For the past month, I have been nose deep in one of the most life changing books, ever. The book is by the esteemed yoga teacher, meditation guru and yoga nidra magician, Rod Stryker, called "The Four Desires."
The book is by no means a "light" self-exploration book; and could seem somewhat esoteric, but holds so much ancient and currently relevant information as a "how to" discover your true purpose, create and redefine your desires and achieve personal fulfillment. If you end up ordering the book, I recommend it as a very slow digest -- maybe one chapter every few days or more-- and have a highlighter handy.
One of the concepts Stryker introduces is the Creation Equation. If you instantly thought, "OMG is this a blog about MATH," stop, take a breath and know that it is not, lol, I promise, and keep reading. The equation is a basic equation said, which guarantees you can fulfill any desire you have in your life by balancing it. Before I go any further, this does mean that you must know your TRUEST desires (not your gut desire; but the deep desires inside you -- and if you're unsure of how to access them stay tuned). It is said, we have 4 basic desires: our life purpose or dharma, a desire for resources, which allow us to pursue said life purpose, a desire for pleasure (things that bring us joy), and a desire for spiritual liberation (freedom; non-attachment; moksha; etc.).
If you're unsure of what your desire is; try and sit in silence, engage in meditation, take a yoga class, be in nature, and notice what themes are presented to you in the subconscious mind (this also means we must clear the subconscious of the past to truly see what lies in the depths). What is it that makes your feel most alive? Happy? Etc.? Then from there, you pick one desire of the 4 to focus in on. After that, you create an intention, or more specific goal. For the sake of the article, let's say you've discovered you have an inner desire to "To help the world deal with pain, suffering and heartbreak through poetic music." From that specific desire or dharmic code, we develop a specific intention, "I will become a famous musician."
So far, so good... keep the above desire and intention in mind for the remainder the article, then feel free to try and substitute your own later.
Now let's talk about what the Creation Equation is. I have outlined it below:
Desire (shakti) + Effort (vayu) > Resistance (karma) = Fulfillment (prapti)
desire + effort > resistance = fulfillment/goal attainment
In very clear terms; if your desire plus the effort you put into are greater than any resistance you will always meet your goal. This is an infallible equation. We will dig deep into the specific piece of the equation, resistance, to see how this is the key to unlocking your dreams.
We all have desires or things we want (or things we THINK we want; which may evolve and change over time -- but we have to know what we TRULY desire first) in life. And, we know that we are not magically blessed with the things we want and there must be a fair amount of effort to make our dreams a reality.
I used to believe that some people were "blessed" or "given grace" with certain things... or in more direct terms, "they were in the right place at the right time."
I no longer believe this to be true. I believe that those people balanced the Creation Equation.
For example, let's look at musicians. This is a frequent example I used when I previously argued that some people are just "blessed." I would say that there are so many amazing musicians in the world, but not every one of them becomes famous, therefore, those people just so happened to be at the right place at t he right time. Which is partially true, but not exactly.
If we look at Taylor Swift, we know she is an amazing vocalist and lyricist. And not everyone can be Taylor Swift. It could be argued that she was in the right place at the right time, in Nashville, to begin her career. However, the right place at the right time would not had mattered if Taylor Swift didn't believe she was going to a superstar musician. You see, her MIND and HEART were aligned, so that when she was in the right place at the right time, she believed she would be successful. If you don't have a belief in your desires, you will not achieve them.
So, looking at Taylor, she had a strong desire to be a famous musician. She also put in tons of effort... singing lessons, countless hours practicing, and showing up and auditioning time and time again. She also was able to make sure that her effort and desire were greater than her resistance. I generally divide resistance into external and internal resistance factors. She looked at her external resistance, which probably had to do with money, location, physical and emotion support, to name a few. Then there are the more nefarious of resistance, the internal resistance -- cognitive distortions (life is not fair; all or nothing thinking; etc.), self-doubt (I will never be good enough), perceived failures (being told no, not liking your style of music, not being selected, having someone ruin your VMA Speech for Video of the Year ;), etc.). When you work at lowering your external and internal resistance you then pave the way to fulfilment.
However, this is where another snag can be hit. People work so hard at changing their resistance, which tends to be the most tedious of processes, that they forget the effort piece of the equation. If you have all dream and lowered resistance, again, being at the right place the right time, won't happen because you will not have put any work into your dream. So, then becomes the work of showing up, applying feedback, utilizing personal insight, considering going to therapy, exercising, you name your effort... but being a healthy individual. Once you've put in the effort, the desire is rich and authentic, and your resistance has lowered, your goal is ripe for the taking.
Try applying this to any other examples... J. K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter Series, had a true desire, and huge amounts of effort (she was writing on café napkins for goodness sake) and reduced large amounts of resistance (negative self-talk -- being denied from THIRTEEN publishers before someone said YES; living essentially in poverty as a single mother, struggling to support herself and her daughter) and thus becoming one of the most successful author's in literary history. Oprah Winfrey overcame sexual abuse, mental health, limiting beliefs, all to create a business that would go down in history. And then there's Steve Jobs, who clearly had the effort (school, out of the box thinking, hard work) and the desire (innovative technology) to beat the resistance of BEING FIRED from Apple in 1984 to years later make the very technology that Apple then purchased FROM him.
So, do I have your attention yet!? Are willing to give the creation equation a try? Start small -- eating better, reducing work, exercising, adding in meditation, and see what happens! And then maybe, world domination? ;)
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