’ is more a psychological projection of what the head wishes God to be.
5. How To Make Friends With Your Heart
Again, as ever, in this Personal Development and Beyond blog we come back to first steps. The first step, as well as the continuing steps, are those of trust and having faith in the process. Your becoming is a movement. Whether or not you know it this is a Universal movement. It is the movement of the energy of Love creating forms to express that love in unique and specific ways. One specific and unique way that this Universal energy chose to express through is the form that you identify as you. Your head didn’t create you. Neither did your mother or father create you, although they certainly had a hand in it. What created you, and is still creating you in each and every moment, is the movement of the Universal birthless and deathless energy of Love that is God or whatever name you care to identify this never ending forever becoming process.
6. Alignment with the Process of Love
The guidance system that aligns you with this infinite treasure house of Love is your heart. It is not your head although you need not completely ignore it. If you feel lost it is because you have ignored the promptings of your heart. This is usually because you have been hurt in some way and you armour your body and its responses in order to negate the pain. This closing of the heart and armouring the body in a psycho/physical way is a double-edged sword. It cuts both ways. No pain gets in and no joy is allowed to flow out.
7. Finding the Boon Tree
The boon tree is the story of a magical tree. It is a symbol of your true heart’s desire, not the desires that are perpetrated by the media or advertising. The access to this boon tree is your true inheritance but this access is not granted to those who are unwilling to do the world of unifying those aspects of themselves that are unloved and that are left hidden in the dark of the unconscious. This is why the Way of the heart as taught by the Master Jesus tends to be given lip service. It is simply the mouthing of phrases from spiritual wisdom texts that are claimed as cerebral knowledge but have not been processed through the fire of sacred unity. It is out of the the ashes of that fiery energy that the spiritual wisdom of the heart arises.
8. What Do You Treasure?
If you answer this question from the dictates of your culture and the media promptings of that culture that fills you full of desires that are unending and never slaked, then you are moving from the corruption of the wisdom teaching that invites you to live
Where your treasure is there let your heart be also.
The spiritual journey to the treasure of the heart is an inner journey of trust and faith in the unknown. You are the treasure that your heart seeks because the truth of who you are is priceless. This is the experience of knowing that there is nothing you need or want other than to share the beauty and grace of who you are from an infinite source that is Love, never beginning or ending and forever becoming.
The question then becomes:
9 Where is Your Focus?
Is your daily focus on the cultural norm of never quite enough? Or is your daily focus on the practice of inner knowing? This doesn’t mean you do not act in the world to provide for your material needs but it does mean that your focus becomes one of expansion and not necessarily a focus on playing safe. My teacher Rumi invites:
Risk all for Love.
This is what your heart invites and your ego resists. This is essentially the choice that “A Course in Miracles” invites. It is the choice between Love and Fear. Your ego fears that your heart will be broken. This is the risk. The greater risk, however, is for the heart to be closed. The writer of Original Blessing, theologian Matthew Fox says:
Ultimately there is no protection for the heart. There are boundaries but ultimately no protection.
There is within you a treasure so vast that nothing compares to you. These spiritual words of wisdom from the Bible point the way toward such treasure. There is, however, a paradox in finding this treasure. If you do not give it away you lose it. When you give it away there is more to give away. The result of giving it away is joy. This is the movement of Creation. It is God is Love moving within form. This movement is your true treasure and it is never lost. I invite you take these spiritual words of wisdom from the bible and follow your heart and find the treasure that allows you to know that you are priceless because you are not apart from this experience called God is Love.
OTHER GREAT CONTENT
Here is some other material that will further your personal and spiritual development and your understanding of the various stages of spiritual development.
spiritual direction
THE HERO’S JOURNEY – Video that outlines the personal and spiritual development called the Hero’s Journey
MIND PERK – More personal and spiritual development articels from leaders in the field of spiritual development and spiritual growth
SPIRITUAL ARTICLES FOR TEACHERS AND STUDENTS – Spiritual Development articles related to student life
Finding true Self Worth if you are Feeling not Good Enough
The Ugly Duckling by Frank Cadogan Cowper
There are various ways to determine what you are worth but we are speaking here especially about finding true self worth. Existentially speaking you are priceless. There is a paradox in finding true self worth. This is that the more you try to find it outside yourself the more it tends to retreat and the more dependant you become on that outer source. There is nothing especially wrong with being validated by outside sources but the experience of finding that wellspring of beauty and grace which nourishes you from within is hard to put a value on.
