“Imagine that from now on, there is nothing you ‘must do’ in your life.
If you would really grant yourself that freedom, your life would consistently flow smooth and easy. I understand that this runs counter to much that you have been told by your parents, teachers, employers, etcetera. Society imparts on you that you have to work hard and diligently to develop the necessary skills and abilities to cope with reality. It tells you to keep small and focus on what is possible rather than on what you dream and hope for. Not only society tells you this, even a lot of spiritual teachings have a rather stern and disciplinary outlook on how to achieve enlightenment.
Imagine that you release the very idea of goals and achievements. Imagine saying to yourself: I am as I am, and I am completely okay as I am. What liberation! If you can allow yourself to be this relaxed, things will start to flow in your life, and you will see that exactly the opposite happens from what society tells you to expect. Things will start to happen for you without having to work hard for it. If you can be at one with yourself and accept things as they are, you will invite a flow of peace which will bring miracles into your life. By accepting yourself as you are, you say ‘yes’ to life, to being here on earth, and you allow yourself to receive anything you want simply because you are who you are, an indelible part of God, cherished and loved unconditionally.”
“Let joy be your guideline” – December 8, 2019 – Mary, channelled by Pamela Kribbe
To relax into trust – that everything will be all right, and that in the end we will receive what we truly desire – is among the more difficult tasks of human life. For the Saturnian type of personality, this is not merely difficult but almost inconceivable: unrealistic, illogical, impossible. Those who praise hard work, discipline, seriousness, and responsibility often cannot even grasp the grounds for such a view. The mind rejects it outright, unable to perceive that at its core this stance is nothing other than the capacity for deep relaxation – a release from the neurotic aspect of our need for control and achievement. It is unconditional love, which can take root only in the soft soil of acceptance: acceptance of things as they are, equally open and welcoming to every seed that falls upon it.
I have found that one of the most effective ways to work with the mind’s resistance is to honour its desire to present its arguments and defences – to listen, truly listen, to what it has to say. And Saturn has much to say. As the archetype governing the laws in the material world, Saturn plays a decisive role in shaping our sense of inner worth, insisting that we achieve through our own effort. He is the Ruler who is strict yet just, who sets conditions by which the individual is evaluated. He represents conditional love, and because those conditions are fair, we willingly submit to them. The argument of the archetype of hard work is simple: if we wish to feel genuine satisfaction in what we have achieved, we must have laboured for it ourselves. What comes too easily or is received without effort is rarely valued and, more importantly, it adds nothing to our most essential creative work: the formation of the Self. The difference between “I made it” and “I received it” is profound.
And yet, once we have listened to Saturn’s arguments, we may answer that the coin has another side. There is also the path of least resistance: acceptance, surrender, moving with the flow of life, unconditional love, creative uncertainty, and the simple enjoyment of existence here and now. For those who have not yet learned Saturn’s lessons of inner strength, the message articulated by Pamela Kribbe is not only inappropriate; it can even be harmful. But for those who have long borne the weight of responsibility, discipline, seriousness, and relentless effort, it is precisely the message they need. It tells them that the time has come to place this burden into the hands of Life itself – because this is the only way to bring the limited will of the ego into alignment with the more encompassing will of the Self.
If the mind resists understanding or accepting this message, further arguments may be offered. The mystics tell us that the doorway into the Kingdom of God is the present moment – the life of here and now. This teaching admits no exceptions, at least none that I know of. The surest way to miss entering through this doorway, then, is to wish to be other than we are, or to place conditions upon life before consenting to accept it. The crucial word here is acceptance, and acceptance is impossible when consciousness is perpetually preoccupied with improvement.
Osho is particularly eloquent when he observes that the incessant striving for betterment is a trick of the mind – a way of rejecting the truth of things as they are. Only a relaxed mind can perceive reality without the distortions of its neurotic layer, and yet this is the most difficult state to attain. For it is not something that can be achieved through effort. It is something that happens. One cannot will it into being through conscious intention or personal force; one can only remain firmly rooted in the intention for it, patiently awaiting the moment when the pendulum begins to swing in the opposite direction of its own accord.
Change that occurs without the intervention of conscious effort is beautifully illustrated in the fairy tale of Sleeping Beauty. The princess awakens from her century-long sleep without doing anything at all. When the right moment arrives, the prince appears, kisses her, and she returns to life. Even the prince need not display heroic feats: the thorny hedge that had barred all others from the castle suddenly parts on its own. Symbolically, this act of disenchantment is governed by time: a certain span must elapse in which we entrust the life unfolding beneath the surface of consciousness to complete its work. And when the moment is ripe, doors that were once firmly closed open of their own accord.
My own experience accords with this symbolic reading. I did not arrive at a relaxed state of mind through force of will, but when the time was right. That moment came when the harsh, constricting Saturnian attitude toward life had reached its extreme. I felt the relief of setting down a heavy burden. It is like lifting weights in a gym. To strengthen the muscles of the ego, one must carry weight and exert effort. When one leaves the gym, the weights remain behind, but the strength remains in the muscles of the body. That strength was the true purpose of the labour. Once the ego has grown resilient and learned its boundaries, we may once again plunge into the waters of life, this time without fear of drowning.
Then synchronicities begin to appear, allowing things to unfold with ease – not because effort was bypassed, but because the just ruler Saturn has chosen to reward the efforts made earlier.
One of the defining characteristics of the process of individuation is that it follows the natural rhythm of life. It cannot be rushed or coerced, for it unfolds through inner maturation and in close collaboration with the unconscious. It takes longer than we wish and inevitably leads through periods of confusion and powerlessness. Yet within this lies a hidden blessing: we learn what truly lies within our control and what does not. We also learn to love without conditions: to accept and to relax, trusting that within us works a wisdom far greater than anything the conscious mind can conceive – the same wisdom that knows when the thorny hedge around the palace must withdraw, so that the prince may enter.
Kameliya Hadzhiyska
