SUCCESS 6 OF FIRE
TOTALITY 5 OF FIRE	FIGHTING KNIGHT OF CLOUDS: MASTERY OF MIND	THUNDERBOLT MAJOR ARCANA XVI
REVERSE		REVERSE
STRESS 7 OF FIRE

SUCCESS

This character is obviously 'on top of the world' right now, and the whole world is celebrating his success with a tickertape parade!
Because of your willingness to accept the recent challenges of life, you are now - or soon will be - enjoying a wonderful ride on the tiger of success. Welcome it, enjoy it, and share your joy with others - and remember that all bright parades have a beginning and an end. If you keep this in mind, and squeeze every drop of juice out of the happiness you are experiencing now, you will be able to take the future as it comes without regrets. But don't be tempted to try to hold on to this abundant moment, or coat it in plastic so that it lasts forever.
The greatest wisdom to keep in mind with all the phenomena in the parade of your life, whether they be valleys or peaks, is that 'this too will pass'. Celebrate, yes, and keep on riding the tiger.


Watch the waves in the ocean. The higher the wave goes, the deeper is the wake that follows it. One moment you are the wave, another moment you are the hollow wake that follows. Enjoy both - don't get addicted to one. Don't say: I would always like to be on the peak. It is not possible. Simply see the fact: it is not possible. It has never happened and it will never happen. It is simply impossible - not in the nature of things. Then what to do?
Enjoy the peak while it lasts and then enjoy the valley when it comes. What is wrong with the valley? What is wrong with being low? It is a relaxation. A peak is an excitement

TOTALITY

These three women are high in the air, playful and free, yet alert and interdependent. In a trapeze act, nobody can afford to be a little bit 'absent' even for split second. And it is this quality of total attentiveness to the moment at hand that is represented here.
We may feel there are too many things to do at once, but get bogged down in trying to do a bit here, a bit there, instead of taking one task at a time and getting on with it. Or perhaps we think our task is 'boring' because we've forgotten that it's not what you do but how you do it that matters. developing the knack of being total in responding to whatever comes, as it comes, is one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself. Taking one step through life at a time, giving each step your complete attention and energy, can bring a wondrous new vitality and creativity to all that you do.


Every moment there is a possibility to be total. Whatsoever you are doing, be absorbed in it so utterly that the mind thinks nothing, is just there, is just a presence. And more and more totality will be coming. and the taste of totality will make you more and more capable of being total.
And try to see when you are not total. those are the moments which have to be dropped slowly, slowly. When you are not total, whenever you are in the head - thinking, brooding, calculating, cunning, clever - you are not total. Slowly, slowly slip out of those moments. It is just an old habit. Habits die hard. But hey die

FIGHTING

The figure in this card is completely covered in armor. Only his glare of rage is visible, and the whites of the knuckles on his clenched fists. If you look closely at the armor, you can see it's covered with buttons, ready to detonate if anybody so much as brushes up against them. In the background we see the shadowy movie that plays in this man's mind - two figures fighting for a castle.
An explosive temper or a smoldering rage often masks a deep feeling of pain. We think that if we frighten people away, we can avoid being hurt even more. In fact, just the opposite is the case. By covering our wounds with armor we are preventing them from being healed. By lashing out at others we keep ourselves from getting the love and nourishment we need. If this description seems to fit you, it's time to stop fighting. There is so much love available to you if you just let it in. Start by forgiving yourself; you're worth it.


One moment it was there, another moment it is gone. One moment we are here, and another moment we have gone. And for this simple moment, how much fuss we make - how much violence, ambition, struggle, conflict, anger, hatred.

Just for this small moment! Just waiting for the train in a waiting room on a station, and creating so much fuss; fighting, hurting each other, trying to possess, trying to boss, trying to dominate - all that politics. And then the train comes and you are gone forever

THUNDERBOLT

The card shows a tower being burned, destroyed, blown apart. A man and a woman are leaping from it not because they want to, but because they have no choice. In the background is a transparent, meditating figure representing the witnessing consciousness.
You might be feeling pretty shaky right now. as if the earth is rocking beneath your feet. Your sense of security is being challenged, and the natural tendency is to try to hold on to whatever you can. But this inner earthquake is both necessary and tremendously important - if you allow it, you will emerge from the wreckage stronger and more available for new experiences. After the fire, the earth is replenished; after the storm the air is clear. Try to watch the destruction with detachment, almost as if it were happening to somebody else. Say yes to the process by meeting it halfway.


What meditation does slowly, a good shout of the master, unexpectedly, in the situation where the disciple was asking some question, and the master jumps and shouts, or hits him, or throws him out of the door, or jumps over him ... These methods were never known. It was purely the very creative genius of Ma Tzu, an he made many people enlightened.
Sometimes it looks so hilarious: he threw a man from the window, from a two-story house, and the man had come to ask on what to meditate. And Ma Tzu not only threw him, he jumped after him, feel on him, sat on his chest, and he said, "Got it?!" And the poor fellow said, "yes" - because if you say "No", he may beat you or do something else. It is enough - his body is fractured, and Ma Tzu, sitting on his chest, says, "Got it?!"
And in fact he got it, because it was so sudden, out of the blue - he could never have conceived it.

STRESS

How many people do you know who, just when they were completely overloaded, with too many projects, too many 'balls in the air', have suddenly come down with the flu, or taken a fall and ended up on crutches? That's just the sort of 'bad timing' the little monkey with the pin in his hand is about to impose on the 'one-man-band' pictured here!
The quality of stress represented by this card visits all of us at times, but perfectionists are particularly vulnerable to it. We create it ourselves, with the idea that without us nothing will happen - especially in the way we want it to! Well, what makes you think you're so special? Do you think the sun won't rise in the morning unless you personally set the alarm? Go for a walk, buy some flowers, and fix yourself a spaghetti dinner - anything 'unimportant' will do. Just put yourself out of that monkey's reach!


All private goals are neurotic. The essential man comes to know, to feel, "I am not separate from the whole, and there is no need to seek and search for any destiny on my own. Things are happening, the world is moving - call it God ... he is doing things. They are happening of their own accord. There is no need for me to make any struggle, any effort; there is no need for me to fight for anything. I can relax and be." The essential man is not a doer. The accidental man is a doer. The accidental man is, of course, then in anxiety, tension, stress, anguish, continuously sitting on a volcano. It can erupt any moment, because he lives in a world of uncertainty and believes as if it is certain. This creates tension in his being: he knows deep down that nothing is