Reflections on the Cost of Manifesting Our Vision
Let us say you have done some deep reflection and arrived at a vision for your life.
Let us say you have chunked down that vision to bite sized measurable goals.
Let us say you have chunked down the goals to smaller readily achievable tasks.
Let us say you have thrown yourself into accomplishing those tasks.
But let us also say that perhaps you are no longer enjoying your day-to-day life.
Hmmm, what happened?
Perhaps you should pause and consider this… for maybe something is out of alignment with your Heart.
If the goals you would have to achieve in order to manifest your life vision, are made up of tasks that have zero interest to you, that you find utterly boring and un-engaging, or perhaps don’t “sit well with you” – maybe you need to really re-assess your life vision!
If you need to fill your days with tasks that do not inspire you, that do not make you feel alive and joy filled – perhaps this is an indication that your vision is actually out of alignment with your true self, your deeper values and your Heart.
For as is commonly known – Life is about the journey, not the destination!
If we do not like who we have to be day-to-day, to achieve our chosen goals, surely that should create pause to question!
In my mind, Joy is Not built with Darkness
Living an existence of dull disengaged apathy, or strong inner dis-ease regarding our tasks, will not create a goal or life that fills us with luminous engaged enthusiasm! Nor will living out of alignment with our Heart.
Therefore, neither will a life of thinly disguised greed and inflated self-worth manifest Love and Kindness. You cannot build a life out of dark and questionable ethics and expect the result to be light and virtuous! If indeed a virtuous life is actually something you seek. There is certainly a lack of Heart Based Virtues within Humanity as a whole, and especially in parts of the Business World.
Q: How do your dreams hold up when co-measured against the Heart?
For me…
I want to genuinely like the person I am day-to-day, on the journey to manifesting my life visions!
And I want to feel at ease with, and utterly and completely comfortable that the life I am living, towards the life I am creating, is fully aligned with my Heart. I want to sleep well at night – the truly restful sleep of the virtuous! I want to know that all of my actions, when measured against Universal Love truly shine as such! (As best as I am able to achieve – I am not yet perfect, but am striving towards self-perfection.)
Like with any undertaking in the physical world, I understand that there will be work involved, and effort certainly (even if that effort only ever takes the form of being radically authentic); but I am not interested in compromising my Heart Based Values or selling out on Love in order to create my vision.
If the consequence of me pursuing my vision is the raping of the land, the torture of animals, the exploitation of others, the rising of inflation, the expansion of the class gap or the empowering and support of inequitable global wealth distribution – if what “inspires me” causes harm in any way – I must find another way to achieve it, or change my goals and vision altogether. For despite certain promotion otherwise, we live within a biosphere with a definite limitation to its resources!
Note: I do not include money within the idea of limited resources, as it is an imagined human construct, and as such is limitless.
The sum of the parts define the whole
If in pursuing my vision, the necessary day-to-day tasks don’t inspire me or are not light-filled, how can an inspirational light-filled result be possible from them!?
You cannot put a whole lot of ugly together, and call it beautiful.
Ugly + ugly does not equal beauty!
Just as Darkness plus Darkness does not equal Light!
So I say – “beware of spiritual materialism” (spiritually justified materialism). Beware illusions that masquerade as Truth. Greed disguised as authentic desires. Beware if you are justifying the infliction of short-term pain for some imagined long-term gain. The ends do not always justify the means – if you want your creation to be aligned to the Heart.
Look carefully at what you’re truly living and what you’re helping to create in the world!
For the satiation of base desires, just like a hit of anything you’re addicted to, can easily be mistaken for the “manifestation of love” – as both release pleasing brain chemicals!
It can be very tricky to discern between the illusory power of deeply ingrained patterns activating, and the appearance of true power. An emotional high, and true inspiration. Between an act that your mind tells you is loving, and a genuinely loving act! Beware of “Loving Mind”.
Is your vision Heart Based?
If you’re wondering if your vision is truly aligned to the Heart, two simple questions of co-measurement will reveal this.
Q: Will or does your vision create or rely on harm at any level?
If harm will be caused, it is not a Heart Based Vision – no matter how you justify it!
Q: If every person in the world were to live as you seek to live in your vision, could the earth sustain this?
If the answer is no, this should give you serious pause to question…
For if you feel you are entitled to live in this manner, to have or experience the vision you seek, surely as we are all truly equal, everyone must be entitled to the same standard of living? But if the biosphere we live within could not possibly sustain this, how exactly do you justify your vision as being aligned to the Heart!? How indeed? If you do not know if your lifestyle could be sustained if embraced globally – there’s this wonderful creation called the Internet – so find out! “Determine your eco-footprint” and how many Earths would be needed to sustain your chosen lifestyle – I Dare You!
Within First World living we often forget one of the simplest tenants of the Heart, expressed so eloquently by Gandhi:
“The rich must live more simply, so the poor may simply live”.
This tenant being the opposite of greed fuelled desire – a quality so deeply ingrained in First World living that we can barely distinguish it from the Heart. In this expression, simple living equates to living lightly on the earth.
In Conclusion
Sadly, as this article draws to a close, I do not feel the usual exuberance or fiery inspiration that I often like to end with. Instead I feel a sobering depth in my Heart, as I wonder whether those living in the First World will hear the voice from their Hearts, learn to differentiate between the following of Love and the satiation of desire, between clear truth and greyed-out distorted truth, and thereby learn to genuinely discern lust, gluttony and greed – before we bring our world to destruction…?
So instead I will summarise by stating that a Heart Based Vision must be comprised of Heart Based Tasks and Goals.
Only virtues embodied and expressed in the moment, can possibly create a luminous future.
We must ever co-measure our choices against what the Earth can sustain, remembering we are one individual amongst many, and every action or inaction we take or do not, must be weighed against its impact on the whole – we are not islands, but one world of people.
And we of the First World must be especially aware of the vast amounts of unconscious programming we have absorbed from the deluge of information we are exposed to on a daily basis. Not all who are influencers in this world have our best interests, or those of the environment, at Heart.
And so much of that influence and programming goes by unseen and unquestioned!
Finally I would say, that you reading this article has happened For You! So, what is the opportunity it has just given you? What questions can you write as your own Tools for Transformation?
Joyous Love
Azure Seer