Create Good Things

Posts Tagged ‘Life’

Last time we discovered how Life and Death are intimately linked, and we said that it is very important for us to live life to the full. If you don’t know what it means to squeeze every ounce of living out of your life, set some time aside to carry out the following exercise:

The Last Day

Imagine that you knew you were going to die in exactly 24 hours. Let that scenario sink in, then ask yourself the following questions…

- What would you do in the next 24 hours that you hadn’t previously planned to do?

- What plans have you already made for the next 24 hours that you would now cancel?

- Which people would you make every effort to spend time with?

- What specific things would you say to these people which you wouldn’t otherwise have said?

Once you have answered these questions, you will soon realise whether or not you are living life to the full.

If you are then you probably wouldn’t do anything different over the next 24 hours – you would continue with your present plans and see the people you have arranged to see. 

If you are not living life to the full, however, the chances are that you would totally rearrange the next 24 hours so that you can ditch the trivial plans and spend time doing something more meaningful.

Now, imagine once again that you have just 24 hours left, and write down a list of ten things you wish you had done during your lifetime but never actually got around to. Here are a few examples to start the ball rolling:

I Wish I Had…

Visited the Grand Canyon

Prepared for the financial well-being of my loved ones

Climbed a mountain

Taken my partner on a second honeymoon

Been less judgmental

Helped people less fortunate than myself

You get the idea. Once you have a list of ten or more of these things which you would have liked to have done (and not before), you may continue…

Now that you have decided exactly what you would have like to have achieved during your lifetime, you have a perfect list of goals which you can now pursue with enthusiasm.

At this point, some of you will scoff. ‘Life is not that easy!’ many of you will exclaim. ‘You can’t just make a list of goals and then expect to achieve them. You need money to achieve some of these goals, and money takes work, and work takes time!’

We too used to think along similar lines. We used to think that life was difficult – that the only way to survive, let alone thrive, was to work hard and long. We used to think that you needed luck to be happy and do all the things you wanted to do. 

But we were wrong, and in the final part of this series we will explain why.

You can use your Inner Temple to explore aspects of the universe that most people don’t even think about. In this post and the next I will describe how to do just that so that you can explore both the nature of reality and the law of personal creation. Let use start with the Nature of Reality…

Exploring the nature of reality sounds quite daunting, but all it really involves is spending some time questioning just how real your inner reality is when compared with external reality. This exercise can provide many breakthroughs in your knowledge of your true spiritual identity and in the way you live your day to day life. To start exploring the nature of reality, proceed as follows:

Sit in your inner temple and look around. Now ask yourself: Is this place real? It may not be physical, because you know that you created it with your imagination, but is your inner temple real nevertheless?

Now think about the nature of physical reality. Is that real? You think it is, for you live in physical reality. But what if both inner reality and outer reality were just two different aspects of the same dream? What if your entire life is a dream and you are really the dreamer of that dream?

Explore this concept further in any way you choose. Here are some other questions you might like to ask yourself:

- If I am the dreamer of this dream of reality, where is the dreamer?

- What is the purpose of this dream of reality?

- Is physical reality nothing more than a mass illusion?

- If I am the dreamer, and my reality is my dream, how can I change the reality I experience?

- By asking these questions, am I, the dreamer, beginning to wake up within the dream?

- What would happen if I became fully awake and realised that my life is a dream of my own creation?

This exercise has nothing to do with health, wealth or success. Rather, it is an exercise designed to do just one thing:  help you further along the road to true awareness and clarity. Once you have carried out this exercise several times, you may well find that your new understandings of reality make the manifestation of health, wealth and success child’s play, but I will leave you to discover that for yourself.

Life is your teacher, and when you recognise that fact it can transform the perceived challenge of living into a remarkable adventure. When you choose to adopt the perspective that life is your teacher, things that might previously have annoyed, frustrated or upset you can instead help you to learn new things about yourself and the way you view the world. If nothing else, viewing life as your teacher will highlight how your attitude is largely responsible for determining your emotional state.

Working with life as a teacher means being open to whatever each moment has to offer and then asking yourself what you can learn from the experience right in front of you. The situation you find yourself in at any given moment might not always appear to be particularly positive at first glance, but it can certainly help you develop as a spiritual being if you pay attention. Here are three steps to doing just that…

Step 1 – Accept the Moment
The first step to learning from life is to accept the moment exactly as it is. Forget how you wish it was or wasn’t, and as far as possible try to get your own emotions and desires out of the way so that you can look purely on what is. Only when you allow yourself to see your situation exactly as it is (and no worse than it is) will you be in a position to proceed to the next step.

Step 2 – Look for the Lesson
Having been brave enough to look reality square in the face, look for the lesson that you can learn. It could be something rather obvious, such as the life teaching you to be more patient through a traffic jam. Or it could be something more subtle, such as life teaching you to take more educated risks when opportunity comes your way. Whatever the lesson is – and there is always one, if not several, in any situation – be sure to acknowledge it.

Step 3 – Learn the Lesson
Having established that life is currently going out of its way to teach you to be more patient, courageous, adventurous, daring or whatever else is applicable, choose to be more cooperative by deliberately cultivating that quality. Not only will this help you to get something positive from every situation that you experience, it will also help you to progress rapidly through those especially ‘challenging’ times that exist to teach us particularly important lessons.

Remember, whether the situation you face is easy or difficult, life is your teacher. Learn the lesson you need to learn and you will then be able to move on.

In Take Control: Part 1 it was said that, “The more you learn to control your life the faster you will grow spiritually, because less psychic energy will be used in coping with day to day events.” In this concluding post we discuss the three-step process that you can use to take control of your life in a more effective way.

