Tag: Yin Yang

The Rhyming of the Universe.

Achieving Goals, Happiness, Health, Relationships, Success

So many elements of the world and the universe work together like musical notes, like a symphony of sounds. Like the rhyming of poetry. Womb rhymes with tomb, bet rhymes with debt, and so on. Words that oppose each other yet are paired by their meaning. We give things words and meaning, we categorise and divide up the world so that we can make sense of the complexities of it all, but really, it is all one complex happening that we are each a part of.

We shy away from thinking about these complexities and prefer to think of ourselves in tribes and countries, races and genders. It is less scary to be part of a tribe and not to have to face the enormity of the universe. Division, however, invariably creates conflict. From the very first them and us, we are in conflict, even if just in our own heads.

Things like birth and death, work and play, happy and sad are not opposites in a finite sense. They are more like Yin and Yang, opposite sides of a circle. Ultimately, a circle only has one side. It is the balance of life, whether our individual lives or the interconnected web of all living things. The universe is not a collection of opposites, it is a symphony of sounds, a rhyming or words, it is one big happening.

Purpose Vs Mindfulness

Achieving Goals, Happiness, Health, Success, The Pathway To Fulfilment

To have a purpose is to have a goal to work towards. It is essentially something we ‘do’. To be mindful it is less about ‘doing’ and more about ‘being’. In a sense ‘doing’ is a more Western approach to life and ‘being’ is a more Eastern approach to life. Depending on where your cultural reference points are you might feel that these are polar opposites.

In fact they are intertwined. You cannot ‘do’ well unless you are present in the moment and you cannot ‘be’ in the moment without a purpose for doing so. They feed each other like Yin and Yang. To separate them would end up causing confusion and frustration and you would not be able to ‘do’ or ‘be’ particularly well.

To be purposeful mindfully or be mindful on purpose are not easy things to do, but once we recognise the interconnected nature of the two elements we can work towards it.

Walking A Spiritual Path

Happiness, Health, Success

When you are on a spiritual path you are kind of on two journeys at the same time. In one we look to improve ourselves and become better people and in the other we look to improve the world around us and try to make it a better world. In his book Soul Boom, Rainn Wilson describes these like Kung Fu and Star Trek. The TV series Kung Fu represents an individual spiritual journey of self discovery, self discipline and finding meaning within. The original TV series Star Trek represents a better society where there is equality and equity, where an interracial kiss is normal and where meaning is found in serving the greater good.

In his book, Rainn Wilson writes, “What good is a spiritual path that only enriches our own inner peace while hundreds of millions go hungry and conversely how do we sustainably serve those millions if our hearts are hard, cold and filled with selfish ego or materialistic motives. How can there be peace without justice? There is an ongoing dance, a conversation between two moral paths that lie ahead of us. We seek personal enlightenment so that we can serve more, have an outward orientation and help create a better world. And when we undertake this service we are in turn internally awakened and fulfilled to an even greater degree.” [Rainn Wilson, Soul Boom – Scribed from a YouTube interview with Rich Roll where the passage was read out]


Rainn Wilson sees this as a kind of Yin Yang relationship, that each feeds into the other and requires the other. There is no better world without better people and no better people without a better world. As spiritual seekers we can take the best of the worlds religious faiths that speak to our individual morals, ethics and sense of how the universe works and make them our own, but we have to be prepared to walk the spiritual path of self awareness, self betterment and self wisdom, while we also help others around us who are walking their own paths, with their own challenges.

I wrote a poem some time ago called Spiritual Warrior and I feel that this is what walking a spiritual path is like. It takes courage to look at the inner depths of yourself and to try and mould yourself into a more enlightened person. The image of Siddhartha Gautama sitting under the Bodhi tree meditating, having decided not to move from that spot until he became enlightened, comes to mind. As the story goes, as Siddhartha Gautama began his seated quest, the demon Mara sent all of his monsters to tempt and torment him, but they had no effect and when he opened his eyes he was enlightened and became the Buddha. We do not have real demons tormenting us, but we have thoughts, memories and mental conditions that can make it difficult to walk the spiritual path, but, when we walk together, we are the Yin to each other’s Yang.