Vigilance

Hi Dean,

I' am studying full time in college and working part time shifts in cafe. Then I love to undartake new things never tryied before in my spare time, like now I baceme interested in singing, so I went to church chorus and ask them to take me in, they did and now I practice singing there.

No matter what I do, first of all I do it to feed my consciousness, so every action I do, I pay my attention to consciousness, the harder it ges sometimes the better, because those are the best moments to learn and see ego's manifestation within.

I give up to consciousness all the time, every single moment I become aware of me being out side of consciousness I go back and pray for letting me stay in it. Like this focus and diligence increase by them selves.

Hi Dean,

Thanks for this topic, good reminder to stay vigilant!

For me, vigilance in the present moment, comes a lot from dealing with the future and the past.

Planning the future and retrospections of the past helps me to be more vigilant now, learn from the mistakes in the past, understand the progress made, while reaching the goals in the future.

If I see from my retrospections that I have a difficulty in the certain area, certainly, it makes sense for me to fix it with the goal, addressing that specific issue when the next opportunity will be presented.

With the planning, I' ve realized, that it's better for me to work on it in a creative way, ensuring in advance its flexibility and appropriateness to the changing circumstances. I find that setting up the right goals and reaching them continously is really like an art, requiring so much intelligence and strength, to make it work in all kind of situations.

Happiness and love for all beings!

Vadim

Thanks for posting this Dean!

Vadim, how do you go about setting up the right goals and reaching them continuously? This is something I've struggled with heaps in the past, and I have quite an aversion to long term planning because I haven't learnt how to do it yet.

For me I think dealing with the future and the past is really important too for staying aware and constantly remembering but in a slightly different way. If I'm not aware then I'm usually either thinking about what I'm going to do in the future (even if I've planned my day I have to be careful not to rush to get things done or think about the next thing on my list) or I have memories about the past. So I have to make sure I'm not thinking in the future or the past, and that I'm just trying to observe.

It seems like self remembrance is a cornerstone of everything like observation. If they're not there then nothing is, but I think that I forget that, and either I think about doing the work while trying to be aware which doesn't work, or I get absorbed in things. Then when I realise I'm absorbed I get upset that I was, and really want to fix it, but too often it happens again the next time I do the same activity.

So preparing and retrospecting as Vadim said I think is pretty important. Not letting my compulsive egos pull me into activities unaware, or making sure if I realise I'm lost I do something about it rather than continuing and staying lost. Also watching out for the tough situations and knowing when they're going to come up.

Something else I've struggled with which I think is related to this is learning how to use every moment of my day to learn about myself. Retrospections and the meditation on the ego help me to get into that flavour, but I find it really hard. Maybe part of that is my problem with goal setting, and maybe it's pride in a way too or other egos blocking me, but mostly it's the lack of self remembrance.. I just get absorbed in things and forget, or I remember but I don't push hard enough.

I think I need to get in touch with my Divine Parents and rely on them for help for self remembrance and for help generally more and to strengthen our relationship.

I know how you feel though. I really badly want to succeed with the work and I think I know what I need to do it, now I just have to find the dedication and discipline and strength and will to keep self remembering and to change myself. It feels like there is something I'm just missing at the moment and I'm not quite sure what it is. Time for some reflection!

Sorry, not sure if that answered your question or just asked more.

All the strength, and thanks for the reminder and making me think!
David

Just another point I wanted to add :)

I think my egos often try to direct me away from remembering to do the work. Almost like a subtle (or sometimes not so subtle) dangling of a carrot.

Thanks!

Thanks for your responses guys!

It is strengthening just hearing that their are other people confronting the same obtacles. And thankyou for your suggestions and insights.

Something you said struck a chord with me David. About remembering, maybe for a moment, but still getting absorbed. This is especially the case for me. What I think is a good thing is that i've started to observe this resistance ego that immeditatly tries to stop me from taking a moment and coming to awareness.

There are three things I am aiming to focus on now to break through and push further:

1) Concentration
2) Rememberence
3) Willpower

Of course these things all intertwine. But even with many practises, without concentration, the benefits are not there, or as strong as they could be. Without remembering to do the work how am I going to get anywhere. Willpower, in those moments that are so easy to get absorbed, to be pulled away, or when I realise I am absorbed... continually pushing for awareness and dieing to my egos.

Much strength guys!
Your replies have helped.

Hi David,

You' ve brought a very good point, in my view, with any goals it's important not to get things rushed, not to "think in the future". Yes, that's one of the challenges for me too, indeed! I find the goals to be very helpful for my progress in virtually everything, however, I am still in the very beginning of learning how to maximize their benefits and "thinking in the future" is a common obstacle to overcome.

