In playing the daily puzzle Sudoko, your brain gets a good logical workout. It'’s like a crossword puzzle, only instead of finding the one and only word that fits, you need to find the one and only number that will go in a particular square.
The game of Sudoko dovetails into the larger game of life in that if you begin to view life as a giant Sudoko game, where you'’re constantly trying to find the right action to take, the right words to say, the right reaction to have, the right way to think.
The solution you'’re looking for is to merge with the Unity of the Zone. The Zone is the space, where your ego is immersed in the totality of BEING. In laymen's terms, it's called being a peace with yourself, your God, your higher power. It goes by many names.
Often I will get to a point where it'’s too hard to figure out. Solving the puzzle would require giant trail and error efforts to solve. At this point, the addiction to solving the puzzle kicks in and in the Giant Game of the Sudoko of LIFE, the right answer is to give up and focus on something else. Some might quibble that you should never give up. Why not? What does it get me to solve the puzzle. There are far more important things to do in life that solve a difficult puzzle to my demanding ego'’s satisfaction, As I reach that impasse where I'’m chiding myself for being a quitter, I can apply another pathway: accepting myself no matter what. I don'’t have to reject myself because I'’m not smart enough to solve the tough puzzle.
Surely, there are Einstein’s out there who could solve the puzzle lickety split. And then there are mentally retarded adults out there, who probably could never even solve the simplest puzzles. I am somewhere in the middle. Sure, I like the challenge, but it'’s just a game. My preference might be that I be smart enough to solve the toughest puzzle, but how important is that to me. So I can recite a few pathways, and immediately I cease to make myself upset over my failure to solve the puzzle, and in doing so, solve or find the solution to that point in my life.
At each step, there is a pathway or an idea built in the Science of Happiness as taught by the late Ken Keyes, Jr. in his seminal work: The Handbook to Higher Consciousness, that fits the situation, and the metaphor is that each time we figure out what pathway or what addiction we need to reprogram or however it is we handle the situation, we have found the solution for that “spot in our life.
The pathways are statements or affirmations that help steer you away from thoughts and behaviors aimed a lower consciousness level solutions to unhappiness. Here are the pathways:
1. I am freeing myself from security, sensation, and power addictions which make me try to forcefully control situations, thus destroying my serenity and keeps me from loving myself as well as others.
2. I am discovering how my consciousness dominating addictions create my illusory version of the changing world of people and situations around me.
3. I welcome the opportunity, even if painful, that my minute-to-minute experience offers me in order to become aware of the addictions I must reprogram in order to liberate myself from robot-like emotional patterns.
4. I always remember I have everything I need to enjoy my here and now, unless I am letting my consciousness be dominated by demands & expectations based on the dead past or imagined future.
5. I take full responsibility for everything I experience here and now for it is my own programming that creates my own actions and influences the reactions of people around me.
6. I accept myself completely here and now and consciously experience everything I think, feel, do, and say as a necessary part of my growth into higher consciousness.
7. I open myself genuinely to all people by being willing to communicate my deepest feelings since hiding in any degree keeps me stuck in the illusion of separateness from other people.
8. I feel w/ loving compassion the problems of other people w/out emotionally getting caught up in thepredicamentsnts which are offering messages which they need for growth.
9. I act freely when tuned-in, calm, centered, and loving, however if possible, avoid acting if emotionally upset and thus depriving myself of the wisdom that flows from love & expanded consciousness.
10. I am continually calming the restless scanning of my rational mind in order to perceive the finer energies which enable me to unitively merge with everything around me.
11. I am constantly aware of which of the seven centers of consciousness I am using and feel my peace, love, energy and effectiveness grow as I open all my centers of consciousness.
12. I am perceiving everyone including myself as an awakening being here to claim his or her birthright to higher consciousness planes of unconditional love & oneness.
For Christians, the phrasing might be a little different, but it still works. If you look the core of all religions they are all the same, just Submitting to the will of God involves surrending the desires and addictions of our models of how life should be. Prayers are like preferences and just as when prayers arenÂ’t answered, you tell yourself that God's will is God's will i.e. there is a reason and purpose for everything.
