The Highest Goal

The book is essentially organized around each of these steps, with the important reminder that we need to move beyond merely understanding them to actually LIVING them—thereby moving from knowledge to wisdom!

I’m really conscious of what I allow into my head and haven’t owned a television in I don’t know how long.

I remember once a few years ago Alexandra and I NetFlix-ed the first season of “Heroes” and within a few episodes we were both dreaming about the show and realized that was enough. There was NO WAY we were gonna give our dream space over to *that* silliness.

Michael Beckwith comments on what he calls “the tyranny of the trends” in his awesome book Spiritual Liberation (see Notes): “One of the ways we hijack our capacity to experience a state of beholding is that we become swept up in what I call the ‘tyranny of trends.’ The tyranny of trends allows for the lowest common denominator to set the standard of success, and of course, ‘coolness.’ Very often, trends convince individuals what their life’s purpose should be. The tyranny of trends is blasted out at us from television, radio, newspapers, tabloids, computers, and even our dentist’s waiting room, attempting to convince us that we must smell a certain way, wear a certain label, weigh a specific weight, have whiter teeth, drive a certain car, make a certain income, and so on, before we can consider that we’ve made it.”

While Steven Pressfield puts it succinctly (as he tends to do) in his classic book, The War of Art (see Notes): “We unplug ourselves from the grid by recognizing that we will never cure our restlessness by contributing our disposable income to the bottom line of Bullshit, Inc. but only by doing our work.”

And, finally, Tom Morris puts it brilliantly (as he tends to do!) in his great book The Art of Achievement (see Notes): “One of the great modern ailments of humanity is the enslavement to illusory pursuits… If we get the prize, it strangely fails to satisfy as promised. If we fail in our quest, we feel unnecessary despondency. We’re oddly depressed about not getting what would not have satisfied us if we had managed to snag it. And then, all too often, we just begin a new and equally illusory pursuit.”

He continues with his solution: “The meaning of life is not to be found in having lots of money, fame, prestige, or stuff. It’s to be found in living your proper quest of positive achievement. Make a difference in the lives of other people, make a difference for good, create new relationships, new feelings, new structures of goodness in the world by what you do and who you are, and you will feel in that process what we so often seek with such futility in all the wrong places. The right sort of quest can be enjoyed at the deepest possible levels.”

This reminds me of Abraham Maslow’s wisdom that, in any given moment, we have a choice: we can either step forward into growth or back into safety.

Check out that Note for the +1 or -1 unconscious math goodness and remember: Those moment-to-moment choices determine both how we feel at the end of the day and our ultimate destiny.

So, let’s choose wisely!

Starting today. :)

This is from a chapter entitled “Travel Your Own Path” that speaks to the importance of discovering and living our own, personal, most authentic truths.

This is the essence of the hero’s journey (which Ray describes in the book). Joseph Campbell has this to say about it (see Notes on A Joseph Campbell Companion): “You enter the forest at the darkest point, where there is no path. Where there is a way or a path, it is someone else’s path. You are not on your own path. If you follow someone else’s way, you are not going to realize your potential.”

While Carlos Castaneda (see Notes on The Wheel of Time) shares this eternally awesome wisdom: “Anything is one of a million paths. Therefore, a warrior must always keep in mind that a path is only a path; if he feels that he should not follow it, he must not stay with it under any conditions. His decision to keep on that path or to leave it must be free of fear or ambition. He must look at every path closely and deliberately. There is a question that a warrior has to ask, mandatorily: ‘Does this path have a heart?’”

Another one of my favorite thoughts on the subject is from Howard Thurman who says: “Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”

So, we’ve gotta discover OUR path. When we do? Well, that in itself is deeply inspiring for others!

In fact, Steven Pressfield, in his *awesome* book The War of Art (see Notes), says this: “The best and only thing one artist can do for another is to serve as an example and an inspiration.”

Back to Campbell—this time from his great book The Power of Myth (see those Notes, too!). He’s being interviewed by Bill Moyers who says: “In this sense, unlike heroes such as Prometheus or Jesus, we’re not going on our journey to save the world but to save ourselves.”

Campbell’s response: “But in doing that, you save the world. The influence of a vital person vitalizes, there’s no doubt about it. The world without spirit is wasteland. People have the notion of saving the world by shifting things around, changing the rules, and who’s on top, and so forth. No, no! Any world is a valid world if it’s alive. The thing to do is to bring life to it, and the only way to do that is to find in your own case where the life is and become alive yourself.”

And, back to Ray: “When you act from the highest goal over and over again, you slowly discover that you are traveling your own path. This is the key to grabbing on to your highest goal: You have your own way—your own inner power, your own contribution, your own methods and approaches, and your own experience of the highest goal. Once you recognize this, your life can be a quest to discover your path and live from it. You accept that obstacles or tests contain powerful lessons and opportunities. You see that when you give yourself fully to life and the highest goal, as you do naturally when you are tested, a grace infuses you.”

Amen.

And, here’s to traveling our own path and inspiring others in the process!!

Live-withs.

They’re a really cool “heuristic” way of learning that Ray powerfully uses throughout the book.

(I had to look heuristic up. It means “enabling a person to discover or learn something for themselves : a “hands-on” or interactive heuristic approach to learning.” :)

The idea is pretty simple and really powerful: Take an idea or piece of wisdom and “live with it” for a period of time—whether that’s a day or a week or whatever.

