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CHAPTER 1

Remembering Your Purpose

Often, I ask my children, "What do you want to do when you grow up?" Having three boys in a 5-year time span, they tend to respond in similar ways that I did when I was their ages; policeman, fireman, basketball star, or like my youngest replied one day, "I'm going to go to work where YOU work." This seems so innocent, which it is at this age and as it should be. But do you find yourself later in life searching for your true purpose? Do you look back on when your parents asked you what you wanted to be when you grew up and do you recall how you responded? Can you look at your current job and say, "YES! I ALWAYS planned on doing this!" Most of us can't say that and it doesn't mean we've made wrong decisions or that we are not happy with what we do. But let's take a journey to truly remembering your purpose for being here.

Let's first establish some truths:

• Regardless of religious preference, we all have a soul, that part of you that exists without tangible proof that you know it exists within yourself. It can be qualified as your conscious, your spirit, your heart. It exists within each of us.

• Your soul is everlasting and eternal. Your soul is ethereal. Your soul communes with God, Allah, Source Power, Jehovah, etc.

• Your soul lived somewhere else (Heaven, paradise, etc.) before you were born to your parents.

• Your body has an expiration date. Your body houses your soul. Your body is perishable while your soul is indestructible on this Earth.

• You chose to come here for a reason. You chose to live in physical form for a time. You chose to come manifest in physical form.

The question to ask yourself is. ... why?

Some people's purposes are obvious: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Mahatma Gandhi, John F. Kennedy, Michael Jordan, Steven Spielberg, Oprah Winfrey. But what about the everyday man/woman? You CHOSE to come here for a reason. You CHOSE to create, manifest, and construct from the ethereal to the physical. We tend to forget why we came. The imagination of a child is not naive and uneducated. The imagination of a child is more aligned with the truths of our souls. We grow up and adopt limits on our lives. We should remember the times when there were no limitations on what we could do or create. THIS is our true selves — no boundaries on creation. No limits or glass ceilings. Just a simple understanding that what can be conceived can be created.

Today we almost walk like the horses that pull carriages in cities with the side blinders on as to not be distracted by our surroundings. These side blinders are self-inflicted limits: "I can't pursue my real passion because I have a mortgage." Or "I can't do what I really want because I don't know how I'll get paid." Or "I could NEVER do that because I'm not trained or educated or certified. So I'll just stay where I am and grind it out." Self-inflicted.

Your soul is everlasting, eternal, ethereal, non-perishable, and indestructible in this Earth. You are a powerful being who has been stunted by believing the limitations of your body are also the limitations of your soul. Break free of these thoughts. Who you REALLY are is not the reflection you see in the mirror. Who you REALLY are is the soul that lives within the body. Recognize and understand the power you possess. Remembering your purpose puts you in alignment with who you truly are and why you decided to come here.

So how do you remember your purpose? It's very simple. Ask yourself: What is your passion? What energizes you? What would you do every day of your life even if you didn't get paid to do it? Sing? Write? Dance? Act? Help the homeless? Sweep floors? Clean houses? Save animals? Teach? There are no wrong answers. "But I've got to make a living and I can't follow my passion and make a living!" This is what many people would say. And in doing so, you've just put the horse blinders back on your face.

Invest time in yourself. Take the knowledge you have right now at whatever age you are and go back to when you were 6 years old, free of all boundaries, and ask yourself, "What do I want to do when I grow up?" Discover it all over again. There are no wrong answers. The hardest part of this will be discovering what it is you would do every day without getting paid, discovering your true passion. But it is there. It exists within you and it is asking for you to acknowledge it. You WILL find it. And when you do find it, you'll be more aligned with why you chose to come here. This will be your purpose/s. Now, how do you activate it?

Activate your true passion by focusing on it without limitations, without boundaries, and without restriction. Envision yourself doing that thing you are passionate about. Read about it. Meditate on it. Eat, sleep, drink, and breathe your passion throughout your day, every day. Express your desires about it and, most importantly, allow it to happen. There is no need to "hustle" it or to "muscle" your passion or purpose. Simply express it. Envision it. Expect it.

