How To Have It All

Those of you who are familiar with the mind-body-spirit shelves of your local bookshop will have heard of the idea that we all 'create our own reality': that we can create the world we want for ourselves simply through the power of our imagination. All we need to do is to imagine the mansion and the limousine and they can be ours.

I'm damned if I can get this to work for me. What about you?

I'm not saying that such an approach can't work, simply that there is an inherent difficulty that often tends to be overlooked: it isn't all that easy to think entirely positive thoughts. Some people can do it - and I rather suspect that they will be inherently successful people, who will have the mansion and the limousine - if that's what they want - even if they haven't read the 'how to' books at all. For the rest of us, each positive affirmation, each "Every day in every way I'm getting better and better!" tends to be balanced out by a distant echo of "No I'm bloody not!" or "This'll never work!" or the heart-sickeningly common "I don't deserve it!" We fail to create a positive reality for ourselves because (arguably) our own negative thoughts get in the way.

A lot of writers market techniques to get around this problem by finding ways to defuse such negative thoughts. Some of these books may be very successful. They can certainly make their writers a lot of money, and many people may find that such things work. But they are inherently sticking-plaster solutions. They don't address the root source of the negative thoughts: an attachment to the idea of having the house and the mansion, of having and doing and being particular things in the physical world.

As I discussed in the previous post, attachment to such transient things will always lead to unhappiness in the long run. Even the brand new car will rust. The mansion will crumble away. Even your brand new TFT screen will finally flicker and die. Sorry - I'm going to have to pause for a moment while I wipe the tears off the keyboard. But do you see where I'm going with this? It's only when you can break that attachment that unhappiness can finally be overcome. It's only when you no longer care for such transient things that you no longer have such negative feelings about them. It's only when you have learnt - by following Eckhart Tolle's teaching or whichever path you may choose - to identify instead with what Tolle calls "an unfathomable sense of peace" that you no longer find yourself muttering those unhelpful negative echoes.

Why should you think "It'll never work!" when you say an affirmation if you no longer care so deeply whether it works or not? And why should you say "I don't deserve it!" if you no longer judge yourself in terms of your worldly acquisitions, if  that "sense of peace" informs you that you have no reason to doubt your own worth.

It worries me here that I sound a bit like a street corner preacher, for they annoy me as much as they probably do you. But I'm not talking here about buying into some rigid belief system, which is going to bind your brains and bypass rational thought. I'm talking here about something which is real and which you can experience for yourself, irrespective of what you may - or may not - believe.

And when you are there, you can finally have it all.  "When your inner dependency on form is gone," says Tolle, "the general conditions of your life, the outer forms, tend to improve greatly. Things, people, or conditions that you thought you needed for your happiness now come to you with no struggle or effort on your part".

Why is that? Because now that you no longer need them, you are no longer afraid that you won't get them. Neither are you afraid of losing what you have. Your negative thoughts are no longer pushing these things away from you. You can finally have your heart's desire - and you can enjoy it. Yet it is your heart's desire no longer.

 

These may also be of interest:

The Heart of The Secret

What If I Lose This?

Equanimity

Comments

[Jan]

Or as Neale Donald Walsch would say, "We're making it all up"!

[Andy]

Although at a one level attatchment to form means external objects at a deeper level it refers to thought forms.

For example, the collection of thoughts that make up who we are. "I'm a nice person", "I'm attractive", "I'm a good parent", "I'm hard working", "I'm a good driver", "I'm good at my job", "I'm depressed"...the list is endless. Although at first these may seem like simple facts the attatchment to these ideas can cause great pain when they're challenged or they or taken away. For example, if I insinuated you are not a good parent would there be a rising of defensiveness or even anger in you? yet if I insinuate you aren't a good astronaught would you feel the same emotions?

[Mr Zip]

There are two implications in that last post: 1. that you are a parent 2. that you are not an astronaut. I wonder which would annoy me more, were they directed at me?

[Andy]

Hey, don't take it out on me just because NASA failed you at the centrefuge test ;-)

Actually, I'm not a parent either but its probably one of the more common examples as most of us have been on one side of the equation. Every time I suggest to my brother that his child does need some discipline and shouldn't be eating all that junk (and is probably a large contributer to his ADD) I get blanked for 6 months.

Its strange when you start seeing all the ways people identify themselves and the lengths they unconciously go to preserve it - then you notice you do a lot of the same things yourself....

[Mr Zip]

I am of course a very good astronaut, but I have to keep it secret to prevent fans tearing at my clothes.

I didn't bother with NASA, but achieved astronaut status by affirmation. I told myself I could be an astronaut and eventually, I realised that I was a very good one indeed. But by then I no longer wanted to be one so I became an artist instead.

I'm finding it harder to make the affirmations work this time.

[Secret Simon]

Do I detect a touch of cynicism over there on Planet Zip? It reminds me of the guy lying starving on the floor of a woodland clearing, surrounded by trees and bushes bearing fruit. When a passer by asks him why he doesn't eat, he says he has faith that god will provide him with all the sustenance he needs. He doesn't need to go to the trouble of reaching out and plucking the fruit for himself.
The story does not end happily.
Trusting doesn't mean you can just sit around on your ass. You need to reach out and pluck the fruit for yourself. You need to apply to NASA (or else pay the Russians an awful lot of cash) if you want to be an astronaut. And Mr Zip needs to pick up a brush from time to time if he wants to be an artist. Fortunately he does. And he is.
And once he gets a brush in his hand, *then* he can trust...

