The Two Major Focuses of Every Lifetime …

SPECIAL NOTE: When Lazaris has spoken of Life Focuses in workshops
and consultations, he has always said that people have seven of
them in every lifetime, varying from person to person and from
lifetime to lifetime, depending upon what they want to be doing
any particular time. There are two focuses, however, that are part
of every lifetime we have: Learning To Have Fun and Learning To
Consciously Create Success. This excerpt from Lazaris Interviews:
Book II is about these two, which are always part of every
incarnation.

Learning To Have Fun
"What is the purpose of life? ... What is my task? Why am I here?
... Why am I physical? What is my mission?"

You are haunted by this desire to know. Deep within your brain
stirs the thought that if you just knew the answer to one of these
questions, then everything else would make sense. Your heart
echoes with feelings that a satisfactory answer would make
everything ... absolutely everything ... all right.

Your purpose, your mission, your task -- or, as we prefer to say,
your focus -- can be stated with disarming ease. The prime reason
you are here: To learn to have fun.

Yes. That's it. You are here to learn to have fun! You have
created a physical form and a physical world to put it in. You
have created all of your reality to give yourself the opportunity
to learn -- to learn to have fun.

The critics and detractors pounce upon that statement as proof of
the shallowness and hedonism of the New Age. They either get angry
at the apparent lack of social responsibility, or they dismiss the
idea as the emptyheaded "fad philosophy" of this yuppie "sport"
called the New Age.

Many who consider themselves part of the alternative spirituality
of the New Age want the purpose, the task, the mission to be more
serious or to at least sound more spiritual. Missions should be
loftier. A purpose of connecting with your Higher Self or becoming
one with the Source sounds much more reasonable. It sounds much
more valuable and viable.

At first glance, these criticisms seem to have merit. Upon further
investigation the kind of fun we are talking about, the kind of
fun you are attempting to learn, is valuable and totally viable.
We are talking about the kind of fun derived from accomplishing
the lessons you have selected to experience and fulfilling the
destinies you have chosen to explore. Your spiritual focus -- your
spirituality -- is all about your living breathing, loving
embracing relationship with God/Goddess/All That Is. This is what
learning to have fun is all about.

Your purpose, mission, task -- your focus -- is not only about
achievement; it is also about the means of achieving. It is not
just about succeeding -- it is also about the way in which you
succeed. You can grow through the struggles and hardships of life.
Some of you needed to do that. Some still feel the need to
struggle and suffer. However, you also have the choice to grow
through the love and the laughter.

Which is going to be more fun? Both of them will "get you there,"
but which is going to be more fun? Everyone, regardless of their
spirituality or their claimed lack of it, has the same purpose,
task, mission, the same focus: Learning to have fun.

Certainly the desire to reach a heaven, whether it is a literal
place or a state of mind, is a desire to have fun. Certainly a
desire to connect with your Higher Self or with the Source is a
desire to have fun -- a postponed desire perhaps, but still a
desire to have fun. For the Christian, certainly being on the
right side of the rapture is a goal of having fun. No matter how
much struggle you think is required -- no matter how painful the
path you decide you must have, the goal, the culmination of your
learning, is to reach a state of peace. Peace. That's fun!

There are four keys to understanding this primary focus.

First, learn. The focus is not just "to have fun" -- it's to
learn. It is: To learn to have fun. Learning means recognizing and
acknowledging that you are the creator of all the possibilities,
probabilities, and actualities of your reality. It involves
figuring out what you did "right" and "wrong." Learning to have
fun means being responsible for what "works" in your life. It
means figuring out the "why's" and the "how's" of reality creation
so that the fun you have is the fun you know you created. It is
self-generated fun. You never have to wonder if it will last,
because you create it -- you are the source of the fun, then the
happiness, and finally the joy you are having in your life.

Second, define. Define fun continuously. Fun is not static. Being
fluid, it always changes. When you were six, you had very distinct
ideas of what a fun day was all about. Now those same ideas would
seem ridiculous. Your current concepts of fun are unique. As you
unfold your future, your current pictures of fun will also change.
It is vital that you define and redefine what you mean by "fun"
and what you mean by having it.

Third, balance. Despite the parental "tape-loops" inside your head
mumbling something about beds that you must sleep in and cakes you
cannot eat, it is important to balance. It is up to you to choose
and decide not only what's fun, but when it's fun. For some, a
"pizza and a six-pack" may not only sound like a fun idea -- at
the time, it might be the essence of fun! Yet, at another time it
would be the antithesis. It is up to you to balance the long-term
fun and the short-term pleasures. It is up to you to distinguish
among the inner-child's, adolescent's, young-adult's, and the
spiritual adult's sense of: "What's fun?"

