Shakti Gawain (1948–2018)

One of the big take-aways for me was that “visualization” doesn’t have to be a literal/pictorial thing, as big as pictorial is, you know. Actually, I would say that visualization is gratitude, gratitude that can happen ~before~ you have the bagel in your mouth, you know. (Although actually I got that from reading Jen Sincero.)

I think it’s a short book, but one that needs to be taken slowly, as it’s a lot (in a good way).

And yeah: I’m habitually calm (especially from the show more outside, sometimes even in reality! lol), although I tend to think people’s minor fuck up’s redirecting my path equate to Ragnarok, you know. (Watch my iPhone think that Armageddon is a real word even though its Viking equivalent isn’t. Yup. 👍) And I tend to view pleasant experiences as being 3% pleased, 97% calm, you know. But it’s a process, you know. We don’t have to talk about what I was like in high school, (go go go! Enemies are everywhere! Go tyranny! Yeah! [gunning]), or even when I meditated for two hours a day, you know. (That was defs an improvement, LOL.)

It’s nice to meditate and accept the love; it’s nice to affirm that divine love blah blah blah; but it’s also nice to let the thoughts dream the dream of love, whether that’s a lover, a bagel, or a vacation, you know.

…. Of course prosperity both includes and isn’t just money; but it is edifying to think—I think she was saying, even when prosperity is about money, it’s more about the enjoyment, or really, the ~appreciation~ of money, and of course (although few people do this) in both socially and environmentally responsible ways—more so than just, ~having a lot of it, right…. You could still have nice things, but only because having that nice thing made sense in terms of the whole universe, right—not that you would have to be the last person on earth to have a TV set, (or a phone, or whatever: nope I can’t have a flip phone yet: I’m
A flip phone bodhisattva, lol!…. ~I mean, compassion is wonderful: but it shouldn’t consist of just suffering all day, you know), of course not; but whatever costs involved in having that thing would still lead to a net gain for you, for everybody, for the universe. And it wouldn’t be a need, or a necessity. It would be an appreciation. It would be an exercise in accepting life. And—although strangely this is a Stoic talking point—you would be prepared to return what you had once received. I don’t believe it would be helpful—at all—to visualize *that*, lol: but somehow you would be unsurprised rather than unwilling, right…. People are never just, rich forever, right. Whatever you bring in, you have to spend on something eventually, or you’re a miser, and basically poor—in lack. However high the flow is, there’s an in pipe and an out pipe, right; the only thing that’s really guaranteed is that you have a journey, and that you can be taught, “the laws of money, the lessons of life”, as that girl put it, right, in that book of hers.

…. It’s a good book even though nowadays I prefer personal gods to concepts like peace and love: although almost any word, especially nouns, can be gods, and actually I turned back to personal gods when I realized that that was what actually made me in particular feel good and not the stuff that was abstract/vanilla. Some people might not like personal gods, of course. The important point mentioned is that affirmations and visualizations are supposed to be done, in a way that makes you feel good, so that, you feel good. Another thing you do out of duty—“that I’m not even good at!”—changes nothing, really. The average person rejects duty and vegetates until someone bullies them, but properly speaking, duty is at most instrumental, not a goal in itself: the one thing you like about life…. Is not caring about what you like, right!

…. I can’t say I’m going to do all these exercises as written—I understand you don’t just read idly a book like this and put it aside at the end and do nothing, not if you want to grow, right; but partly I feel I need to ease into it slower even than it takes to read this book reading the odd single section every once in a awhile, right: and partly I would have to adapt it~ like if I were doing goals like she said I would definitely collapse her IMO kinda long and somewhat redundant list of seven types of goals into four for the four suits of tarot; it is kinda a vanilla book in that sense. It’s not “worse” or whatever not have it adapted to esotericism, or whatever, but I do feel freer to set goals now that I don’t have that crush-sin, one-and-done kind of goal, right. (What? You have a goal and it’s not to crush sin? 😾) But maybe the church people will find that sort of thing easier in the future. They used to think that Jesus’ death bought humanity back from the devil himself, and I don’t think even they are quite like that anymore, right.