The Law of Attraction is true. "That which is like unto itself is drawn." In other words, whatever you focus on is attracted to you. The more you envision yourself doing exactly what you chose to come here to do, the more things will come your way that align with that purpose. You don't have to force it into being. It has no choice but to manifest itself. It is the law. Do not get stifled by establishing your own timelines as to when it's supposed to happen for you. God, Source Power, the Universe, Jehovah will continue to pave the road for you in perfect timing. You simply need to know the Law of Attraction is true. "And how will I get paid?" Understand true wealth is living 100% within the reasons you chose to come here. True enlightenment is being aware at all times. Remember your purpose. And find true happiness and wealth by living it.

THINK/WRITE/DO

To begin remembering your purpose in life, try these three simple steps:

1. Identify the top 3 things you love doing. Write them down.

2. Identify the top 3 things you have always admired watching others do. Write them down.

3. Choose one item from both lists and spend 10-20 minutes visualizing and imagining yourself engaging in these activities and earning a living.

When we deliberately set an INTENTION, especially in regard to our purpose, and then activate it by placing our ATTENTION on that thing, we begin to co-create with our Higher Power. We begin to co-create within our authentic purpose for being.

CHAPTER 2

Escaping the Matrix

"We don't see things as they are. We see them as we are." — Anais Nin

One of the first real truths in life is you are a spiritual being. This is your nature. Your intuition, your consciousness, that little voice in your head all allude to the spiritual being of who you are. In the words of renowned author Esther Hicks, "You are the leading edge of thought." In other words, your consciousness creates.

To be clearer, the stork didn't bring you. You didn't magically appear, but you chose to come here from the eternity you enjoyed with God, Source Power, Jehovah, Allah, whomever you acknowledge as the all-knowing higher power. You chose to come here to manifest your thoughts and desires into physical things and experiences. That is your fundamental truth.

However, we tend to get caught up in what we call "The Matrix." Yes, very similar to The Matrix movie trilogy themes. This "Matrix" keeps us from remembering why we chose to come here and what we chose to come here to do.

If you can remember back to the movie, The Matrix, you know all about the surface story — how Artificial Intelligence created a computer construct (The Matrix) of our present day world and, through a hard wire directly into the brain, fed it to humans who were, in reality, kept in incubators and used for their energy output as a power source for the Artificial Intelligence.

In other words, "reality" existed ONLY in the people's minds. It was about how the world relates to the infinite. Everything is one. Everything is connected to everything else and there are subtle ways humans can actually manipulate this reality. The whole 'machine war' in the Matrix movie was just a metaphor of our true reality. The main message then and now is that we have more control of our lives and world, and possess more power than we realize.

Just as in The Matrix, reality was understood to be a complex computer simulation created by Artificial Intelligence. Similar to today, we live and experience a world of artificial, superficial, and pseudo intelligence we call technology, all for the purpose of "making our lives a bit more convenient."

Created by a malevolent Artificial Intelligence, the Matrix hid the truth from humanity, allowing people to live a convincing, simulated life while machines grew and harvested people to use as an ongoing energy source. In today's society, we can equate this to the "rat race." While it's silly to think there is some artificial life force directing and creating our every move, we do become callous and our consciousness mutes based on the mundane activities while we do not question our existence. We simply go about life almost in a zombie-like way. We function to satisfy our next desire just to do it all over again tomorrow. This is how we become almost immune to life and authentic reality.

The authentic reality is we are all extensions of infinite intelligence. As the main character in The Matrix, Neo, didn't realize his power, so it is with us as we go day to day in a trance-like state, moving almost involuntarily from home to work and back home, with very little if any real purpose in life that we have identified.

As we embark on this journey, let us begin by empowering ourselves to the knowledge of a new reality, a forthcoming of understanding. The clarity of knowing we can have, do, and be anything we choose. We are powerful creators with the ability to bring any desire into being.

