Man is a creature of habit.

It is a bit like this goat and the rope. The goat revolves around the tree and keeps on revolving even though the rope becomes shorter and we end up suffering.

But still, we continue revolving in the same direction because that is the only way we (think we) know.

If we manage to look at the situation from a different angle, we might revolve in the other direction and the rope will come loose on its own. Or if we try to lengthen or extend the rope, it might become longer. But because we think “if I revolve in the other direction it might be difficult” or “I don’t want to do something I have never done”,  “who knows what people will think”, we create restrictions ourselves and continue to suffer. There are no restrictions, but we create them and we decide “that is how things should be”. How much money we should earn, what characteristics a future husband/wife should have, how we should raise our children, how life should be “smooth”! But what is a “smooth” life, really? It is all something based on our desires and we shorten the rope out of our own doing.

Many things will happen again in 2017.

Especially from late January to early February, second half of June, from mid-October to early November, we will see things that might take us out of our comfort zone (that we created ourselves).

Whatever happens is just a message to nudge you to “review your own restrictions”. But in order to do that, we need to be able to listen to the real voice deep inside us. And to be able to listen, we need the mind to be more quiet. Because if you listen to your brain saying superficial things like “if you don’t buy this now you’ll suffer a loss”, “flatter this person if you want to get promoted”, “if you don’t lose more weight your ideal partner will never appear”, “if you got fired it is because of that boss”, then your mind will be muddy and your real voice will not be heard.

When something happens, if you focus on how your ego or reputation was tarnished, whose fault it is, how much damage you incurred, the real voice of the soul will not be heard. It is more important to focus on what kind of message the event is trying to tell you. Each and everyone around you is your teacher.

There are many ways to make your mind still and listen to your inner voice, such as Yoga, mediation, self-reflection, etc. Once we start seeing ourselves from a higher perspective, stillness arises and we can hear the inner voice telling us what is truly important to us. Om Shanti.