This is why in this personal development and beyond blog I invite you to take small (or even giant steps) to trusting what is within you that reveals the worth of who you truly are. If you knew directly who you are, beyond the limited idea of name and form, then the idea that you could ever somehow be not good enough is laughable. The sorrow, and it is a real sorrow, is that most people do not know directly and are not nourished from the source of their very being. In order to feel good enough they spend their time doing something that will give them acquired value. There is value in enhancing your skills in whatever way that gives you a sense of fulfilment but there is nothing you have to do, or really can do, to prove that you are worthy of being.
Self Worth and Self Esteem
Let me state unequivocally
Your being is good enough and your being is forever good enough.
There is even a paradox within making the above statement. This is that your being, and thus your true worth, is beyond the idea of good or bad. The kind of Goodness, that moves from being, is beyond the opposite of not so good. This beyond not so good is your inheritance. It is inherent within you. Your work is to reveal this Goodness within you. You cannot get this sense of self worth because you are already more than worthy. This not being good enough is an idea of the separate self and not the experience of the one who you truly are and are created to be and share. This is evidenced in the following poem by my teacher Jalal ad-Din Rumi,
Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
there is a field. I’ll meet you there.When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.Ideas, language, even the phrase each other
doesn’t make any sense.
There is a state of being within you that is beyond the idea of opposites of right doing and wrong doing. It is the essence of who you are. That very state of being is your true self worth Ideas and language cannot give you any real sense of what the power and beauty of this true inherence, that is who you are, feels like. It simply is. It is available to you as your true inheritance and it is your work to reveal it and gift this inheritance to the world. There is nothing that you can add to yourself. This worth that you are is beyond price.
Self esteem, however, is something that you can build. There are many ways in which self esteem can be built and this is largely attained through personal development practices of which there are many. Below is a list of some of these practices that you might engage with. If you are to enhance your self esteem it is really a practice of kindness, discipline and commitment. It is in essence a practice of self loving rather than a practice of self loathing. A commitment to a daily practice of personal development will help build a sense of self esteem. Here are a list of practices that I recommend at Personal Development and Beyond:-
- Practice radical self acceptance.
- Trust your inheritance as the original Blessing you are
- Learn to witness your inner negative dialogue.
- Start a gratitude journal.
- Stop judging yourself and others
- Turn within and discover your true worth.
- Practice kindness.
- Listen to affirming stories.
Not Being Good Enough
You have been taught that your being is not good enough. For hundreds of years, and especially from the time of St. Augustine, there has been taught the idea of original sin. This is the idea the you are inherently worthless and indirectly accountable for the murder of a man two thousand or more years ago. The central myth of this Western culture is the story of the Garden of Eden which tells you that God threw you out your ancestor because they were disobedient and that it took someone being murdered on a cross to make it OK with this God.
Even if you personally do not believe in this story and the associated myths connected with it you are a part of the collective that has taken these stories to heart for hundreds of years. If you think that you are not impacted by these stories then look at the way in which you work. The way work is set up in our culture is the drive to try and create meaning from what is the Protestant work ethic. This is the ethic that attempts to prove that one can earn their worth in this world because you are told you cannot earn it in the other world.
Eve by Anna Lea Merritt
The primary emotion that such stories invite is the emotion of guilt. This is a soul destroying emotion if it is used for purposes of control or education in any form. The feeling of guilt has its place but its place is certainly not to teach you an inherent sense of wrongness simply for being. That, psychologically speaking, is a form of masochism. Finding self worth is an inside job. If you look at small children who have been allowed to grow in their own unique way you will not find them questioning their sense of self worth. You will not find a small person who spends their time thinking about what they are worth and how to find what they feel they are missing.
My heart truly goes out to any of you who seek to find this worth that is intrinsic within you. Without it there is a constant sense of something being missing. There is nothing missing except the connection. As a child that connection was a natural part of who you were and are. It is still a natural part of who you are and it can be reconnected and in fact it is never truly disconnected. There are those who have spent a lifetime creating a sense of worth connected to things outside themselves and at the end of life have come to the realisation that they were looking in the wrong place.
The need to find a sense of self worth arises because you do not have the connection to the true sense of worth that animates you into the living form that you are. Children naturally have that sense. In all likelihood you are telling yourself a story, either consciously, or unconsciously, that you are in some way unworthy. This sense of unworthiness can become a habit and it is certainly a habit that is ingrained in our culture and is a major part of our economic focus. While self worth is inherent in your very being there are things that you can do that will allow you to connect to your inheritance.
What to Remember on Waking
Remember this as a kind of mantra.
Who you are is priceless and cannot be made more worthy.
