The Shift by Wayne W. Dyer

These were my favorite Passages from Wayne Dyer’s book The Shift about Purpose, Spiriti, and living a fulfilled life.

“but the Great Hunger, the greatest hunger of all, is the hunger for meaning…. There’s ultimately only one thing that makes human beings deeply and profoundly bitter, and that is to have thrust upon them a life without meaning…. There is nothing wrong in searching for happiness…. But of far more comfort to the soul … is something greater than happiness or unhappiness, and that is meaning. Because meaning transfigures all…. Once what you are doing has for you meaning, it is irrelevant whether you’re happy or unhappy. You are content—you are not alone in your Spirit—you belong.1  (Sir Laurens van der Post from Hasten Slowly, a film by Mickey Lemle)”

“For as long as I can remember, I’ve had a contemplative nature. When I was a little boy, I ruminated about life with questions that seldom had concrete answers. My first attempt to understand death was when Mr. Scarf, one half of the couple who ran the foster home where my brother David and I were living, passed away. After Mrs. Scarf told David and me that her husband had died, she handed both of us a banana as a kind of distraction from her grief. I immediately asked, “When will he be back?” Her one-word answer mystified me. “Never,” she replied, wiping tears from what I perceived to be her ancient face.”

“I immediately went to my place on the top of our bunk beds, peeled my banana, and attempted to grasp what never meant. I imagined beginnings and endings, things like day and night ending and then beginning, and I thought of Mr. Scarf going to work and then coming home. In a rudimentary way, I recognized cause and effect, thinking about blossoms on fruit trees becoming apples or cherries. But I felt stymied by how Mr. Scarf could never come back. That totally disrupted what I knew at that age to be the natural flow of things. I lay on my top bunk staring at the ceiling, struggling to comprehend how Mr. Scarf could be gone forever. Every time I thought of his never, ever coming back, I’d get a sick feeling in my stomach.”

“But my naturally inquisitive mind continued pondering the mysterious and inexplicable idea of forever, and back would come a scary fluttering sensation in my stomach, which I feel even now as I write these words. Since Mr. Scarf died, I’ve written 34 books and given thousands of lectures on the essence of living a spiritual life, and I still get queasy when I recall those vivid childhood moments of trying to capture the meaning of life without a body to encapsulate it.”

“It is my understanding that quantum physics regards this fact as scientifically unassailable: that at the tiniest subatomic level, particles themselves don’t originate from a particle. This means that matter originates from something that is formless. Scientists call the formlessness that produces matter “energy.” This non material energy produced the particle that became who I am today. I think of this as a shift from energy to form, and as you read this book, I invite you to consider the shifts you’ve made to be who and where you are right now.”

They both conclude that we originated from something that has no form, no boundaries, no beginning, and no substance. We are all essentially spiritual beings having a temporary human experience. This is our essence. This is where we come from.

“In order to fully harmonize with that essential nature, we must be dedicated to expressing its energy and be fully aware of the sacred choice we’re making. For some, that will mean becoming more like God while temporarily housed in their body; for others, it will be creating godlike expressions of beauty, purpose, and wisdom in form.”

“If our true essence is Spirit, and we believe that is where we come from, it seems to me a simple task to reconnect to this authentic part of ourselves. One way to do this is to shift our thoughts and actions to the ways in which we imagine creative energy thinks and acts when its energy materializes in form. We need to be more like Spirit appears to be. Since this is what we came from, our Divinity is our destiny, regardless of how we’ve neglected it over the years. God or the great Tao, which we are all a part of, simply waits patiently for us to be like it is. I imagine that the all-creating Spirit, if indeed it had any wants for us, would want us to realize that.”

“the message would simply be to love each other and offer reverence rather than enmity toward all of life.”

“Beyond the frequencies of light are the vibrational energies of thought. Yes, thought is an energy system. The highest-calibrated frequencies of thought, which are measured through simple kinesiology methods, reveal that faster vibrations approach the ultimate in energy vibration—the dimension of Spirit itself. The highest vibrational thoughts are aligned with the Source energy of the Tao or God. When experienced as thoughts, these faster vibrations create strength, but slower thoughts create a weaker response in kinesiology tests.”

“The highest/fastest vibrating thought that will always keep us strong is the energy of love. My conclusion is that nonbeing and love are synonymous. Mysticism and virtually all religions state that the Supreme Being is love and the only pure truth is love.”

