"Until you value yourself, you will not value your
time. Until you value your time, you will not do
anything with it."
M. Scott Peck
What's New at Mystic Visions Website? Website Update
We have had quite a number of new visitors to the Discussion
Forum this month. We welcome them all, and encourage YOU to
drop in and view the new posts. You might even want to add your
own thoughts! You are more than welcome! Take a look:
Mystic Visions Discussion Board
I admit it. I got carried away this issue, and so the articles
are on the long side. However, I hope you will find them
beneficial and thought-provoking.
The first article is about Death, and the second is about
developing Financial Wealth. Surely there is a contradiction? Not
really. Whilst it IS important for us to consider our death and
always live with its presence foremost in our minds, it also
makes perfect sense, whilst we are alive, to develop the
conditions most congenial to our growth. Having a degree of
wealth definitely takes your mind away from survival needs, and
allows you to focus on higher issues. It is within this context
that the issue is discussed. It is also necessary to dispel
certain incorrect conceptions about the process of wealth
creation that many people have.
I also concede that the article does not give you any specific
techniques, but deals with general concepts. However, it is
already long enough, and its purpose is to work upon your
thinking on this thorny issue. Future articles will discuss more
specific ideas of the wealth creation process itself.
Best Wishes,
Asoka Selvarajah
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There is only one certain fact, and that is that every one of us
will die one day. Yet, most of us go about our lives as if death
only happens to other people. As young people, we feel immortal.
As we get older, we study ways to prolong our lives through
exercise, diet and a range of other precautions. Our society goes
to incredible lengths to conceal death from us. It is even
possible to go for many years in the West, even an entire
lifetime, without ever seeing a dead person.
All of this is a delusory way to live. The one inevitable
prediction we can make is our own death. However, it seems to
affect very little of what we do on a daily basis. So, what
should we do and how can we live healthily, and yet also have an
awareness of our own mortality to guide us?
The first thing to say is that your attitude to death is largely
determined by the meaning you give to it. The life you live
results largely from this one belief. If you believe that
death is the end, you will naturally tend to focus entirely upon
this one life, and attempt to extract maximum pleasure,
prosperity and longevity from it. However, if you believe in
rebirth, your attitude will be quite different. Thus, the life we
live is largely determined by our views on death.
Excessive focus on acquiring earthly possessions, purely for
their own sake, is a foolish approach to life. As you know, you
will not be taking any of it away with you when you go. The
Buddhists paint an interesting picture of a man who has fallen
off a cliff and is rapidly heading to his death. On the way down,
he achieves great wealth, builds a palace for himself, and even
has other people, who have also fallen off the cliff, give him
praise and attention. Yet, the only certainty is that he is going
to hit the ground, and when he does, it is all over! Funny
analogy? That is what almost every one of us is doing right now.
Understand this. There is nothing wrong with experiencing
abundance and seeking the best in life in all ways possible.
However, the attachment, the mental attitude, is key. Instead of
materialistic obsessions, we should work to develop detachment.
This does NOT mean you have to abandon your wealth, possessions,
your friends. In and of themselves, these are not evil in any
way.
In "Joyful Path Of good Fortune", Geshe Kelsang Gyatso lists the
eight worldly attitudes we should strive to be free of:
(1) Being pleased when receiving resources and respect;
(2) Being displeased when NOT receiving resources and respect;
(3) Being pleased when experiencing pleasure;
(4) Being displeased when NOT experiencing pleasure;
(5) Being pleased when enjoying a good reputation;
(6) Being displeased when NOT enjoying a good reputation;
(7) Being pleased when receiving praise;
(8) Being displeased when NOT receiving praise.
If you can work with these ideas, and seek continually to reduce
their effect upon you, your life will rapidly gain more balance
and spiritual richness. Interestingly, none of the above
injunctions prevent a full participation in life. It is the
ATTITUDE of that participation that counts.
At the end of your life, all you can take away is who you are and
what you have become. If you leave with little more sense that
that which you arrived with, your life has indeed been wasted.
However, if you have laid your treasures up in heaven, then your
death will be a peaceful one.
When Jesus told us to do precisely this, he was talking about
cultivating your spiritual life with all your strength. The
Buddhists say the same thing. Even though reincarnation is a firm
part of their teaching, they nevertheless believe that our great
opportunity is RIGHT NOW, and that rebirth as a human being is
exceedingly rare....
Imagine a vast ocean, and on that ocean floats a single rubber
ring. At the bottom of that ocean lives a turtle. This turtle
surfaces only once in a hundred years. Now, the Buddha asked, how
long do you think it would be before his head should chance to go
through the rubber ring? The disciples replied that it would take
an unthinkably long time. And that, said the Buddha, is how rare
and precious your human life is, and how difficult it is to be
reborn as a human being again!
Think on this story the next time you consider yourself
immortal, or waste hours over frivolous activities! Such a
meditation would give you a very different attitude to life and
death. It would certainly galvanize you into action; to work
within a spiritual tradition for the seeking of the spiritual
answers you need. We stand on the edge of a bottomless pit, yet
all we do is party all day long!!
