From International Viewpoints (IVy) Issue 4 - December 1991
 
New Realities
By Mark Jones, USA

Giving Focus To Our Lives

We've probably all experienced times in our lifes when we've really 
been intent and focused on something that we wanted to accomplish. At 
such times it's likely that we felt excited and exhilerated. The 
intention, the focus and the feelings go hand in hand. The more we 
have of them the higher will be the probability of achieving what we 
want.

Unfortunately, we are prone to live much of our lives without being 
totally sure of what we want, or to be really focused and intending to 
get it. We may not have decided or specifically defined what we want. 
Instead, we may have settled for something which seemed safely within 
our means, or adopted suggestions from our parents, peers or gurus.

The philosophy which so many of us studied emphasized the formulation 
of goals and purposes as major orientation points. For the most part 
these were to be measurable in physical universe terms, i.e. terms 
that could be statisized, such as a completions, income, profits, or 
status. We may have even adopted measurements of progress toward our 
personal goals, such as successfully responding to particular sets of 
commands or introspection questions to end phenomenon with a status 
symbol attached to them.

These did provide focus, and when we added our intention, often lead 
to feelings of excitement. How much they contributed to our personal 
evolvement as spiritual beings is another question? If, as some 
suggest, we share basic purposes in each lifetime of wanting to become 
more evolved, spiritual beings; what might be our specific wants and 
objectives? Would our focuses be more on the measurable results of 
what we do or accomplish, or on the qualities we develop in ourselves 
in the activities in which we engage?

What sort of aims?

If we chose to be leaders, would we measure our success more by the 
area or number of people led, or by the loving, responsible attitudes 
we had and imbued by word or deed?
As theta beings, what inner growth would we like to achieve?
Would we desire to be infinitely loving without conditions?
Would we want to have character based on ideals and principles that 
expressed our highest sense of ethics.
Would we want to have an attitude of truly granting beingness to 
ourselves and others as we are, warts and all, or to be critical and 
judgemental of ourselves and others?
Would we want to have such trust in ourselves and our alignment with 
the universe which supports us as to be confident of the successful 
outcome of whatever we become involved in?
Would we want to achieve status in order to have a sense of self worth 
or to be so well 'centered' and 'aligned' with our inner or higher 
self so that we know and own our true worth?
Would we prefer to have a temperament of patience and trust or of 
impatient demanding of perfection?
Would we want to be forgiving of ourselves and others, or to hang on 
to the guilt, shame or blame?
Would we prefer to view the universe as friendly or as threatening?
Would we prefer to interact with others and the universe with 
synchronisity or with force and domination?
Would we rather operate as beings with joy and excitement or in pain 
and boredom?
Would we prefer to be in radiant health with abundant energy or to be 
ill and drained?
Would we prefer to be explorative and creative or strive to repeat 
what we'd learned with uniform perfection?

Importances

Knowing what we want to learn and achieve, perticularly within 
ourselves is critically important. Since we are constantly changing, 
and hopefully expanding, these objectives can change and may often 
need to be thought, out afresh. Obviously, on whatever we decide, the 
number of levels we've completed doesn't measure our progress toward 
them. Only we can do that.

Whenever we give ourselves clearer direction and focus, our success in 
and enjoyment of life will improve. Even having better focus on what 
we want to achieve today will increase our excitement and results in 
that period. The more clearly that we can visualize the qualities we 
want, and the type person we want to be in our activities, the more 
joy and fulfillment we'll have in this learning experience and in our 
lives. There's a lot of truth in the old adage, "It's not whether we 
win or lose, but how we play the game". To this might be added, "It's 
deciding the type player we want to be, and the developing the 
qualities we want to be, and the developing the qualities we want to 
have within ourselves that makes the game of life exciting and fun". 
Isn't that what evolvement is all about?