If that is not how you feel then it is because you have been taught to feel differently and that teaching has disconnected you from the Original Blessing that you are. While you cannot make yourself more worthy you can take actions that invite your return to experiencing that sense of worth that is beyond price. The good news is that this sense of Goodness that is inherent in you never goes away because in truth it is who you are. You can build, and I recommend that you build, an increased sense of self esteem. This gives you confidence in the small self that you identify with. As this confidence builds then you can move more deeply within and confide in your true Self.
Let me finish with some quotes that invite you to take the courage to be good enough
To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting. ~e.e. cummings, 1955
All my life I had been looking for something, and everywhere I turned someone tried to tell me what it was. I accepted their answers too, though they were often in contradiction and even self-contradictory. I was naïve. I was looking for myself and asking everyone except myself questions which I, and only I, could answer. It took me a long time and much painful boomeranging of my expectations to achieve a realization everyone else appears to have been born with: that I am nobody but myself. ~Ralph Ellison, “Battle Royal”
Rabbi Zusya said that on the Day of Judgment, God would ask him, not why he had not been Moses, but why he had not been Zusya. ~Walter Kaufmann
If the quotations don’t do it then here is a poem that invites awareness of the need to follow your inner truth and have revealed to yourself the knowing that you are magnificent beyond words and have worth beyond price.
The Journey
One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice –
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
“Mend my life!”
each voice cried.
But you didn’t stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do –
determined to save
the only life you could save.”Mary Oliver
It is my sincere hope that it is today that you finally know what you have to do, and begin, to reveal the one wild and precious life you are here to live. It is my sincere hope that you leave the voices behind that suggest in anyway that you are not being good enough and that you have the courage to take the only journey that you alone are here to take. This is called the Hero’s Journey because to become all that you are here to be takes courage. This is the journey into the one life that only you can save and finding in that one life that there is no one to save. You come home to the place you never left and find that this place is beyond price.
OTHER GREAT CONTENT
Here is some other material that will further your personal and spiritual development and your understanding of the various stages of spiritual development.
self worth
SOUL PROGRESS – Wonderful articles on spiritual life and spiritual living including the most sought after goals for individuals walking the spiritual path
SEVEN STAGES OF SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION – n his spiritual evolution, man passes through different stages, each of them having some specific characteristics. Recognizing these characteristics can open the path toward superior levels which leads us to perfecti
STAGES OF PERSONAL GROWTH – This article describes four levels or stages of Personal Growth — social accomplishment, psychological growth, spiritual progress and transformation.
The Power of Storytelling – A Chinese Fable – We are All One
Seeing the World as One
I have chosen to introduce readers of this Personal Development and Beyond blog to the power of storytelling. To illustrate this power of storytelling I have chosen some stories that inspire me and which I wish to unfold in deeper and more powerful ways. In this way I hope that reader might chose to use the power of storytelling to invite a sense of oneness within themselves and in that way live the story that only you can live. Below is one of my favourite folktales. It is a Chinese fable or folktale that invites you into experiencing the world in a way that is a form of sacred unity. Please enjoy this Chinese fable and then I will in a series of related blog posts take you into the power of this story to transform your life and your view of the world. This power of storytelling will become a series and will take you into other stories. This Chinese fable is a healing story and invites you into the wider dimension and the real power of storytelling.
The Chinese Fable – We Are All One
Many years ago there lived a rich man who could not see because he had a disease in his eyes. He was in constant pain and visited every doctor in the land. None could help him. The rich man became desperate and offered a huge reward to anyone who could help.
Also in this city lived an old man whose job it was to sell candy. This man was poor because he was so kind that he often gave away what little he made to those who needed the money more than he. One day the peddler heard about the reward and thought about a story he heard as a child. His mother had told him about a magical herb that could be found in the forest and was good for the eyes. With his mind made up, the candy peddler went to his wife to tell her of his plans. The man’s wife was angry and refused to let him leave the family to starve while he went on a wild goose chase to find the herb, but the peddler could not be persuaded. He left his family with a basket of candy and promised to return before the candy was gone.
The peddler left for the forest early the next morning and began his search. He walked and walked and quickly found himself deep inside the woods. As the man carefully searched the ground for the herbs he was seeking, he noticed ants scurrying around on the ground. On further notice, he saw that a rock had fallen into the stream, flooding the ant nest. The peddler carefully removed the rock, and the nest began to dry out. “We are all one,” the man said as he continued his search for the herb.