Again, according to Buddhist philosophy, our mental and emotional
state at death largely determines the type of rebirth we take.
This is why it is so important to work upon ourselves throughout
our lives. When death comes, we are ready and our mental state is
such as to promise the best conditions for the journey ahead. By
contrast, most people never consider death much at all, and are
totally unprepared when it calls. Thus, their mental state is
filled with fear, their spiritual treasure chest is empty, and
they face a bleak future.
Here are a few steps you can take to put these thoughts into
practical effect:
(1) Meditate upon Death. Here is a sentence, taken from the
Buddhist tradition, that you can ponder frequently in meditation:
"I will definitely die - and I could die today."
This statement is in total contradiction to the way people live
their lives. We seem to think will definitely NOT die, and
certainly not for a long time anyhow. Nobody really think that
they could die TODAY. Yet, it happens all the time to young and
old alike. There is no set time or allotted span.
Therefore, meditate upon the above statement frequently and make
a mantra of it. In doing so, you will become gradually aware of
your own mortality in a very real sense. Far from being morbid,
it will actually teach you to value each moment you have and not
waste it AS IF you are immortal!
(2) Meditate upon the process of dying and death. See yourself in
the process of death and the disintegration of your own body,
whether through natural causes or through accident. If you have
seen the death of another person, ponder it and realize that
something similar will happen to you too. Continue the process
until everything rots away and even the bones turn to dust. Do it
frequently until you realize that death really will happen to you
too.
Incidentally, this is NOT some form of goal-seeking visualization
on death. You do not increase the danger of causing your own
death by doing it! The point is to do it unemotionally and with
detachment; as a mere observer. You do not place any degree of
positive energy into it, as you would with visualization to
obtain a definite result. You are merely observing and developing
within yourself a realization of an inevitable truth about
yourself.
(3)Live your life with an awareness of death. Do not look upon it
as an enemy, but rather as a friend. Through death, you will have
a chance for a better rebirth, where you will be in an even
better place to make spiritual progress towards the goal of
liberation. With this awareness, it becomes easier to create
meaningful priorities. Your focus will be more upon developing
what you can take away at death, rather than with the things you
have to leave behind. Increasingly, you will want to benefit
other living beings and not merely yourself.
(4) Choose and engage in a spiritual tradition, and follow it
with a sense of URGENCY. Most of our pretensions to spirituality
are like a hobby; similar to Tennis twice a week or a routine
visit to the Church on Sunday morning. Develop within yourself a
realization of how rare a human birth is for you. Realize that
you could lose it TODAY simply by walking down the street at the
wrong time.
Then, you are likely to seek the answers you really need, and to
do so with a real sense of urgency. You will not put this most
crucial task off for another day. After all, that day may never
come, and it will then be too late.
In conclusion, a true awareness of death in the midst of life, is
a powerful inducement to live a healthy life and develop correct
priorities. We should live our lives as authentically as
possible. Acting as if death does not happen is NOT authentic and
leads to distortions of our values, our priorities, and
consequently of our entire lives. making death real to us
gives us what we need for a healthy life; one that we truly value
as precious.
It also equips you
with the necessary resolve to do
what it takes to find the spiritual answers you need NOW!
Copyright Asoka Selvarajah 2001. All Rights Reserved.
Asoka Selvarajah is a writer on personal growth and
spirituality,
and the author of "The 7 Golden Secrets To Knowing Your
Higher
Self". His work helps people achieve their full
potential, deepen their
understanding of mystical truth,
and discover their soul's purpose. Learn more about his work
This incredible bestseller more or less single-handedly created
the self improvement industry. Moreover, it is every bit as
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Many of the major leaders in the Personal Development field today
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In the early part of the 20th century, multi-millionaire
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Carnegie wanted to benefit ordinary people and show them how they
too could become extremely wealthy. The deal was that, although
Hill would work for no pay, Andrew Carnegie would arrange
introductions for him to the wealthiest and most successful
people in the United States. From countless such meetings and
many years of intense research, the classic Think And Grow Rich
was born. It is THE definitive book on how to gain, not only
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The incredible success of this book, and the others that
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Spiritually oriented people, and even many secular people too,
feel that the pursuit of financial wealth is a negative thing; a
heart-hardening cynical process that distracts you from following
the true calling of the spirit. Not only is this incorrect, but
the exact opposite can actually be true. Once you understand the
processes by which wealth is created, and the benefits it can
provide to many people, it is possible to pursue wealth creation
in a way that is entirely wholesome; benefiting you and others
simultaneously.
First of all, you should realize that there is no intrinsic merit
in being poor. As Abraham Lincoln once said:
"You can't help the poor by becoming one of them!"