Live-withs are a GREAT way to move from having an intellectual understanding of an Idea to a felt embodiment of that idea—moving from knowledge to wisdom.

All of the chapter titles in the book, from “Go Beyond Passion and Success,” “Travel Your Own Path,” and “Live the Highest Goal” are live-withs and Ray sprinkles a bunch of other ones throughout the book as well.

For example, Ray suggests we live-with the idea “Have No Expectations” to develop our trust in our inner resources while learning the difference between expectations and goals and intentions. To develop our ability to be conscious and present, Ray suggests we live-with the idea “Pay Attention.”

You can really do a live-with on any piece of wisdom you’d like to embody or on a virtue you’d like to develop—whether that’s living with the idea “Patience Is Genius,” or “I Am Kind” or whatever.

They key: Take the idea out of intellectual understanding and move it into embodiment, remembering Michael Beckwith’s wisdom from Spiritual Liberation (see Notes): “That which transforms your life is what you practice. And what you practice constitutes your personal laws of life—not what you merely believe in, but what you practice. It’s all well and good to read books, and to attend seminars, lectures, and workshops, and to say, ‘Oh, that really resonates with me! It’s now part of my life’s philosophy.’ Your philosophy may give you a temporary state of euphoria, but if you want to be anchored in reality, it takes practice, practice, practice. We are not here to be euphoric but to get free. Rudimentary spirituality is theory; advanced spirituality is practice.”

As you know if you’ve read or listened to many of these Notes, I’m huge fan of differentiating what I call “Being” goals from “Bling” goals. Most of the self-dev world is all about letting people in on the “Secret” that’ll unlock treasure chests of gold and fast cars and, if virtue is discussed at all, it’s in the context of being a means to the end of opening the lock to the treasures.

But, as we discuss, that’s backwards.

Happiness and peace of mind, as Stephen Covey tells us, “comes when your life is in harmony with true principles and values and in no other way.”

We want to make living from our highest goal our highest goal! Then we’ll let the results take care of themselves.

Eric Butterworth, the awesome Unity minister and author of Spiritual Economics (see Notes), says this about it: “The goal should not be to make money or acquire things, but to achieve the consciousness through which the substance will flow forth when and as you need it.”

And John Wooden, arguably the greatest coach ever, never talked to his team about winning. He talked to them about doing their best. The winning? That was a by-product. Just like any material bounty will be a by-product of our spiritual goodness.

Here’s what he says (see Notes on Wooden) about it: “I believe that [doing your best] is what true success is. Anything stemming from that success is simply a by- product, whether it be the score, the trophy, a national championship, fame, or fortune. They are all by-products of success rather than success itself, indicators that you perhaps succeeded in the more important contest.”

And, finally, Steven Pressfield offer this: “The professional has learned that success, like happiness, comes as a by-product of work. The professional concentrates on the work and allows rewards to come or not come, whatever they like.”

Here’s to rockin’ our Being and letting the Bling take care of itself!

Hah.

How awesome is that?!

Self to Worry: “I’m sorry, but you’re gonna have to check back during my worry time. Thanks so much.” :)

I’m learning to see that ruminating/worrying is a REALLY bad idea (we talk about the scientific fact that ruminating (aka, spinning your wheels about something that’s stressing you out while you’re in a bad mood) is one of *the* worst things you can do. It’s so bad that Sonja Lyubomirsky says this about it in The How of Happiness (see Notes): “If you are someone plagued by ruminations, you are unlikely to become happier before you can break that habit.”

(So, uh, stop ruminating, yo! :)

I haven’t tried the 30 minutes a day dealio yet, but my favorite way to deal with worry is to realize I’m stressed and that ruminating about it while I’m in a bad mood isn’t going to help me. Then I go CRUSH IT and put all my energy into kicking some work booty.

Dale Carnegie’s wisdom from his How to Stop Worrying and Start Living (see Notes) captures my energy pretty well: “George Bernard Shaw was right. He summed it all up when he said: ‘The secret of being miserable is to have the leisure to bother about whether you are happy or not.’ So don’t bother to think about it! Spit on your hands and get busy. Your blood will start circulating; your mind will start ticking—and pretty soon this whole positive upsurge of life in your body will drive worry from your mind. Get busy. Keep busy. It’s the cheapest kind of medicine there is on this earth—and one of the best.”

ALL the great teachers bring us back to the same fact that, ultimately, if we want true fulfillment and happiness, we’ve gotta figure out how to give our greatest gifts in greatest service to the world. How about a couple of my favorites?

Martin Seligman (see Notes on Authentic Happiness) tells us: “The good life consists in deriving happiness by using your signature strengths every day in the main realms of living. The meaningful life adds one more component: using these same strengths to forward knowledge, power, or goodness. A life that does this is pregnant with meaning, and if God comes at the end, such a life is sacred.”

And Marcus Aurelius (see Notes on Meditations) tell us: “Everything – a horse, a vine – is created for some duty… For what task, then, were you yourself created? A man’s true delight is to do the things he was made for.”

And, he follows that up with: “Let your one delight and refreshment be to pass from one service to the community to another, with God ever in mind.”

Amen.