♦ Step Five:
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Dared to embrace (and revel in) my true humanity and joy.
Understanding that my true nature is joy, and that the expression and experience of this joy is the “will” of Spirit, I dare to live a life of fullness and joy, a life which is both human and divine, a life that expresses, and gives rise to, all the noble qualities of my nature—such as love, truth, joy, givingness, abundance, creativity, and beauty.
What Brings me Value and Joy?
What makes my life a true life, a life of value, a life of joy, fulfillment, aliveness, and beauty?
In the previous step we came to discover the things which bring value and joy to our life. The essence of this step, then, is to enjoy life, to allow our life to be a true and natural expression of our boundless joy. Most of us no longer know how to enjoy life—as we did as children—because we have lost touch with the very source of their joy (which is our own self). Over the years it has been conditioned out of us. Thus, with most adults, joy does not come naturally, as an overflow of their own being. Joy is thought to be something which must be obtained through various experiences and activities; and the gatekeeper of our mind only allows us to experience our joy when there is a good reason—such as when we win a contest or get something we want. It appears that we cannot be joyous for no reason at all. In other words, the natural experience our own joy has been conditioned out of us. Now we want to overcome this conditioning, discharge subconscious negativity (which curtails our life-energy and lowers the “vibration” of our entire psyche); we want to, once gain, come upon our inherently joyful nature. Joy is the very nature of Spirit and our own essence—to experience our own joy in the most natural thing in the world.
To Thine own Self be True
To know our true humanity and joy we must, foremost, be ourselves, the whole of who we are; we must embrace both our human and spiritual dimensions.
The reason why most people are cut off from their true aliveness and joy is because they are fully identified with—and live their lives through—their self-image, the idea (or imagined version) they have of themselves. This is only one small part of one’s true being. This mode of living totally excludes one’s true self from one’s experience of life. So, to fully enjoy life, to “enter the spirit of life,” our true self (our conscious presence) and the fullness of our human nature must be present. We cannot leave our true self—our one-with-Spirit nature—out of our own life and expect to live a life that is filled with our true qualities, such as love, joy, aliveness, abundance, wholeness, fulfillment, creativity, and beauty; nor can we ignore our own humanity and seek purely transcendental qualities, which seems to exist in some kind of either or void. All the divine qualities are integral to our own nature—yet we must be present in our own life in order to enjoy them.
Quotes
What is the unifying Desire which underlies all the varieties of expression? It is a very simple one—it is just to enjoy living. Our ideas of [what makes for] an enjoyable life may be quite varied, but to enjoy life is what we all really want; so what we want to get at is this: What is the basis of an enjoyable life? [How can we get the most livingness and enjoyment out of life?]
I have no hesitation in saying that the secret of enjoying life is to take an interest in it. . . . Now for anything to interest us we must enter into the spirit of it. If we do not enter into the spirit of a game it does not interest us; if we do not enter into the spirit of a book, it does not interest us—and we are bored to death with it. Likewise, this is the case with everything. So, from our own experience, we may lay down the maxim that “To enjoy anything we must enter into the spirit of it.” And, if this be so, then to enjoy the “Living Quality [and Fullness] of Life” we must enter into the Spirit of Life itself.
(Troward, The Law and the Word, p. 64)
It may seem a truism, but the great secret of Life is its Livingness [or Aliveness], and it is just more of this quality of Livingness that we want to get hold of; it is that good thing of which we can never have too much.
(Troward, The Hidden Power, p. 147)
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___________________________________________
Dared to embrace (and revel in) my true humanity and joy.
Understanding that my true nature is joy, and that the expression and experience of this joy is the “will” of Spirit, I dare to live a life of fullness and joy, a life which is both human and divine, a life that expresses, and gives rise to, all the noble qualities of my nature—such as love, truth, joy, givingness, abundance, creativity, and beauty.
What Brings me Value and Joy?
What makes my life a true life, a life of value, a life of joy, fulfillment, aliveness, and beauty?
In the previous step we came to discover the things which bring value and joy to our life. The essence of this step, then, is to enjoy life, to allow our life to be a true and natural expression of our boundless joy. Most of us no longer know how to enjoy life—as we did as children—because we have lost touch with the very source of their joy (which is our own self). Over the years it has been conditioned out of us. Thus, with most adults, joy does not come naturally, as an overflow of their own being. Joy is thought to be something which must be obtained through various experiences and activities; and the gatekeeper of our mind only allows us to experience our joy when there is a good reason—such as when we win a contest or get something we want. It appears that we cannot be joyous for no reason at all. In other words, the natural experience our own joy has been conditioned out of us. Now we want to overcome this conditioning, discharge subconscious negativity (which curtails our life-energy and lowers the “vibration” of our entire psyche); we want to, once gain, come upon our inherently joyful nature. Joy is the very nature of Spirit and our own essence—to experience our own joy in the most natural thing in the world.
To Thine own Self be True
To know our true humanity and joy we must, foremost, be ourselves, the whole of who we are; we must embrace both our human and spiritual dimensions.
The reason why most people are cut off from their true aliveness and joy is because they are fully identified with—and live their lives through—their self-image, the idea (or imagined version) they have of themselves. This is only one small part of one’s true being. This mode of living totally excludes one’s true self from one’s experience of life. So, to fully enjoy life, to “enter the spirit of life,” our true self (our conscious presence) and the fullness of our human nature must be present. We cannot leave our true self—our one-with-Spirit nature—out of our own life and expect to live a life that is filled with our true qualities, such as love, joy, aliveness, abundance, wholeness, fulfillment, creativity, and beauty; nor can we ignore our own humanity and seek purely transcendental qualities, which seems to exist in some kind of either or void. All the divine qualities are integral to our own nature—yet we must be present in our own life in order to enjoy them.
Quotes
What is the unifying Desire which underlies all the varieties of expression? It is a very simple one—it is just to enjoy living. Our ideas of [what makes for] an enjoyable life may be quite varied, but to enjoy life is what we all really want; so what we want to get at is this: What is the basis of an enjoyable life? [How can we get the most livingness and enjoyment out of life?]
I have no hesitation in saying that the secret of enjoying life is to take an interest in it. . . . Now for anything to interest us we must enter into the spirit of it. If we do not enter into the spirit of a game it does not interest us; if we do not enter into the spirit of a book, it does not interest us—and we are bored to death with it. Likewise, this is the case with everything. So, from our own experience, we may lay down the maxim that “To enjoy anything we must enter into the spirit of it.” And, if this be so, then to enjoy the “Living Quality [and Fullness] of Life” we must enter into the Spirit of Life itself.
(Troward, The Law and the Word, p. 64)
It may seem a truism, but the great secret of Life is its Livingness [or Aliveness], and it is just more of this quality of Livingness that we want to get hold of; it is that good thing of which we can never have too much.
(Troward, The Hidden Power, p. 147)
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