As the day came to an end, the man was disappointed but decided to find a place to sleep and begin his search again in the morning. When the peddler settled down next to an old tree, he immediately fell asleep and began to dream. In his dreams, he found himself in the middle of a huge city being escorted by soldiers dressed all in black to meet their queen. When he entered the shining palace, the peddler was afraid and fell to his knees before the queen. The queen said to him, “Stand up. We are all one now. You have helped my people and you have only to ask before we will help you.” The man asked the queen about the mysterious herb he was searching for, but the queen regretfully shook her head and said she did not know about any such herb. With that, the peddler awoke from his dream.
To his surprise, the man found himself once again at the ant nest. He shook his head in wonder, got up, and began his search again. All day long the search continued but without any luck. As night approached, the peddler realized he was lost, hungry, and sleepy. He suddenly came upon a temple where he decided to spend the night. As he approached the temple, he noticed a fuzzy green centipede also approaching the temple. Out of the sky, a bird dived to grab the small insect. Waving his arms, the man chased the bird away, picked up the centipede, and placed him on a bush with nice green leaves. He said, “I may be hungry, but you don’t have to be. We are all one.” Exhausted, the man laid down and quickly fell asleep.
Suddenly, the man was awakened by the sound of footsteps. He looked up but only saw the centipede and closed his eyes again. “We are all one, you and I,” a voice said faintly. Then the man heard a tiny voice telling him about a tree with two trunks deep in the forest. The man was frightened because he knew that the centipede was speaking to him, so he kept his eyes tightly closed. The centipede told the man that at the bottom of the tree was a tiny bead that, when mixed with wine, could cure the blind lord. When the first sunlight arrived, the man carefully opened his eyes, but there was no sign of the centipede.
The man got up and carefully followed the directions he had heard the night before. Soon he found himself at the tree with two trunks, but when he looked at the base of the tree he felt hopeless because the area was covered with pine needles. The peddler felt like weeping with frustration until he remembered the ants. He said aloud, “We are all one. Ants, ants, come and help me.” Soon the ants arrived and found the bead for the man. He took it carefully and returned to the city where he presented it to the rich lord. The lord mixed the bead with wine, drank it, and was instantly cured. He rewarded the peddler and his family who never had to worry about food or money again.
Reflections on the Chinese Fable – We Are All One
In a furhter series of related blog posts I will begin to take you into this wonderful Chinese fable and introduce you to the power of storytelling. We will begin to see how the characters in this Chinese fable can be seen to be aspects of ourselves and how we might in our own way find the magic healing herb that is available within each of us that heals the blindness of the inner rich man and woman who we lives within our lives unseen. With the power of storytelling we begin to heal those different aspects within ourselves and with compassion begin to heal others of the disease of the eyes that represents lack of vision.
To experience the power of storytelling that is invited from this Chinese fable go to the first in the series of reflections about this Chinese fable at the link below
The Power of Storytelling from a Chinese Fable – Losing your Vision
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The Power of Storytelling in Personal Development
In a series of blog posts I will write I intend to invite you into discovering the power of storytelling and how important it can be in learning to move through life’s transitions. In addition to being a writer on personal development and beyond I am a storyteller by profession. I am interested in how other people use the power of storytelling to invite change in their lives and other peoples lives. I have over a number of years listened to keynote speakers who have used stories to illustrate points in their talks. I have to say that most of the stories I have heard leave me unimpressed. In response to this experience I have decided that I will share with you a series of stories that both irritate and inspire me. This is so you might then be able to choose which story you invite into your psyche and heart and from which you can live a wild and precious life. In this way I hope to share with you the real power of storytelling to inspire you in living your one wild and precious life.
As a writer and storyteller I hope I understand the power of storytelling and the power of metaphor and symbol that is invited through language. As a writer on personal development and beyond I love language and the power that it has to change one’s world view. One writer who I love and whose writing inspires me is Ben Okri. Here is what he writes about the power of storytelling in his poetic and eloquent way from his book A Way of Being Free
The old storytellers were the first real explorers and frontiers people of the abyss. They brought the world within our souls. They made living within and living without as one.
Here is the true power of storytelling. It makes living within and living without as One. The power of storytelling creates within the teller and the listener a kind of sacred unity and an invitation to move beyond opposition into unity. There are motivational speakers telling stories that are, in the words of Ben Okri, poisonous stories. These are stories that invite, not so much unity, but deeper division. In this series of the Power of Storytelling blog posts it is my intention to share with you my take on how you might use the power of storytelling to invite the full potential of what it is to be human and to do this through personal empowerment and a sense of compassion.
