Practice Your Magic

By Steve Chandler September 12, 2008

"I dwell in possibility."

~Emily Dickinson

Today I'm going to see if I can picture what's possible. Instead of picturing what's wrong. That's the whole formula right there.

When I'm depressed I meditate on one non-transformational mantra: Me. Me. Me. Me. Me. So I might try a change of course. Rather than obsessing about my unique personality and ego, why don't I pick something wonderful to create? Once I decide what that is, then I'll just be who I need to be to get it done.

Then I might want to step back a little, in prayer or meditation or a good long walk, and observe the patterns of thought that cloud up my brain and see how all those patterns obscure my spirit. And eliminate possibility.

The body takes each thought and translates it into a feeling, which is a wonderful system if I'm not swept away by cloudy, uncontrollable thoughts. If I can step back like this, I am no longer swept away. Spirit moves into my life when I step back and observe. Spirit moves into the space between the observer and the observed thought.

The commitment I make to spirit, and its practice, in whatever religious or non religious form it takes, is absolutely vital to the many other commitments being fully experienced and expressed. I have learned this the hard way by denying the reality of this most real aspect of human existence. As Chardin has said "We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience."

My primary commitment is to always know that and to continuously grow upward into that ultimate reality. By practicing.

I love the book written by George Leonard and Michael Murphy called The Life We Are Given. We have each been given life. What will we do? What's possible? Will we dwell in possibility, or will we dwell in our own upset feelings? Which of those two practices will we practice?

Leonard and Murphy say, "When wisely pursued, practices bestow countless blessings. If we do not obsess about their results, they make us vehicles of grace and reveal unexpected treasures. In this, they often seem paradoxical. They require time, for example, but frequently make more time available to us: They can slow time down, and open us to the timeless moment from which we have arisen. They require sacrifice, but they restore us. While demanding the relinquishment of established patterns, they open us to new love, new awareness, new energy; what we lose is replaced by new joy, beauty, and strength. They require effort, but come to be effortless. Demanding commitment, they eventually proceed like second nature. They need a persistent will, but after a while flow unimpeded. Whereas they are typically hard to start, they eventually cannot be stopped."

They recommend this, as a guide for life:

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