Chronicling the MKMMA Journey
With the new month, we start a new scroll. This scroll focuses on, “I am nature’s greatest miracle.” Isn’t contemplating our miraculousness a wonderful way to start the new year?
Not only am I nature’s greatest miracle, but you are too. So get out there today and strut your greatness!
This week we’re looking at the Law of Growth and how it manifests.
Remember that the law of growth necessarily governs every manifestation in the objective, so that a denial of unsatisfactory conditions will not bring about instant change. A plant will remain visible for some time after its roots have been cut, but it will gradually fade away and eventually disappear, so the withdrawal of your thought from the contemplation of unsatisfactory conditions will gradually, but surely, terminate these conditions.
My DMP is manifesting nicely, but that doesn’t mean I am not still chipping off old cement. I’m still chasing out detrimental thought patterns, and it’s largely because of the paragraph above — I’ve cut the roots of the negative plant, but it’s taking some time to not feed the negative patterns that developed over the previous 57 years.
This is why the little steps we do daily as a part of MKE are so important.
I saw a conversation this week that reminded me about reciprocity and The Law of Giving.
For December, we are reading Scroll Three. “I persist until I succeed.”
We are constantly being tested by life. We were not put here to fail, yet failure may find us.
The prizes of life are at the end of each journey, not near the beginning; and it is not given to me to know how many steps are necessary in order to reach my goal. Failure I may still encounter at the thousandth step, yet success hides behind the next bend in the road. I never know how close it lies unless I turn the corner.
Always I take another step. If that is of no avial I take another, and yet another. In truth, one step at a time is not too difficult.
I persist until I succeed.
I avoid despair but if this disease of the mind should infect me then I work on in despair. I toil and I endure. I ignore the obstacles at my feet and keep mine eyes on the goas above my head, for I know where dry desert ends, green grass grows.
I persist until I succeed.
I sometimes forget how important this (and each) chapter is to me.
I’ve always known I’m not motivated by the flashy things so many people find rewarding. My methods result in slow growth, but I had a conversation with someone today which reinforced my methods as right for me. I have always persisted. I consider myself a success in so many ways that matter to me. But something is out of alignment lately.
My Personal Pivotal Needs have been True Health and Autonomy, but I largely have Autonomy. I have a long journey for True Health, and I am on that path. I think the time may be right to switch Autonomy with another Personal Pivotal Need. I’ll be exploring that in my Sits this week.
We’re at the place in the course where we’re learning about the power of our thoughts. This has been building since the beginning, this week, paragraphs 17-18 of the Master Key lesson drives it home:
17. This conception is also elaborated by Swedenborg in his doctrine of correspondences; and a still greater teacher has said, “What things so ever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.” (Mark 11:24) The difference of the tenses in this passage is remarkable.
18. We are first to believe that our desire has already been fulfilled, its accomplishment will then follow. This is a concise direction for making use of the creative power of thought by impressing on the Universal subjective mind, the particular thing which we desire as an already existing fact.
Paragraph 25 elaborates:
25. The truth must be told to each generation and to every people in new and different terms, so that when the Great Teacher said — “Believe that ye receive and ye shall receive” or, when Paul said — “Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” or, when modern science says — “The law of attraction is the law by which thought correlates with its object”, each statement when subjected to analysis, is found to contain exactly the same truth. The only difference being in the form of presentation.
We started a new scroll this month, too. The key of the scroll? “I persist until I succeed.”
We think about what we want for our lives using our SIT time. We determine our desire and imagine it fully. We believe we shall achieve it. We persist until we succeed. This does not mean we do not have to work hard for what we want. But as we continue to use our imagination to make our desires into reality, our faith grows and we look for the opportunities we need to present themselves. What you want most. What you need most. It’s within your grasp. Begin preparing yourself for it, then look for the opportunity to begin to achieve it. Remember, paragraph 5 of the Blueprint Builder, “I fully realize no wealth or position can long endure unless built upon truth and justice, therefore, I engage in no transaction which does not benefit all whom it affects.” Make certain your imaginings and your faith is built upon sound principles. Get to thinking!
Last week, I posted that I’d lost track of a couple of weeks. What happens when this happens? Momentum flags. Sure, it carries forward for a little while, then the doubts begin to creep in. The less than encouraging self-talk begins to find it’s way into your head.
That’s right, just like a nutritional diet suffers when we lose focus, so does the mental diet. Instead of chipping off the cement, we begin troweling it back on!