I recently discovered a story on a website of a young woman who is an inspiration to me. This young woman writes a blog called The Personal Excellence blog and it is an excellent blog. Her take on the story called the Howling Dog is one that invites awareness of our resistance and the pain that such resistance causes in our lives. This story of the Howling dog is what would be called a teaching story. It is the kind of story that might be used by motivational speakers to emphasis a point in their motivational talk. Having said this I wondered why I felt so angry when I read this story. So I decided to find out why I felt that way by writing about it and sharing what came up for me in reflecting upon this story. I also wanted to use the true power of storytelling to add value to this story and to invite you the reader to reflect on the story and end it in a way that inspires you in higher ways.
Here is the story that was featured on the Personal Excellence blog. It is called The Howling Dog.
Tom just moved into a new neighbourhood recently. He liked his house and his environment, but there was one thing he didn’t get.
His neighbor, Mr Tan, had a dog that kept howling non-stop. Literally. Day in, day out.
“Auuuuuhhhh………. Aaaauhhhh……….”
Initially Tom thought the dog was just going through a phase, so he ignored the howls, thinking it would eventually stop.
But it didn’t. It continued howling.
“Auuuu…………auuuu………..Auuuhhhhh…….”
1 day passed. Nothing changed. 2 days passed. Still howling. 3 days. 5 days. 1 week. 2 weeks. 1 month. Still howling, with no signs of stopping.
“Auuuhhh………….Oouuuuuhhhhh…….Au au auuhhhhh..”
Finally, Tom couldn’t stand it anymore. One fine day, he walked over to Mr Tan’s house to see what was going on.
Sure enough, there was the dog, sitting at the front porch, howling pitifully to whoever was walking by.
“Auuuhhh…Ouuuhhh….Auuuuuuuuuuuuuu………Au au au auu au au auuuuhhhhh….”
On the other hand, Mr Tan was relaxing on his bench at the lawn, leisurely reading his newspapers and sipping a cup of coffee.
Wondering what was going on, Tom walked up to Mr Tan.
Tom: “Hi Mr Tan, is that your dog?”
Mr Tan: “Which dog?” He glanced around. “Oh that. Yep he’s mine.”
Tom: “Why does he keep howling?”
Mr Tan: “Oh, that’s cause he’s sitting on a nail.”
Tom: “Sitting on a nail?!?” Tom gave the dog a bewildered look.
“..Okay… so why doesn’t he just get away from the nail then??”
“Well, Tom………”, Mr Tan took a slow sip of his coffee before replying.
“…That’s because he doesn’t find it painful enough yet.”
The first question for me as a storyteller is this.
Does this story leave you feeling inspired.
The answer for me personally is, “No it does not.” The story is intended to invite you to consider your relationship to resistance in your life but it is only really half a story and does not invite the full power of storytelling. When you listen to a story, read a parable, read some wisdom teachings one thing to remember is that every character and every image in the story is intended to represent an aspect of yourself. In the story of Beauty and the Beast you are Beauty and you are the Beast. In the story of Beauty and the Beast there is opposition. There is beauty and there is what is considered to be non beautiful and even frightening. The story goes on to emphasise the power of Love to transform what is in opposition into what in storytelling is consider sacred unity. This sacred unity is represented in many fairytales as the marriage between the Prince and the Princess. This invitation to the marriage of opposites within you is the true power of storytelling and it is intended to be the primary invitation from storytelling.
The story of the Howling dog has four main characters
- Tom
- The Dog
- Mr Tan
- The Nail.
This is really a story about suffering but it is not a story about overcoming suffering. This story would be like the Buddha finding the first noble truth, being the fact that there is suffering, and leaving it there. There is also a very negative connotation about this story. It leaves out a lot of interconnectedness and it ignores the responsibility we each have toward one another to alleviate suffering in anyway that we are able. If we are unable to do this, or are so focused on ourselves that it is a non-issue, then we are like Mr Tan or Narcissus who falls in Love with his reflection and dies because he cannot relate to anyone other than himself. These people are no model for anyone interested in personal development and certainly no model for anyone interested in the beyond of personal development.
Echo and Narcissus by John William Waterhouse
Let me confess something that is pertinent to my reaction to this story. I call it a reaction because this is what it was. I confess to be an animal lover. I confess to being a devoted dog lover. In this story, as in many other stories around the world, the dog as a symbol represents unconditional love. Anyone who has ever had the privilege of living and loving a dog will know this. Symbolically the dog represents the dynamic within you that loves unconditionally.
What about the owner Mr Tan. Would you in all seriousness want to be Mr. Tan. Has Mr Tan something to teach you that you value. Do you value the allowing of suffering for sufferings sake. If I where Tom I would has serious words with Mr. Tan. For one thing I would ask
Who left the nail around for the dog to sit on?
