Devon Hunter

In “The Master Key System,” Charles Haanel asserts that “when Truth appears every form of error or discord must necessarily disappear.” He created a mantra that touches every aspect of self improvement:

“I am whole, perfect, strong, powerful, loving, harmonious, and happy.”

Wow! Now THAT is saying something worth saying. But I was having a helluva time remembering it, which made it a mantra I couldn’t repeat without stumbling…

So I approached it as if I were still an educator, and I was my own pupil. I realized that this list is a hierarchy of need (with wholeness as the foundation upon which all other expressions of positivity rest). With this in mind I created the following explanation for myself, and now I can recite The Perfect Affirmation just fine:

• Being whole implies not only totality and completeness, but also integration and proper function. If all seven components of wellness (click here to see them) are balanced, then wholeness is achieved. This wholeness then becomes synonymous with perfection.
• Perfection is not static (because life isn’t either!), and although we can be perfect one moment we may not be the next. Evolving constantly within wholeness recreates new incarnations of perfection.
• All this evolving requires endurance and determination, so when we establish periods of perfection (and thus wholeness), we are using the expanding strength endowed to us.
• The ability to focus and use strength to create change is, in itself, what defines power: Powerful people create change, both within themselves and throughout the world.
• The most powerful emotions are love and fear; however, fear cannot come from the “wholeness->perfection->strength->power” chain reaction. This must mean that being whole leads to being loving. If you feel fear, as opposed to love, then something is askew. Make your adjustments in the circuit, and let the love flow, baby!
• Whereas fear is ultimately going to create noise/frustration/struggle, love is a source of harmony unto itself. But remember this: Harmony is not playing the same note as what already exists. That would simply be layering the note that already reverberates. Harmony adds something different, but constructive and augmenting. YOU add something meaningful when you are whole->perfect->strong->powerful->loving. When you are harmonious, you don’t sing middle-C when someone else sings middle-C. You sing Eb/E, F/F#, G, or Ab/A. You bring something synergistic to what is already happening.
• Extending the musical metaphor for a moment: Harmony is the part of a song or composition that augments the melody and makes you feel something positive beyond the basic good. It’s what adds dimension to the melody. Have you ever heard a song that makes your face crack open with a smile because of a moment that feels so luscious? That’s the happy that grows out of the harmony (which grew out of the love, which grew out of the power, which grew out of the strength, which grew out of the perfection, which grew out of the wholeness).

Whew! Well… For what it’s worth: Makes sense to me…

Well, boys and girls… how about that rant yesterday? Whew. Well, I feel better…

But now I need to take a moment to come back to center and recognize that although there are people who (without necessarily planning it) frustrate, anger, and hurt me, there are so many others who soothe me and make me feel loved. Thank you for your many kindnesses…

Before I got sidetracked by a thoroughly discouraging week in Atlanta, I was sharing excerpts of my favorite novel, “The Last of the Wine” by Mary Renault. Here we see Alexias (the narrator) with his lover/friend Lysis preparing for the battle that would ultimately dislodge the The Thirty (a group of tyrants who were put in control by the Spartans after Athens was defeated in the Pelopennesian War). This selection is relevant to me just now, because it offers a nice prayer that reminds me (in a way) of the Serenity Prayer:

Just before the trumpet, Lysis and I stood on the walls, and looked down the Cleft of the Chriot, to see Athens shine, clear gold picked out with shadows, in the slanting winter sun. I turned to him and said, “You look sad, Lysis. It has been good here, but we are going to be better.”

He smiled at me and said, “Amen, and so be it.” The he was silent for a time, looking out at the High City, and leaning on his spear.

“What is it?” I said; for my mind was full of memories, which I felt he shared.

“I was thinking,” he said, “of the sacrifice just now, and of how one ought to pray. It is right for men setting out on a just enterprise to commend it to heaven. But for oneself… We have entreated many things of the gods, Alexias. Sometimes they gave, and sometimes they saw it otherwise. So today I petitioned them as Sokrates once taught us:

‘All-Knowing Zeus, give me what is best for me. Avert evil from me, though it be the thing I prayed for; and give me the good which from ignorance I do not ask.’”

Before I could reply to him, the trumpet sounded, and we went down to the gate…