“If you can concentrate always on the present, […] Life will be a party for you, a grand festival, because life is the moment we’re living now.”
Paulo Coelho
The true art of alchemy is not as history would have us believe, to turn base metal into gold, but moreover, to transform the ignoble and mundane experiences of our lives into the pure luminescent moments of brilliant and golden neutrality of the most beautiful kind.
Thought is the medium by which we create all of our experiences here on earth. Our lives are made richer or poorer by the content of that thinking. Due to our conditioning we create a unique to us worldview, which appears to govern our daily lives. We all do this innocently believing that this is just the way life is. Inadvertently creating a reality, moment-by-moment based on what we believe to be true. Thus we are fully capable of creating a heavenly or hellish life for ourselves.
This is due to the simple fact that because we are conscious beings, our ability to be aware transforms all of our thinking into an illusory vision. Most of the time for many people, their personal version of reality is generally acceptable to them. Except of course on ‘bad’ days or when fretful moments of despair arise and other such challenging emotions. Yet, as we have all experienced, these too eventually pass and we return to a more balance version of life.
The genuine art of alchemy is to truly and deeply see that the power of Thought is what transforms our experience of life. Having perfect circumstances may lead to sometimes feeling good. Yet, understanding that it is our thinking that creates all of our experiences, leads to absolute psychological freedom. We realise that whatever state of mind we find ourselves in there is nothing that we need to do in order to feel better, for we see more impersonally where our feelings are coming from.
From this less personal state of being we can live out our lives with a lot less stress and anxiety and worry. And the best part about this is that we don’t actually have to do anything or practice anything to see life in a new way. Being only ever ‘one thought away’ from any state of consciousness, as Sydney Banks suggested many times, we have at our fingertips the ability of the Midas touch to our mind.
Simply by knowing that it is our thinking that is creating our state of mind and our emotions, this on its own can set us free. And if it doesn’t set us free in the moment, we know that it will at some point pass. For we are no longer held captive by the ever-fluctuating nature of our own thinking, we see it for what it really is: passing and ephemeral. This alone is worth its weight in gold, encrusted with dazzling diamonds, for whatever state of mind we find ourselves in we can remain ever neutral and see the world anew from less personal perspective.
Now go and spread some gold around your mind and let go into a more lighthearted way of life, for true alchemy is just one thought away.
