Tag: alignment

Living in an Air Castle II

Gregory Hake

“Living in the future is living in an air-castle. Tomorrow is the grave where the dreams of the dreamer, the toiler who toils not, are buried. The man who says he will lead a newer and better life tomorrow, who promises great things for the future, and yet does nothing the present to make that future possible, is living in an air-castle. In his arrogance he is attempting to perform a miracle; he is seeking to turn water into wine, to have harvest without seed-time, to have an end without a beginning.

If we would make our lives worthy of us, grand and noble, solid and impregnable, we must forsake air-castles of dreaming for strongholds of doing. Every man with an ideal has a right to live in the glow and inspiration of it, and to picture the joy of attainment, as the tired traveler fills his mind with the thought of the brightness of home, to quicken his steps and to make the weary miles seem shorter, but the worker should never really worry about the future, think little of it except for inspiration, to determine his course, as mariners study the stars, to make his plans wisely and to prepare for that future by making each separate day the best and truest that he can.

Let us live up the fullness of our possibilities each day. Man has only one day of life— today. He did live yesterday, he may live tomorrow, but he has only today.” ~ William George Jordan

Sitting around waiting for miracles to happen is a fool’s errand. Miracles – effects or extraordinary events in the physical world that surpass all known human or natural powers – can and should happen with much greater frequency than that to which we’ve become accustomed. But how?

Life is part of a larger flow system; it is revealed where the eternal and the temporal meet. When your heart and mind are aligned in a way that permits the uninterrupted flow of life, miracles happen. Healing occurs in ways and at a pace that defies explanation. Obstacles are overcome that previously seemed insurmountable. In short, the apparently impossible becomes imminently achievable.

Conversely, when your heart and mind become misaligned, the flow of the spirit of life in you becomes frustrated. So what disturbs the natural alignment of mind and heart? For starters, the tendency to obsess about or fixate upon the past or the future. You can obsess mentally as well as emotionally and you can focus your obsession by being unwilling to relinquish either a favorable or unfavorable moment in the past or by seeking to control the future out of fear or greed. Either way your heart and mind become dislocated and as a consequence, the mechanism for the translation of the eternal into the temporal that you are no longer functions in the way that it was designed to.
Forgiving the past and relaxing about the future is the best tonic for restoring the alignment of body, mind and heart. Both free you to build a stronghold of doing without the distractions that sap your energy through the tap of your attention. And that, dear readers, is the perfect starting point for a miraculously brighter future.

Facing the Mistakes of Life VII

Gregory Hake

“We cannot relive our old mistakes, but we can make them the means of future immunity from the folly that caused them. If we were impatient yesterday, it should inspire us to be patient today. Yesterday’s anger may be the seed of today’s sweetness. Today’s kindness should be the form assumed by our regret at yesterday’s cruelty. Our unfairness to one may open our eyes to the possibility of greater fairness to hundreds. Injustice to one that may seem to have cost us much may really have cost us little if it makes us more kind, tender and thoughtful for long years.” William George Jordan

I’ve known some people who used the idea that mistakes provide lessons for our tomorrows as an excuse for not giving their highest and finest now. “There’s always tomorrow,” they say, believing that so saying gives them permission to slip up with impunity. Thank goodness that the phoenix can rise form the ashes, but that should only be the approach of last resort and never Plan A!

There must be sufficient momentum to sustain progress individually and collectively. If you, for instance, go through a day where your thoughts, words and deeds only hit the mark in 10 percent of the cases, the resultant drag will likely grind your life’s momentum to a halt if you’re not careful in the days to come. If, on the other hand, you maintain your crown of individuality and as a result, your integrity, dignity and poise, you are more likely to hit the mark, say, 75-95 percent of the time. This has the dual effect of reducing drag and increasing thrust.

Navigating the world we’ve created for ourselves, which is essentially the culmination of eons of free choice and other lesser-known causal factors, is akin to flying. If your airship is well-built, has structural integrity and is free of maintenance squawks, you’ll likely do well, regardless of the occasional turbulence. If, however, you’ve put off the maintenance, disregarded the growing rust on your wing spars and failed to make the adjustments necessary to keep your craft in top shape, the slightest bobble in the air will be sufficient to produce knots in your stomach.

There is mercy in the fact that – up to a certain point – we can learn from our mistakes and move on. Let that not be an excuse for subpar function, in fact, don’t just shoot for average. Go for the gold! The more refined your function, the more aligned your body, mind and heart, the less corrections you will need to make and what’s more, the slight adjustments you’ll need to make to your course will become almost imperceptible to others!

It is true in sports, it is the case in relationships and this principle works out in every other department of life. Just watch those who excel and you will see it in action. Learn to cooperate with it and I can assure you that your life will be a thousand times easier, more productive and less stressful!