Learning to have fun is not just about being at the right place at
the right time, knowing where the best parties are on a Friday
night, or about knowing the right people. It is about learning,
defining, and balancing self-generated fun. It is about creating
your own reality and being positively responsible for that
creation.

Fourth, deserve. The final key to understanding the prime focus of
having fun is also the major blockage to its fulfillment.

You can learn, define, and even balance what is fun for you. You
can process and program. You can work with a myriad of techniques.
You can be responsible and enjoy the power implicit within that
responsibility. You can learn and work through the psychological
and metaphysical obstacles that separate you from the reality you
ask for.

However, if you don't think you deserve, all the above are
intellectual exercises fast becoming exercises in frustration and
futility. The lack of deserving permeates your beliefs and
attitudes, your thoughts and feelings, and your choices and
decisions. You do not feel you deserve. A primary focus that seems
easy enough to accomplish has just been moved out of reach.
Because it is beyond your belief and therefore your choice, "you
can't get there from here."

There are several powerful reasons that deserving is outside the
belief-choice matrix.

1. You were taught. You were taught by parents, teachers,
spiritual leaders, and peers that you do not deserve -- especially
you do not deserve to have fun. These sources of learning were not
necessarily ill-intentioned. Much of what they taught you was what
they learned and what they thought would "protect" you from a
world they didn't understand and therefore a world that seemed to
be "the enemy." They did not want you to get your hopes up and
have them dashed. They did not want you to get hurt, so they
taught you that you did not deserve. Sometimes, they were ill-
intentioned. Out of jealousy, possessiveness, and fear, some did
intend to imprison you in their limitations. Whichever, you were
taught, and you can "un-teach" yourself now.

2. You are haunted by angers, hurts, and resentments of the past.
Separate from what you were innocently or maliciously taught, many
are followed by the specter of the past. As a child you were so
angry you wished your mother was dead. You numbed your hurt with
hate. You harnessed the anguish with resentment. Lonely, you
punished yourself. You decided you did not deserve to be happy.
Ever! You still live by that decision. You are haunted by the
past.

3. You feel guilty. The guilt you may feel can be sourced in fact
and fantasy, or it can be unsourced in the belief that you are
guilty just by being alive. Perhaps you were taught; perhaps you
were conditioned. Now you feel guilty. According to you, you do
not deserve. The possibility of happiness, the possibility of
having fun, is frightening. It is a threat. This is where your
lack of deserving lies if you find yourself feeling guilty when
things go wrong and even worse -- guiltier -- when things go
right. Are you constantly apologizing for being here -- for being
alive?

4. You are caught in a "catch-22" of deserving. You come to
realize that the lack of deserving is the problem. You are
eloquent and articulate about all the reasons you don't deserve.
You have even worked at relearning what the inner-child
erroneously learned. You have released the haunting angers, hurts,
resentments, and you have freed yourself from guilt. Yet you still
don't feel you deserve. Why?

Because, you tell yourself, if you deserved, you'd have  figured
it out long ago! You say you don't deserve because you still feel
undeserving. You continue by telling yourself that if you were a
person who was meant to feel deserving, you would have done it
already. Wrapped in a negative ego of, "I'd hate to admit it," you
are caught in a "catch-22" reality.

Often, there is a feeling of foolishness: "I should already know
this. I should already have done this." Believe us, you will only
feel more foolish to wait even another month. If you feel foolish
now, how much more foolish are you going to feel a year from now?

Admit your foolishness and your embarrassment. Break the "catch-
22" by realizing you are not alone. Everyone feels the lack of
deserving. It is part of your human condition. It is part of what
you are learning through the lens, through the focus, of learning
to have fun.

5. You are depressed. Depression is anger that you fear you will
get in trouble for having. Many who are depressed in their
marriages or relationships are often angry, but fear reprisals
should they talk about it. Many who dread going to work because
their jobs depress them are really saying they are angry, but
actualization carries intolerable consequences. The anger that
seeds depression can build over many months or many years, or it
can come from quick and sudden change. One of the ways you
suppress -- repress -- depress -- that anger is by denying fun.
You deny it by refusing it, or by choosing to believe that it is
outside the realms of possibility or probability. Either way, it
is beyond your reach.

