A Talk about Success

A Talk about Success

What is Success?

It can be defined as the progressive realization of our worthwhile goals.

What are our goals? How do we define them? In which context should they be realized?

From a yoga viewpoint I would suggest that we look at it from the perspective of Dharma or our major purpose in Life which is Self or Soul and God Realization. But, we also live and function in this world and in this respect I suggest our primary purpose is Service to our Fellow human beings.

When we blend our unique talents with selfless service to others and thereby serve unique needs, we experience the ecstasy of our own spirit, the joy within.

Here then are steps we ought to take:

¨     To discover our true self.

¨     To express our unique talents.

¨     To serve humankind by asking ourselves, what I can do and not what’s in it for me.

To experience success, we must be intentional, one pointed in our action but at the same time, we must relinquish our attachment to the results of our action. We must surrender to the process.

Intention implies desire for the realization of some worthwhile goal.

I intent to do something for some desired results.

Consciousness and energy exists anywhere in nature. If we place our worthwhile intentional goals into that fertile ground followed up with right action, our goals have to materialize.

Intention lays the groundwork for effortless, spontaneous, frictionless, flow of pure potentiality as it seeks expression from the un-manifest to the manifest. 

Most people have desires. Many of the desires are not fulfilled, because they lack intention and because people become attached to their desires. Attachment is the result of ego which impedes the flow of natural forces.

This brings us to the idea of least Effort.

Nature’s intelligence functions with effortless ease, with carefreeness, harmony and love.

When we harness the forces of harmony and love, we create success and good fortune with effortless ease.

When we observe nature we find that least effort is expanded.

Grass doesn’t try to grow, it just grows. Fish don’t try to swim, they swim. Flowers don’t try to bloom, they bloom. They follow their intrinsic nature.

An integral being knows without knowing, sees without looking, and accomplishes without doing.

                              Lao - Tzu

When we are in harmony with nature, when we are established in the knowledge of our true self, we too can accomplish things with least effort. We all have experienced this at one time or another.

What is the secret behind this?

It is love.

Least effort is expended, when our actions are motivated by love.

When we seek power and control over others, we waste energy. When we seek money or power for the sake of the ego we spend energy chasing the illusion of happiness instead of enjoying happiness in the moment.

When we seek money for personal gain only, we cut off the flow of energy to ourselves, and interfere with the expression of nature’s intelligence.

The ways to do less and accomplish more

Acceptance, to make a commitment: “Today I will accept people, situations, circumstances and events as they occur. This means I will know this moment to be as it should be, because the whole universe is as it should be. When we struggle against the moment, we struggle against the universe”.

Responsibility, which means not blaming anyone or anything for our situation. Accepting responsibility leads to having a creative response to the situation. All problems contain the seeds of opportunity.

Defenselessness - not having to convince others of our point of view. In our interaction with people we encounter, that they spend much of their conversation in defending their viewpoint which is nothing but a waste of energy.

When we become defensive, blame others, and do not accept and surrender to the moment, our life meets resistance.

Think in cause and effect.

Every action generates a force of energy that returns to us in like kind. As we sow, so shall we reap.

When we chose actions that bring happiness and success to others, the fruit of our own karma is happiness and success.

Karma is the eternal assertion of human freedom. Our thoughts, our words, and deeds are the threads of the net which we throw around ourselves.

                                 Swami Vivekananda

We all are infinite choice makers. Whether we like it or not, everything that is happening at this moment is the result of the choices we have made. This is why it is so important for us to evaluate the choice we make.

Unfortunately, even though we are infinite choice makers, we have become bundles of conditioned reflexes that are constantly being triggered by people and circumstances into predictable outcomes of behavior.

We all need to become conscious choice makes.

We must give and appreciate to receive because the universe operates under the law of exchange.

Most people like to receive. But someone must give first before something can be received.

We must give that which we seek. If we want success, we must help others on their journey to be successful.

Success in living can be defined as the full realization of our potential which occurs when we have discovered who and what we really are.

We can all give the gift of caring, paying attention, affection, appreciation, love. There are all kinds of things but they all add to our successful living on this planet.

Recognizing pure potential

The source of all creation is pure consciousness, pure potentiality seeking expression from the un-manifest to the manifest.

When we realize that our true Self is one of pure potential, we align with the power that manifests everything in the universe.

       In the beginning there was neither existence nor non

     existence,

all the world was un-manifest potential.

The One breathed, without breath, by its own power

Nothing else was there.

                                          Hymn of creation, Rig Veda

When we discover our true nature and know who we really are, in that knowing itself lies the ability to fulfill any dream we have, because we are the eternal possibility, the immeasurable potential of all that was, is, and will be.

How can we experience this Self? By being Self referring, by going into that quiet place within for our answers rather then to the objective world around us, the outside.

When our reference point is the objective outside world, we have the need to be right and to control things, which often cannot be controlled. We have the need for approval and for assertion.

We live effectively when we express and live in an authentic way. Let as all Endeavour to live and express in wholeness.