Today is the Presidential Inauguration Day. It is greeted by cheers or sadness or anger. It marks a shift in the endless cycle of collective thinking. No matter how you interpret this shift, whether forwards or backwards, it can be viewed as an opportunity for growth as individuals and for society. Keep in mind that the state of the world often mirrors back to us our own inner state of light and shadow. How we react and respond to the outside world determines how long we have to stew in the karmic cycle, or how soon we can transcend it.

I came across a newsletter article that puts the current transitional period, both as individuals and society, into a much wider lens. The article offers ancient spiritual explanations for the current state of the world and of ourselves. It was humorously and insightfully written by Joan Pancoe, a spiritual teacher, trance channel, karmic astrologer and psychic therapist in NYC since 1976. Please enjoy:

“Many have shared with me how sad and disheartened they’ve felt about the state of the world, especially since the election. The good news is that: Sadness is not a toxic emotion that will adversely impact one’s health. That being said, if we do want to consciously allow our emotions to flow through faster, it helps to:

1. Remember that we’re in an ephemeral plane of constant flux on inner and outer levels and that which rises falls away.

2. View reality as a dream, Cosmic or Divine Play, in other words, live entertainment, also called: Leela.

3. Practice a daily mantra of “This too shall pass.”

4. Cultivate an attitude of gratitude for what we do have now.

Conversely, it’s important not to indulge in, act out on or repress feelings of fear, anxiety or metaphysical angst, not to mention varieties of anger and impotent rage, as these emotions DO make us sick—sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. Added to this, whatever emotional tone we emanate is affecting the mass tone in the ripple effect. The challenge is to continuously release and dissolve toxic emotions or thoughts ONCE they arise, as this is one of the few things we actually do have absolute power over.

This grows increasingly more consequential moving forward, because we may be feeling more aware than ever before of our powerlessness over mass events unfolding and the illusion of any semblance of control over external people, places and circumstances disintegrating at a more rapid rate as our new normal.

What we can do is make it a priority to cultivate and maintain the witnessing perspective of the soul, where everything is always evolving perfectly for our karmic healing and soul growth in the Divine Plan—personally and en masse—and hold the faith in this as the permeating primary tone of our Self and our personal reality. As Ram Dass says:

“We are in the perfect circumstances for our Souls to learn whatever they designed this whole game to learn. What is freedom? It is awareness not trapped in attraction or aversion.”

If you are feeling really stuck in negativity or despair and find the above ideas challenging to implement on your own, I encourage you to read Thich Nhat Hanh’s book Transformation and Healing to help get you started.

The Taoist point of view is that everything is part of the Tao, i.e., Divine or Flow of Life, and that the conscious energy which makes up the Earth, which is a plane of duality, moves naturally in cycles of life and death, yin and yang, light and dark, expansion and contraction, moving forward and retreating, and so forth.

Right now, linear time is accelerating more rapidly in this New Age in human history because of what I call “the Quickening,” i.e., a continuous downloading of high frequency energies from beyond this plane to assist in speeding up the evolution of consciousness.

This means that, within the divine orderly chaos of the Universe, the mass consciousness has been stretched like a giant rubber band—as far as it could go without splitting apart. And what we are experiencing now as a natural part of this extreme unprecedented expansion is an even more extreme retraction or snapping back in reaction to this stretching open.

If we view the mass consciousness as one giant organism, or as I like to call it, One BEING with billions of faces, WE have reacted en masse from having too much Light and Unity Consciousness enter too fast, so that a natural reaction of flipping back into our collective shadow of darkness and separation has occurred. Ultimately, this will come into a balance of not “either/or” unity or separation but “and” and “both” simultaneously.

I have seen this phenomenon occur hundreds of times on a personal level when working with clients over the last 40 years. When people in psychic therapy raise their vibration and spiritually expand or accelerate more rapidly than their little self or ego/personality can handle, then after the therapy is over, there is sometimes an extreme retraction or snapping back, like an over-stretched rubber band when released.

This means that they regress into old self-destructive karmic behaviors that feed their default karmic rut of identity and gives them the illusion of control through safety, security and familiarity. I call this pattern the “Spiritual Cha-Cha,” one step forward and, at times, a giant leap backwards. And I’ve learned to view it with cosmic humor as an inherent part within the spiraling evolution of consciousness.