But yeah: now I’m just starting to ask myself things like, What do I like about myself in this situation?, or, What would I like to have happen next? ~I tend to get mostly (but not entirely) blockage around this—although at one time I just would have rejected these thoughts out of hand, right…. Now, I can feel myself kinda thinking, for example, What do I like about myself?, instead of, Who don’t I like?; What would I like to have happen next?, instead of, What’s wrong with the world? (Or, you know, with the past: when I was clinical, you know, I used to have all these weird ideas about time-traveling Nazis, and sometimes—more than once; it almost should have been funny, you know—I thought, Ah, now I’ve become Hitler…. It’s too late for me…. Yes, schizophrenia is more “interesting” lol, when you’re a green-eyed Aquarius who’s the Knight of Cups in the Crowley Deck according to his system of astrological correspondences, right…. Can you imagine having panic attacks with such boring fears as thinking you were going to have a heart attack and die? God! I couldn’t bear the shame! 😹👽).

But yeah: I haven’t quite let go of the old negativity of just kinda thinking at least modestly negative thoughts sometimes in stress/demand situations, although I realize now it’s a matter of replacing it with something better, you know. The negativity isn’t as energized or as fueled by attachment, really; it’s just kinda a semi-faded tape; actually at least half the time now I have these kinda fantasies of things I don’t seriously want, you know: like boredom-fantasies, you know. It is kinda good to have, I don’t know, goals that matter and that have enough value to you to be meaningful, even though you remember that life is a game that you play because you like it: not a life-sentence to a detention facility, you know…. And yeah, sometimes I think about things I’ve read; a lot of that is good, especially since it’s not as obsessive as it probably once was, and what I read is more real to my life sometimes and less all-in grandiose, 100% of the time, right…. But yeah, balance is good. I don’t ONLY want to talk about books with people, you know. In fact, now I can actually talk with people because I can value communication that’s not about books, lol…. And you know, Albania was in the travel magazine: they want people to come there and eat their food, and they don’t charge Paris prices, you know…. I wonder what’s the greenest way to get that far afield, right…. Although that is itself a sort of slightly green destination, at least in that it’s not a place crawling with people who go where everyone else goes, right, which is one of the things that strains environment systems, right…. But yeah: there are a lot healthier things to turn over in your mind than what the average Threads shit-poster says, you know. I mean, sometimes it is surprising funny. But yeah: some people still kinda live in blame/envy mode, to say nothing of blatant discrimination, you know…. And you know: because of that, then, even most people living in LA or wherever have these horror stories that at least sometimes take over their life, but, god: just not to view that as the Real Essence of Life, right…

…. This was a good book about something I knew little about, basically. 👍 show less

I found this book a quick, easy to read and understand guide to creative visualization. There are numerous techniques to try as well as any number of suggestions for adapting them to your own unique style. A book well worth the read.

آج تک دنیا میں جتنی بھی چیزوں کا وجود ہے دراصل یہ اس سے پہلے ایک خیال تھا۔ہر خیال ٹھوس اور مادی وجود میں ڈھلنے کی پوری پوری صلاحیت رکھتا ہے۔یہ کتاب ہمیں یہ بتاتی ہے کہ ہم اپنی ذات ،کاروبار،ملازمت اور مالی حالت کے بارے میں جو بھی خیال اور تصور قائم کریںگے اسے حقیقی اور مادی show more دنیا میں وجود سے ہم کنار کیا جا سکتا ہے۔مصنفہ ہماری رہنمائی کرتی ہیں کہ ہمارے خیالات کس طرح ہماری ترقی اور بڑھوتری کے ضامن ہوتے ہیں۔ show less

I love Shakti Gawain. This is my third book to read of hers. She is very grounded in her writing so it doesn't come across as all hokey. she explores three perspectives on prosperity that people usually adhere to and then she breaks them down into what is positive and negative about each one. she then takes the best from each perspective to create a new perspective. she encourages the reader to delve deep into their own psyche to find their fears, habits and beliefs. there are some exercises show more in the book. i have only started on a few of them and i have already found them to be supremely enlightening and helpful. at the end of the book there is a chapter of questions that people have asked her with her answers and then the final chapter shares stories from other people and their experiences in transforming their own experience. this was a very inspirational book and i highly recommend it show less