Alignment
Motivation comes from being aligned with the authentic self.
Having a notion to achieve something in life - to become somebody - to reach a goal is noble but, without the will or motivation to act, this recurring notion serves only as a source of guilt, anguish… stress. The thing we know we ought to do...we do not do. The thing we know we shouldn’t do is often the very thing we tend to do.
Inner conflict is stress. To align with inner harmony is to find the natural flow of life.
Just like all other things, we appeared in this world inside-out. That is, we came from something much more profound than what is ultimately seen on the surface. When we are mis-aligned with this inside-out principle our peace is lost and replaced with striving for survival which is always alignment with an outside-in perspective.
To what we are aligned we are confined.
Every living soul is in the river of life. However, some souls are swimming up stream with great effort and stress filled with the illusion that progress is being made. Standing on the banks of the river, it would become obvious that the upstream swimmers are moving downstream at near the same pace as everyone else. The upstream swimmers are just experiencing a lot more stress in the process. Life is happening.
Most people we meet everyday are trying to make a living instead of living to make a life.
Suppose, however, that instead of swimming against life or even fighting for life, we simply recognize ourselves as life. We would no longer be in the river, we would be the river. Think about the nature of a river. The natural flow of a river is downward. The greater the decline in topography the greater the river’s momentum. A river’s direction is determined by the confinement of its banks. However, the consistency of the river’s flow over time deepens and widens the river’s reach. All this happens naturally without effort or will.
Alignment with the authentic self produces a sense of control without a sense of self.