Four of Cups — Spiritual Message of the Day

We may want to listen to the wisdom of our hearts, but we often fail. It’s hard to tell the difference between the directives of the heart and those of our desires; it’s hard to differentiate between our intuition and the hopes and fears that arise from our ego. So if we don’t know which is which, how can we know what to trust? Succinctly, the answer is this: When the message is one of love and compassion, it comes from the heart; when it is of fear and separateness, it comes from the ego.

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The healing power of love

When we experience love, our bodies produce hormones that have healthful benefits. In short, positive feelings like love promote good health. In fact, studies at the Institute of HeartMath have shown that merely focusing our attention briefly on a loving memory and its associated positive emotion will bring us health benefits.

For more about this, read the article called A change of heart changes everything in the June 2005 issue of Ode Magazine.

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Two of Cups — Spiritual Message of the Day

“We must begin with a specific relationship with God; later we come to the understanding that He is all in all.” — Swami Prabhavananda

The Two of Cups typically shows two people who seem to be initiating a close, intimate relationship. We may consider this to be a metaphor for our essential relationship with the Divine, although there is an essential difference in that the Divine is indefinable and non-concrete. So how can we find and experience a relationship with something that is both everything and no-thing? As noted in the quote above, we can begin with an approximation, an incomplete and imperfect representation. While it is true that this is a limiting concept of what is infinite, ineffable, and omnipresent, it does serve a valuable purpose since our human need to perceive a tangible form with our senses makes it possible to focus on and relate to the Divine when represented by a form rather than try to focus on the formless Divine.

This is why many religious traditions offer specific images of the Divine to facilitate worship, such as a crucifix, a statue of the Buddha, a painting of Guanyin on a hanging scroll, or a sculpture of Vishnu. Even though such representations are limiting, those religions realize that at the beginning of our journey toward divine union, conceptualizing divinity in concrete, human terms can facilitate our meditation upon, devotion to, and relationship with the Divine.

So feel free to use such a representation as a point of devotional and meditational focus in order to foster a love of and passion for the Divine. Just don’t forget that any such image, icon, or idol is merely a symbol, the proverbial finger pointing toward the Moon and not the Moon itself.

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Suit of Pentacles — Spiritual Message of the Day

Many New Age “gurus” tell us how to bring abundance into our lives, and there’s nothing wrong with that in and of itself. However, a fundamental trait of spiritual evolution is self-sufficiency, which means being in a state wherein our sense of well-being is no longer dependent on the world around us. When we release our attachment to the things of the material world, our joy and serenity are stabilized by our focused attention on our Higher Self and unaffected by pleasure or pain, success or failure. And in accordance with that, the spiritual messages of the cards in the suit of Pentacles are aimed at helping us transcend materialism rather than merely indulge in it.

Five of Cups — Spiritual Message of the Day

If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion. — Dalai Lama

Sometimes the Five of Cups reminds me of someone indulging in a pity party. When we’re on the outside looking in, it’s tempting to judge those people harshly, but when we’re the woe-begotten one, it’s easy to justify a morose celebration of all that has gone wrong. In either case, though, it’s important to remember that we are all doing the best we can with what we’ve got. Then, setting aside both judgments and justifications, it’s important to know that there are ways out.

One way out of a pity party is to help others who are worse off than we are. First of all, this puts our own problems into perspective, as indicated by the old saying, “I was sad because I had no shoes until I met a man who had no feet.” But secondly, and more importantly, it presents us with the wonderful opportunity of helping others, as explained in the above quote from the 14th Dalai Lama.

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Ten of Wands — Spiritual Message of the Day

When life seems too arduous and our load to heavy to bear, it helps to consider if perhaps we have taken on too many obligations or bitten off more than we can chew. Or maybe we have allowed ourselves to be burdened by things that other people feel we should do. In either case, when we realize that we have let ourselves be “should upon,” it’s time to reexamine what we want to do in life. It’s time to realize that the countless mundane things we think we “should” do are weighing us down and blinding us to the only thing we truly should do, which is to remember the reality of our divine Self.

That feeling of being weighed down and trudging through life may be our deep, unconscious realization that we are not doing the important work of seeing the Divine in everything around us and in everything we do. But if we can see that, we will release our sense of being burdened so that we may travel our path in ease.

As a postscript, I want to point out that this does not mean we should neglect or walk away from our true responsibilities to other people. Instead, this message includes reevaluating what is important and reassessing what we can do to shoulder our responsibilities. For example, if you have children, can you walk away from the responsibility of taking care of them? No, of course not. However, that certainly doesn’t mean that you have to work long hours to give them a wealth of material gifts. Giving them your presence and being involved in their lives can be a spiritual practice in itself, one that can renew your soul as much as it enriches their lives.

King of Wands — Spiritual Message of the Day

“The goal of many leaders is to get people to think more highly of the leader. The goal of a great leader is to help people to think more highly of themselves.” — J. Carla Nortcutt

There are many self-proclaimed spiritual leaders vying for our attention (and our resources) and seeking to lead us. Many have great charm and strength of character, but does that mean they have spiritual awareness? We should not mistake charisma for spiritual enlightenment or we may end up following a magnetic leader whose spiritual message isn’t valid. To evaluate a spiritual leader, we must also evaluate his or her message. Is it based on universal love? Does it place the spiritual above the material? Is it of the ego or of the divine Self? And, above all, does it call forth our own divinity?

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Ace of Cups — Spiritual Message of the Day

I have found that if you love life, life will love you back. — Arthur Rubinstein

An ace is the first card in its suit, and the suit of Cups is about love, so one message of the Ace of Cups is to see love first. Before we see flaws, weaknesses, or vice; before we see differences, disparity, and separation; and before we see invective, abuse, or insults; before any of that, see love first. Love everyone, and whether they are in our presence or merely in our thoughts, see their good first and foremost, for that is what’s truly real. All else is illusion, either theirs or ours.

Many people resist hearing this message, insisting that we have to face the evil in others. The problem with that argument is that it misunderstands this message. This message doesn’t mean that we should ignore the problems in others. It merely says that we should always see love first and realize that the negative in life is either a matter of our illusions or a manifestation of the illusions of others. Then, with that realization, we can act from a place of love.

Recall the Kabir quote that was mentioned in a prior post about the King of Wands:

“Do what you do with another human being, but never put them out of your heart.”

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Three of Cups — Spiritual Message of the Day

Did your mother ever tell you that you couldn’t be friends with someone she considered to be a “bad influence”? Or did she encourage you to play with a child who she felt was a “good influence?” Even as adults our friendships influence us and help shape who we are.

Traveling a spiritual path, we may begin to find that some friends aren’t on the same wavelength that we are now tuning in to. As a consequence, we may find those connections diminishing as we share less in common with those people. This should not be seen as a judgment of those people, though, since everyone travels their path in their own time. The challenge, though, is to evaluate old friendships and to find new ones that resonate with our new path in life. After all, the saying that “you are the average of your five closest friends” may be a generalization, but there is truth in it.

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Death — Spiritual Message of the Day

Death is said to be the great equalizer since it claims us all. But more importantly, it is a great instructor. When faced with death, many people finally realize what is important in life. They may see that old grudges aren’t worth holding on to or that spending time with loved ones is more important than working nights and weekends in order to have a beautiful home they only ever sleep in.

A suggestion for when this card shows up is to consider it to be an imaginary version of a death sentence. Ask yourself what changes you would make in your life if you found out that you had only a short time to live. What’s stopping you from making those changes now? Take this as a wonderful opportunity to learn the lessons that impending death teaches before the actual specter of death looms close at hand.