No matter how many times they’re rejected, the waves still kiss the shore.  That’s the goodness of the universe we’re born into.

We are not our thoughts.  We don’t even need thoughts.  Our existence does not depend upon thinking.  Thoughts are important tools, but they aren’t our identity.  We need to remember how to live, how to just be, independent of the interruption and distortion of thinking.  Don’t let the tools run the craftsperson.

Our thoughts, instead, are how we create.  Before there can be a chair, someone has the idea of “chair,” prior to making one.  Before there’s a house, someone plans it out, from the mind, eventually in every detail before it is built.  Before anyone had any kind of house, someone conceived the idea of building one, prior to any houses existing.  We think the thoughts first, and later realize the physical manifestation.

Now, because we commonly believe we are our thoughts, we think incessantly. Descartes even enshrined this in our philosophy—I think;  therefore I am.  But it’s backwards, as we typically understand it.  Thinking may well be evidence for our existence (which is what Descartes was getting at), but that thinking is not  our existence itself.  To paraphrase Yeats, the falcon is flying the falconer.  Or at least thinks it is, and wants to continue thinking that.

The mind/ego will fight hard to keep its usurped throne.  This is why a wilderness hike takes time to bring you to clarity and mental peace.  But the mind/ego is not truly in control, and it’s not really you.  Instead of thinking your way out of all your troubles—stop thinking.  Seriously.  That alone will be an improvement (and why wilderness hiking helps so much).  Then set about purposeful creation—and enjoy the joy you are meant to feel.  Let it happen.  Allow.

Eckhart Tolle tells of a talk Krishnamurti gave in his later years.  “Do you want to know my secret?” the Indian saint asked.  Everyone listened.  “Here is my secret,” he said.  “I don’t mind what happens.”  We do plan, of course, so this is a distinction hard for us to grasp at first.  Simon Sinek offers a clarifying point in the title of his book:   “Start with Why.”  When we start with why we are doing something, the what  and the how  fall into place naturally.

When you want something, ask yourself why you want that.  If the answer has you smiling, excited, happy, full of joyous anticipation, then you’re on to something. Even if things work out differently than you’d planned, you’ll still find yourself on an interesting, enticing path, only farther along it than you were before, and having fun.

To quote Simon Sinek again—there’s a reason we say “arts and sciences,” never “science and art.”  The “art” always comes before the “science.”  Similarly, we don’t set out to win “minds and hearts,” but rather, “hearts and minds,” in that order.

In one segment of the documentary “The Living Matrix,” researchers show a series of images, some negative, some positive, and measure heart and brain activity for each.  Not surprisingly, the heart and brain waves are different for the positive images than for the negative images.  But this next part is fascinating.

The researchers then had subjects watch randomly generated images on a computer screen, not knowing which would come up—in fact, not even the computer knows.  And again, the heart and brain waves responded differently depending on the positive or negative image.  But what’s really interesting is the order of these “responses.”  First the heart wave would change, then the brain wave changed, and only then did the image change.  The heart “responds” first, informing the brain, not the other way around, and both “respond” before the random image even appears.  My friends, we are much more than we typically realize, and at essence, we are heart-centered.

In a related discovery, Dr. Gary Schwartz measured the heart and brain waves of both practitioners and clients in Reconnective healing sessions.  He found that during a session, the practitioner’s heart wave changes, followed by the client’s brain waves.  Interesting, no?

It—whatever “it” is, in the sense described in “Zen and the Art of Archery”—comes from the heart.  When our thoughts follow our heart, we are in purposeful alignment, and our positive emotions resonate with it.

Does this all sound a bit too mystical?  Are you more of a practical, business-oriented nature?  Then you need to spend a little time with Napoleon Hill.  You may remember him for his most famous book, “Think and Grow Rich.”

Napoleon Hill was hand picked by Andrew Carnegie to investigate and codify a formula, a philosophy of success.  What Carnegie and Hill laid out was not a business tactic, but a “vibration” as a basis for a Law of Attraction.  This was “the secret” mentioned throughout Hill’s books, based on interviews of hundreds of extremely successful businessmen.  The ability to focus the mind on a definite purpose and to see that purpose fulfilled, believing it, no matter how lofty, was the magical key to success.

Have a Definite Major Purpose, Hill stressed.  Then a reasonable plan for achieving that purpose.  Adjust as necessary, and don’t give up.  Ever.  Keep the focus on the success, not the lack of it.  In fact, originally, Hill told Carnegie he was the wrong man for the job, coming from humble origins.  Carnegie made clear as long as Hill kept to that vision of things, he would always manifest lack.  Sound familiar?

Hang in there.  No matter how many times they’re rejected, the waves still kiss the shore.  That’s the goodness of the universe we’re born into.  Truly, all we want is already here.  We just have to believe it.  And that’s from not the mouth of mystics, but from the fabulously successful.