6.  You lack perfection. You have made mistakes, and you have not
forgiven yourself. Perhaps you are waiting for others to forgive
you or to apologize to you. Perhaps you have decided that you are
unforgivable. Whatever you tell yourself, you have concluded that
you do not deserve to have fun. Erroneously you have decided that
you can have fun once you are perfect, and not before. Since you
already have made a mistake, you are doomed. If you can discover
the arrogance rather than feel the self-pity of this position, you
can be free of it.

7. You decided you do not love "good enough." Like the lack of
deserving you were taught, many of you have concluded that you
simply do not love "good enough." In many situations, the Human
Potential Movement and the ensuing metaphysics have fostered that
conditioning. Many have decided that humankind as well as they,
individually, have a fatal flaw -- an original sin of sorts -- of
an inability to love. Because they can't love, or can't love "good
enough," they do not deserve anything -- especially they do not
deserve to have fun. Nor, according to them, does anyone else.

We realize we have not offered concrete solutions and resolutions
to these obstacles to your deserving. Knowing what stops you --
knowing the hurdles and where they are -- can be the first step in
finding your own solutions.

Having fun is not the glib and shallow concept so many want to
think it is. It sounds simple enough, yet your reality belies that
suspected simplicity. After so many lifetimes, fun and learning
how to have it seem as elusive as ever.

Having fun involves learning to create your reality, defining the
means and the ends you wish to achieve and acquire, balancing the
future and the present against the backdrop of the past, and most
of all involves allowing yourself to feel, and then be, deserving.

Learning To Consciously Create Success

The other essential purpose, mission, or task -- or, as we call
it, focus -- is as important and as illusive as the first. The
second focus: To learn to consciously create success.

You see, it is not just about being successful. It is about
learning. It is about being conscious. It is about defining
exactly what success is for you.

Creating your own reality is something you do whether you are
conscious of it or not. Everyone consciously creates their own
reality. Some, lost in the labyrinth of ignorance or naivete, do
not know it. Others, caught in the web of fear and ridicule, deny
it. Many, trapped in the paralysis of being in potentia, wish it
were true. Regardless, you do create your own reality.

Conscious creation of reality is how you function. Conscious
creation of success is where you focus.

We do not want to examine the entire arena of creating success.
That has been done. The bookshelves of your reality are replete
with the "how-to's" of success.

We want to plant seeds of consideration to help you more clearly
understand what success really is for you, and how to more
concretely be able to consciously create it for yourself.
To begin, we must look at what success isn't. Many of you don't
really know what success is. It is one of those concepts that you
are supposed to "just know." Potential humiliation overrules
curiosity. Without clear understanding you continuously seek and
never find success.

In lieu of clarity you accept the consensus reality definitions
thinking that success means greater intelligence, more deserving,
and "better than." You assume success entails competing with
others and conquering scarcity. Success is concomitant with
perfection in action and intention.

Initially this sounds acceptable -- even preferable. In time, you
realize that you are not meeting these standards. No matter how
intelligent you are, there are those who are smarter. You don't
feel deserving. No matter how persuasive you are, no matter how
many others you convince, you cannot convince yourself that you
deserve -- that you really deserve. No matter how tightly you hold
on to your "better thans," they keep slipping through your
fingers. Competing and conquering are not only exhaustive, they're
boring. You are not perfect. You are not perfect. No, you're not.

To stop the erosion, you simplify your consensus reality
definitions. Success means having more and better than, being more
and better than, doing more and better than. Success means
more...!

Shuddering at the prospect of failure, you take a deep breath, you
steel yourself, and you dive in again. Rather than realizing that
the definitions are incorrect, you try again to make them work for
you. Some will spend their whole lives on this merry-go-round
reaching for a brass ring that isn't there. Never was, never will
be.

"Um-pa-pa, Um-pa-pa." There is no end. What success you do create
feels like a fluke that can be snatched away at any moment. As
much as failure is painful, success is more frightening. There is
not real success on the merry-go-round.

Some reluctantly get off the carousel by being knocked off with
the hard edge of failure. They judge, punish, and conclude that
they are no good. They feel and are convinced that they "blew it -
- it's too late."

Then there are those who are forced off the carousel by getting
caught in the soft voice of self-delusion or by getting lost in
the mirrored maze of grandeur. They convince themselves that they
have met the criteria. The euphoria is eventually replaced with
the haunting hollowness: "Is this all there is?"

A few, a very few, consciously climb off the merry-go-round by
releasing the consensus reality definitions. Admitting that they
do not know what success is, they then search for new meaning and
create their own definitions of success -- of their success.

