This is part 9 of a series on Humility. To read the other parts, please visit our Humility Page. We have also have a series on Awareness , Stillness and Discipline so please check those out as well if you are interested. This series on humility is the fourth series in our Tao Te Ching Exploration Project. Throughout this project, we will be discussing some of the basic principles brought up throughout the Tao Te Ching. The principles we will cover are Awareness, Stillness, Discipline, Humility, Flexibility, Consistency, Connection, Service and Leadership. I am sure that there are many other principles that have been discussed throughout the text, but these are the nine topics that I am choosing to focus on over the next several months. I relate to each principle by focusing our attention on each of the nine chakras, based on the Q’ero Shamans’ chakra system that is explained in depth in Dr. Alberto Villoldo’s book, Shaman, Healer, Sage
In this system, the chakras extend outside of our human form, which allow us to recognize our greater aspects of being. With nine chakras and nine disciplines, we will end up with 81 essays on living with the Tao in mind throughout every aspect of our being. (Since there are 81 chapters in the Tao Te Ching and nine is a completion number, I felt this was a fitting tribute.) I hope that you are enjoying the series and will continue to explore with us throughout the rest of the project.
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The Ninth Chakra is everything.
The Ninth Chakra is who we are as existence, as the Universe, the clouds, everything. The ninth, in this case, is a flip side of the eighth. Eight is on the outside looking in at our lives – we are looking at our various levels of existence through gender, geography, lifetimes. Here we are in the ninth chakra on the inside looking out. We are saying that we are humbled by our existence, this huge amazing everything.
You look up at the sky and see clouds going past. You are part of that.
That is a part of you. You look at a tree and see how incredible it is and you know that you are that tree. There is tremendous humility in that. It is a grand humility – humility with a capital H. We are all these things that have been created. They all have their own beauty in this spectrum of everything.
When we are the cloud, we want to take care of that cloud.
There are cultures that have a beautiful practice of looking ahead many generations and trying to make decisions based on the effects these decisions will have on generations to come. They have a deeper understanding of the rhythm of things and how all of it fits together, one big energy form. You can’t exclude anything.
In the ninth chakra, nothing is excluded.
A body is just a body is just a body. There are millions and billions of them. But there are also millions and billions of ants and trees. There are all these things – a big form. There has been a world trend in the last few decades that we are eating a lot more meat. So we’ve grown all these animals to kill them for meat. There are just so many animals. This is a huge part of our greenhouse gas effects because we have all these animals that we are eating.
Growing all these animals could be the end of us. These animals are breathing out all this methane into the air and causing huge problems across the globe. Many others human habits are causing problems as well. This is poetic. It shows the timelessness of everything. We are insignificant. There are chapters in the Tao that talk of our insignificance. The straw dogs from Chapter 5. We are a pulse of this thing, this Tao.
Humanity itself is just a pulse.
The time that humanity has been around even compared to this one little planet in the entire solar system is so infinitesimally small that it doesn’t even hardly count in the big picture. We as humanity can be humbled by how arrogant we’ve been. We are very intelligent that we have come up with this understanding of our fatal planetary condition. The planet is not worried about the planet…honestly.
The planet is not freaking out and saying, “Oh my God, I’m gonna die.”
That is ludicrous. The planet knows that the planet is just energy. The planet will be the planet. It will do what it will do. It will still exist after humanity is gone. It is not the planet we need to worry about. It is not the planet that we ARE worried about. It’s the people! LOL… We are just going to run ourselves out of existence. That is the natural pattern and that is probably what is going to happen. There is great humility in that. Humanity is not the end all. We are more than our humanity. We are everything. When we are everything, there is no concern.
Yes, it is important that we take care of the planet.
Of course. It is important because we are in this play. We are the human beings in this play. And in this play we can’t forget about the planet because we messed it up! As a grand act of humanity, we will try and save our lovely planet in a way that it can help us to keep going. As our agreement in this grand play, we MUST save the planet. It is built into the very fabric of our being to do so because we signed on as humans.
Now, if you want, you can read these words and allow it to get you fully depressed.
You can sink into a “what’s the point” sort of mood. Or, you can decide to step up your game. You can see that it is not really about surviving or not surviving. We will all die eventually. It is about how you play the game. It is about how you live your life every single day. It is about taking a moment, every so often to look up at those fabulous stars and remember how small you are. And how big you are.
So what do you think? What were you thinking as you read this post? I would love to hear from you. Please add your comments in the box below.
