“The person who suffers from inner poverty is relentlessly driven to accumulate on the material level.” ~ Dr. David R. Hawkins

In the face of mounting challenges earlier this Monday morning, I thought I’d take a few minutes to muse on what it means to be successful. Not the ‘outer’ trappings such as fame, fortune, mansions and fast cars, but to properly understand the cause that ultimately leads to the effect.

I’ve started reading a helpful book by Dr. David R Hawkins which has elucidated this subject beautifully for me. In it, he points out that most people chase the ‘out there’ stuff because they think that ‘having’ and ‘doing’ are the answer. They don’t realise that ‘being’ is the first step on the ladder of success, and without that rung any further effort will be largely futile.

Monkey Business and Bananas

The best way to explain it is to show you. Imagine a monkey locked inside a cage, with big bunches of ripe, yellow bananas just out of reach. He frantically puts his arm through the bars and struggles to reach them. He may get one or two, spurring him to keep on trying, but the really big bunches are still a few inches on from the tips of his fingers. By now his arms are getting sore. Eventually he gives up and slumps to the floor, exhausted.

This is how most of us try to become successful. We get caught up in monkey business. We see the outer ‘things’ that other people have and we think that is what we should have and so we strive for those same things.  We are struggling for the effect instead of the cause, which is an inner knowing, a way of being in the world.

Dr. Hawkins asserts that it only takes a split second to be successful. Once we ‘get it’ the rest will follow in due course. Very often we have to pause from grabbing at the bananas and shift focus. If the monkey turned his back on the bananas to face the opposite direction, a shift of 180 degrees, he’d notice that the door of the cage wasn’t locked, that he could open it anytime and help himself to as many bananas as he could eat.

All the how-to manuals in the world won’t work unless you have that shift in perspective. The presence of joy in our work is a big indicator of whether we are knocking our brains out or not.

Is our awareness coming from the place where the only reason to do something is so we can have something? The wrong attitude and motivation will set us up for certain failure in the long run. There has to be an intention not to just serve one’s selfish interest or exploit the public for personal gain without providing any needed service in their lives.

Very often if a person is truly successful we tend to admire them as a person. It’s not so much what they have, or what they do (even though that may be very interesting to us), but it’s more who they are that impresses us. They have a charisma, they have ‘it’ and we want that something special to rub off on us.

If you can be happy rich, happy poor and happy whatever the situation; you can create your own magic. Don’t settle for satisfaction. Some people think that satisfaction is happiness, but they are different states of being.

There are many stories of broke people winning the lottery and after a short space of time they were in a worse position financially than they found themselves in before their so called good fortune. They hadn’t ‘got it’ before their luck changed so they weren’t ready for the responsibility that came with it.

Really what it boils down to is the difference between power and force. A person coming from the position of power, such as Gandhi, was able to harness his personal power plus the power of the Indian people, using principles of universal truth, to win against the limited force of the British Empire which was motivated by self-interest.

“The ‘aha’ experience is indicative of a jumbo level of power. When we ‘get’ something, we get it because its voltage has just increased. This is indicated intuitively by the image of the lightbulb going on over a person’s head. Light is power and energy. All of the energy on this planet, whatever its manifestation, came here via light. The power is the light.” ~ Dr. David R Hawkins

Having the bananas is the consequence, the result. It’s the ‘out there’ of success that the world sees, envies and tries to imitate. But you can’t imitate what’s ‘out there’ you can only imitate what’s ‘in here’. When we have that ‘aha’ experience of finding the open door we can amuse ourselves with manifesting it in the world. When we’ve achieved inner mastery we don’t have to prove it anymore.

Success is grace, ease, poise and absolute precision and focus. If we’re tired and burned out at the end of the day, then it’s from the monkey business of trying to grab the bananas.

The laws of physics show that force creates counterforce, which is why we can get exhausted. No force is possible without counterforce. Nothing can press against something unless there is something to resist it.

In the world of real success there is no competition. The best restaurants are so good that people are clamouring to eat there. The most passionate singers and musicians perform to sell-out venues. Top consultants in any field are usually sought after because they manifest excellence. If we can manifest excellence in the world we won’t have to worry about money at all at some point in the future. The world will seek us out.

The secret of power is that there is no resistance to power! Power doesn’t come from facts, positions or having anything ‘out there’. Power comes from an inner position relative to those things.

The Greek Legend of Sisyphus

The myth of Sisyphus, the King of Ephyra, who was condemned to push a heavy boulder uphill against the force of gravity, can be likened to our struggle for success. The movement of the rock is only possible if the upward force of the muscle strength exceeds the force of gravity. If it doesn’t that rock is going to come tumbling down and crush us!

I for one have no desire to play the Sisyphus game. Modern Sisyphus examples tend to become addicts or commit suicide.

Thought to originate with Plato or one of his students, Sisyphus is further described in Homer’s Illiad and Book XI of The Oyssey. He also features in Ovid’s story of Orpheus and Eurydice. Upon hearing Oprheus sing to Hades and Persephone he pauses from his eternal task and sits on his rock.

There are many more principles to grasp about success, but it’s good to start with the fundamental elements and spiral upwards from there.

I’m off on my travels now, so I wish you all the bananas you can eat this week!