Achieving Balance

Developing mental discipline, understanding your body, and working on your spirit can help you achieve balance.

To develop mental discipline, the first step is to be able to silence the mind when required. Activities such as meditation can help you achieve this. Once you have the ability to silence your mind, you can begin to eliminate the polarities that exist within your mind. To identify these polarities, begin by identifying those things of which you approve and those things of which you disapprove. Once you’ve identified these polarities, you can balance them by accepting those things of which you disapprove. This is done in order to remove the source of confusion and blockage within your mind. As you smooth out each distortion, accept the completeness of your own conscious mind. Next, you can repeat this process only this time examine your feelings toward other people. Balance how you see these people by seeing the opposite qualities in them. Once you have done this, accept these people as whole and complete.

The biases and distortions of your mind are made manifest by your body. Study your own body well and develop an understanding of how your biases and distortions are manifest by your body. Then, in your mind's eye, take the opposite biases and distortions and see the result of how these would be manifest by your body. Once you have completed this exercise, accept your body as whole and complete and balanced.

With your mind balanced and single-pointed and your body balanced and comfortable with its distortions, the greater work on balancing your spirit can begin. Your spiritual body is an energy field that provides a channel for intelligent energy. Blockages in your energy centers need to be eliminated in order to permit the free flow of this energy. Balancing your spirit to achieve this free flow is subtle work and relies on the foundation laid by the work on your mind and body.

For the balanced individual, each situation is viewed as any other and no situation carries an emotional charge. Each situation is simply viewed as an opportunity to assess whether or not one may be of service. Until this balance is achieved, however, there is benefit in allowing yourself to experience your emotional response so that you can make use of this catalyst. Suppressing your feelings is not advisable in most cases.

An exercise to help achieve balance is to take your spontaneous and honest response to a catalytic situation and consciously identify the opposite feeling. The goal is to be unmoved by the experience, however this does not mean you are being indifferent or simply objective. Balance requires observing each situation with compassion and love. When balance is achieved, the catalytic experience will no longer be needed and will cease. This requires much practice and the rate of your success is solely dependent upon your will. Focusing on keeping your goal in your mind will boost your efforts.