Most spiritual seekers probably aren’t focused on success, because they care more about enlightenment or the spiritual path. It isn’t all bad, however, and it depends on how you look at it. Striving for financial or career-related success could be seen as pointless from a spiritual perspective, but this isn’t the only kind we can achieve.
In my opinion, it comes down to whether we strive for personal, ego-driven success or success in helping people who need us. We can also achieve spiritual success by reaching a level of enlightenment or reaping the benefits of regular meditation, and we gain a sense of accomplishment and limitlessness when we succeed.
It feels great to accomplish something we never thought we could, and the journey teaches us about effort, perseverance and willpower. It teaches us that we can do anything we put our minds to if we’re truly passionate and committed, and the difference between those who fail and those who don’t is their effort.
If we want to succeed at anything, we have to try. If we want to approach enlightenment, we have to diligently pursue whatever brings us closer to it. If we want to bring food and water to impoverished people, we can’t just keep talking about it; we have to make an effort. We wouldn’t have food or water if it weren’t for someone making an effort to get it to us, albeit at a price, and we have to do the same if we want to help the poor, sick and hungry.
If we want to master an art and use it to help people, we have to take steps to improve and figure out how we can help others with it. We can’t expect things to magically fall in line until we put in some serious effort, and we might be surprised at how quickly success reaches us when we really try.
It’s amazing what can happen when we’re dedicated to something (especially if we’re passionate about it), and dedication is all we need to go far. If we keep going, we’ll naturally achieve more and help more people along the way. If we give up halfway through, we’ll have only regrets and broken dreams to look back on.
We won’t look back and think, “Wow, I actually did that!” Instead, we’ll think, “Wow, I could’ve actually done that if I just kept going…”
Regret would replace satisfaction, and we’d always be reminded of the wasted opportunity. We don’t have to take this path into such an unhappy existence, and with dedication, we’ll make sure we achieve our goals and live our dreams.
We just have to show our inner universe that we’re willing to try, and most importantly, keep on in troubling times. This becomes easier when we’re rooted in the heart, because we can approach our work more calmly and enjoy it more than if we were stuck in the mind.
Giving up will be the last thing on our minds when we approach challenges from a willing, heart-centered space, because we’ll enjoy them. We’ll understand that they’re here to help us grow, and as long as we have love (and we stick with love when we get stressed), dealing with things that used to bring us down will be easier.
We’ll no longer stress over little things, and we’ll realize that challenges encourage us to try a little harder and we don’t ever have to give up or admit defeat. Defeat and failure have nothing to do with the challenge itself, and we only fail when we give up.
Even if we do give up, we can reverse our failure at any time by giving it another try. It might take a few tries before we master a challenge or overcome an obstacle, but even if it’s distant, success is guaranteed if we keep on. Even when we’re dealing with something we think is impossible, perseverance will solidify our eventual success and we just have to get through the headaches that initially make us want to stop.
This basically requires us to shift into love, and when we do, we’ll find that it’s our natural state of being. It’s the state we’re meant to inhabit, especially if we want to spiritually succeed or succeed at helping the world, and it allows us to joyously address (and eventually get past) our obstacles. It’s the key to doing anything positive or progressive – especially anything that has to do with creativity – and it enriches life with a sense of happiness and good fortune.
It’s the key to dedication, and thus, to success. It doesn’t matter where or how we want to succeed – we can do it if we have love. If we can return to love and understand that we’re fragments of our creator’s omnipotent consciousness, we’ll quickly realize that we can do anything.
We aren’t just human when we have love, because its awesome power energizes us and encourages us to do something with our time here. There’s no telling what we can do when we focus that energy into a real and lasting effort to help the world, and we’ll just have to make that effort and find out. If you ever feel like you aren’t strong enough, just remember that you’re a portion of God and you’ll be infinite when you tap into your true power.
By Wes Annac, Culture of Awareness, September 9, 2015 – https://tinyurl.com/o2hlxc5