“”There’s a Zen proverb that reminds us that it’s the silence between the notes that makes the music. Without silence to interrupt the sounds, there can be no music—it would be only one long, continuous tone.”

“Nothingness is equivalent to the expression of zero, mathematically: It can’t be divided; it has no empirical value; and if we multiply anything by it, we get a sum of nothing. Yet without the indivisible zero, mathematics itself would be impossible. Before we came into this material world, our essence was nothing. We had no things encumbering us—no rules, no duties, no money, no parents, no hunger, no fear … nothing at all.”

“In this world, without a concept of up, there can be no down. Without an idea of death, there’s no life. The north pole of a magnet can’t exist without the south pole. No male, no female. No right, no wrong. We think in dichotomies, and we identify ourselves on the basis of opposites. We know what we like, what tastes good, what feels good, and so on, because of our experience with what we dislike. Because of this material world, many of us find it difficult to access oneness, the world that the ancient teacher Hermes described in this way:”

“The idea of oneness is next to impossible to grasp because we live in a world of contrasts, and contrast requires more than one element. So here we are, persistently in our world of twoness. How can we grasp the idea of oneness in the world of nonbeing that we occupied before we came into beingness? One way might be to think of our fingers, legs, arms, toes, and eyes: We don’t think of them as separate entities from our total being. We don’t refer to our fingers as being separate from ourselves. Even though they have their unique qualities and character, they’re part of the oneness we refer to as ourselves. So it is with our relationship to Source or God before we came into this world—in that world, which I’m calling our “Fromness,” we and God were one.”

“Here, we can begin to feel our connection to everyone, to the earth, to the universe, and ultimately to the great Tao. Oneness becomes accessible in that great power, which acts without doing, keeps the entire universe in order, and generates form from nothingness.”

“The primary characteristic of this nine-month journey is what I call surrender. There was nothing for us to do. Somehow, our Source of being in its infinite wisdom was going to do it all. We and our birth mother allowed the great Tao to do what it does. The truth is that we were doing nothing; we were simply being done. In that entire nine-month voyage, we were lived by the Tao.”

“That little speck that we were didn’t know anything about accumulating, achieving, or having ambition. It simply was being, allowing itself to surrender to the invisible force that administers everything.”

“Here’s a recap of, and suggestions for, recapturing our “Fromness”: — Nothingness. Allow yourself to enjoy silence and meditation.”

“Create time to be in nature away from human-made sounds. Learn to treat your voyages inward as sacred space, spending moments repeatedly letting go by physically and mentally relaxing. Let go of worrying, planning, thinking, recalling, wondering, hoping, desiring, or remembering. Consciously let go of each physical sensation you notice. Do this one moment at a time. Enter a state where you can let your possessions, your family, your home, your work, and your body cease to exist. Experience the inner bliss of nothingness. When you emerge from your silence, begin the process of detachment by literally giving away something that you don’t use at least once every day. In nothingness, you will find greater intimacy with your Source of being.”

“Redirect your attention from external circumstances to an examination of just how that particular upset feels in your body. This is how you begin practicing oneness.”

“will extend your awareness of the oneness you are. Practice this kind of oneness, and love will flow outward naturally to include others whom you’ve previously judged.”

“This is the art of giving up your need to control your world and everyone in it. As we in the recovery movement.”

“The more stuff they accumulate, the more they have to worry about, which results in chasing after more stuff, and on and on the merry-go-round goes. This finally culminates in a very poignant moment in the film in which the husband begins to wonder if his whole life has been wrong.”

“I used to watch my young children express so much joy playing with a cardboard box or a spool of yarn or some napkins. They could get lost in just watching a fluttering butterfly or a tiny ant on the sidewalk. They were filled with wonder at virtually anything that came into their field of awareness. This is a remnant of our “Fromness”—we were that way, too.”

“Early in life, we learn that what we do and how well we do it can be used to define us in a favorable way. She actually grabbed my finger, and she’s only six hours old! He made eye contact with me; he’s so alert. She picked up her toy and held it at three months. He took his first step. She said her first words. There are thousands of things like these that earned us praise and let us know how special and wonderful we were. This is all the work of the ego striving to direct us. We learn that doing things—especially if we do them earlier and better than others—is rewarding. We learn to be more of a human doing than a human being (who just has to be).”