Ok, so how do I try to set up the right goals and to reach them continously? I beleive, for me it comes to the work on all the stages of the "goal life cycle": setting up a good goal, then moving towards it and finally completing it.
I find that each stage has specific obstacles to deal with, however, efforts on each stage can be very well rewarded and speed up the progress!
Without goals I am really, what Samael Aun Weor was writing about "piece of wood in the stormy waters of the ocean", pathetic slave of random impulses.

 Setting up the right goal.

When I have decided something to be my goal, if I have time, I try to investigate the underlying motivation to reach this goal.

Is it really what I need?
Is it coming from my consciousness?
Do I understand why I need it?
Is it realistic? Can I do it?
Is it the right goal?

Then, if it is a big goal, I think, it's vital to think about the optimal way to reach it, plan the strategy, oversee the possible problems to take care of, based on knolwedge, experience, intuition, visualize the possible path to it. Imagine, that I have reached my goal already, how does it feel?
Is it the place, where I really need to be, where I want to be?

Moving towards the goal.

If I could have only one goal... usually, as many of us, I have to follow so many goals, short-term, medium term, and long term, in all different spheres of my life. So, I need to set up priorities, find the right time for each of the goals, balance mundane and spiritual, physical and mental, things I like to do and things I have to do, taking into consideration the demands of a current situations and my capabilities. In the start of the day, week, I find, it's good to plan the activities for this period of time and control measures. Later, time to time, I just have to review what's going on (retrospections and then analyze the results of it) Efforts to be conscious and spiritual practices help me a lot not to get lost in the thinking and use the mind as the tool, when I choose the time for it.

With the simple, immediate goals, I find, it comes a lot to the question of simple willpower to do it, not leaving it for some other time, tomorrow, or the start of the next week, or Jan 1, etc.
No procrastination.

With the complex goals, I try to divide them at the bite-sized pieces, moving in baby steps every day. I find that intuition and common sense can help me a lot to find the right time to make those baby steps for each of the goals, while retrospections and reviews help me to do each of the baby steps well and keep moving in the right direction overall.
When it's getting really complicated and messy, usually I look for the paper right away. Writing things down helps me a lot to keep control over the following numerous goals and situational demands.
Also, I find, it's important sometimes to do a bit of "self-motivation", review the vision of the ultimate result, the final destination where I go, the "light-house seen far in the sea", inspiring me to go towards it, keeping motivation and persistence.

Completion of the goal.

Especially, if the goal was challenging and it took time and efforts to acheive it, at the moment of success it's so easy to "relax" , let go of the guard, giving up to egos and lower subconscious states and neglect all other goals and priorities. To counter this, I try to anticipate it in advance, deciding what to do next after completion of the goal, how to make the end to be really the new beginning.

Ultimately, I try to follow the great spiritual goal no matter what I am doing.

All the strength for everyone, intelligence and strength, may all our true dreams come true!
I see no reason why not.

Vadim

Another very important thing, I've forgot to mention is that I pray a lot and oftenly - to increase the connection with Divine and to follow the right goals only, in the right way, in the right time.
That really helps me and still, could be done much better!

Thankyou very much for that Vadim.

It was interesting while I was reading your post to see the resistance that came up to planning! Which probably means it's something I really need to look into again if my egos don't like it that much.

I think my problems with planning in the past have mainly been around setting intangible goals that are easy to forget; so I might set a goal to 'be aware all day' which is hard to achieve and which I can't really break into little steps like you said.

Also just confusion generally about how to plan, what makes a good goal, how to make efforts to meet a goal, and just general not knowing where to start because I have so much I need to change or want to do.

In the past when I have managed to set good goals I've also had problems with the planning growing stale and uneffective, or with planning too many goals and getting disheartened when I don't achieve them.

There's probably some good things in this post I can make goals out of. :)

And procrastination, so thanks for the reminder. I was reading over some notes I'd made earlier today and I found something I'd written about planning I was going to do the next week but have kept putting off for different reasons and that was four months ago!

So I'm going to do some reflection tonight and start learning how to plan tomorrow.

Thanks very much again for the direction and reminder and advice. It's very much appreciated!

David

Hi David,

Thanks for your posts too, it's good to have more than one head to think about the same problems!

I thought that probably many can add up their insights about goals, so I created another thread devoted to it.

http://www.gnosticweb.com/node/12836

Hopefully, we all will learn more about goals soon!
All the best!

Vadim

Yeah I find it's really helpful seeing other people's take on things. Often I learn new ways of approaching things that I never thought of before!

Thanks for creating the thread.

David