Imagine reality as a blank canvas in front of you. Now draw an imaginary horizontal line across the middle of the canvas. Below this line is metaphysical reality, and above it is physical reality. Of course, there is no real line. Yet drawing this line helps us clarify that the two domains of reality differ in many important ways. In fact, your own success depends on knowing the difference between them.

Each domain has its own rules. Many people who are creative and bright don't accomplish what they desire because they don't know the rules of each domain...

When you drew that imaginary horizontal line, you placed metaphysical reality below the line and physical reality above it. That's because metaphysical reality is like the ocean and physical reality like the waves that dance on its surface. The waves are impermanent, changing, and have form while the ocean is constant; it doesn't disappear as do the individual waves.

Seeing metaphysical reality as the support or foundation for physical reality gives us a more immediate and intimate view of it. Metaphysical reality isn't somewhere up above, detached from us and only occasionally coming down to pay us a visit. Instead, we emerge from it. We sit on its lap. We are never far away from it.

Metaphysical reality is impossible to map or measure. It isn't quantifiable like physical reality. However, these two domains do share one attribute in common: energy. But the difference is that in metaphysical reality energy is not limited by the density of form and is therefore much higher. Form belongs to physical reality.

Instead, metaphysical reality is the home of ideas, dreams, and visions. The energy there excites us. Ideas can be electrifying. Who hasn't experienced the thrill of a great thought? In metaphysical reality, anything is possible; there are no limits. We don't have to worry about being realistic or even logical. We can soar with our imagination to any place we want right here and now. Think of the freedom! Fly down to Rio right now in a luxurious jet? No problem. Lift a piano with one finger? Done!

All this excitement can be seductive. We might become so thrilled that we begin to think that having a great idea is the point of it all and so neglect to do anything about it in physical reality. (Like the novel that stays in your head or the business plan that never leaves the planning stage.)

We can also get confused when we treat ideas the same way we treat physical objects. We can come to think that if we get excited enough about our ideas, they will materialize by themselves. That's the fog setting in.

Metaphysical reality is where we find guidelines for bringing certainty to the unpredictability of physical reality. This is where our voice of wisdom lives, along with our Life's Intentions. Later on we'll discover how to tell if we are listening to our voice of wisdom or just driving through more fog. Armed with this knowledge, and in touch with what's important for us in the form of our Life's Intentions, we will be ready for our game.

Metaphysical reality is also the home of timeless spiritual principles that we can use to wake ourselves up, to lift the fog from our path. Our ideas about physical reality are always changing; think of how quantum physics has in some ways supplanted our Newtonian view of the world. However, spiritual principles - what it takes to live fully - virtually never alter or change. The guidelines are as valid now as they were two to five thousand years ago.

It doesn't matter how exciting an ideas is. If we stay in metaphysical reality too long without taking action, we're going to metafizzle. This is not a pretty sight - a lot of gnashing of teeth and wringing of hands. No matter how brilliant or creative our ideas may be, without action we get frustrated, irritated, and difficult to be around.

At the same time, if we just take action in physical reality without relating it to anything substantive in metaphysical reality, we become driven. Our lives lack meaning. We live from one to-do list to the next, ending each day exhausted and unfulfilled. We begin to ask ourselves: is that all there really is to life? Sogyal Rinpoche writes about this in The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying. Our activity comes to resemble a swarm of flies buzzing on a hot summer afternoon: lots of noise and movement but not much direction.

Both of these conditions are extremely uncomfortable. That's where the game comes in. Take something important to you in metaphysical reality, marry it with a specific target in physical reality, and you have a game worth playing and a goal worth playing for. Your action is anchored and you are centered. You have found a bridge between the two worlds, clarity about what is important in the game, a way to measure if the goal has been reached, and a sense of fulfillment once the game is complete.

The above article is an excerpt from Mastering Life's Energies, copyright 2007 by Maria Nemeth, Ph.D. It is printed here with the permission of the publisher, New World Library, Novato, CA, 1-800-972-6657 ext. 52.

Maria Nemeth, Ph.D., is an international inspirational speaker, author, seminar leader and personal coach. She is the Founder of the Academy for Coaching Excellence. For more than 20 years, Dr. Nemeth has trained professional coaches, ministers, clinicians, executives, teachers and private individuals using the coaching methods and skills she has designed. Her courses and workshops have been taken by thousands of people from around the world who report significant (and even miraculous) changes in their lives as a result of her teachings. To explore her work further, visit her website, www.marianemeth.com.