The Magic of Zero
Arjuna Ishaya
Monk. Tools to master your mind, satisfy your soul and live supremely well. Articles and posts on the journey.
Good day to you!
Caught May, my 8-year-old, muttering 'I hate my life' this morning. Oof. If only she knew how bad it could get, huh?
We talked about the power of words, how what you focus on tends to grow.
It’s true, sometimes life gets unbearable, and change is a must. It's never easy, I know that, but if you find yourself hating, even constantly having to tolerate? You've got to shift something, inside or out.
My aim is to have a life I genuinely love. To wake up and mean it. I’ve seen how short life can be, and I don’t want to fill it with anything else.
That means external choices, sure, but maybe the trick is knowing when it's my attitude that needs fine tuning.
Everyone has things they'd change, but how much we suffer? That is on us. Thoughts and words are magic; they are mantras. They come to be if you repeat them enough.
As you’re becoming more conscious about what kind of seeds you’re sowing in your psyche and in the world, what you’re seeing is history.
So no deal, you’ve let the garden of your mind become unruly. Now though is the time to patiently sow something else.
Bring into being love, not hate. In whatever form – that’s true magic.
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Quote that suits today
"The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper."
— W.B. Yeats
Ah, magic. I’m not really a magical kind of guy.
But! The more I learnt to pay attention, the more ‘pop’ life had. The more I surrendered my agenda (I didn’t say not planning anything!), the more life was instantly more than enough. The more I stopped searching for something specific, the more surprises I found. The more I was open to enjoying the moment, the more joy slapped me in the face.
There is something transformative about an innocent perspective. Not naive – innocent. Fresh. Without expectation or prejudice or opinion. Seeing what is actually here rather than what you expect to see makes a world of difference.
It’s a kind of magic.
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Courses/Talks
You can skip this if it's not for you...
But at some point, you might want to explore going beyond the busy mind to find more authenticity and peace. That journey could start now, or later, and maybe it's with me, maybe not.
Why not focus on your 'To-Be' list? It so simplifies life and brings more flow and enjoyment.
If today feels like the day to simplify, here are some options:
Let me know if you'd like details.
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And To Finish – The Slightly Longer Read
Grab a coffee/tea/beverage of your choice and let yourself soak in some words.
I was looking back in my first book, “200% – An Instruction Manual for Living Fully”, this morning (which came out over 7 years ago now!), and found a few things that I liked reading so thought I’d pass along to you.
If you’d like what you read, grab a copy from Amazon. It really has stood the test of time, if I may say so.
Make Yourself Zero
“When you make yourself into zero, your power becomes invincible.”
— Mahatma Gandhi, Indian political and spiritual leader
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Often when people come to me to learn the Bright Path Ishayas’ Ascension, they ask about what they are going to get. I usually say nice things like less stress and struggle, better sleep, more peace, rest, energy, focus, purpose.
But if they’re really interested in where the road goes, I would tell them they get nothing. In fact, they lose many things.
When you dive into a true teaching you lose your positions, your judgements, your need to be secure, to control and to be right. You lose all your “shoulds.” You lose all idea of what you think you are. Critically you lose the grip your mind has on you. It’s the loss of these things that brings peace and potential, not the gaining of anything.
The German mystic Meister Eckhart put it perfectly: “God is not found in the soul by adding anything, but by a process of subtraction.”
The undoing of all internal limitation reveals your true beauty and power beneath – the essence of who you already are, who you’ve always been but have been second guessing, trying and controlling to be someone you think you should be instead.
It’s an interesting paradox – the whole world seems to be telling you to be someone, and yet your greatest peace and your greatest potential comes from reducing yourself to Zero, to nothing.
When you do that, a higher power, the big Self – whatever you want to call it; a much more wise, much more funny, much more compassionate force than your small self could ever try to be – can flow through you unimpeded, complete, without edit.
This is how you have the greatest impact on the world; not by being someone, but by being no one, by getting out of Your way:
“The Universe is saying, ‘allow me to flow through you unrestricted, and you will see the greatest magic you have ever seen.’”
— Klaus Joehle, author
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Anyways, that’s enough from me.
Go well!
Arjuna