by Eldon Taylor
What is success? Have
you ever wondered why it is that for some, everything works, and for
others, nothing works? Why is it that two people can have essentially
the same opportunities, but one person be happy and the other one
miserable? Is it not, therefore, happiness that constitutes the true
meaning of success?
Success is happiness!
Truly successful people are happy, and when you are happy and whole
in yourself, all good things follow. Where then do happiness and wholeness
come from? How does a person who experiences frustrations in life
become whole? Can personal wholeness provide happiness, improve self-esteem,
and lead to riches and fame, peace balance and harmony? Can relationships
with family, friends and associates be improved because one person
assumes the responsibility to be personally whole, takes the initiative
to exude joy and happiness, seizes the opportunity to empower his
or her own life by using the secret of the ages? The answers to all
these questions lie in the seven fundamentals of the master secret.
FUNDAMENTAL 1
The first fundamental
is you - the absolutely awesome and incredible you! Not the you of
self-doubt, not the you that fears rejection or failure, not the you
that questions your abilities, but the real you! Those other "yous"
are not you. They are synthetic yous built upon limited and false
notions of who you are and what you may become. For most of us those
false notions originate as we mature. In our very early attempts to
achieve acceptance, we often trade off our real selves. The desire
to be loved is so strong that many of us give up love or respect for
ourselves in order to obtain security. That trade-off never works,
because what we are insecure about in the first place exists within
ourselves.
Happiness is a state of
mind. The kingdom is within. The real you is a higher you, a higher
power that resides within you or is available to you whenever you
ask or seek. The fact is, it is your birthright to manifest the glory
of the incredible you. You absolutely have the power and ability to
experience all the bounties of life, to experience many literal miracles
in your life -- for you yourself are a miracle, and all that you are
or can ever be is a gift!
So the first fundamental
is you. The power resides within you. No one else can do it for you.
Your thoughts are reflections of your expectations. What has been
sown in your subconscious mind is what you reap. Doubt produces failure,
fear yields anger, and belief in limitation is the greatest of all
self-fulfilling prophecies.
FUNDAMENTAL 2
The second fundamental
is that thoughts are things. The thoughts we have reveal the beliefs
we have about ourselves.
Listen to how we talk
to ourselves. Is the language from the inside reflecting optimism,
or is it filled with negative and self-limiting ideas?
What you expect is what
you get. Science refers to this phenomenon as the Pygmalion effect.
It is a fact: if you expect the worst, you get it. And some of us
must love it, because we keep on getting it! Oh, we may complain about
it, we may yell and scream when it happens, but what do most of us
do about it? Most of us speak and act as though there is absolutely
nothing we can do about it. After all, isn't life full of "normal"
events that produce "normal" responses? Isn't it normal to become
angry for being cut off in five o'clock traffic? Isn't it normal to
become fearful when the boss speaks harshly? Isn't it normal to be
frustrated with a child's lack of respect or self-responsibility?
Isn't it normal to become stuck or just fed up?
Such reactions may be
normal, but are they appropriate or conducive to happiness? Has anger
ever produced a peaceful sense of harmony within you? Has it ever
solved a problem or led to anything other than more anger, guilt,
and feelings of being out of control? Such reactions may be normal,
but another word for normal is average, which can be defined as the
best of the worst and the worst of the best. Neither end of this definition
is the highest best of who you really are.
You are your thoughts.
You manifest your thoughts, your subconscious beliefs, in everything
you experience. Do you believe you deserve happiness, wholeness, and
success? You must truly know at all levels of your being that all
good things are yours in order for them ever to be yours. You create
your own realities. Events are not pivotal points in your life, you
are the pivotal point in your life. When your thoughts are in agreement
with your desires, your desires will magically materialize.
FUNDAMENTAL 3
The third fundamental
is to forgive and let go. That idea may be a bit startling at first,
but think about it for a minute. Do you consider yourself to be a
victim? A victim of your circumstances? Or are you willing to assume
responsibility for who you are? There are two ways to be tied up in
the world. One is to be tied, literally, by someone else and the other
is to tie yourself, figuratively, by refusing to let go of beliefs
that limit your expression of the whole and complete being you are.
In other words, as long as you displace responsibility by blaming
someone or something for who and what you are, you remove from yourself
the power to be anything other than partial and incomplete.
All behavior is the result
of choice. Sometimes our choices are made at an unconscious or a subconscious
level. For example, we choose to avoid conflict by repressing our
true feelings. Later our true feelings become so strong that we can
no longer suppress them, and some small incident triggers an overkill
response. That is a reactive model -- we have lost control. When we
assume responsibility for every aspect of our lives, we get in touch
with our deepest fears and feelings. The power we gain over our former,
reactive behavior, provides us with the ability to respond appropriately
to all stimuli. That is a proactive model -- we are always in control.
It has been said that
the highest act of consciousness is inhibition - inhibition of animal
stimulus-response conditioning. When we accept responsibility for
our every thought and action, we empower ourselves by performing the
highest act of consciousness: inhibiting the animal stimulus-response
reaction. But that means we no longer have anyone to blame.
In fact, as long as we
blame, we effectively eliminate our ability to grow, to be in control,
or to experience peace, balance, and harmony. Power to grow resides
in forgiveness. Forgiving and letting go will set us free. Forgiving
everyone, including ourselves, provides the opportunity to become
more than we have been, which for many is but a mere shadow of our
real selves. And the irony of all this is that most of us know that
we are much more than we have acted out our lives to be!
FUNDAMENTAL 4
The most powerful force
in the world is love. Love cancels fear. Fear is the only obstacle
that must be overcome in order for all of our experiences to take
on new dimensions of meaning and joy. This love is not romantic love
between lovers but the unconditional love that we give our children.
