If I accept Sri Chinmoy’s admonition that we can approach true awareness EITHER by beginning with the “root” of physical function OR by opening our hearts and expanding outward, the question might arise which I consider superior.
While the entire “awakened adult” complex can be achieve from the root up (survival, ethical sexuality, mastery of the physical body, the power to create legal goods and services which can be exchanged with the community to produce enough money to support yourself and another) there is another consideration.
Remember the “Secret Formula”? This is a little equation extracted from “The Science of Getting Rich” by Wallace D. Wattles, one of the core sources for “The Secret”…which managed to miss a key aspect of what Wattles was talking about.
The formula is: Goal X Faith X Action X Gratitude = Results. What I hear missing from too many people who talk about “The Secret” is ACTION. You have to take massive, constant action designed to produce results whether the world cooperates with you or not. It is then, when your attitude is that of the buzzard who said “patience my ass—I’m gonna kill something!” that “luck” seems to happen.
But that’s not what I’m talking about. What I’m saying is that you have to have GRATITUDE for where you are, right here, right now. In other words, joy. Pleasure. We can be motivated by a sense of lack, or by a sense of plenty.
I don’t know about you, but if I have to make a choice between acting from fear, anger, or lack or a sense of joy, abundance and expansion, I will choose the second. There are those who embrace the former, and as long as that works for them, fine.
But if it doesn’t, there is another way, the path of love. Again: either works, but I’m suggesting it is possible to choose. And if you choose the path of love, then you don’t accomplish or work SO THAT you can be happy. You BEGIN with joy, and then perform your work from that place…
Grateful for another day of life.
Grateful for the chance to provide for people you love
Grateful for the chance to contribute.
Grateful for all that you have accomplished up until now, which has given you the confidence to know you can achieve this new and greater goal.
Get it? Love can be a wonderful starting place for accomplishment. And it has another advantage: happy people find it easier to attract others to their cause. People are attracted to positive energy. “The whole world loves a lover” as the saying goes. “Laugh and the world laughs with you. Cry and you cry alone.”
And another: you might die tomorrow. Life promises us nothing. Not another year, another day, another hour. Why postpone joy? Why wait until you’ve finished your project until you let yourself be happy?
And since there are plenty of examples of people who have accomplished AND enjoyed the ride…why not be one of them?
And another thing: the idea ‘anger is a mask over fear’ is testable: if you address the fear, does the anger vanish? A lifetime of experience and observation says yes. And the saying that “love and fear compete for the same place in our hearts” suggests that in the light of love, fear dissolves.
And another: most self-destructive behavior can reasonably be considered a lack of self-love. Any behavior you would not wish upon your own most beloved child fits into this category: any habit of eating or exercise, any relationships, and more.
So for health, happiness, success, and just general welfare, it seems reasonable to start with the heart, begin with love, and then move into performance from there, rather than feeling that “I’ll perform, and one day in the future feel good about myself.”
Let’s make it clearer: if you don’t love yourself NOW, you may be missing out on a critical fuel you need to push you and pull you through your moments of crisis, the “dark nights of the soul.”
So the Heartbeat Meditation and the Ancient Child meditation both proceed from the assumption that healing on this level is essential.
And the Soulmate Course will take the same position: that the process of maturation and healing necessary to find our partner in life is generative, involving all aspects of our being, and a healthy, balanced, loving way to approach becoming an Awakened Adult human being.
Namaste,
Steve
www.diamondhour.com
(p.s.--big announcement THIS WEEK about this course!)
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