• Look at the patterns that emerge.  Are your days balanced?

• Are there some things you can delegate, eliminate, or otherwise simplify?

• Is there anything missing from your life?

• Can you make room for it by scaling down your involvement in other areas?

• Think of yourself as an architect designing a beautiful living structure.
  

     Carol Zengara wrote, “Relinquishments in your Musings made me think of needs/wants. A friend of mine brought this to mind years ago. He suggested asking yourself: Do I "need" this or that or do I "want" this or that. Here speaking just from a material point of view. But taking the need/want a bit further: Why am I holding on to a particular destructive concept/reaction? Why do I "seem" to need/want to hold on?” She suggests, “relinquish what is no longer serving a viable/constructive purpose in our lives, when we can, and replace it with a fresh/positive/forward-growth-moving concept or affirmation. Easy to say but at times difficult to do.”

     Brian Donley, who has become a good friend through our mutual author’s activities for years, highlights, in connection with my previous notes about relinquishments, a powerful sentence that is still reverberating in my mind, heart and soul…

     "What I Want and What I Need are Exactly the Same THING."            

                                                   Peace Pilgrim

     We are having the privilege of witnessing history today through the power of peaceful social transformation as group consciousness rises in need of social change conducive to facilitate the exploration of inner potential, a renewed sense of individual and group balance, an expansion of individual responsibility and commitment, and the opportunity for more fulfilling lives in pursuit of ideals.

     Mahatma Gandhi’s Prayer for Peace comes to mind in the context of recent social events, “I offer you peace.  I offer you love.  I offer you friendship.  I see your beauty.   I hear your need.  I feel your feelings.  My wisdom flows from the Highest Source.  I salute that Source in you.  Let us work together for unity and love.”

     Today I am reflecting on the meaning of manifesting our most cherished ideals throughout life as we strive toward intentional living.

     For many of us, this is a lifetime process filled with great moments of accomplishment, times of challenge to clarify our mission and still other dreams to be fulfilled in time.  What a fascinating process this can potentially be!  I would invite you to ponder on your own, personal commitments in this area.

     What do you see happening in the future?  Ideals have the power to create energy to direct our efforts to attain ever-higher goals.

     I would like to share with you some of my own commitments as we speak:  I align my life with my deepest understanding and act out of my highest realization.  Living up to my ideals, I find opportunities to manifest them in the realm of everyday.  I acknowledge that by having an experience of oneness with one being I can know it with the world.  This day I saturate myself in the ideals of a group I admire in a joyous outreach to a broader vision.

     Ah!  I am now inspired to continue working in this direction.

     Let me know your ideas in this regard as you wish!

     Through my review of Sabian materials today, I find of personal relevance the following sentence: “The sensible man utilizes the interweaving of the potentialities of his inner ideals and his outer situation, each for the other.”

Marc Edmund Jones

Founder of the Sabian Assembly

www.sabian.org

A book I have been recommending for years is “The Tao of Inner Peace” by Dianne Dreher.  I find her approach most practical as we strive to embrace a state of dynamic harmony within ourselves.  One of her suggestions is to find a meaningful challenge that makes any life an adventure.

Here are some of her suggestions in such exploration:

• Can you see each day as a chance to practice what you believe?
• Can you do something each day to renew your sense of challenge?
• Could you benefit from more conscious discipline in following your goals?

Close your eyes and see yourself doing these things, living with greater joy, energy and adventure.  How do you feel?