70. Living Deliberately

©2001 AtheneBitting All Rights Reserved

LXX

Living Deliberately:

A Requirement for the 5DI

Lecture based Questions:

1. Draw or describe a reminder or symbol of one of your helpers.

You have Masters, teachers, angels, friends, ancestors, nature spirits, and many loved ones who wish you well and help you whenever you allow it. Choose one of them now and meditate on how you have felt this person's guidance and help.

2. Which of the seven Soulic Rays are most likely to create and follow a strategy plan for their lives?

First Rays are naturally good at goal setting and finding methods to carry them to fruition. Fifth Rays excel at organizing their thoughts and working out on paper projects that they may or may not act out physically. These are the most likely to be successful at strategy planning. As we mature spiritually, we all become skillful at it, no matter which Ray is our native expression.

3. What emotional dynamic succeeds in this aspect of life?

Logical and calm approach to the day is normally a helpful emotional condition to success. Most important, however, is the meditative state of questioning and listening. This mode is our ideal for constant communication with Divine Mind and helps to avoid errors. Affirmations aid in the forward momentum of success.

4. What roles do failed attempts in success? Why are they necessary?

Failure teaches us humility. We also learn integrity as our reactions to failure reveal what we need to work on. When a goal is worthy of repeated effort, it gives us energy to try again. We gain spiritual muscles through persevering to a successful outcome and learn flexibility as we explore alternative behaviors for the right result.

5. What affirmations help to further progress toward a goal?

•May the Will of God now manifest and permeate this physical realm under Grace in perfect ways. •Thank you, God, for my success! •I believe in the Divine Order and perfect timing. •Every person & thing not mine in my Divine Plan now go their own ways with my blessing and good will. •God relieves me of all responsibility for ________________.

6. What are the differences between a calling, a mission, a goal, and an ambition?

•A calling is a spiritual condition that generates creative energy. It is a career choice that actuates happiness and good health. The person feels fulfilled, enlivened, and divinely connected during this activity. •A mission is an assignment given to a Third Degree Initiate. This all-consuming project leaves no room for a personal life nor for people not contributing to the cause. Mother Theresa’s life work is a good example of a mission. •A goal is a thought form placed in the Mental Body. It has a specific life span and will disintegrate unless the person reinforces it with affirmations and action. •Ambition is a goal that is pursued for impure reasons—recognition, revenge, false self-image, or desire.

11. Meditation Exercise: Seven Pointed Star

Seven is a key number in configuring the equations for many solutions in life. As we grow and develop our personalities and characters, we find revealed a circular pattern to our work and life that has this number of stations and way marks.

• I sit within the hub of a wheel. As it turns, it hums, and my physical body responds to the musical tones of this humming with reassurance and peace.

• My hands are in my lap, and in my open hands I hold a star—incredibly bright, many colored, radiant, and singing. The song of the star and the song of the wheel are in harmony and rhythm with each other.

• I lift the star to my eye level, and I examine it closely. Through the brightness, I can see the form of the star. From a central fire, seven points extend. Each point is named,

focus

connection

meaningfulness

activity

finding answers

persistence

organization

• I put the star to my Third Eye Chakra. It integrates with this center, making me feel as though all things good are possible and inevitable.

• Everything I see, I see through this star and its points of accomplishment.

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The Responsible Mind

I was fortunate to attract the friendship of Richard Roth, a strategy planner to fortune 500 corporations. Dick and his wife had a short-lived dream to spread the wisdom of his experience to individuals in their spiritual and mundane lives. He taught a few semesters with The Learning Annex and then left the state for greener pastures. Why was he not the most successful teacher at the annex? Perhaps it was for the same reason that when I mention the words strategy plan, my listener’s eyes and mind glaze over. My good luck was to learn some very valuable points from Dick before he moved up and outward.

Napoleon Hill was a master of strategy planning. His approach is methodical and can be universally applied to any goal. He also mastered an attitude of appreciation for the rhythms of life and challenge. Any book or tape by him would be valuable in your quest for the perfect system.

The Master most involved in this type of thinking is the one who answers to the name Master Kung Fu. He is well known for revealing logic, efficiency, and order in situations. Whenever confronted with the blockades of life or goals that seem complicated or out of reach, he invites you to invoke his guidance while you sit quietly in a place of peaceful isolation. You will enjoy his humor and his amused attitude.

There are many modes of intentional living. The trick is to find a system that is easy to master, can be maintained with good energy every day, and which provides a structure of flexible progress. Each of us is unique in temperament and preference. In fact, this intricate combination of emotions and thoughts can modify with each incarnation. One of the challenges of succeeding at this game of life is to find a system that is compatible with one’s distinctive sense and energy.

The doors to success begin to open when we answer these questions.

1) What do I value?

2) What is my primary goal?

3) What are my lesser goals in order of importance?

4) What are my assets?

5) Who supports my success?

6) What is the worldly setting for my goal?

7) What are the values of the people in that setting?

8) Are my values compatible with theirs?

9) What am I willing to do to accomplish this goal?

10) Do I expect to change as a result of success in this area?

Next comes the plan of activity directed to the goal. This structure applies equally well to short-term or long-term goals. Apply this technique to each individual goal.

1) Name your goal.

2) If there is a time limit to this goal, what is it? If there is none, write “Divine Time.”

3) List all the possible [acceptable] ways to achieve this goal.

4) Which of these approaches would you prefer?

5) List the health, skills, and equipment that would help #4.

6) List what you are missing.

7) For each missing item, write down what you must do to get it.

8) List the reasonable amount of time to achieve each item of #7.

9) Make a daily plan that persistently contributes to #7. No matter how small the progress, make space EVERY DAY for an activity that validates your goal. Even if you can only set aside ten minutes per day toward this aim, you will be pleasantly surprised at the accumulated results. If weekends have different limitations for you, be flexible and schedule a time chunk that will not intrude into your obligations.

10) Say “God leads me perfectly through every step to success.”