Eight Ways to Find God in Conflict (it's not what you think)

It's easy to see the sacred when everything is rosy.
When you're sitting comfortably at your favorite cafe or under a lovely tree. Looking out at the world it all looks . . . divine.

But, the spiritual challenge is to connect to the sacred when life isn't going according to plan.
When your work is slow, when your partner is angry, when your kids aren't listening.
It's during those times when love appears to be absent - that you (and I and all of us) need to turn around in consciousness to discover the secret doorway out of confusion and into sacred connection.

Are you ready?

Think about someone you're at odds with.
It could be a family member or a member of congress. Someone you know or someone you've only read about.

Pick someone who's really bugging you these days.
Who, when you merely bring them to mind, causes your stomach to clench.

Notice what you call that person (in the privacy of your own mind)?
What qualities to you ascribe to his/her:

• Intelligence

• Sensitivity

• Integrity

What are the names you call him or her?

These inner judgments color your mind.
They swirl and spin your perception, so you can't see the person - in truth. You can only see them through your emotionally colored lens. And thus, they become figments of your imagination.

And then, you not only forget who they are in truth.
You also forget who you are. This is what the spiritual traditions all teach: that we're lost in forgetfulness. And that spiritual practice is a matter of remembering (again and again and again).

Here's a poem  that offers a method for seeing through the coloring of your mind - and remembering.
It's a way of removing the emotional labels that blind you to the sacred nature of everyone you meet written by the 17^th Century mystic poet Tukaram (and translated by Daniel Ladinsky).

I could not lie anymore so I started
to call my dog, "God."
First he looked
confused,
then he started smiling, then
he even danced.

I kept at it: now he doesn't even
bite.

I am wondering if this
might work on
people?

What if you didn't consider this just a poem?
But, more of an instruction or a method for turning around in consciousness. A method that would allow you to shift your experience of all the difficult people in such a way that you discovered the God in them.

Here are 8 ways to start :
Think of that person you're at odds with. But this time, make the following inner shifts  . . .

1. See (and more importantly feel) past all the labels that your mind places on them - the personality labels, the philosophical labels, the cultural labels . . . let them all go and see who is there before you without labels.

2. Recognize their basic humanity deeper than any  cultural, ideological, emotional, or behavioral expression.

3. Empathize with their life struggles.

4. Experience the ways in which you and they are caught in a drama of suffering. And send loving kindness to both of you.

5. Sense a palpable connection between your heartbeat and theirs. Really feel this . . . thump . . . thump . . . thump.

6. Let go of your personal history and see them with the eyes of the soul.

7. Synchronize your breath with theirs. Inhale . . . exhale . . . etc.

8. Experience the sacred presence that surrounds and interpenetrates both of you - and all life.

Give these 8 ways a try and discover which work best for you.

Let us know what you find.

Love & Shanti,
E & D