From International Viewpoints (IVy) Issue 4 - December 1991
New Realities
By Mark Jones, USA
Giving Focus To Our Lives
We've probably all experienced times in our lifes when we've really
been intent and focused on something that we wanted to accomplish. At
such times it's likely that we felt excited and exhilerated. The
intention, the focus and the feelings go hand in hand. The more we
have of them the higher will be the probability of achieving what we
want.
Unfortunately, we are prone to live much of our lives without being
totally sure of what we want, or to be really focused and intending to
get it. We may not have decided or specifically defined what we want.
Instead, we may have settled for something which seemed safely within
our means, or adopted suggestions from our parents, peers or gurus.
The philosophy which so many of us studied emphasized the formulation
of goals and purposes as major orientation points. For the most part
these were to be measurable in physical universe terms, i.e. terms
that could be statisized, such as a completions, income, profits, or
status. We may have even adopted measurements of progress toward our
personal goals, such as successfully responding to particular sets of
commands or introspection questions to end phenomenon with a status
symbol attached to them.
These did provide focus, and when we added our intention, often lead
to feelings of excitement. How much they contributed to our personal
evolvement as spiritual beings is another question? If, as some
suggest, we share basic purposes in each lifetime of wanting to become
more evolved, spiritual beings; what might be our specific wants and
objectives? Would our focuses be more on the measurable results of
what we do or accomplish, or on the qualities we develop in ourselves
in the activities in which we engage?
What sort of aims?
If we chose to be leaders, would we measure our success more by the
area or number of people led, or by the loving, responsible attitudes
we had and imbued by word or deed?
As theta beings, what inner growth would we like to achieve?
Would we desire to be infinitely loving without conditions?
Would we want to have character based on ideals and principles that
expressed our highest sense of ethics.
Would we want to have an attitude of truly granting beingness to
ourselves and others as we are, warts and all, or to be critical and
judgemental of ourselves and others?
Would we want to have such trust in ourselves and our alignment with
the universe which supports us as to be confident of the successful
outcome of whatever we become involved in?
Would we want to achieve status in order to have a sense of self worth
or to be so well 'centered' and 'aligned' with our inner or higher
self so that we know and own our true worth?
Would we prefer to have a temperament of patience and trust or of
impatient demanding of perfection?
Would we want to be forgiving of ourselves and others, or to hang on
to the guilt, shame or blame?
Would we prefer to view the universe as friendly or as threatening?
Would we prefer to interact with others and the universe with
synchronisity or with force and domination?
Would we rather operate as beings with joy and excitement or in pain
and boredom?
Would we prefer to be in radiant health with abundant energy or to be
ill and drained?
Would we prefer to be explorative and creative or strive to repeat
what we'd learned with uniform perfection?
Importances
Knowing what we want to learn and achieve, perticularly within
ourselves is critically important. Since we are constantly changing,
and hopefully expanding, these objectives can change and may often
need to be thought, out afresh. Obviously, on whatever we decide, the
number of levels we've completed doesn't measure our progress toward
them. Only we can do that.
Whenever we give ourselves clearer direction and focus, our success in
and enjoyment of life will improve. Even having better focus on what
we want to achieve today will increase our excitement and results in
that period. The more clearly that we can visualize the qualities we
want, and the type person we want to be in our activities, the more
joy and fulfillment we'll have in this learning experience and in our
lives. There's a lot of truth in the old adage, "It's not whether we
win or lose, but how we play the game". To this might be added, "It's
deciding the type player we want to be, and the developing the
qualities we want to be, and the developing the qualities we want to
have within ourselves that makes the game of life exciting and fun".
Isn't that what evolvement is all about?