A Life Enlightenment Lesson

It’s time to turn on the lights!

His devotion to practice, at a time when it was far from the norm, more or less lead to the creation of the driving range.

However it was Hogan's mental strength that interests me more. His galleries would often be mesmerised by the levels of his mental powers. They claimed to feel its strength.

This page tackles this theme somewhat and can best be described as tackling the mental interference that was discussed on the previous page. This interference comes from the conscious mind and affects the subconscious where our spirit or soul resides. This is the all knowing, all performing mind that must be listened to in order to reach this paricular goal.

Your simple task on the previous page was to swing and feel the smoothness. As we are tackling consciousness issues here, we are going to try to feel the mental smoothness, which should lead to enlightenment.

When my physical body is having fun or is at least in a peaceful state then my mind feels the same and vice versa. In order to achieve this state it is the conscious mind we must address.

The conscious is our ego or as Gallwey calls it, ‘self 1’, and it is this ego that tries to run the show. As discussed previously and in other pages on this site our subconscious or soul or spirit or ‘self 2’ is what really should be running the show.

The following information on this page will in effect destine you towards achieving this. I will be redirecting you back to this page often as I have come to rely on the secret of perfection that unfolds itself here.

You may realize this secret the first time you read what’s to come or you may have to read it a hundred times before the penny drops but I do assure you the penny will drop.

I will give you a great exercise and I’m sure with a little experimentation you’ll find your way. This exercise would of course only be tried during practice at first and later be tried on the course.

OK let's begin with this 'life enlightenment lesson'...

Take a club, e.g. 7 iron, and swing it, swishing the club through the air, using only one hand and without a ball. While doing this you will find yourself dropping into a peaceful and carefree state of mind.

When you add your other hand and adopt your normal grip and swing similarly without the ball, you can quite quickly reach a very similar state. When you put a ball down however you will notice changes.

Is your mind and body still at the same level of peace or have your levels just dropped off the scale. If you were to attentively measure your level of peace without the ball, I’m sure you would be aware of a high level.

For example, I personally get to a 100 per cent level without and this varies between 95 and 99 per cent with the ball.

There are days that I achieve 100 per cent on some shots but to be quite honest compared to the 10 per cent and lower that I used to experience, I am now in heaven.

All of this has lead to this, my 'life enlightenment lesson.'

My average has jumped from less than 10 per cent to about 90 per cent level of peace and pleasure on the course. This has led to better scores but this is not of top importance to me as my enjoyment of each shot has been transformed to a new level.

I used to be so motivated by scoring that I actually took very little mental or physical pleasure from the game. I would sum this up by saying that if I was feeling 10 per cent peace then the other 90 per cent was mainly fear. And of course the nearer my ball got to the hole, the more intense was the fear.

You’ve all experienced this fear over a three-foot putt or a bunker shot or a short chip or pitch. Now where is the enjoyment? There are of course the players who experience this differently and feel this fear the further away from the hole they are.

Now, redo the exercise and this time measure your level of fear when you swing with one hand? Zero right.

Then swing adopting your normal grip, once again zero. And now in front of the ball? Oh, that gauge is starting to register movement.

Now do the exercise on the course with your usual playing partners. Jumped up again. In tournament play? Even higher.

Now you are coming down the last couple of holes with a chance of beating your scoring record? Now we’re talking, the level of fear has just popped off the scale.

I will thoroughly, 100 per cent, enjoy every game and my body and mind will be in a state of peace and pleasure.

Why?

That’s easy, I swing the club in the same state of mind whether it’s with a ball or not, in tournaments or bounce games, or if I’m playing great or not so great. I have promised myself that my main aim is to swing without fear.

I can only do this when ‘self 1’ stops worrying about results and dips into a tranquil pool of pleasure. It's then I know that the '

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