Excerpt
Visionary behavior is coherent action, perceptive thinking, and wise interacting.
As we’ll explore in Chapters 5 through 13, visionary behavior involves nine qualities: good character, engagement, flow, personal wisdom, intelligence, creativity, connectedness, expressiveness, and (as needed) leadership.
And so the pages before you are a call for each of us to become a Saint, a Champion, a Performer, a Sage, a Detective, an Inventor, a Companion, a Storyteller, and a Guide.
Underlying this book is a basic assumption: just as the universe is made of energy and information, so are we. Each of us has a will and a mind.
Our will is our energy — the potential for action of our consciousness — and associated structures and capacities.
Our mind is our information — the contents of our consciousness — and associated structures and capacities.
Visionary behavior requires a coherent will and a coherent mind.
A coherent will and mind begin with a coherent perspective — coherent views of culture, of the sacred, and of the natural world. Having a coherent perspective of all three is Visionary Behavior 101.
In Chapter 2, we’ll look at our culture, including media. In Chapter 3, we’ll look at our key choices, ancient and contemporary, in approaching the sacred. And in Chapter 4, we’ll look at the key insights of modern science, including science’s insights about our own body with its electromagnetic and zero-point energy.
An empowering view is accessible to each of us. With a wide-ranging, panoramic perspective of culture, consciousness, and nature, we’re far more likely to engage in a full range of visionary behavior.
In Chapters 5 to 7 we’ll explore the capacities of our will. We‘ll explore how to live a life of good character, engagement, and flow. Ensuring that we have a coherent will is Visionary Behavior 201.
Each of us can act with the soul of a Saint. We can fill our will with standards and integrity, and we can inhabit our life from a deep moral and ethical dimension. We can live our life from a deeper level of goodness. We can further improve our character.
Each of us can act with the spirit of a Champion. Our will can be engaged by the navigating power of our purpose. We can stay motivated, live with energy and confidence, and meet challenges with high intention. We can be committed, devoted, responsible, productive, resourceful, capable, and resilient. We can live our life from a deeper level of engagement.
Each of us can act with the gift of a Performer. For a majority of our waking hours each day, we can be in our optimal peak state. Our reaction time can be quick while we are serenely relaxed. We can achieve a graceful union, harmony, and cooperation with what scientists call the Zero Point Field. We can live our life in flow.
In Chapters 8 to 10 we’ll explore the capacities of our mind. We’ll explore how to live a life of wise creative intelligence. Ensuring that we have a coherent mind is Visionary Behavior 301.
Each of us can think with the insight of a Sage. We can examine our old assumptions. We can take responsibility for our thoughts and have intellectual courage, honesty, and integrity. We can reach deep self-understanding and heal our psyches. We can root our thinking in goodness and in self-transcending truths. We can exercise good judgment. We can become wiser.
Each of us can think with the sense of a Detective. We can be attentively perceptive and mindful, knowledgeable and skilled, rational, and sensible. We can remove filters on our attention so that we see not what we expect to see or what we are conditioned to see but what is really there — purely, cleanly, and accurately. We can become more intelligent.
Each of us can think with the genius of an Inventor. Our minds can be open, fluid, and flexible. We can approach challenges imaginatively. We can get better at changing things, riding things out, planning, modeling, using our imagination, and tapping the full depth and sweep of our mind as we connect with the underlying Field. We can become more creative.
In Chapters 11 to 13 we’ll explore the capacities of our mind and our will in interaction with other people. We’ll explore how to interact in empathetic, expressive, and effective relationships. Doing our part to help make our interactions coherent is Visionary Behavior 401.
Each of us can interact with the heart of a Companion. We can be warm, empathetic, loving, and benevolent. Sensing our accord, kinship, interconnectedness, and unity with other people — and appreciating people’s strengths, wisdom, and goodness — we can engage in truly close, respectful, trusting, and cooperative relationships. From a keen sense of service, we can participate in realizing shared purposes, visions, and goals. We can become more connected.
Each of us can interact with the voice of a Storyteller. In our communications in person, on the phone, and in all media, we can be open, truthful, and effective. As conversationalists, writers, or multi-media storytellers, we can become more expressive.
Each of us can interact with the hand of a Guide. In our families, teams, and communities, we can encourage visionary behavior in all those around us. And as needed, we can offer effective guidance to others. We can become better leaders.
Finally, there’s Visionary Behavior 501. In Chapters 14 and 15, we’ll aim for a keener awareness of how we can build on the outer-world legacies of modern generations, including our own, to forge a brighter future for us all. The better we understand our place in the flow of historical time, the more adept we’ll be at meeting the crises and seizing the opportunities inherent in our own time.
For all those who have sought this kind of life, our moment has arrived. Our life can be an engaging adventure in good and wise creative intelligence, performance, and interaction — an adventure in visionary behavior. This book is a reminder to us to live that life — and a guide to living it.
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