I started the month thrilled that I was greeting each day with love in my heart, and as the month wore on, I felt less of that. Not a good feeling. The wonder is I recognized this and knew it wasn’t right. I’m confident I can get this latest batch of cement brushed off before it hardens. Then I can resume chipping away at the old stuff.
It’s all been a blur. I have no idea where the time went. I’ve been traveling, but I should at least have been able to get Week 7 posted, and I have no idea why I didn’t.
I’m going to use that famous line from “The Great Race” when the guy tosses his rear view mirror and exclaims, “What’sa behind me makes no difference!” Because what we think about grows, and I don’t want missing weeks to grow. Onward!
A book we’re discussing in a book club has a chapter about determining our WHY, which dovetails nicely with this week. Of course, I have my DMP, and it’s manifesting, but there are some aspects that may not fully manifest if I don’t have a solid grasp of my WHY.
Many of the things I come up with when examining my WHY are not things I would do something I have not wanted to do in the past to achieve. So what, exactly, will drive me to talk to people about something I think is important but they may not on a consistent basis?
Most of us in the course know, or you will come to understand very soon, that doing anything is, as Scroll 1 says, a matter of forming a habit. Master Keys week 5 tells us right up front that “every conceivable force or object or fact is the result of mind in action.” It also teaches, “You can originate thought, and, since thoughts are creative, you can create for yourself the things you desire.”
Master Keys paragraph 5-9 illustrates that if we were building a home for ourselves, we would be actively involved and attentive to all the details at every phase of construction. We should be no less attentive to our Mental Home, which Haanel reminds us is infinitely more important than our physical home. We must be in the continual process of mental house cleaning, clearing away the negative, doubtful, and despondent thoughts and replacing them with optimistic, positive, and uplifting thoughts. This gives us the best kind of mental home, and we have confidence that our foundation is firm, the material is solid, it will not fade, and we have no fear or anxiety concerning the future.
We create this with our imagination and careful curation of what we think about and expose ourselves to. We build our World Without by first preparing our World Within. The best of everything is already available to us. We must do three things to acquire it. Per paragraph 5-16, “You must earnestly desire it. You must assert your claim. You must take possession.”
Paragraph 5-25 reminds us “This power is from within, but we cannot receive it unless we give it.” To receive, we must give. Paragraph 5-26 provides an example. “The merchant who does not keep his goods going out will soon have none coming in; the corporation which fails to give efficient service will soon lack customers; the attorney who fails to get results will soon lack clients, and so it goes everywhere; power is contingent upon a proper use of the power already in our possession.”
For my WHY, I know part of it, especially success in my business (but truthfully, in all aspects of life), the fifth step in the Blueprint Builder is driving this. “Fifth, I fully realize no wealth or position can long endure unless built upon truth and justice, therefore, I engage in no transaction which does not benefit all whom it affects. I succeed by attracting to myself the forces I wish to use, and the cooperation of other people. I induce others to serve me, because of my willingness to serve others. I eliminate hatred, envy, jealousy, selfishness, and cynicism by developing love for all humanity, because I know a negative attitude toward others can never bring me success. I cause others to believe in me, because I believe in them, and in myself.”
I’m manifesting the last sentence at this point in my life, and that’s the part that drives me to leave a business card or build a relationship.
A friend mentioned she wanted to be able to “design her own day.” I’ve been fortunate to be able to design my own day for the last ten years, and it’s truly wonderful. I’m blessed to have been able to find a vehicle that can allow anyone to “design their own day.” I came by my ability to design my day by serving in the military for 28 years and marrying a college professor who eventually retired after 39 years of teaching. Our combined retirements, plus some investments, have allowed us to live our dreams reasonably fully (I’m designing some new dreams that even our current level of freedom does not permit). But everyone can’t serve in the military for 28 years and retire at a level where their income will permit them to design their own days. Many college professors can’t do that either — and not everyone can be a college professor or a military officer. The entry to both those careers is not open to everyone.
Network marketing IS open to everyone and at a deceptively low price. For those that don’t realize this, that low cost can be their Achilles’ Heel. They take it for granted or they don’t see it for the opportunity it is. But for those who are hungry, the universe is the limit, and I can help them achieve it.
Achieving this goes back to building good habits — the topic addressed in Scroll 1 of Og Mandino’s The Greatest Salesman in the World. Let me paraphrase:
Today I begin a new life. The first law I obey, which precedeth all others is I form good habits and become their slave. How do I form good habits? I read each scroll for thirty days in this prescribed manner, before I proceed to the next scroll. First, I read the words in silence when I arise. Then I read the words in silence after I have partaken of my midday meal. Last, I read the words again just before I retire at day’s end, and, most important, on this occasion I read the words aloud. On the next day I repeat this procedure, and I continue in like manner for thirty days. Then I turn to the next scroll and repeat this procedure for another thirty days, continuing until I have lived with each scroll for thirty days.