[Secret Simon]

Jan - Neale Donald Walsch's Conversations With God books were where I first came across the idea of 'creating your own reality'. I shall be writing about them in the blog...
Andy - The point you make is very important. Most of us are probably even more attached to our ideas about ourselves - and what others may think about us - than we are to our beloved possessions. It's no good giving up everything and going to live in a cave if all you do is sit there and think about what a great hermit you make.

[Mr Zip]

Sorry, I was being flippant. I have previously, to a limited extent, proven to myself the value of affirmation. I had my most successful promotion board after days of reading afirmations written specifically for the purpose. (Didn't get me promoted, but that's another story.)

I think where my belief system fails is when it's asked to take on board the idea that by simply affirming and believing, Universal Abundance will give me, oh, a lot of dosh and a 4x4.

I don't want the 4x4, by the way.

[Andy]

I've did a lot of affirmation work and its all come true. However, I must say that I wasn't affirming for money,a 4x4 or anything else most people would think would fullfill them - I was asking for things that felt right inside. If nothing else the affirmations broke down my resistence to the ideas (we all unconciously sabatoge ourselves) and allowed me to do the things that brought about what I had asked for.

[Secret Simon]

As you say "the affirmations... allowed me to *do* the things that brought about what I had asked for". I think that is very important. " *Simply* affirming and believing", to use Mr Zip's words, is not enough. The affirmations are not a substitute for action. They are used to enable your actions to be effective.

[Kren]

I read The Power of Now awhile back, and it made a big difference to me.
That was a few years ago, and I'm not sure if it's discussed in the book, but I think the reason we can't get rid of bad thoughts while trying to think of good thoughts is that the mind is it's own tiny universe, in which the law of "for every reaction..." is abided.

I'm going to go buy the book tomorrow and see.

RICE

[Simon]

Hello and welcome, RICE. What you say about action and reaction is an interesting idea. I recently attended a talk about positive affrimations and I asked the speaker about this problem of getting a negative echo. She put it down to a part of ourselves being afraid that we would be disappointed in what we were affirming and trying to make sure that we didn't get our expectations up only to get hurt later. She suggested that by understanding that this part of us really had our own interests at heart - albeit very misguidedly - we could speak to it nicely and try encourage it to come on board and be positive like the rest of us. Worth a try, I reckon...

[Kren]

RICE, is just my universal way of saying ... I gues... "wellness"

I find that speakers idea to be nothing but true when I think about it. Whenever I think about a future situation that may be, I imagine the worse, so that I may not be disappointed, should the worse happen. I've known WHY I always thought that way, for I've forced myself to practice that... just in case.

Worth a try maybe, but that's a conversation that would echo for decades... no need.

[Kren]

Oh, and thanks for the welcome Simon.

[Simon]

Hi Kren. I got your name right this time! Yes, I think that suggestion I mentioned is only a sticking plaster solution. If we can really get in touch with our true nature, as I'm trying to suggest in this blog, then such strategies won't be needed because the negative echo won't be there any more.

Did you get The Power Of Now, by the way?

[Kren]

Hi Simon,

Got it, but I'm in the middle of another one now, I'll read it again in a couple of weeks.

Rice

[babe in the woods]

"If we can really get in touch with our true nature...then such strategies won't be needed because the negative echo won't be there any more."

Thank you for approaching this topic from a different (and refreshing) perspective.

Studies have shown that excess and overabundance do not buy lasting happiness or satisfaction in life.

If the root cause of one's core unhappiness and inner dis-ease isn't addressed, throwing more, bigger, better things into the aching void doesn't work.

Less excess means less stress. This is why the Voluntary Simplicity movement is so popular today. Voluntary Simplicity has nothing to do with involuntary poverty.

Quakers have always believed in voluntary simplicity or "plain living" and prudent usage of the earth's resources. (One should not use more than his/her fair share). Materialism and excess are seen as distractions that dilute productive thought and spiritual energies, and take one further away from the Divine Light and Divine Truth.

Voluntary Simplicity is about choosing to live more by coveting less and freeing oneself from the clutches of gratuitous consumerism to seek a higher consciousness of contentment.

I think this prose by William Henry Channing sums it up beautifully:

This is To Be My Symphony

To live content with small means
To seek elegance rather than luxury,
And refinement rather than fashion.
To be worthy, not respectable, and wealthy, not rich,
To study hard, think quietly, talk gently, act frankly.
To listen to stars and birds, to babes and sages with open heart.
To bear all cheerfully, do all bravely,
Await occasions, hurry never.
In a word, to let the spiritual, unbidden and unconscious,
Grow up through the common.
This is to be my symphony.

W.H. Channing

[Secret Simon]

Welcome babe - it's great to hear from you. I agree with what you say and Voluntary Simplicity sounds like a great idea. I feel there might be a danger, however, that this strategy might be mistaken as being an end in itself. 'Plain living' doesn't assure you of spirituality any more than material possessions can buy you happiness. They may make the path to spiritual development easier, perhaps, because it is easier to turn your back on attachment to material objects when you don't have so much to lose - but the ego can attach itself to the idea of being a holy renunciate just as forcefully as it can to that of being a big cheese with a fast car and a mansion. Both can be used to build up false images of ourselves which the spiritual path requires us to renounce.

[Liaara Covert]

Another way to consider this theme is to think of "having it all" from the point of view of ego and "having it all" from the point of view of your spirit. They differ greatly.

[Simon]

Hi Liara - Yes, a good point, they do indeed differ greatly. From the point of view of spirit, we can 'have it all' in a single moment of stillness. Just the moment itself is enough. But from the point of view of the ego, we can *never* have enough. However much we have, we always want more. That is the nature of the ego.