My Year in the Master Key System -- Part Four

So, what have you been focusing on over the last few weeks?  I have to admit that I’ve been very caught up with the Holiday season and not very much with the mental practice I started a few months ago with the Master Key System.  But the beauty of this program of study is that the core ideas stick with you if you read them over often enough, so that they filter through even in the busiest moments.  And I notice that while very old habits tend to take over, they are slowly being shifted to incorporate the key ideas that Charles Haanel brings forward in his work.

Take, for example, the key elements of this week’s study.  I see three main ideas that pull together to give us the power and ability to draw what we want into our lives.  First, the concept of “give to get” – being of service to others and giving, in order to receive what we want.  But the model that I learned over the years of watching my mother and her mother slave in the kitchen, while everyone else sat around and ate, are not what Haanel is talking about.  Because he also stresses that we must take care of ourselves, that we “cannot be helpful unless we are strong”.  So my hours of work have been interspersed with hours of rest, play, sleep and time for me.  I’ve come to understand that it is,in fact, a cycle – take care of myself in order to have the energy to give, then give because it is the right thing to do, and then be ready to receive, which will reenergize me.  The Master Key System also says that “every transaction must benefit every person who is in any way connected with the transaction”, because we are each one of us part of the Universal whole.  So selfless, martyr-like giving is no longer part of my Holiday season tradition.

A second concept highlighted in Part Four is aligning our vision and actions with the Universe, in other words, “the higher, loftier, grander and more noble ideals which you can conceive,” the more we are able to achieve these ideas because they are aligned with the creative flow of the Universe.  Reminds me of a scene in a science-fiction movie I watched yesterday, Contact (Jodie Foster, 1997).  Foster is an astronomer who is the sole passenger on a spacecraft headed for the Vega system; after experiencing violent vibrations when strapped to her seat, she realizes that if she releases the straps, she floats effortlessly inside the craft.  She has picked up on one of Haanel’s important concepts: don’t fight the Universal flow just because you NEED to be right, open your mind to the fact that there may be an easier way to get things done.

And the final concept that pulls the Master Key System message together this week is the part that gives us the power to make what we want happen: mental and emotional strength.  This strength comes from regular practice, so that we learn how to focus better, how to seek out silence and repose to regenerate, how to channel our emotions to increase the power of our thoughts, and how to eliminate destructive thoughts. 

Practice, practice, practice.  At this time of year, we often set New Year’s resolutions to start exercising more.  Why not resolve to exercise our minds on a regular basis, just like going to the gym, to make 2012 a GREAT year?