But now we are witnessing this Spiritual Cha-Cha as part of US, i.e., the mass consciousness. It’s our challenge, or as I like to call it a huge EGO—f**kin growth opportunity—to view this as an innate, organic part of how the Flow of Life moves. And, imperatively, we need to find ways to use this shadow part of the dance as rocket fuel for the evolution of our consciousness.

Since linear time is operating faster, what once took over four centuries, such as the decline of the Roman Empire, as part of the spontaneous movement of the Tao, might now take just over four years, barbarian hoards and all:). We’ve lived through many dark ages before in human history and learned that it’s all an integral part of the Earth Game. It just means that it’s time, once again, to batten down the hatches, retreat to gather our forces and sustain and feed the Light with like-minded souls, while we wait for the perfect time in the Flow to expand outward again.

Synchronistically, this time in history also coincides with the possible ending of the Kali Yuga in 2025, as predicted by some sages in the ancient Vedic spiritual philosophy of India. The ancients understood time as a circle, not linear, and the circle of ages is comprised of the yugas. Like the four seasons in our year, there are four yugas in the full 24,000 year cycle of the life of the world (Mahayuga). Each cycle has distinct themes and spiritual lessons for humanity. Satya Yuga or the Golden Age, is the longest, with each one getting successively shorter (4:3:2:1) until the cycle starts again.

We are just ending the shortest and darkest era (Kali Yuga), which by some estimates began 2,700 years ago, and lasts only one-tenth of the cycle. It is epitomized as one of darkness and ignorance. Here is a compilation from various Vedic texts and writers about the Kali Yuga:
“People slide further down the path of dishonesty, with virtue being of little value. Passions become uncontrollable as unrestrained sexual indulgences and manipulations run through society. Liars and hypocrites rise. Important knowledge is lost and scriptures become less and less common. The human diet is now ‘dirty’, and people are not even close to being as powerful as their ancestors in the Satya Yuga. Likewise, the once pristine environment is now polluted. Water and food become scarce, as do family bonds.” Sound familiar?
“The end of this Yuga will inevitably be followed by cataclysmic earth changes and civilization collapses, as is characteristic of the transitional periods. We need to be aware of these greater cycles of time that govern human civilization, and the changes that are looming on the horizon. In the Mahabharata—the longest poem in the planet’s history; the Kali Yuga is considered the Darkest Age, a low point.”

So, even if the Kali Yuga does wind down in 2025, the predictions of volatile earth changes, which occur during the transitional periods between yugas—evidenced by the current upswing in earthquakes and increasing incidences of extreme weather phenomena—indicate that we may be in for an external bumpy ride for some time to come. This means, for most of us, for the rest of this incarnation. In 10 years, we may actually look back at this period, even with all the upsets and instability going on, as a relatively peaceful calm before the storm of the earth changes.

What to do? The Vedic scriptures and major Taoist teachings concur: Meditation and various spiritual practices are the natural medicine to help us survive during tumultuous times such as these. Now more than ever, we must strengthen our personal practice and act as a light for those around us who are lost. To find inner peace within the most unpeaceful of times is true spiritual attainment and a most worthy goal.

When I look into the eyes of Syrian refugees, I see hopelessness, suffering and despair. When I look into the eyes of unemployed Trump supporters standing for hours in free food lines, I see hopelessness, suffering and despair. And, believe it or not, when I’ve looked into the eyes of my clients, the ones that are the most unhappy and dissatisfied are the billionaires and super-models.

Why? Because no matter how much cash and how many prizes they accumulate externally, that can still never fill the inner black hole or void that can only be filled by something spiritual and infinite. Their greatest fear is that if they lost their money or beauty, nobody would love them just for themselves. And since they instinctually know that their external gains are all relative and ephemeral and could possibly disappear in any moment but will certainly all fall away in time, they live in terror of this ultimate outcome.

And the lesson? That all pain and suffering feels the same from the inside and that the only spiritual solution is to cultivate compassion for suffering in all forms. Whether it be our own, the ignorant, asleep or mentally ill:

The Bodhisattva Vow:

Beings are numberless, I vow to awaken with them.

Delusions are inexhaustible, I vow to transform them.

Reality is boundless, I vow to perceive it.

The awakened way is unsurpassed, I vow to embody it.