Revisting Haanel, and my thoughts this week focus on week 1, week 2, and The World Within. From week 1, I return to paragraph 35: A majority of mankind lives in the world without; few have found the world within, and yet it is the world within that makes the world without; it is therefore creative and everything which you find in your world without has been created by you in the world within.
For the parts of my life I don’t like, I was a little miffed to learn this last year; however, I can’t argue with the results. As my world within has gradually changed, I’ve seen the changes manifested in the world without.
This makes it even easier to see what week 2, paragraph 5 means even more clearly as it applies to putting the principles we’re learning into practice. Paragraph 5 refers to playing a difficult piece on a piano and carrying on a vigorous conversation. While I can see how that might happen for someone–not me for a long, long time–the example that I could apply was learning to ride a bike. You can’t do it under the tutelage of your conscious mind. Sure, whoever was teaching you to ride the bike could tell you what to do, but most of us couldn’t just do it. We had to practice and fall down a few times. Until our subconscious mind learned what we were telling it to do and put all the pieces together and began executing effortlessly, we fell over and skinned our knees.
I’ve had two knee replacements in the last year. I had to relearn a few things my arthritic knees had, over time, forced me to do wrong. My subconscious is relearning to stand straight, to do stairs “normally”, and how to use my hamstrings and other muscles to stand up from a low seat. I used to do those things effortlessly, then my painful knees forced my Subby to find other ways to keep my body moving. Now, with a little practice, these tasks are becoming effortless again.
That’s a physical example of the mental changes I’m undergoing in the Master Keys program. As I enter my second year with the training wheels freshly off, I’m still practicing to make it “effortless.” I’m far from a pro, but I’ve come so far from the beginning.
Listening to the webbie replay and heard the discussion about mailing it in. Last year, it seemed like at least once every three or four weeks, there was one night when I read in a monotone just to get the reading done before I went to bed. I was always surprised by how rejuvenated I would feel the next day. So, yeah, mailing it in is okay if it’s the only way you get it done for a little bit.