We are all children in some relative stage of development, learning
how to live in joy and happiness. When we truly understand this truth,
it becomes easy to forgive another of acts that are selfish and self-centered
-- and forgive ourselves, as well. "Above all else, respect thyself,"
said Pythagoras. In order to love others, we must first love ourselves.
We cannot pour from an empty container.
Contemporary studies of
behavioral dysfunctions ranging from learning difficulties to criminal
activity indicate one common denominator: low self-esteem. Low self-esteem
grows out of fear of rejection -- rejection by a loved one, an employer,
a stranger, anyone who might laugh at our efforts or who would misunderstand
or disapprove. On the other hand, high self-esteem grows out of self-acceptance.
Self-acceptance is self-love. Self-esteem comes from self-love. We
cannot love anyone unless we love ourselves.
FUNDAMENTAL 5
The fifth fundamental
is that acceptance is mastery. Loving unconditionally suggests accepting
others as they are. Furthermore, loving unconditionally suggests accepting
yourself as a whole and complete being on the journey of learning
we call life.
Acceptance, love, and
forgiveness are as necessarily interrelated as each side of a triangle
is to the triangle as a whole. Acceptance is the natural process we
knew as children. When light faded into night, each of us accepted
that this just was the way it worked, and we learned to live accordingly.
As we grew older we began to manipulate our world by means of electricity.
Some things in the world can and even should be manipulated to our
benefit -- turning the dark into a bright space by flipping a light
switch may be one of them. But there are other elements in our environment
over which we have absolutely no control, nor should we. Attempting
to change other people into what we want them to be by manipulating
them is what many of us have spent our lives doing.
The best way in which
each of us can influence our environment is in our presence of being.
When we accept other people for who and what they are, we have taken
the first step toward accepting ourselves and contributing to the
improvement of any condition or situation. Krishnamurti once stated
that "you are the world." When we reflect peace and joy from an inner
level of being, the world mirrors it back to us. When we judge, condemn,
hate, lust, and so on, the world shows us these qualities. The world
is a mirror, for the principal function of the world is to provide
us the opportunity to learn.
What we resist we often
become. What we like least in another is almost always a reflection
of something in ourselves. When we love and accept ourselves, we love
and accept others. Each individual who comes into our lives is a teacher.
Each has something to contribute to our learning. We in turn have
something to contribute to their learning. When viewed from this perspective,
our every transaction with another individual transcends the limitations
of manipulation.
The fifth fundamental
has been called the Golden Rule. Treat others as though they were
you, and treat according to the best you there is, and the rest just
happens. What goes out is what you get back. Just as the story in
the Bible of the prodigal son teaches us that God has already accepted
and forgiven us, so this fundamental suggests that for many of us
the least of our brothers and sisters has been ourselves! Accepting
and loving ourselves provides the ability to accept and love others,
just as accepting and loving others provides the ability to accept
and love ourselves.
FUNDAMENTAL 6
Martin Luther King once
said, "I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought
to be, and you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I
ought to be." He went on to say that the mutually related network
of reality is the fabric of the human condition.
The sixth fundamental,
then, is interdependence, the principle that each of us is an aspect
of the whole. Each of us invites respect or disrespect according to
what we give others, all others. Down through the ages this concept
has been given many labels, including the popular label karma. In
law it is called reciprocity. What we sow is indeed what we reap.
Interdependence means
individually assuming responsibility for any condition that is contrary
to the quality of humanness in its highest form and then acting to
produce, out of the condition or situation, balance and harmony for
all. That is not to say that we take up causes and then shove them
down someone else's throat. It is to say that we can work in harmony
through example and right action to produce an environment that is
loving and nurturing for all.
Many people operate in
a codependent manner. Their method of assuming responsibility is to
manipulate others by placing blame, finding fault, or assuming a contractual
posture that goes like this: "If I do this, will you...?" or, "If
you loved me, you would..." or, "Don't you feel sorry that I feel..."
or, "You need me to...," and so on. Codependence is manipulating another
person to provide you with security, sensation, and power. If someone
else cannot live or function without you, then your self-worth has
been validated -- and vice versa. A codependent is a victim, a victim
both of his or her surroundings and of other people. The need to control
another person is a classic symptom of codependency. Codependency
grows out of insecurity. All insecurities are externally oriented.
The codependent sees stimuli through the lens of expectation. Expectation
is a contract that goes like this: "I will behave this way, if you
behave this way;" or, "If you behave that way, I will behave that
way." The fear of unfulfilled expectations gives rise to internal
conflict.
Happiness is a state of
being. It exists moment to moment in the eternal now. If happiness
doesn't exist, conflict takes its place -- even if the conflict is
only the difference between what we think we should be experiencing
and we are experiencing. In other words, when we have what we desire,
we experience joy. Furthermore, when what we experience is unconditional,
as opposed to contractual, then we experience only joy.
Insecurity fuels fear,
and fear is a very creative force. What we fear most is therefore
very often what we create as our experience. Instead of accepting
what is, we project what might be or lament what might have been.
We are responsible only for ourselves individually. We must be whole
before any event in our lives will be. Therefore, true interdependence
assumes the role of "fixing" oneself.
FUNDAMENTAL 7
The seventh fundamental
is the culmination of all the fundamentals of success. That culminating
principle is this: Do it now. This is a world of action, not procrastination.
For anything to change, you must do the changing. Nothing happens
until you make it happen! Only you can do it for you.
If the world was a world
of theory, then none of us would be here. Nothing in this world stands
still or waits. No action is inaction and all inaction is action.
The form and the function are the same. Live with the awareness that
God's presence exists in all!
(Note: This article was
originally published in MIND BODY SPIRIT. For a free catalog of the
authors books and tapes, e-mail
phone toll free: 1-800-964-3551).