The most effective way to define success in a way that the
definition can be your definition, is to lay forth the core -- the
backbone -- the backbone of what success is. The skeleton of
success is just that: a skeleton. You must give it life by adding
the flesh and blood, the muscle and nerve, and the thinking and
feeling of success. You must breathe life into these pieces of the
puzzle called success.

Not surprisingly, there are seven basic components to being
successful. You all know these seven pieces of the puzzle. Often,
you just don't know how they fit together.

1. First is power. The most elegant definition of power is the
ability and the willingness to act. Power, in truth, has nothing
to do with intimidation, control, or manipulation. It has nothing
to do with the desire or the attempts to overpower.

"Power" has become a euphemism for fear. When you confront a scary
person you often call them powerful. When you encounter a powerful
person you often call them scary! Very strange.

True power is being both able and willing to choose and decide,
and to act on those choices and decisions. It is being able and
willing to think and feel and act on those thoughts and emotions.
It is being able and willing to admit to having attitudes
(opinions, evaluations, and discernments) and beliefs and then
acting consciously on those attitudes and beliefs.

2. The second puzzle piece is creativity and productivity.
Creativity is generating and stimulating conception and perception
in yourself and/or in others. Creativity is not defined by career
or label. The artist and the non-artist, by whatever definition,
are creative if they generate and stimulate conception and
perception.

Levels of productivity are measured by the amount you learn about
yourself. Whatever you are doing, if you learn a great deal about
you and who you are, then it is productive. If you learn little or
nothing, then it is nonproductive. Productivity is a quality, not
a quantity.

3. Then there is awareness, and there is aliveness. Many look for
lofty esoteric meanings for these two concepts. In their search
they lose sight of success. To be aware, concisely, means knowing
you have impact. Some believe that it is impossible to have impact
on each other. Yet others will concede and deal with impact.
Whether they are supposed to have it or not, they actually do have
impact on the people around them. Regardless, everyone agrees that
you have impact, at least on yourself. When you know this --
really know this -- you become aware.

When you combine four very special ingredients, something very
special happens. You create the synergy of aliveness. Synergy
means the whole is greater than the sum of the parts, and in this
case the aliveness is more than just equal parts of love, trust,
expectancy, and enthusiasm.

To become really alive it is important to combine the flexibility
and fluidity of love with the fragility and rigidity of trust.
Then it is vital to stir in the wonder of expectancy and the
sparkle of enthusiasm. Mix well. Be alive.

4. Happiness is the fulfillment of your needs. Joy is the
fulfillment of your preferences. Enjoyment is the elegance with
which you do both.

5. Many make the mistake of assuming that success means having
resources. In truth, success means having access to resources.
There are those who have money, but no real access to it or to
what it can buy them. They do not experience success. Others have
loads of access to money as their only resource. They often
experience limited or shallow success. The truly successful person
will have expansive access to physical and metaphysical resources.
Success is within the grasp of anyone who can close their eyes,
alter their state of consciousness, visualize, and manifest in
their reality. If you are willing, each of you has unlimited
potentials for success.

6. Critical to being successful: the willingness to adventure.

In your "old age" world you learn to be a warrior. You learn to
confront, to battle, to conquer, and you dominate. In the "New
Age" world you can learn to be an adventurer. You can learn to
encounter, to understand, to befriend, and to transmute with
dominion. Consciously created success involves - integrally
involves -- being willing to adventure in your reality and in your
world.

7. Dominion is an attitude and a belief. Dominion is a point of
view. When you are willing to co-create your success with
God/Goddess/All That Is rather than expecting someone to do it for
you, you are on your way. When you are willing to stretch and
reach for the future rather than grovel in the past, you begin to
feel the excitement and the wonder of dominion. when you are able
to see and demonstrate that first your world -- and then the
world-at-large -- is a friendly place ready to support you rather
than out to get you, then you have dominion.

With dominion, you have the final piece of the puzzle called
success.

The secret of being successful -- of learning to be successful?
Begin by owning each of the seven puzzle pieces as an attitude
first. Feel. Feel powerful, creative/productive, aware/alive. Feel
happiness and joy in an enjoying way. Feel that you have access to
resources, a willingness to adventure. Feel dominion.

Do not expect to be successful first and then to have the feeling.
Feel it first. Feel it first.

Do not aim at being successful. Do not make success the bull's eye
of your target. Don't "shoot for success." Ironically, the secret
to consciously creating success is not to make it the central
target of your desire, expectation, or imagination. Rather,
accomplish the means. Aim to be powerful, creative/productive,
etc. Aim at the means and allow the ends to follow.

Don't shoot for the ends. Accomplish the means.The ends will
follow.

With love and peace ...
LAZARIS