What Do I Really Want Out Of Life?

by Harry Palmer, author of The Avatar Materials

Most people console themselves by setting the goal a little higher. They say to themselves, "It wasn't a Porsche I really wanted. What I really wanted was a Lamborghini." "It wasn't a million dollars, it was ten million dollars." "It wasn't a fifty foot yacht; it was a hundred foot yacht." This leads to the twisted wisdom: How much would it take to make me happy?

The answer, a little more.

A little more-it's a sedative answer. It lulls the disappointment back to sleep and reaffirms the old guilt that one isn't striving hard enough or isn't living up to one's potential. A crazed society offers solace, "Try harder. You'll do better next time."

This plants the seed of anxiety in your mind, and "next time" is a reminder that time is running out. The pressure is on. You need to get it and get it soon. But what? Not this, not that. Maybe power. Maybe if you were president of your own company...

Can you sense the panic? Work harder. Get your statistics up. Stay motivated. Imitate the affluent. Get passionate. Remain focused; learn to ignore distractions. Study marketing. Create demand. Destroy the competition; business is business. One night you wake up to ring-ring. It's not the phone. It's your self-honesty bell. Is this really what I want out of life?

You need an answer and you need it right now. Where do you turn?

"I feel your pain," offers some new-age guru who sells you the advice: total renunciation, give it all up, want nothing. Trust. So you wrestle the mind to stillness. You surrender. Love everyone. You suffer ego-death. BE HERE NOW. The pain goes away, but so does your common sense. While you are trusting serenely, you are robbed, your dog is poisoned and your house is burned. While you are loving everyone, your spouse files for a divorce.

Real satisfaction... cannot be acquired by achievements

Ah, but you understand, it must be your karma-a test of your faith. Uh-huh, stupid man talking. You achieve spiritual wisdom- for who? How long can you play solitaire? How long can you rationalize the suffering of humanity? So you spread the word, this is how it is, honor your guru, save the world, anxiety, anxiety, anxiety. The honesty bell rings again. Is this really what I want out of life?

The idea that life is about acquiring possessions leads to disappointment. Real satisfaction (despite TV commercials) cannot be acquired by achievements or possessions. The idea that life is about surrendering your desires leads to disappointment. Real satisfaction (despite your guru's righteous insistence) cannot be acquired by embracing a doctrine of renunciation.

Test them, only if you must.

Achievement pulls you one way; surrender pulls you the other. Your heart and mind divide. Conflict. So you compromise.

The word for this compromise is unhappy. The prognosis is a deepening mental depression terminating in socially adjusted unawareness. No kidding, you go crazy. Advertising and holy books medicate your contradiction with false promises until... ring-ring. (It's for you.)

Avatar is not anti-achievement nor anti-spiritual nor anti-compromise, but it does dispel the illusions that any of these is a path to real satisfaction.

The path to achieving real satisfaction in life is an honest, heads- up exploration of your beingness and the beliefs from which your doubts and answers arise. Who are you being and what do you believe?

The prize-and it is simple and singular-is waking up to who you really are and learning to live deliberately. When you know, the answer is, there is no question.

Fully alive, fully awake, this is what I really want out of life.

That's Avatar. If it's not number one on your wish list, ... ring, ring.

Avatar Doesn't Offer

You Answers,

It Offers You The Tools To Find Your Answers.

                                                                                                                                                                              



Excerpt from LIVING DELIBERATELY by Harry Palmer

There is a difference between exploring and searching.

Think back to when you were younger, and you had the opportunity to explore some new terrain or a new experience. You decided where to go and how to proceed. Wasn't it exciting? An adventure! For most people there is a thrill in discovering new places and seeing new things. This is the mental state of an explorer, of a Type Four believer.

Then, something strange happens. You discover that one of your possessions is missing. Maybe a purse or a wallet, a jackknife or a piece of jewelry. Something personal that has value to you. Lost! Was it left behind, or what? You search your memory, then your pockets, and then you start looking around.

You go back over the same terrain, retracing your steps, but now you are in the mental state of a searcher. You look here, trying to remember. You look there, your des peration brings you to the edge of tears. Perhaps you even offer a prayer or two. You quiz yourself: "When did I have it last?" or, "What do I do?"

Lost awareness of beliefs is responsible for stress and self-sabotage... Lost beliefs form an invisible blueprint for feelings and actions, and without understanding why, we create or attract the circumstances that will fulfill them.

Now you are lost. Life is no longer an adventure. The thrill and excitement are suppressed by the anguish you feel. There is a filter over your eyes that turns everything into a disappointment. New experiences and potential opportu nities present themselves, but they are not what you are looking for.

Even if you succeed in finding the item, the trauma of having lost it may persist. If it does, you stop exploring or searching and begin protecting. Until a person recovers the playfulness of exploring, most of their deliberate actions will be motivated by a desire to find, to protect, or to avoid something.

Beliefs, too, can become lost. How? By becoming so familiar that they are forgotten. It happens after the goal or purpose changes. When the goal was to be cuddled and cared for by mom, the belief, "I'm cute and helpless," was assistive and valuable. One assumed it and it became part of the self. Later when the goal changed, the belief was lost, forgotten. It became transparent. Now, the person perceives and acts through it without being aware that it's there. People lose awareness of what they believe.

The more beliefs that people have to act and perceive through, the harder it is for them to live the way they want to. When they relax, their lives slip into the pattern of the old beliefs, e.g., "l am cute and helpless"-not a very appropriate belief for a top business executive. Lost awareness of beliefs is responsible for stress and self-sabotage. There are many lost beliefs to be found at the bottom of a failing life, a failing relationship or a failing business.

Lost beliefs form an invisible blueprint for feelings and actions, and without understanding why, we create or attract the circumstances that will fulfill them.

Are there beliefs in your blueprint that are no longer of value? They need to be discarded before you can recover the natural high of the explorer. But what are they? How are they found?

How did you get where you are? How did you get yourself into this situation? How do you get out? You try to create a new life, but what happens? It is sabotaged and shattered by lost beliefs. How do you get on with designing your life?

Avatar can help you find the answers.


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