What’s accomplished with this? Herein lies the secret of all man’s accomplishments. As I repeat the words daily, they soon become a part of my active mind, but more important, they also seep into my other mind, that mysterious source which never sleeps, which creates my dreams, and often makes me act in ways I do not comprehend.
As the words of these scrolls are consumed by my mysterious mind I beging to awake each morning with a vitality I have never known. My vigor increases, my enthusiasm rises, my desire to meet the world overcomes every fear I once knew at sunrise, and I am happier than I ever believed possible in this world of strife and sorrow.
Today my old skin has become as dust. I walk tall among men and they know me not, for today I am a new woman with a new life.
I’ve taken a few liberties with the exact wording, but mostly by leaving out a lot of the scroll. If you’re reading from the MKE course, your mind has already filled in the missing pieces.
In essence, if you do something often enough, you begin to enjoy it, and if you enjoy it, you want to do it more, and it becomes a habit. You can do this for beneficial things or harmful things. If you want to change a habit, you replace it with the habit you want to build.
Once you discover your WHY, you follow this process of repetition, and eventually, your subconscious mind finds a way to make it your reality. Inexplicably, opportunities will present themselves to you, and once you begin taking those opportunities, more will come your way, and it will begin to feel natural and easy. Since I’ve added my business into my DMP in September, those inexplicable things have been manifesting in pleasantly surprising ways.
That’s the HOW and a little of the “science” of implementing your WHY.
Paragraph 2 of the BluePrintBuilder reminds us: “I realize the dominating thoughts of my mind eventually reproduce themselves in outward, physical action, and gradually transform themselves into physical reality, therefore, I concentrate my thoughts for thirty minutes daily upon the task of thinking of the person I intend to become, thereby creating in my mind a clear mental picture of that person.”
The forward to Week 4 emphasizes it’s “our business to express ourselves harmoniously and constructively.” Paragraph 6 reinforces this with ” The trained mind knows that every transaction must benefit every person who is in any way connected with the transaction, and any attempt to profit by the weakness, ignorance or necessity of another will inevitably operate to his disadvantage.”
We are prompted to remember, “I can be what I will to be.”
Further, this week discusses establishing the habit of success. Paragraph 12 says, “If you do not intend to do a thing, do not start; if you do start, see it through even if the heavens fall; if you make up your mind to do something, do it; let nothing, no one, interfere.” Paragraph 13 reminds us to begin with small things we know we can do — build a habit of success.
To get more, we must give more. We must visualize the events, circumstances, and conditions. Everything that manifests itself in the world without first began in the World Within. We are powerful beyond measure, and what we think about becomes our reality. We must see the Silence to gather our power and visualize our new reality.
I have seen this manifest with both positive and negative thoughts. My goal is to focus on the positive and eliminate the negative. I want good things to grow in my life and in the lives of everyone else. I’m striving to do my part.
What are you thinking about? What has manifested itself in your reality? If you don’t like it, you can change it. Be persistent. Stick with it. Keep pushing out the negative. Embrace the positive. It’s worth it.
The topic for Week 3 in Master Keys is Cause and Effect — Thought is the cause. The experiences we meet are the effect. The key take away from this is if my life is not where I want it to be, my thought isn’t on target.
The key lesson for me to (re)learn this week appears in the Part Three overview: “Eliminate, therefore, any possible tendency to complain of conditions as they have been, or as they are, because it rests with you to change them and make them what you would like them to be.”
Ouch. Point taken.
This dovetails with Og’s Scroll 1. “Today I begin a new life. … I form good habits and become their slave.” Why? Because complaining is a habit. It’s not a good habit.
I look to Part Three, Paragraph 17 for how to fix this. “It is our attitude of mind toward life which determines the experiences with which we are to meet if we expect nothing, we shall have nothing; if we demand much, we shall receive the greater portion. The world is harsh only as we fail to assert ourselves. The criticism of the world is bitter only to those who cannot compel room for their ideas. It is fear of this criticism that causes many ideals to fail to see the light of day.”
Portions of paragraphs 22 and 27 provide further instruction. “Mentally concentrate on the object of your desire; when you are concentrating you are impressing the subconscious. … You are simply to say what you desire, not how you are to obtain it.”
I frame my thoughts in positive terms.
