In earlier newsletters we explored how, according to the Tibetan tradition, everything manifests from the dharmakaya (source, the void, pure formless wisdom, consciousness, or intelligence), via the sambhogakaya (energy and light) realm into the nirmanakaya (physical) realm.

On our Soul's journey so far, through the stages of Aries, Taurus, and Gemini, our Soul has been forming and taking shape in the sambhogakaya or light realm. Now, as our Soul enters the Cancerian stage of it's journey, for the first time it condenses into physical matter and incarnates into form. This is the point where our Soul starts to experience existence within the physical realm. 

So what does this mean for us personally? Let's explore!

Why would our body of light want or need a physical incarnation? This could be for a number of reasons. First it offers an opportunity to take on a shape and form that allows us to be of service to humanity and all sentient beings. Second, it throws us personally into the spectrum of joy and suffering that makes up the human experience. This experience can, if we allow it, open our hearts and greatly increase our capacity for compassion.

The sign of Cancer is symbolized by a crab. The crab's shell is a container that protects it's sensitive innermost being. Likewise our physical body is also a container: a container of light that allows us, as a sensitive being of light, to navigate and negotiate this physical realm.

Forgetting Who We Are

However, as soon as we enter this physical realm, the density here, combined with the necessity to attend to our physical and material needs, causes us to quickly lose sight of our origin as a being of light. We forget who we are.

Karma and Samsara

The necessity to attend to our physical needs, food, warmth, shelter, binds us to this realm through repeated actions that contribute to our individual conditioning and which accumulates as our personal and collective karma.

If we don't wake up we can get caught in a repeating cycle of death and rebirth known in Tibetan Buddhism as 'samsara'. The solution is to remain awake and alert in our experience. This allows us to tend to worldly matters without attachment. In other words we become aware of the trap of worldly concerns and we develop a way of tending to our needs in a non-detached manner, keeping our attention on our light and our process of spiritual awakening.

Eight Worldly Concerns

Our mission as light beings is to wake up and remember who we are, while dwelling in these physical bodies. However, the Tibetan system has identified eight major worldly concerns that can distract us from our mission and keep us distracted by the physical realm. These are:

• hope for happiness and fear of suffering,

• hope for fame and fear of insignificance,

• hope for praise and fear of blame,

• hope for gain and fear of loss;

(From https://www.rigpawiki.org/index.php?title=Eight_worldly_preoccupations)

They are all manifestations of attachment and aversion in some form, and we will experience all these concerns throughout our life. The solution is to keep our attention on our path of awakening, tend to our material needs as they arise, but without getting too strongly attached or resisting too strongly. Balance is the key.

For example we may fear losing our job because we have become accustomed to a certain standard of living, yet the continued struggle to remain on top is stressful and damaging to our health and well-being. We might find that simplifying our life and accepting a lower paid job with less responsibility gives us more time to focus on our spiritual path.

Through self-observation we can deeply check in to see which of these eight concerns we are most prone to, and thereby keep ourselves in check.

Worldly Concerns and The Elements

Through careful self-observation we might notice an association with the elements:

If there is a dominance of fire in our energy mandala (birth chart) we might be more concerned with hope for fame and/or fear of insignificance.

If there is a dominance of earth in our energy mandala we might be more concerned with hope for gain and/or fear of loss.

If there is a dominance of air in our energy mandala we might be more concerned with hope for praise and/or fear of blame.

If there is a dominance of water in our energy mandala we might be more concerned with hope for happiness and/or fear of suffering.

Check in for yourself and see whether this resonates for you. It may be helpful to choose words that have similar meaning but are more familiar to you - for example 'praise/blame' could also mean concern about reputation, being knowledgable, or being right.

The point is not to ignore our worldly needs completely but also not to become so concerned or obsessed with them that we lose sight of our spiritual nature.

Personality-Soul Fusion

Our Soul is the 'Divine' aspect of ourselves: a journey of light through form over many lifetimes. Our personality is the 'persona' we adopt in order to navigate through this current lifetime. Incarnation into the physical realm is where our journey of personality-Soul fusion begins, which allows us to awaken to the truth of who we are as light beings.

Through the Cancer stage of our Soul's journey, we get to experience ourselves in a physical body, yet are challenged to remember our origin as conscious light. The journey through Cancer awakens compassion in our hearts, intuition in our minds, and offers an opportunity to awaken, as our physical bodies act as containers of light for our journey.

Once we awaken to our inner light we begin to understand the Tibetan's keynote for Cancer more deeply: