Success and Failure

Most people in this world are either hard-pressed struggling to survive, striving to be a success in their chosen fields or just happy to 'tread water' and maintain a status-quo in their lives. At the end of the day, everything is just an experience and we are the ones that judge ourselves and others as successes or failures.

From my 'selling days' I remember reading a quote that said, "success is the progressive realisation of worthwhile goals". And in more recent times I have seen a quote that says, "success is doing whatever you want to do that makes you happy".

My issue with the former quote is - who determines what is worthwhile? And my issue with the latter quote is - it is completely at odds with the former! For instance, people can derive happiness from being sick, from being lazy, from being victims/tyrants, from abusing others etc.

If we look at others and say, "he or she is a success or a failure", then what measure are we using? If the measure is money; how much money before we become a success and how little before we are branded a failure? And of course our material wealth or lack of it is but one aspect of our lives. Also, if our only measure is money, should we not consider how the money has been acquired? Surely, a self-made entrepreneur that becomes wealthy as a result of their own creation, is more of a success than someone who has won the money or someone who has been born with a silver-spoon in their mouth? I guess that's just my perception - and that's the point!

If we look at the 'wheel of Life' and assess our performance against various criteria e.g. our working life, our disposable income/assets, our family life, our relationships with others, our relationship with God, our health, our freedom, our peace of mind, our evolvement and self-love; we start to see that the picture is much bigger than just material wealth. So why is it that most people are just chasing the money? Have we all forgotten about the most important thing - LOVE?

After all, if our determination of success or failure is simply down to our own perception of the world (whether or not gleaned from the image of our society); then we are the ones sitting in judgement on ourselves and others. To my mind, we are all here to be creators and to leave a legacy for future generations; and so in this respect, we can only fail by losing sight of our true nature in favour of consumerism.

We spend all of our lives chasing the false god of money (and some achieve a degree of success against this measure), and then we succumb to the ultimate failure - DEATH. On the other hand, if we’re to spend all of our lives (from now on) hot on the heels of love, who is to say that becoming a master couldn't become a reality? If we pursued bringing forth the unconditional love of God (from within us) as hotly as we pursue money, then the reality of 'Christ-like' beings would certainly follow.

A nice philosophy you might say and you'd be absolutely correct! So why can't this beautiful philosophy become a reality? What's the problem with it? The problem is that all of the lights don't come on together. And that means the radical few that 'buck the trend' have to initially swim against a very strong tide. Imagine it – you are the only one trying to swim to the shore whilst there are millions swimming out to sea…

Fundamentally, it comes down to one thing. You either recognise and enact the spiritual side of your nature and live in accordance with your soul (which is pressing you to resolve your emotional issues with the axe of truth) or you follow the conditioned herd towards the ultimate failure. I say that death is the ultimate failure because if you lose your body in this lifetime; then it means your body has won the battle of Armageddon (and ironically created its own demise) and the real you has lost.

Death is a failure to know - Ramtha

There are never any guarantees with the spiritual journey because the closer you get to realising the ultimate truth, the more the demons of this world beseech you. And not only do you have to do battle with the demons coming from your past, but there are also those in this world that have a vested interest in keeping you quiet... The truth frees individuals and thus disembowels those that are in control. The resolution to this scenario is the evolvement of those who are in power - towards unconditional love and away from control and personal gain.

So how does our personal evolvement affect us in a world that is conditioned, static and thus backwards in motion? It's like becoming an alien! We are alienated and are initially bemused by the fact that we no longer get the attention that we used to get when we were social entities. Our genetic need for acceptance and approval is our greatest battle for a while, until we accept ourselves and accept others, despite the delusions of our conclusions drawn from 'appearances'.

When we can see the spirit of a person beyond their obvious physical body, then we come to realise the 'sameness' and the illusion of body-consciousness. We are then only motivated by body-consciousness if we want the 'lower' experience of another chemical hit on the body (and that's all it is!). And even when we can see God in another, it takes a very advanced being to know what the soul of that person harbours; and thus know how to help them to heal.

As we evolve, we mustn't confuse our loving feelings with sexual preference. There should no longer be any doubt about being heterosexual and having love for those of the same gender. Equally, this applies to homosexuals that evolve and experience love for the opposite sex. It's not that we are changing sexual preference! We are evolving to a non-sexual, more loving, viewpoint.

Let's get back to the subject matter. A man known as Blue Body has said, "I wake up in the morning and that is enough for me, everything else from then on is a bonus!" God, we are alive and that in itself is a success! How can we ever be a failure when God has always got us by the 'scruff of the neck', no matter how far we have chosen to drift away? God doesn't care what we have done in our lives, God simply wants us to reunite and return home. We had to go away to experience what love is not so that we could fully understand what love is.

Before I finish with this article, I want to touch briefly on relationships and the increasing need of married people for extra-curricular activities. As a single guy, I have occasionally gone out on a Friday night for a drink and dance. There have been several occasions when I have become intimate with a woman that I've subsequently discovered to be married or otherwise committed to a partner. Some of these women are happy to dance closely with other men. Others are happy to become more passionate and smooch along with the music and yet others are happy to be shagged wherever the moment takes them! How are we ever going to become absolutely trustworthy in our society when sexual partners don't honour their intimacy?

Single people have 'encounters' with married people because they are either on a 'power trip' or they just want non-committal sex. They are not ready for the commitment and inevitable changes that being in a relationship brings. They would rather steal somebody else's partner than face too much change in their own world. And so they selfishly support the compromise and lies of the married person they are bonking.

Of course, the committed person getting the extra-curricular activity has got the best of both worlds, because they are living their truth and the excitement of all that (the affair) and they are managing to keep intact their parallel, compromised life, back home. Talk about a split personality! When are we all going to become REAL people?

Love is giving to another in the mind and in the case of intimate relationships, that follows through to giving /receiving in the body. Sex without love is the body aspect without the unconditional giving from the mind. The unconditional giving from one's mind is what distinguishes a loving, sexual relationship from just sex. When people give priority to the mind over the body, and are thus able to sacrifice their bodily desires in favour of helping the soul of another; then these people have found love within themselves.

If you recognise a place in your mind where passion, love and sex can coexist and you see them as occupants in a car, then your journey is to swap the driver (sex) with the back seat passenger (love). It's just a matter of where your priority is, which of course is determined by where your focus is.

Isn't it true that those of us that are neither sexual predators nor sexual prey, just want someone that we can share lovingly with and trust implicitly? When we reach the point in our mind where the pendulum sits still, we can trust being out of control because we know that we are coming from a place of love; and that we are not just looking for an orgasmic meal.

I've just caught the lunchtime news and viewed the actor Will Smith on a walkabout in Birmingham. When a reporter asked him how she could get the man of her dreams, he gave her some very wise advice. He said "you have to BE the kind of person you want to attract into your life". And he is entirely correct IF you want to attract the 'higher' qualities, such as love, integrity and being impeccable. However, if you want to attract the 'lower' qualities e.g. a powerful person; then you have to be the opposite e.g. a sexual predator attracts sexual prey and vice versa, and a victim attracts a tyrant and vice versa.

As the 'People's Charter' has overwhelmingly voted the number one 'commandment' to be, Treat others as you would want to be treated yourself; then we should apply this to all areas of our lives: including our most intimate relationships. Give from your mind first and let everything else flow from that source.

Your Success or Failure in this life is determined by what you think you have contributed to this life. Seeing yourself as a failure is just a self-serving experience, in that it is just an excuse not to accomplish anything in your life, other than being a failure. Go for it my friend - go and make a difference.