This morning at Q we explored how we can easily lose our centre on the wheel of life, as these hilarious hamsters demonstrate!
The further we get from the centre, the more life seems to be spinning out of control. When we get lost in the peripherals of life we can find ourselves getting flung off the wheel.
We tend to think that the solution to life spinning out of control, is to try and exert control. Control is not the answer!
"The solution is found in living a centred life and a willingness to engage in the reconciliation of opposites."
Here at Q we celebrate truth wherever we find it and Taoism teaches us that centred living begins with awareness, attention and intention. Are you aware of the unreconciled opposites that are throwing you off centre?
In this video, James May experiences the fascinating physical effects of literally living on the peripheral of life as he steps into a centrifuge.
Did you notice the man in the centre of the centrifuge? As James span around him, losing clarity of sight and eventually losing consciousness, the man at the centre was unaffected by the peripherals spinning around him.
As James span around, the G forces forced the blood from his head to his feet and he literally started to see the world in black and white.
This is a scientific example of a spiritual principle that we can observe in the Genesis story of Adam and Eve. Having decided to feed from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil rather than the tree of life, Adam and Eve started to see the world in a different way. They opened the door to a life of opposites which they could not reconcile, they began to see their world in black and white, obsessing over rights and wrongs and what they should and shouldn't be doing. They lost consciousness and became distracted by conscience.
Finding our centre will lead us to see the world in full colour again!
So, what is the centre that we need to find?
In John 14:20 Jesus says "On that day, you will realise that I am in the Father and you are in me and I am in you."
In Luke 17:2, Jesus says "The Kingdom of God in within you."
In a world that puts the highest value on what is external and superficial and as we are bombarded by advertising telling us that what we really need is "out there" somewhere, Jesus points to the centre of who we are and says that all we need is already within us.
Living an uncentred life, as James May put it, “forced the blood from my head to my feet, just where I didn’t need it!” The further away from the centre we are, the greater the problem.
As James May found, the danger as we are drawn to the peripherals of life is that the blood is drawn to our feet. This speaks of our obsession with activity as we run and run on the wheel of life, but as our furry friends found, our feet can get us into all sorts of trouble!
Jesus’ wisdom on this was, stop running, be still, fear not, peace, rest, settle, relax, take the light burden, the easy yoke, die to live.
The difference between Western and Eastern thinking is this: In the West, we lost the ability to balance the whole. We became distracted from the reality of the unending cycle of life by linear thinking that only sees a beginning, a middle and an end.
"Your centre is who you are, not what you do and your centre is not evil, it's divine DNA!"
When we forget this good news, we descend into dualistic thinking, obsessing over the rights and wrongs of the peripherals of life and condemned by an externally imposed conscience, rather than becoming internally conscious of who we are at our centre.
Let's start by knowing we're loved, knowing we're accepted and knowing we're enough as we are, rather than running around the hamster wheel of life, trying to achieve what we believe is required to be loved, accepted and to be enough.
Let's put our energy into being conscious of who we are because, as we've said many times before...
"I AM" is a complete sentence.
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