=kit013.txt

KIT 13 - Ecstasy In Action

"O, to sparkle my soul with ecstasy!"  Is this not the plea
sounded by so many, asking me invariably the same question, "Pir,
how does one get high and keep high through life?" (need I say
without the artifice of drugs, for an artifice they are).  In a
rather awkward attempt at candidness, I pride myself by preluding
my answer with, "I wish I could" and then blissfully proceed to
tell people how to do it.  Well, life is only worth its wager if
it is spurred by dreams, even if but a few ever come true.

Speaking with U.S. entrepreneurial managers successful in their
field, what struck me was that unless fired by an enthusing
objective or challenged at the edge of their ability, they tend to
slump into boredom, disenchantment and lackadaisicalness and they
lose their grip.  In fact, for the upgoing businessman, life must
be a venture to keep the adrenalin flowing and to span energy to
its breaking point.  The venture that spurs people on is making
dreams come true, whatever the dreams are.  They could be
materialistic ones according to one's scale of values.

This is what Murshid meant when he eulogized some of the tycoons
he met in the "New World", including Henry Ford.  "Why has one
been sent upon the earth if one cannot look at the earth for fear
of being called a materialist?   Those who make spirituality out
to be something like this make a bogeyman out of God.  In fact,
spirituality is the fullness of life."

I am cheered to discover just how socially oriented that dream is,
in more cases than one might have imagined.  A productive job from
a managerial point of view is a job which, while giving the
initiator lucrative dividends, gives jobs to many others also,
thus helping them to fulfill some dream of theirs.  In fact, to
enlist people's support in one's venture, the payment of wages is
not enough.  The great art of leadership is helping people with
similar dreams who themselves would not have the initiative or
wherewithal to fulfill them, thus helping one to fulfill one's own
dream.  This can only happen if these dreams match and reinforce
each other.

I never cease to be amazed by discovering to what degree there is
a basic commonality behind the maze of differences between
people's aspirations: love, beauty, convenience, self-esteem,
justice, adventure, creativity.  Unfortunately, many of these
basic urges get distorted and even turned upside down in an
incongruous and counterproductive way by disappointment or failure
or for having been the victim of injustice or humiliation or brow-
beating.  You see, ecstasy is total involvement, taking the plunge
for better or for worse, relentlessly coping with the odds,
dauntlessly riding the tide of adversity and starting again if one
fails or slips, believing against proof of the opposite in the
values pursued, appraising the splendor and meaningfulness of
life, facing the squalor and injustice wreaked upon humanity by
those who lost that belief and contrive to draw all around them in
their doom, sardonic sordidity, defeatism and self-
destructiveness.  Dreams are intended to come true.  Their
fulfillment is what they are about.

Usually, defeat is due to having failed to see the connection
between the ideal and the hard facts, to unravel the Gordian knot
connecting reality to actuality, linking metaphor to the nitty-
gritty.  The next stage after the dream stage consists in seeing
how you get from "here" to "there", step by step, each step
clearly envisioned, and to forestall anything that might come in
between, waylaying one.  This is crucial since failure begets
failure and has a devastating effect upon one's self-esteem.

Life becomes a venture when taking the risk of being innovative,
which is what creativity is about.  In fact, the human spirit
lives on creativity and dies in conformism, routine, towing the
line.  Ecstasy is the magic out of which life is born, the wand
that opens doors into unpredictable perspectives. It is simply
fulfilling one's zest for life with all its wonder, if one can
take life's pain without self-pity, its attacks without
bitterness, and its inevitable setbacks without discouragement. 
Ecstasy is the intoxication in which creativity thrives, the
motive power in that supreme faculty inherent in the human being -
creative imagination - the ability to anticipate, to prefigure, to
forestall, to imagine how things could be if they would be as they
might be. 

Ecstasy is triggered off every time that one rises above oneself,
every time one frees oneself from a constraint in one's
circumstances, in one's way of thinking, emotions, self-image,
every time one discovers the cosmic bounty and inexhaustible
innovativeness invested in one, in fact, when one discovers the
creator in one, as oneself.  Ecstasy lies in waiting in
anticipation of the delight of sniffing out the richness of
diversification dormant in the unexplored drabness of many
people's lives.  For example, a snow-covered landscape may appear
bleak until one discovers the enormous wealth of crystalline
patterns in the snowflakes under a microscope.  We could exploit
the bountiful richness hidden in our lives if we could first
earmark it and then make something out of it.  Creativity is the
thrust of ecstasy discovering unexplored richness and making it an
actuality in our lives. 

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