Masters of the Spirit World

QUESTION: Masters, being humble has played an important role for me and has helped me to develop mind and spirit through the internal art Tai Chi Chuan (37 years). With this humbleness I have felt bashful and embarrassed when I am teaching or sharing my experience. I feel I need to share and express my art further but these feelings are holding me back. I have tried and at times the bashfulness and embarrassment can be overbearing. Please can you advise me?   ~Graham, UK

ANSWER: Some of the most spiritual people of our time—Mother Teresa, Gandhi, Sai Baba, and Pope John XXIII—were truly humble individuals. Being humble, which is to walk away from your ego, has absolutely nothing to do with bashfulness or embarrassment. A humble soul is not arrogant, proud, haughty, or assertive, but moves forward in a state of reflection and inner peace.

To be embarrassed or bashful, one must think one is supposed to be something one is not. This is a judgment of the ego. Your feelings do not result from humility but are actually life lessons you are not confronting. A very essential ingredient of being humble, and understanding yourself as a soul, is to love everything about yourself. Your being embarrassed or bashful demonstrates your belief that you are not all that you should be.

But who is telling you that? It is coming from your experiences and memories inside. Whenever you sense any discomfort, stop and say “what am I feeling?”—not just the discomfort but the exact sensation. Once it is identified, ask why it is there and/or where it came from. You are going to find that beliefs given you by other people during your upbringing are now influencing the way you feel about yourself.

Your life lessons can be learned, and then the next step is to find if there is anything else that is preventing you from loving yourself. You came from Source and are as magnificent as it is, so you don’t have to be anything but unconditionally loving and humble. Use that training which creates a reflective state resulting in true inner peace, and be at peace with your life.

QUESTION: Masters, what is the life lesson in feeling intuitively close to someone who is with someone else? This isn’t the kind of experience I would have sought. I have enough already to learn out of a spouse with personality disorder and two young children. I seek companionship and respect and ask you if you can see that as a life lesson I might have planned. It was heartbreaking to let go, but I fear I am getting better with accepting disappointments. I move on, and I surely love and respect myself tremendously. What is the best way to have a beautiful love lesson and experience?   ~IP, India

ANSWER: You have convinced yourself that the only thing that will make you feel good in this lifetime is a relationship with someone who will respect and comfort you. You set expectations for situations that come to you and are disappointed when they don’t work out the way you had planned. That is a need to control people and things.

The disappointments will continue to appear in your life if you continue trying to direct things. When you lust after a person who is unavailable, you are saying that person should come to you and the person’s partner should disappear. You are attempting to control two people. Control is an illusion and will work only with the consent of those being controlled.

When you say you love and respect yourself tremendously, you are lying to yourself. Souls can be disappointed only when they set themselves up for a failure. If you loved yourself, you would have enough love and respect for yourself to satisfy your needs while you work through those lessons you are already aware of—your spouse and children.

You imply by your desire to find companionship that you share nothing with your children and that they do not respect and love you. Is that true? And why is that? Will you not let them share the need for love you have because you need adult interaction? What about them? They need the opportunity to have companionship and respect, too.

QUESTION: Masters, I’m having issues with my family. As I learn more about myself I feel like an adult trying to make things right with a group of children. My mother is always ordering me around and now I have refused to take care of my uncles. This has spoiled the relationship between me and my mother. Some people I know say that if one wants to be successful in life, be it wealth, health, or family, one must have the support of the parents. Is this true? Being the eldest among 3, I’ve always been unfairly burdened with taking care of my brother and sister, and even my cousins. I think it’s time for me to live my life. I told my mother that she should understand that everyone is responsible for their own actions. And she shouldn’t expect me to take care of every single damn person. I feel that as long as I say no to her, it’s ok for me. I’m wondering whether my bad relationship with my mom will affect my success in life. I’m so confused! ~C.H.J.J., Singapore

ANSWER: You know the answers to some of your questions because you made them a part of your question. People are responsible for their own actions—both what they do and what they don’t do in life. You need to honor yourself by respecting the way you live your life and by not letting anyone tell you what you must do.

You are correct that it is time for you to live your own life since you have discovered that you have freedom of choice. To live your own life, you must examine the belief systems by which you make your decisions. Are you making all your choices based on your considerations, or are you doing things because of what others are telling you?

Do you believe that without your family there is no chance you will be successful? Does that mean that those whose families have died before they start working will fail and can never have health or wealth? What about orphans? Does it make any sense to believe that having the support of a family is a critical aspect of success unless you are going into business with your family?

If you accept what “some people say” you are saying these friends, or maybe even strangers, know more about you than you do. They know what is best for you without seeing the choices presented to you. Does that make you feel uncomfortable? It should. Take back your power, as you did with your controlling mother, and do what feels right for you.