Dogs are creatures of habit. They have their routine and they have their places where they go to sit or lie down. Maybe the nail is bent. How does Mr. Tan know that the dog is sitting on a nail. Has he looked to see what the dog is sitting on and if so why has he left the dog to sit on the nail? The only logical answer is that the man has unresolved masochistic tendencies and loves to see and connect with suffering because he is too lazy to get off his Mr Tan ass and do the right thing. Mr. Tan doesn’t seem to consider the fact that one of the most problematic issues in communities is when one member of the community leaves their dog to bark or howl at anytime of the day. My take on this story is that Mr. Tan has nothing off value to teach you about suffering because he does not teach you how to alleviate it. In fact he seems to quite enjoy the suffering of sentient beings who are able demonstrate the love he so obviously seems to be devoid off.
In motivational kind of story that is used to illustrate the power of storytelling we are not told what Tom did. He seems only to care that the source of the irritation has been discovered. He does not act out of compassion. He seems quite indifferent to the suffering of the dog. In the story of the Howling Dog we are left with the knowledge that the dog is suffering and might indeed continue to suffer because the nail might be bent and cannot be removed without help. This is often what happens when we are deeply wounded and that wound remains unconscious. This story doesn’t offer any help at all. What would you feel like if you went to Mr Tan for help with your issue of suffering. My advice is to avoid the Mr. Tan’s of this world and there are many of them. They come in all guises and they will demonstrate what suffering is but they won’t get off their own nail.
If you are going to choose to use the power of storytelling for personal development and beyond choose a story that inspires you and invites you into your highest good. Such a story is Beauty and the Beast which is a story of the power of love to transform the opposition within our lives. Choose a story from mythology that has lasted a long time and has secrets to reveal to you. When using the power of storytelling choose a story that invites those uncaring parts of yourself to be alchemised into Love and into unconditional love. If you see a dog sitting howling then also be careful. A dog in pain is a dangerous dog and out of its suffering will not be the dog it normally wishes to be. Learn to approach this howling dog with sensitivity. Become a Mr. Tan with compassion.
What about Mr Tan? It is my considered opinion Mr Tan needs therapy. He needs help to recognise that he has a responsibility to care for himself and others and especially for those animals in his care. He could start by paying attention to where he leaves nails lying around in areas that are used by others. I wonder what his wife would have said if she had stood on the nail left lying around. I suspect that Mr. Tan might not have a wife, or have neighbours who care and appreciate him. He lives a life where he seems to teach others through pain and aggravation and leaves you at a point where unconditional love is howling to be taken of the nail of the very sense of separateness that is the major cause of suffering in the world.
Choose well the stories that you invite into your psyche. The power of storytelling is very real. This is the power of symbol and metaphor to take you into living the transformed life. Simply because you hear a story from someone who promotes themselves as a keynote speaker or personal development teacher does not mean that they have integrated their personality into the sacred unity of beyond. THis includes myself. In this story of the howling dog you are Mr Tan, you are the dog and you are Tom as the observer. Let your Mr Tan be one who accepts the responsibility of owing the dynamic of unconditional love and responding when appropriate. Let your Mr Tan become the direct experience of the wisdom mind within you. Pain teaches avoidance and not expansiveness.
If Mr. Tan was more responsible then the dog would not need to howl because of Mr Tan’s strange response to obvious suffering. How would you feel about this story if the story featured, not a dog howling, but a child crying? The metaphor is the same but somehow you might not be so ready to take on the teaching of Mr. Tan. Would you remain silent and say nothing about the suffering of the child?
Silence by Henry Fuseli
In this series of blog posts on the power of storytelling I will be sharing with you another story that I heard at a seminar called 20/20 vision. This was a story told by the keynote speaker who was there to invite a vision for our community for the year 2020 and beyond. I left feeling depressed at the invitation that was presentedbeing the way forward into a vision of the future. It seemed to be just more of an old paradigm that I try to discourage here in this personal development and beyond blog and for me personally dishonoured the true power of storytelling that invites unity and revelation rather than a onesided view of what it means to be successful.
You are a wonder tale. The power of storytelling is there to invite you into the realisation and revelation of the wonder you are. You are here, not only to tell the story about your personality, but to live, love and gift that story of who you are beyond the personality for the highest good of all. It is important, therefore, that you align your mind and heart with stories that are aligned with the universal drive to higher and higher love making. The story of the howling dog is intended to be a story about suffering but it is only half a story, and for this writer and storyteller, not one that I would use to inspire anyone to become the wonder tale they are here to be.
