3 - 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. 3 - 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.