Remember the last line in the original Matrix, after Neo has freed the minds of the people and exposed them to the real world, he says, "Where we go next is up to you." Going from Artificial Intelligence to infinite intelligence. Understanding what is authentic versus what is perception, dressed up as truth.

Now you say, "Huh? What are you talking about? I've got bills to pay, a job to do, responsibilities to maintain ... this is LIFE!" Yes, it IS life. It is the life you've created from the thoughts you've held and perpetuated as truth and belief. But understand, you are the leading edge of thought. Whatever can be conceived can be created. It is as simple as expressing the desire, holding the vision, and allowing it to happen. As we embark on this journey of aligning your life to enlighten your soul, simply know and understand that the Creator has given you the innate power to accomplish all of the things you want to achieve, create a new reality not only in your mind but in your life, and leverage the real you by unlocking your true purpose. Understand the only things that have stopped or are stopping you from achieving what you desire along the road in THIS life are the speed bumps of doubt, the potholes of worry, and the roadblocks of fear.

CHAPTER 3

Tell Your Thoughts What to Think

You are the creator of your reality. You are not the orchestrator. That job belongs to God. Your job is to ask and then put yourself in the best position of allowing. Too often we spend time trying to manipulate and control the "how" a thing we want will transpire and we get in the way of what's already being put together. We muddy the waters by our mixed energy. We ask, then through our failed efforts to bring it about, become despondent and doubtful.

Throughout this journey, we will continually stress a few key points:

1. Through alignment, we create our own reality. How? With the help of the Law of Attraction. Like energy attracts like energy.

2. We think thoughts that generate feeling. Those feelings reverberate frequencies/vibrations that translate into physical realities.

Of course, there is a little more to it, which we will discuss in later chapters, but in a nutshell, that's how it works. So if this universal principle is true, and it is true just as much as the Law of Gravity is true, where is the breakdown occurring between what we want and what we have?

"Emancipate yourself from mental slavery. None but ourselves can free our minds." — Marcus Garvey

You must tell your thoughts what to think, tell your feelings what to feel, and tell your body how to respond. Your thoughts will run rampant if you allow them to. You must tell your thoughts exactly what you want them to think. Because we live in a society where we are constantly bombarded with negativity, our minds are filled with images, conversations, and thoughts that are contrary to what we want and desire. If YOU don't tell your mind what to think, who will? If you don't control what you think about, who will? And make no mistake about it — if you don't exercise this control, someone else most certainly will.

Since you get what you think about whether you want it or not, and since whatever your mind is concentrated and focused on, either directly or indirectly, expands, this explains why we stay in a constant, perpetual state of wanting, and not manifesting, or manifesting things unwanted.

When you tell your thoughts what to think, you are simply setting a deliberate intention to reach for the best feeling/thought you can, at any given time. The operative word here is deliberate. Change perspective by thinking on purpose, speaking on purpose, and thus acting with purposeful intention. Be as picky, if not more, about the thoughts you think as you are about the healthy or non-healthy foods you choose to eat. We have all experienced what happens to our bodies when we repeatedly make poor nutrition choices. Things can be just as, if not more detrimental when we make poor thought choices.

Why is this important?

If you can control your thoughts by instructing what you want them to be, you will then also be able to guide and direct your emotions, feelings, and mood. The two go hand and hand. Reaching for good feeling/thoughts produces good feelings/emotions. This in turn produces the manifestation of things you desire. Once thought and emotions are intentionally directed towards that which feels good and right, you then have options as to how you want to respond to any given circumstance or situation. So instead of knee-jerk reacting to someone cutting you off in traffic, decide on the emotion you truly desire and act on that. You are now in the driver's seat instead of being driven. You are now no longer guided by the things you see, hear, smell, touch, and taste; things which often lead us astray. But rather now you are guiding and shaping YOUR LIFE how YOU wish for it to be. You are now a co-creator with God creating how your life will turn out.

(Continues…)

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Excerpted from "From Alignment to Enlightenment"
by .
Copyright © 2017 Gene Black and Edward Muhammad.
Excerpted by permission of AuthorHouse.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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