You know that you arrive at times in your life when you are not coping.  These are periods or episodes of personal crisis when you are feeling acute anger, fear, sorrow, loss, depression or any combination of these.  Some outer situation or relationship is going all wrong.  Something or someone is hurting you or those you love or perhaps even you and your whole situation or way of life.  There may be an anxiety over some threat.  Whatever the cause may be, it seems impossible to have peace of mind.  Your usual pleasures or pastimes do not work.  You cannot get into a flow state.  You are in a personal hell without relief.  Getting drunk or taking a drug doesn’t work.  Numbing your brain and nervous system does not help because the problem, the crisis, is in your mind.  

In a very crucial sense, any personal crisis is your mind.  The unhappy mind is its own black hole of self-enclosed negativity.

Modern psychiatry and psychotherapy are sometimes able to help a little.  But intellectual analysis of your mental pain is trying to convince you that you are not intellectual or analytical enough.  It tries to tell you that if you were more efficient, scientific and logical with your brain, the brain could save you from unhappiness, from emotional distress.  It tells you that since you heart is giving you mental trouble, you should somehow cut your heart out and live as a well-adjusted calculating machine, as a more efficient biological robot. 

There is a transcendence of the emotional, unhappy and crisis-ridden mind that does not require suppression of the heart, that does not require you to live in a cold, hard universe of pure logic.  It does not kill love in the name of a sort of macho ruthlessness.  One goes beyond both intellect and emotion.  One does not seek refuge from the heart in the brain.  Instead, the heart is given wings that take it into oneness with the true Self or higher Spirit in oneself. 

According to the ancient teachings of Vedanta, our True Self is Atman, which Sanskrit term means “self” or “spirit”.  In Vedanta, Atman, our True Self or Transcendental Spirit beyond Heart (soul or causal body), mind (emotionally disturbed Ego) and body (clever brain and nervous system) has the innate nature of Ananda, peaceful Bliss or continuous happiness and contentment.  In this ancient teaching, we are fundamentally serene, joyous and free beings of Divine love, compassion and empathy.  But our Heart is steeped in the aberrations of the unhappy emotional mind and the nasty viciousness of the calculating and cold brain of neurotic intellect and pride, which is a lying machine of pretence and deception.  The sunken Heart of darkness, despair, frustration and anger, instead of flying up into union with the Eternal Spirit, becomes a veil over the Spirit, the Atman, which means that our innate Bliss or happiness is not experienced by us.  Fascinated and entrapped by our outer mind and body, we suffer chronic episodes of delusion and pain, of doing harm and being harmed by others.  Caught in karmic causal cycles of repeating crisis and inner emptiness, we never seem to be able to rise in Spirit beyond all the troubles and making of trouble for others.

Most modern people are dismissive of the ancient teachings of Vedanta and the Vedantic-like teachings of Chinese Mahayana Buddhist Tsan (Zen).  Such teachings seem to recommend celibacy and giving-up on personally fulfilling life.  But there is also an ancient non-celibate, non-ascetic form of Vedanta in the Agamas, the Secret Teachings of Shiva.  In the Tantra or system of Shiva, you learn to see how Spirit Bliss is reflected in any intense pleasure or even any intense feeling or reaction.  According to Shiva, intensity is a mirror in which we can have Divine Self-discovery.

Our Heart needs to learn unification with Spirit, oneness with Atman, True God-self, with the Divine level of existence.  This is therefore the central meaning of Yoga.  The organ or body of unhappiness needs to be cleansed and uplifted into perfect reflection of the Supreme Light and Bliss of pure Being or Brahman, as it were.

According to the ancient teachings of the East, both Zen/Vedanta and Agama/Tantric, we do not understand that deep ignorance and impurity of our Heart or Soul is creating and maintaining all our mental and physical sufferings.  We therefore do not want to see a personal crisis or misery as a spiritual failure, a lack of higher wisdom.  So we blame people or circumstances for our unhappiness, frustration or sorrow, for our anger, depression or boredom.

If you agree that spiritual awakening, a very High Self-realization, is the real key to long-range solving of your troubled personal existence, you will of course still have the problem that when you are in a personal crisis, anxiety, sorrow or depression, you would like an immediate relief of some kind prior to success in Yoga or attaining permanent Vedantic Bliss.  But if you have really understood all this, you might realize that a sudden awakening of transcendental Self-awareness is possible in any unhappy and intensely difficult situation or episode.  You are not prevented from refusing to go into your usual emotional procedure or futile brain calculations and machinations.  Instead of seeking relief, you seek an awakening of Higher Awareness.  Relief is a by-product of Awareness or Self-awakening, of Inner Truth.  When Truth is more important than crude relief, you get a more subtle and genuine relief.  Spiritual Truth is the Guiding Spirit who helps you make it through difficulties into a life of genuine Tantra and Yoga where Self-realization can be activated and developed.

You may not be able to have an instantaneous ecstatic Divine experience at will, but you can shift your consciousness into the Inner Truth or state of Heightened Awareness that serves as your inner bridge toward yet higher states and realizations.  So do not underestimate the power of simple Truth beyond emotional reactions or proud intellectual brain assertions or anxious calculations.  The Inner Truth position of consciousness is basic sanity, basic goodness.  It is always available to you and will not fail to help you through any crisis or difficulty.  Truth is your natural inner Savior and Guide.

Practice the hearing and speaking of absolute, sincere Truth.  Truth-training will give you more spiritual progress and inner strength for dealing with your life and the world that you have seen so far.  The more you love Truth, the more your other loves will be fulfilled.  The more you love Truth, the more you will be shown the way beyond all cruel, nasty and evil people or situations on the Earth.  Greater and brighter Truth in your consciousness is the transcendence of personal crisis.

The Wheel of Guidance Oracle and any other Wisdom Oracle is always available to help you strengthen your Inner Truth through interactive questioning extensively, thoroughly and deeply.  When you feel a crisis coming on, when you get that familiar taste of disappointment, sorrow, angry turmoil or fear, do not go into your usual futile trips about it.  Instead, work with Wisdom-Oracles and shifting into your Inner Truth position.  This will give you more of a real handle on the trouble as well as a more genuine relief.  Your personal strategic decisions about your life and destiny will become more patient, wise and compassionate.  You will be less of a neurotic monster in conflict with the other neurotic monster.  And on a world scale, the evil American government, global warming and other world problems and threats will be less discouraging for you.  Truth will connect you with the Cosmic Power that sets you free.  Truth is no mere platitude, but a living force of Soul in the truly Human Being.  Truth is the Eye of the Heart.  Truth saves you from a futile life of proud, clever and ugly lying, phoniness and self-deception, which only brings suffering, pain and death.