Week 20 – Encouragement from Charles and Og

I want to use this blog as an encouragement to myself (and us others in my situation) to reaffirm my commitment to my Definite Major Purpose and to place it back where it belongs: at the core of my intention and a daily focus in my life.

It has taken only a few weeks of unusual activities in my working and private life to disrupt my usual pattern and to take away the multitude of benefits I’ve gained from the Master Keys Experience. As my life is getting busier, so my priorities are now getting wrong I need to get back in step with my Dharma.

The chapter from Haanel’s Master Keys (Part 20) we read this week has been really useful in making it clear to me about my situation. In paragraph 4, Haanel asks,

“Thinking is the true business of life, power is the result. What results can you expect so long as you remain oblivious to the power which has been placed within your control?”

So I’ve taken my ‘eye off the ball’ and the advances I’ve gained have slipped back somewhat through a lack of continual effort to the practise of keeping my priorities in mind. The clock has taken over my life’s compass in recent times.

But, I am not kicking myself and while I draw breath, there always hope. In Scroll Og Mandino’s The Greatest Salesman, which we have been reading and re-reading in February encourages us to make the most of today and not to linger on the past:

“”I waste not a moment mourning over yesterday’s misfortunes, yesterday’s defeats, yesterday’s aches of the heart, for why should I throw god after bad?”

Yesterday is gone and all I can do is seize THIS moment to do the right thing for me. And so, I do.

I have been reminded this week of the importance of the “Sit”, or as Haanel calls it the “Silence” this apparently simple, but deceptive task of sitting still (controlling the body) and concentrating (controlling thought in the mind) is the fundamental core of the Master Keys Experience. This is where the rubber hits the road – all else in the Master Keys Experience is designed for us to get our minds to be the most effective it can be for when our conscious mind moulds and edits the subconscious mind’s creativity and aligns itself with Universal thought. The immediate effect is inspiration, the prolonged effect is a purposeful life.

Haanel describes the mechanism of the Silence perfectly in paragraph 18 of Part 20,

“Inspiration is from within. The Silence is necessary, the senses must be stilled, the muscles relaxed, repose cultivated. When you have thus come into possession of a sense of poise and power you will be ready to receive the information or inspiration or wisdom which may be necessary for the development of your Purpose.”

And why is the Silence the fundamental core? Because in the Silence we create the conditions which encourage powerful thought. It is the activity of the world within that will change us from within. Paragraph 27 of Master Keys part 20 holds the phrase that for me, is the crux of Haanel’s book:

‘Thought is creative vibration and the quality of the conditions created will depend on the quality of our thought, because we cannot express powers which we do not possess. We must “be” before we can “do” and we can “do” only to the extent to which we “are”, and so what we do will necessarily coincide with what we “are” and that depends on what we “think”. ‘

So now, what I need to do is to get back to the routine of planning and executing my outer world to nourish my inner world, then to doing the requirements for the day. As Haanel said, “knowledge does not apply itself”.