Indeed, the equating of poverty with spirituality is a common
mistake. If poverty itself was sufficient, then a homeless person
would be a saint! It is neither wealth nor poverty that relate
directly to spiritual potential, but rather the degree of mental
ATTACHMENT present. This is why Jesus said it was harder for a
rich man to get to heaven than for a camel to go through the eye
of a needle. It is a matter of what you put your attention on;
what matters MOST to you; what you obsess about.
Why is it better to be rich than poor? One simple reason is that
it frees you from focusing continually upon survival needs. Your
mind is enabled to pursue higher things than merely how to feed
yourself or keep a roof over your head! It's better to just "get
it handled", and then move on to concern yourself with more
important issues.
It is the nature of life to expand itself and do the best it can.
This is true of trees growing up to the light, cheetahs running
as fast as they can, and it should be true of human beings to
become the best they can be in every conceivable area. So why
earn far less than you are truly capable of? Who does this really
satisfy?
If nothing else, being wealthy gives you far more options for
your own life AND far more capability to help other needy people.
Certainly, there are many ways to help other people that do not
involve money or material things. However, if you do wish or need
to help others in this way, how can you do so if you have no
money yourself? Andrew Carnegie is remembered for giving away
the hundreds of millions of dollars he made in his career.
Billionaire George Soros is currently doing the same thing. The
point is that your capacity to help others, even your favored
spiritual causes, increases if you have spare cash.
At the very least, you will have the money needed to help your
own family! When your parents are old, and in need of expensive
health care, would you not wish to be in a position to provide
it? Shame on you, if you have worked all your life and are unable
to do even that!
The truth is that Money is nothing more than a flow of creative
energy from one person to another. You exchange your creative
energy for mine, and the medium used is money. The universe is a
place of abundance, and it is certainly not the will of the
creator of this abundance that YOU should remain poor!
Moreover, the healthy pursuit of financial wealth has many
positive merits. Jim Rohn, one of America's leading
motivation trainers, tells how his mentor, a multi-millionaire,
once advised him to work hard to become a millionaire too; NOT
for the money, but rather for the kind of person it would make of
him to achieve it.
This advice reflects a crucial point. The best way to become
financially wealthy - in fact, the ONLY real way - is to give
other people far more value than you ever receive from them. One
famous marketer calls it "giving dollars for dimes". In other
words, you have to give the customer far more value than that
customer gives to you in terms of money. In its most positive
sense, wealth creation is about improving the lives of other
people so much that you cannot help but become wealthy in return.
That is the ethical way to extract the dollars from their
pockets; in fact, they will queue up to give them to you!
It's obvious if you think about it. Would you EVER part
with money for something that you perceive to be worth LESS than
the money itself? No. Even if you buy a spiritual book, you
perceive the value that you will receive to be worth far more
than the money you parted with. Therefore, the key to becoming
wealthy is actually to find a way to give people something they
really want, and offer far more value than you receive back in
cash.
Jay Abraham, at $5,000 PER HOUR, is America's highest paid
business consultant. What does this man, who has worked with over
10,000 businesses of all sizes in his career, say about this
matter? He advises businesses to be far less concerned with their
own self-serving profit motivations, and instead become totally
obsessed with their customers! Find out what the customers'
greatest needs and aspirations are, what keeps him/her awake at
night, how they can be best helped by the products they are
providing, how to give the customer even more value than they
have already, and so on. By literally falling in love with the
customer, you cannot fail to become wealthy yourself.
In fact, the greatest exponents of this art become wealthy beyond
most people's wildest dreams. Yet, curiously enough, they often
remain uninterested in money itself. Sam Walton, the founder of
Walmart is a classic example. Right up to the day he died, he
drove an old pick-up truck, and stayed in the same middle-class
neighbourhood he had always lived in. Yet, as a
multi-billionaire, he was one of the wealthiest men in America!
He simply followed the rule, and learned more about the retail
store business than anyone else, and was obsessed with providing
what his customers wanted and needed the most. The giant Walmart
began with one tiny little store, and a very ordinary man -
certainly no genius in the educational sense - who did one thing
brilliantly. He cared more about the customers than he did about
his own needs.
The lesson is that you do not necessarily have to be money-mad to
become incredibly wealthy. Often, the opposite is true. Caring
about other people more than about yourself is often THE way!
The reason most people do not achieve wealth is simply because
they do not believe they are capable of it, or because they have
negative psychological issues about money; e.g. they believe they
would have to become twisted people in order to be rich. Others
are too busy being trapped in wage slavery to ever raise their
heads, and form a clear determined wealth creation strategy. As
Joe Karbo said,
"Most people are too busy earning a living to make any money."
So, begin to think about this issue. More importantly, change
your thinking from negative to positive. If you have a dream
about getting into business for yourself, start to give it more
thought. Research ways that you can do something your really love
and believe in, and offer it to others as a product or service.
The key is really to get started and persist in learning all you
need to learn until you finally succeed. Becoming financially
wealthy is definitely possible for you, but it begins with
changing your mindset about what wealth and money really mean to
you.
Do it
, not only for yourself, but for all the people you can
benefit through your abundance.
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