If you are interested in making the power of storytelling part of your personal development and beyond then I recommend the following storytellers who inspire me and who leave me feeling alive and filled with the boon of compassion so that should I see another sentient being howling in pain then I humbly take action in whatever way might alleviate such pain. This then completes the circle. It recognises that We Are All One which it the title of another story that I will introduce you to in its fullness and which really shows you the power of storytelling to connect to the very best that you are.
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3 Key Questions for Personal Development and Beyond
Image via Wikipedia
Personal development and beyond is focused, not simply on finding answers, but on finding questions that invites a journey that raises consciousness. Many people in the arena of personal development and life transformation are seeking answers to various problems. In this blog post I list the 3 key questions that an individual committed to personal development and beyond needs to ask and be willing to commit to is they wish to invite vision into their life that serves their highest purpose and benefits their whole self and their community.
One of the greatest stories regarding asking the right question is the story of Percival and the Search for the Holy Grail. In this story Percival forgets to ask the right question and must continue his quest until a time returns once more when he finally remembers that he must ask the question
Whom does the grail serve?
The holy grail is not some religious artefact lost in the mists of time. The holy grail is the answer to the question that leads one out of the wasteland of a meaningless life. It is the dynamic that arises from the revelation of what is whole within you and what is fruitful within you and filled with blessings, gifts and boons that you are willing to gift the world. These are the gifts that you discover from being willing to journey into the real question that you are here to live.
In some indigenous cultures there is the idea, and the practice, of the vision quest. This is where the individual goes out into nature and lives in solitude, sometimes fasting, with the intention that they are given insight (vision) into the way in which the Source of Life has intended them to live their lives for the greater good of all. In our modern day quest for personal development the focus can very often be narcisstic. Like much in life there is the balance between what is healthy and unhealthy. Here is an extract from a Wikipedia article on narcissism.
Impact of healthy vs. destructive narcissism
| Characteristic | Healthy Narcissism | Destructive Narcissism |
|---|---|---|
| Self-confidence | High outward self confidence in line with reality | An unrealistic sense of superiority (“Grandiose”) |
| Desire for power, wealth and admiration | May enjoy power | Pursues power at all costs, lacks normal inhibitions in its pursuit |
| Relationships | Real concern for others and their ideas; does not exploit or devalue others | Concerns limited to expressing socially appropriate response when convenient; devalues and exploits others without remorse |
| Ability to follow a consistent path | Has values; follows through on plans | Lacks values; easily bored; often changes course |
| Foundation | Healthy childhood with support for self esteem and appropriate limits on behaviour towards others | Traumatic childhood undercutting true sense of self-esteem and/or learning that he/she doesn’t need to be considerate of others |
Echo and Narcissus by John William Waterhouse
True narcissism is a healthy love of self. When personal development is focused primarily on the development of the persona to the exclusion of all else than we move, not into wholeness (meaning health), but deeper into the separate sense of self. This is the self that is identified with the time form called the body and the image that we call, “me, my and mine.” This developmental stage is not to be excluded but if it becomes self centred during the later stages of life then there is a kind of failure to develop beyond the limitation of little me. Stating that this is a failure is not meant to be judgemental but is more of pointer toward a higher development, and what the poet Goethe called, higher love making. This is the movement from the centre of the true Self.
Here are the 3 questions that this writer and storyteller considers the foundation for the quest to a life of meaning and purpose and that give you the greatest opportunity for happiness within this world.
- Who am I?
- What is my life purpose?
- Whom does the grail serve?
1. Who Am I?
There are, in various parts of the world, workshops that are called Enlightenment Intensives or enlightenment retreats. These are conducted over a period of two days or a much longer period. In these workshops and retreats there is only one question that you ask. This is the question, “Who am I?” The essential requirement in the pursuit of personal development and beyond is a sincere wish to find out the Truth for oneself. This is not a truth that you define in words but allow to be expressed as a life flow through you. The yearning of those who are seriously interested in personal development and beyond will only be satisfied through their own inner experience of Truth. It is from the direct knowing of this living truth that you find out how you are intended to live your life.
You may say that you know who you are and list all those aspects of yourself such as,
- name,
- occupation,
- relationships,
- nationality,
- etc.
All of those aspects of you are aspects of an identity that is called the persona (or mask). It allows people to identify you in very specific ways. Who you are beyond all those aspects about you is the quest to answer, “Who am I.” Why is it that I put this personal development and beyond question before any other? The reason why I suggest that this be the key question of your life is because all the above aspects of yourself that you identify with will end in this dimension of time. The question “Who Am I?” takes you from the knowledge about who you think you are into the living of the I AM beyond the birth and death of the form called the body. The quest to know who you are invites you into the experience of eternal life within everyday life experience.
