Have you ever felt like you’re not living up to your full potential? Like you’re leaving some things undone, things that you could have done, perhaps even should have done, but didn’t?
You’re not alone.
Sometimes you might feel like you are not following through with things in practically any part of your life. It can be that you have a passion, or a dream and you are looking to turn it into a reality. You can have personal goals such as to take better care of your skin, or to reach a certain target weight. You may have certain things that you want to achieve at work. Yet, you may feel like it’s slow going – or you feel like you get fired or ramped up at first but then things fizzle out. It’s the age-old cliché of new year’s resolutions that do not stick.
Let’s take a look at the difference between a pure and impure desire, as well as the role of focusing with precision.
Firstly, before we get into the details of ideas, wants and desires and the realisation or non-realisation of those, it is important to understand what gives rise to the want or the desire in the first place. You need to know where you’re coming from in order to know how you can bring forth what you truly want.
When I speak of a pure desire, I am referring to a want without resistance. In contrast, a desire that has at its base resistance or a feeling of lack can be described as an impure desire. For example, if you need to obtain a certain position at work, or to live in particular size home or have a significant other in order to be whole, then the root of that need or desire is in a place of lack. It is from that place that people seek to fill their cup with joy and wholeness, but it never fills up from those externalities. These are what the Buddha referred to as insatiable desires.
If a desire comes from a place of expansion, the love of creation and not seeking to make yourself whole with it, or to validate your existence with it, then we can say that it is a pure (resistance-free or lack-free) desire. Creating from that place feels completely different because it does not feel as much like a need as a ‘wouldn’t it be nice if’. But then there’s isn’t an attachment to the outcome like where it is a need. It’s that attachment to the outcome that is associated with the “suffering that is caused by desire.”
It is important to draw that distinction because you want to channel your energy towards those things that actually fill your cup; the things that you truly want to create. But in order to channel your energy to those things that are aligned to your heart (soul), you need to be in resonance with that in terms of your mind and your thoughts. It’s as simple as not being able to install a roof on the 2nd level of a house while you are on the ground level – you mentally need to be in the place (mental space) where you want to apply your energy.
Now, your mind isn’t always in resonance with your Creative Source. Sometimes it is receptive to it, when your mind doesn’t block the flow of it. Sometimes you aren’t in a state to pick up on it, especially if you’ve been thinking thoughts that resist the flow of your Creative Source. Because your proximity to your Inner Peace / Creative Source fluctuates, you cannot expect yourself to make progress towards those goals or ideas if your thoughts are not in the proximity of the essence of that inspired idea. It’s like getting the idea for the recipe of a delicious cake, but then not gathering the necessary ingredients (components) to actually make the cake.
So if you don’t make the effort and take the steps to align your state of mind with that of your Creative Source, which is also in resonance with your true desires, then you cannot expect yourself to further those inspired things; you cannot create at a passionate level if your mindset is not compatible with passionate things.
And simply leaving things to chance and not purposefully putting yourself in a place of resonance with your Creative Source also leaves the progress on things to chance. And that’s how things just seem to fizzle out over time. For example, if you have a fitness goal that you want to achieve, waiting to randomly feel inspired to go to the gym may not be a very successful strategy. But if you set aside the time to be in resonance with your Self, your Creative Source, then you set yourself up to be receptive to that inspiration.
People sometimes recommend the use of vision boards, or having reminders of your goals in spots around the house where you’ll notice them frequently. That can be quite helpful to bring your focus back to those things that you want to build, want to create, and take further. Of course a vision board on its own does not do much, it’s about what it does to your focus, your mindset and your level of alignment. We haven’t spoken of this for a while, but in the Creation Formula, (Outcome = Desire – Resistance), a vision board really helps to amplify your desire, and can therefore positively impact the outcome that you are looking to achieve.
We so often get caught up in daily life with its many potential distractions, and focus so much on our current manifested reality and what’s going on within it, that we can forget to sync up with our Creative Source and our true desires sufficiently to continue to shift our life in the direction of our choosing. This is where regular meditation can be a very helpful practice, because it allows us to realign with our Creative Source and also helps us to practise being more deliberate with our focus.
There is discipline involved in furthering the things on which you want to make progress, but the discipline does not lie in forcing yourself to do something that you do not want to do, but rather in placing yourself in the right mindset where you are receptive to the inspiration that you are looking for.