Step 1 – Identify Problem Areas
If you are really honest with yourself then you probably already know what these areas are because your inner (or Higher) self will have been pointing them out for quite a while. Common symptoms of a lack of control are as follows:

Physical Lack Of Control - Indicated when you smoke too much, drink too much, take too little exercise or eat too much of the wrong kinds of foods.

Emotional Lack Of Control - Indicated when you lose your temper regularly, worry constantly about seemingly trivial matters or suffer from depression on a frequent basis.

Financial Lack Of Control - Indicated when you find it difficult to make ends meet, when your outgoings exceed your income or when you have debts which only get bigger.

Spiritual Lack Of Control – Indicated when you cannot find the time or energy for meditation, study time or actively using the power within you.

Write down which area you lack control in most and define exactly how your lack of control manifests itself in your life. For example, you might write: “The area in which I have least control is in my emotional life. This manifests itself in the way I always worry about trivial matters.”

Step 2 – Think Control
Now that you have defined the main area which lacks control, think about what life would be like if you had total control in this part of your life. How would your life improve? How would you feel? How would you act? How would you manage to stay in control?

When carrying out this exercise, imagine that you already are in total control. From this perspective, think about what things you do differently to maintain control. What habits do you have that help you stay on top of life’s circumstances? What habits do you avoid because they might weaken your control?

Looking at the situation as though you are already successful in having control is an excellent method of identifying what steps you need to take to actually succeed. For example, if you identify that you have lose control of your finances, imagine what you would be doing if you were in total control. You might see yourself balancing your cheque book on a regularly basis. You might see yourself curbing your spending habits. You might see yourself starting a part-time business of your own in order to generate more wealth for yourself. These are all steps which you can take now to start experiencing more control over your finances.

Step 3 – Take Control
Once you know where you need to have more control and what steps you could take to secure this control, all you need to do is take control. This step is both simple and difficult at the same time.

It is simple because you already know what you should do to get control. The last exercise revealed the steps you need to take – for example balancing your cheque book regularly or launching a part-time business of your own.

Yet at the same time this step is difficult to take because all of us tend to resist change to one degree or another. We feel comfortable with our routines, no matter how destructive these routines may be, and so taking new steps goes against the grain.

It makes us feel uncomfortable. It makes us step out of the comfort zone.

For this reason, many of you who study this tutorial will never actually get around to acting on it. You will read, nod your head, agree that taking control would be a good thing, but then postpone actually doing anything about it. If this is you then please think again.

If you continue with the habits you currently have, any area which is out of control will only become more so. Thus the challenge of regaining control will become even more difficult over time – not easier.

Look at an alcoholic. In most cases he doesn’t set out with a goal to become an alcoholic. In fact even the idea would probably have repulsed him. But he developed a habit for drinking regularly. Maybe just one or two each day in the beginning. And then three or four. He could have nipped this destructive habit in the bud way back then, but he didn’t really think he had a problem, so he let it continue. As the weeks and months go by, his alcohol intake increases to the point where he feels he simply cannot live without it. Now taking control is far more difficult than it would have been in the earlier stages, and so he probably won’t even bother trying.

If you lack control in any area of life right now, you must understand that now is the easiest time to regain the control you should have. Wait a day, a week, a month or a year and the task will only get more difficult. This is why debt snowballs, a little indulgence becomes a habit of over-eating and the occasional negative thought eventually gives birth to incessant worrying.

So the time to take action is now. Today. Within the hour.

Having identified the area you need to control more deliberately (e.g. finances) and the steps which you can take to regain this control (e.g. curbing your spending habits) you must now implement these steps without a second thought.

As someone who wishes to become more empowered and more spiritually evolved, you cannot afford to lose control over your life. If you act now and take one hundred per cent control then you will find that your ability to access and use the spiritual power within you increases. You become a cleaner, more effective vessel for psychic energy and thus your spiritual knowledge, power and abilities will also increase.

Look at anyone who is considered to be a master in the metaphysical or occult sciences. What sets them above so-called “regular” human beings?

In most cases it is an incredible sense of control over their own lives. They take charge of their physical bodies and they treat it like a temple, eating a healthy diet and taking regular exercise. They take charge of their financial lives by developing good spending, saving and tithing habits. They take charge of their emotional lives by refusing to give in to negative thoughts, always projecting positive, tranquil energy out to the universe. They take control over their spiritual lives by taking time out to meditate, study and develop their inner power on a daily basis.

Is it coincidence that spiritual masters of almost any philosophy are almost always in total control of their thoughts, actions, words and habits? We think not. Having control over your life and becoming a master go hand in hand. It is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to have one without the other.

Follow the advice in this tutorial and in a short time your life could be truly amazing. Debt and poverty will be replaced by healthy abundance. Worry and fear by faith and a strong belief in your spiritual ability to overcome all negative circumstances. Destructive physical habits by positive habits of exercise, taking a healthy diet and reaching the peak of your physical potential. Spiritual laziness will be replaced with a fervent desire to develop yourself to the full and habits of regular study and meditation.

“Taking control can be a magical key to your dreams.”

Taking control can be a magical key to your dreams. If you stop blaming the world, your parents, your environment, your boss, fate, destiny or some other external force and start recognising that you have the power to control every aspect of your life, you will quickly take a quantum leap into a new realm of life. You will climb up to the next plateau of self-knowledge. You will come to realise once and for all time that you do own your life, that you have got what it takes to make things happen and that you can succeed in achieving anything you set your mind to.

So start now. Identify any problem areas. Discover the steps you need to take to regain control. Then take control!