How many times do you feel like what you are doing for your livelihood is not in your highest and best interest? Livelihood, after all, should be charging up our lives rather than draining away some of the best years of your life. There is a way to change that right now. By piercing our illusion that our work is different and separate from the rest of our lives, we can immediately change everything. The Merriam Webster dictionary defines pierce as to run into or go through in a forceful or noticeable way. To penetrate with the eye or the mind. This is, indeed, what we are talking about here.
The desire to pierce the veil of illusion is an important one for those desiring to become the best they can be. A story I read a long time ago impressed me so much it has stuck with me. I want to share it because in piercing the illusion, in lifting the veil, we must always continue to strive and not give up no matter how much we may feel like we are slogging along in a less than ideal situation.
This story is about being wise, which is truly about our search. It was told, as I remember by the Rosicrucian Max Heindel, a Danish-American Christian occultist, astrologer, and mystic. It was an old story of a young man who came to the old sage and asked: “Sir, what must I do to become wise?” The sage did not answer. He came back the next day to ask his question again “Sir, what must I do to become wise?” Again no answer. He came back yet again the third day and asked the old sage “Sir, what must I do to become wise?” This time, the old sage took him to the river and held him under the water, despite the young man’s struggle to free himself. Finally, the old sage released him and after he had caught his breath, the sage asked him: “Son when you were under the water what did you most desire?” “Air, air, sir, I wanted air.” “Would you not rather have had riches, pleasure, power or love, my son?” Did you not think of any of these?” “No sir, only air, I thought only of air.” Then the sage said, “To become wise you must desire wisdom with as great an intensity as you just now desired air. You must struggle for it to the exclusion of every other aim in your life. If you seek wisdom with that fervor, my son, you will surely become wise.”
If you seek piercing the illusion, lifting the veil, with that kind of fervor, there will be leaps in progress beyond your imagination. In business, that is remembering that everything you do in your professional world is part of the sum total of your life.
Do you feel like your work is making you happy? Are you able to feel good about what you spend so many hours of your life doing? Or can you barely make yourself get out of bed and go to work most days and then, of course, complain to anyone who will listen about how much you dislike what you are currently doing?
Here is one of the keys of wisdom: it is not so much what you are doing to make a living – it is how you are doing it.
Here is the big how … How would your life change if all your illusions were gone and you knew, as you likely do, that there is a higher truth? You would, more than likely, choose those things that make you feel good, things that were a real and true expression of who you are. You would be able to accurately assess situations You would know what actions to take that would produce the result you want. You would have the ability to recognize the level of other folks understanding and their level of development, thereby having the ability to interact with them at that place. You would know what is true for you, not what others told you was true. You would see that whatever it is that you are doing now, you may not be able to control what you are doing. You can, however, control how you respond to what you are doing.
There is much to be seen and understood when you touch even the corner of the veil and lift it up. So much more Once you realize you have control of your perspective on every situation, you have a choice. Are you going to be angry and stressed out? Irritated and exhausted? Or are you going to choose to respond to that intense work situation more objectively? With the knowledge that how you interact with the people involved can totally influence how everything turns out. What about instead of angry you choose curious? Or, instead of yielding to taking on more stress and responsibility than is humanly possible, you choose to say what you can truly do without hurting yourself or negatively impacting your family?
When you discover the power of piercing the veil in all aspects of your life – personal, professional and material, and realize that you can control how you interact in every situation, you will come closer each day to discovering true wisdom.
