Maha Tarka - Journaling Questions to Prepare for 2024
In the Kriya Yoga approach to living, we have a method of introspection based on the 12 areas of life or houses of the Zodiac called “Tarka” or review. At peak moments in the year (the calendar new year, the astrological new year at the Spring Equinox, on our “solar return” (birthday), we take the time to do a “Maha Tarka” – the Great Review. We pause and look at each of these areas of life to become more self-aware and consciously create a life of happiness and fulfillment.
Though you don’t want to spend your life looking backward, you must see what has transpired in order to manifest the future with wisdom and insight.
This is different than setting resolutions; it is time to dig deep within yourself and see what is working and what is not working. Where change has been started, and where it needs to be maintained.
Take some time to peruse your 2023 journal or your calendar before we begin. Light a candle. Take a couple deep, centering breaths. Then ask yourself these questions, taking notes as we go.
MAHA TARKA:
1. How was your relationship with yourself this year? Are you pleased with your personality? Are you the person you have dreamed of being? What are your three greatest strengths? What are your three greatest challenges? Are you utilizing your greatest strengths to meet your greatest challenges?
2. How is your relationship with your money and your time? Have your spending habits been in alignment with your values? Perhaps take a day to do an energy audit and see where you are devoting your time and energy. Often self-esteem is related to our relationship with money. Do you feel worthy?
3. Were you able to communicate your needs and desires in a way that you felt heard this year? Was your mind focused on the positives, or sinking deep into the negatives? How can you refocus to the attitude of gratitude? How can you speak and write more clearly and with greater truth, balanced with kindness?
4. How did you nurture yourself this year? How is your home life? Did you create a stable, comfortable, safe place to retreat to daily? Have you healed your Mamma issues? Are you living in a space that can nurture and grow you?
5. Did you have fun this year? If not, why? What is fun, anyway? Have you carved out a portion of your life for pleasure, joy, and creativity? How are you creatively expressing yourself? Speaking of creations – how is your relationship with your children? Are you giving them the space to become themselves, or are you trying to live your dreams through them?
6. How’s your day job? You know, whatever it is that you do that pays the bills. Is it meeting your needs and creating a sense of fulfillment? Is it sustainable? If not, can you change it? Could you perhaps volunteer or offer help to someone in a way that would give you a sense of purpose? What do you do on the daily to maintain a healthy body and mind? How do you feed yourself? Remember -- how you live your days is how you live your life; do your days reflect the life you dream of living?
7. Let’s talk about your relationships with lovers and business partners. How’s it going? Not a list of their foibles and problems – you. How did you feed and grow the relationship? Is the relationship meeting your needs? Are you communicating well? Has the relationship become transactional, or is it based upon actual connection, love and respect?
8. What is your relationship with your spiritual self? Do you have a moral compass within which you can operate? What is it that you actually believe? Have you embraced the religious structures of your childhood, or examined them and moved onto something else? Are your sexual needs and desires being met? Where are the very depths of you feeling complete, connected, and fulfilled?
9. What skills and talents did you develop this year? If you were unable to travel to see and experience new places, how did your mind travel and grow? Did you learn another language, take or teach a course? Engage in philosophical discussions, or just try a new cuisine from another culture? Where has your world expanded?
10. How’s your relationship with authority figures, the boss, people in charge? Have you managed your Daddy issues or find them triggered this year? Do you find yourself blindly following a pathway towards an old goal or career path, or do you have a soul purpose and calling that fills you up? What is your legacy project and greater work in the world? If you died tomorrow, what would you leave behind that would be meaningful to you?
11. What friend and peer groups are you actively participating in this year? Are those friendships filling your cup, or draining you? Where do you need to edit those interactions and create deeper roots? What do you aspire to accomplish? Do those friendships lift you higher, or distract you from your path? What dreams have you deferred? What are you waiting for?
12. Finally, deep in your own consciousness, were you able to tap into your reserves of strength, or did you tend to wallow in ways of being that lead to your own self-destruction? Where are your blind spots, the well-worn ditch in the road that you slide into when you are tired, lonely or afraid? Is your own mind your servant, or your master? How can you create deep, systemic change in the way you interact with your mind so that it operates in service of the true desires of your spirit and soul?
