"Life is a meaningless energy going nowhere for no
reason."
Swami Muktananda
"Nothing I see means anything." - A Course
In Miracles
The
Secret's Bill Harris of
Centerpointe
Research Institute shared at a Centerpointe retreat,
"Nothing has any intrinsic meaning. If there were an intrinsic
meaning for everything, everyone in the world would apply the same meaning to
everything and they do not." What this means to us, is we can ascribe whatever meaning we choose to what is in our lives. Most of the meanings we ascribe to things are the meanings we
were taught and internalized growing up. For the most part these are unconscious. Once we learn to bring them into conscious
awareness, we can begin to replace them with meanings of our choosing that
will lead to the results, peace and happiness we desire.
The only true purpose in
Life is to grow in consciousness and awareness. To connect with our
Divine Nature and express our True Self, which is Universal Love.
So.... How do we know how we are doing on this path of growth?
Benchmarking.
Businesses employ benchmarking to determine
how they are doing and to assess their growth for their
stakeholders. All businesses are is a collective of people benchmarking the
collective consciousness, the business. Individuals can
employ benchmarking in their own business of living (life) just as
effectively. Successful and happy people do.
How do we benchmark our lives?
Many people use ideals as a something to strive
for, as their goal. To use an ideal as your target is to set yourself up
for disappointment and frustration. Ideals are concepts, just like the horizon is a
concept. The horizon doesn't really exist... it is a concept we create to
describe a visual perception. If you try to travel to the
horizon, the horizon never gets any closer to you, but remains at the same
distance from you. Ideals are like that, they are unreachable,
unattainable. You'll never get "there".
Instead of using an ideal, take notice of where
you are in your life presently and benchmark it. This can be by taking stock of
financial earnings/worth, possessions, states of relationship(s), health/fitness
level, intellectual level, etc. Then work towards moving
down your path in the direction you have consciously chosen. We can
assess where we are on our path by our looking at our current and new benchmarks. For
example, if traveling down the path of acquiring a new Mercedes, once that
Mercedes is acquired that benchmark is reached. You can now look back and measure the distance you have traveled and growth gained in doing so.
The secret to real
and lasting happiness is knowing that the real value comes not in the
acquisition of the Mercedes but in the growth experienced and the
expansion achieved in reaching that benchmark.
The same can be done with different levels of income. Earning $50,000 is one benchmark,
$100,000 another and a $1,000,000 yet another one. The true value in
the achievement of each income benchmark is the growth that has to occur to reach each one. The growth necessary to earn a million dollars is greater than
the growth necessary to earn $250,000.
The Secret's
James
Ray always relates how one of his early mentors told him years ago
to set a goal to become a millionaire. Not for the millions of
dollars he'd accrue, but to become the person he would have to become to be that
millionaire.
By benchmarking we allow and
encourage ourselves to experience feelings of satisfaction and
accomplishment as we live our lives consciously expanding.
We can't take anything with this when we depart
this Life. We arrive with nothing... we leave with nothing. We are just
'borrowing' what we get to enjoy and play with here for a period of time. Suffering
arises when people become attached to the things they are "borrowing".
It's much more beneficial to look at these acquisitions and accomplishments as benchmarks in our conscious expansion.
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