Prosperity: The Choice Is Yours
May 15, 2005

 

     "There's not thousands of problems - just one: Man
dwells in a state of psychic sleep which he is totally unaware."

                          ~ Vernon Howard ~
 

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Using the movie Joe vs the Volcano as a backdrop, we're
going to explore what it means to be asleep and how you can begin
to wake up and live in a state of constant total wonder and amazement.

The movie & these articles are really about you and me and the life we
live. It's about our life, and it's about how we can live our lives to
the fullest and get away from what's bothering us.
 

Also, this week I have a position open for a partner in one of
my businesses.
 

Here's a link to find out more about what we do, if you like what
you see and would like for me to chat with you, then send me
back an email with your name and phone number.

Find Out More Here
 

Happy reading,
Dave
 

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     "Live like a king, die like a man, that's what I say."

                 ~ Samuel Harvey Graynamore ~

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Living a Life of Constant Total Amazement
By: Dave Cole
 

In the movie, Joe vs the Volcano, Joe Banks played by
Tom Hanks is a loser. His life is despicable and the news is:
Joe is selling his soul to his boss for a measly 300 bucks a week.

Joe is also a hypochondriac which leads him to a doctor that tells
Joe he has a terminal brain cloud and only a few months to live.

So this is the wake up call Joe needs to start living. He
quits his job then runs into an eccentric billionaire played
by Lloyd Bridges who promises to give Joe the lifestyle of
a king if he will end up jumping into a volcano.

Joe agrees and it's fun to watch him go on the shopping spree
going around in the white limo. Then he is transported first
class by air to Los Angeles, where he meets up with the
billionaire's daughter Patricia played by Meg Ryan, who is
going to transport Joe to a remote island on her yacht.

One night on the yacht with the breeze gently blowing, Joe
and Patricia are talking and Joe says that Patricia's life.....
and life..... seem so unbelievable to him.

 

 

Patricia responds:

"My father says almost the whole world's asleep.
Everybody you know, everybody you see, everybody you talk
to.  He says only a few people are awake.  And they live in
a state of constant total amazement."
 
 

The whole world's asleep.....think about that for a minute.

Why was that put in there?

If you watched the move, did that strike you as being unbelievable
it was even there?
 
 

What being asleep and what waking up means is what we are going
to explore for the rest of the article.
 

Waking Up that's what it's about. It took a death sentence for
Joe to begin waking up. When he did, he found himself entering
into a world that was unbelievable and a world that most folks
don't even know exists.

Let's flash forward in the movie to the scene where
it's night and Joe is on a raft and the moon begins to rise overhead.
The moon seems so huge and awesome to Joe that as a movie
watcher you become so caught up in the vastness of the moon
and the drama of the movie that you almost become one with the
entire experience.

 

 

Before this in the movie he is asking himself and others the
question does God exist. Joe is awestruck, and in that moment of
realization, he just knows that God exists and becomes so
grateful for his life. The moment is one of total amazement
for Joe and the movie watcher.
 

In that moment when Joe becomes one with the experience, he
now understands.....the need for questions to be answered isn't
there.....he wakes up to the present moment and all the present
moment is trying to convey to him and finally the understanding
he has been seeking comes.
 

Most of us are lost in thought. Now we're not talking about
practical thought, those thoughts you need to drive a car or
solve problems, we're talking about all those thoughts which
aren't needed for life  -  thoughts that are painful to us.

Being asleep means being lost in painful or unwanted thoughts.
 

The best way to explain this is for you to begin watching your
thoughts. You'll see that some of these thoughts aren't very
nice at all. You may be having a fight with your boss at this
very moment while reading this. You may have found yourself
a thousand miles away.

Many of these thoughts we have are unkind and detrimental
to our well being. How many times have you found yourself
putting yourself down for something you didn't do right,
or found yourself getting angry or upset over some event, or
even found yourself in a mental fight with someone?

Someone cuts you off on the freeway and you immediately
go spastic and begin to shoot mental bullets at them.
 

Those thoughts put you in a state of sleep and prevent
you from being fully aware of the present world around you.

In the beginning of the movie, Joe was in a constant state of
psychic slumber. He had no amazement, no awe, no wonder
of life. His life was despicable.

When Joe began waking up, his life began to turn to a state of
amazement and awe and wonder at what was happening in the
present moment around him. Just watch the scene where he is
with DeDe at dinner and you'll see the difference between a man
at sleep and a man that is awake.

In fact DeDe says, "What's happened to you. This morning
you were like a lump, now..... You're So Alive."
 

It is in this state of amazement that you often find children playing.
They are having fun with life because they are not lost in thought
about some fear, they are totally within and alive in the present
moment and awake to what they are doing.

These unkind thoughts we have draw us farther away from
the awe and amazement that life really is.

And as you begin to wake up and live in the present moment,
amazing things can and do happen.
 

Which way would you rather live?

In a world where you are lost in painful thoughts or a world where
you are in a state of constant total amazement?
 

Go watch a cat. Cats are fully awake and aware in their own present
moment. What creature is there that more lives a life of amazement
than a cat?

Cat's don't get lost in thought like we do, they are fully aware of
themselves and their environment all the time. Now a cat may stare
intensely at a predator, but it is not lost in thought.
 

To be fully awake to the present moment, begin to watch
your thoughts. Some of them may be ugly. When you practice
watching your thoughts, you'll begin to see yourself going off
in all different kinds of directions over nothing, it's these thoughts
that keep us asleep and away from a state of wonder and awe.

Don't try to change them, don't begin to put yourself down for having
them, for now, just watch them and see how you react to them.

Next work on being present in the now. Watch yourself
as you do everything. Become aware of where your arms are,
where your legs are, what temperature is it. As you read this, watch
yourself reading and be aware of where and who you are doing this.

Become fully awake to you and the experiences of this present
moment and you will begin to see the amazement and wonder of
your life as it should be.
 

 

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The Present Moment

In life, our experience of ourself is tied directly to what we
are awake to in each passing moment. In other words, we share our
consciousness with what we attend to within our mind. This
timeless truth explains why being aware of ourselves, being
mindful in the present moment, counts for everything when it
comes to the content of our consciousness.

Who among us has not stood somewhere beneath a starlit night sky,
gazed upward, and not felt a certain state of timelessness, as
though it were the heart of our very own essence?  And
conversely, who hasn’t been crushed by a petty grievance with a
friend or loved one and felt the pummeling of our own thoughts,
even as we’re unable to stop this troubled thinking?

Guy Finley
  

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