“I let myself be, not by thinking big and setting gigantic goals, but by recalling Lao-tzu’s advice in the Tao Te Ching: The practice of the Tao involves daily diminishing; decreasing until nothing is being done. When nothing is being done, ironically, nothing can be left undone. True mastery of the world can be attained by allowing things to take their natural course. It can never be attained by interfering.”

“This boy had qualities of an avatar, and people were healed by being in his presence. Many villagers spoke of his ability to bilocate, to be seen in two different places at precisely the same instant. His countenance was peaceful, and he radiated tranquility. The elders of the tribe beseeched this young avatar to tell them the secrets of God and the universe. One of them pleaded, “I will give you an orange if you will tell me where God is.” The young saint responded without hesitation, “I will give you two oranges right now if you can tell me where God isn’t.”

“God (Spirit or Tao) is everywhere. Therefore, God is in me. God is in everything I perceive to be missing. Conclusion: I am connected by Spirit to everything I view as missing. Suggested action: Align with Spirit and see that what appeared to be missing begins to show up.”

“Making a commitment to change a self-sabotaging way of life is making a commitment to change direction, and then we head toward weight loss or addiction control. Heading toward something more purposeful and meaningful is even more significant.”

“These low points actually provide the energy needed to make a shift in direction away from an ego-driven life to one full of purpose.”

“For me, this is symbolic of what happens preceding a shift: in a metaphorical sense, getting down can mean that we’re low enough to access the energy needed to change life direction.”

“Hidden in all misfortune is good fortune” is a Tao concept that seems to support the value of those times in life when we’ve experienced a fall. Without that particular misfortune, good fortune is unavailable.”

“Elisabeth Kübler-Ross puts these events in the category of nature’s work: “Should you shield the canyons from the windstorms, you would never see the beauty of their carvings.”2 The windstorms of life are potentially meaningful events, and we can use them to propel ourselves to higher places. In fact, it is my contention that the bigger the purpose we signed up for in life, the bigger and harder the falls we encounter will be.”

“The top-five values for men before their quantum moment were: wealth, adventure, achievement, pleasure, and being respected. I interpret these as the “morning” values, prior to the shift From Ambition To Meaning. There’s no judgment intended here—these qualities are simply what ego has been taught to believe is important and necessary for success.”

“In fact, Quantum Change reports that the five most valued characteristics with that original group of men were now: spirituality, personal peace, family, God’s will, and honesty.”

“The next pre-quantum highest values were: independence, career, fitting in, and attractiveness.”

“According to Quantum Change, personal growth topped the list in women’s post-quantum questioning, followed by self-esteem, spirituality, happiness, and generosity.”

“I strove to become that somebody whom everyone admired for all of his ego strengths, vast accomplishments, accumulation of wealth, and houseful of merit badges … yet I ultimately came to realize that it wasn’t me. The components of the ego were well established, but I had miles to go before I could truly say, “I’m living out my dharma. I am on purpose, and my life means something.”

“Consistently thinking of needing more attracts that needy energy back to us. When we consistently generate thoughts of giving, however, we attract the energy of giving back to us. Returning to Lao-tzu, he notes: It is entirely possible for you to achieve immortality, and to experience absolute joy and freedom forever. The practice of undiscriminating virtue is the means to this end. Practicing kindness and selflessness, you naturally align your life with the Integral Way.”

“There are two ways to have the tallest building in town: One is ego’s way, which is to knock the other buildings down until it has the tallest one. The problem with this method is that it creates constant conflict. People dislike when their accomplishments have been destroyed or diminished!”

“If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.”

“I was able to make a big shift in my life, away from writing about psychology to writing about living life from a spiritual orientation. That shift away from the Ambition of ego, which tried to control my writing and speaking career, put me on the path of Meaning.”

“Trust in yourself. This means hearing your soul speak in whatever way it does. Intuition is generally a reliable voice, in whatever form it expresses itself individually.”

“What is Truth? A difficult question; but I have solved it for myself by saying that it is what the ‘voice within’ tells you.” — Trust in others. This means noninterference as much as possible. Everyone has the universe located in him or her; trusting others frees you from feeling obligated to interfere. In the words of Lao-tzu in the Tao Te Ching:”

“Do you think you can take over the universe and improve it? I do not believe it can be done. Everything (and everyone) under heaven is a sacred vessel and cannot be controlled. Trying to control leads to ruin. Trying to grasp, we lose.”

 

 

coaching Mindfulness Purpose Law of Attraction Mindfulness Wayne Dyer