2. What is my Life Purpose?
When you answer (or if you allow yourself to become the living answer) to the first question then the second question becomes much clearer. All these three questions are related to one another and flow out of each other. Guy Finley gave, what this writer and storyteller, thinks to be the best definition of life purpose that I have been graced to come across. This is what he said was the purpose of one’s life.
Your purpose is to serve Love’s purpose.
This does not define your life purpose, but I think, that if this is where you begin then you cannot truly go far wrong. The real personal development and beyond quest then becomes how to know Love’s purpose as it moves through you in your day to day life. If the question is addressed with sincere and committed intent, and if you are prepared to pay attention to the signs along the way, then the way in which Love’s purpose is intended to move through you will be revealed. This personal development and beyond question also invites you to trust the process of the inner as it manifests within the outer.
3. Whom does your Purpose Serve?
The central question in the search for the Holy Grail was
Whom does the Grail Serve?
The holy grail of your life is the meaning and purpose that you are here to give it and to share in community and communion with. When Percival, who is the hero of the story of the quest for the Holy Grail, asks this key question then the land which has become a wasteland begins to become a paradise. The metaphor for the wasteland in the story of the Holy Grail is a metaphor for a life lived without love and lived solely for the purpose of serving the ego and the persona. This is where the person has fallen in love with their own reflection and this lays waste to their true potential as intended to be lived in service to and for Love’s purpose through them.
Living in and from the Heart
It is more likely that in many peoples lives that the question “Who Am I?” will arise in midlife. This often gives rise to what is called the midlife crisis. It is a crisis of meaning and purpose. This call to meaning is that aspect of the who you are that calls you to become all that you are here to be and are intended to become. This is the call of the soul and is the first stage in the experience of soul friendship. It is the call of the heart chakra into living in and from the heart. The heart centre is the place from where the answer to the 1st Key question of personal development and beyond begins to be lived, not as an idea, but as direct experience.
The midlife crisis precedes the 2nd half of life. This is the opportunity to find meaning and true purpose and gifts you that opportunity of harvesting the richness of who you are and why you are. Otherwise the 2nd half of life can be experienced simply as a decline of faculties related to the mind (small m) and the body, rather than the experience of the full flowering of the spirit and that which is inspired within you.
In the first half of life the key personal development question might be less related to, Who am I? It is usually more related to the question “What is it I will do?” This tends to be the key focus of most people in the culture of the West during the first part of life. The focus is then on how to become a productive member of society with the emphasis on productivity. This emphasis on productivity drives the meaning of many peoples lives and during the 2nd half of life productivity begins to fall and the value of the person is seen to be less and less. We see this in the way that our culture devalues our old and promotes the culture of youth. This is a youth culture that often fails to mature and lives with its focus on finding meaning in consumption rather than in the consummation with the true Self. This emphasis on productivity is not the emphasis on creativity and the health of the individual and thus the health of the collective called humanity.
These three questions can arise at any stage of life. They are each related. The more you know the true Self the more connected you will be to your true life’s purpose and the more connected you will feel to the wish to be of service to the highest good. This is service in relation to life as Love’s purpose and living your life in service to Love’s purpose. This is Love’s forever becoming as it moves through that time, space and form limitation called You. This is the limited time and space form called the body and the primary identity that is who you call me, my and mine with its connection to the cycle of birth and death.
The Limitation of Personal Development
The knowing of who you are beyond this temporal identity of name and form gives you something that no amount of personal development work can give you. This opening to what is beyond personal development is a grace. This does not mean you give up personal development work but that you realise its limitation beyond the idea of the separate self, or the ego self. You might attain all that you set out to achieve in your life and come to a point where there arises a question within you,
Is this all there is?
Without living the quest to be, and become the knowing of who you are, from which arises the purpose of your life lived from love and service to others, then you are likely to find the accumulation of achievement is, in fact, all there is. However, even if you have not known who you are, the truth of who you are, never goes away because it is timeless. That is also to say that it is eternal. Thus the answers to life’s most important questions are found in the journey that leads, not to an answer, but to a revelation. Such revelation leads to deeper and higher revelation of Love’s purpose as it is intended to be lived through you moment to moment.
The journey of personal development is a paradoxical journey. It is the paradox of developing yourself to the point beyond where the self cannot go and to the point where the little self willingly dies into the true Self. This is where you become the knowing of who you truly are beyond the limitation of time and space and form and from which you grace this very existence with the perfume of the being you are and forever are. Let it be so.
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