The Great Work of Self-Mastery: Principles and Practices

Whose World Do You Live In?

YOUR PERSONAL EXPERIENCE is made up by what you believe you know about yourself (who or what am I?) and what you believe you know about the world as it relates to who or what you believe you are.

It is really good to know what you are experiencing –- good or bad, happy or sad etc. – because your experience is telling you what you truly believe about yourself and your world. Your personal experience is a perfect reflection of what you really believe you know.

There is no experience, none at all, independent of what you believe you know – the only reality is the absolute, pure awareness that is absolutely real. Everything else is imagined, and is true only relatively because you believe in the world of experience you have made.

If you want, you can try an experiment to see how quickly you can make your intellectual understanding of these principles become experiential.

Self-Knowledge is the cause; Personal experience is the effect.

Once you really get the feel of the fact that only the absolute is true (awareness, consciousness, the witnessing presence) you can experiment and observe how your personal experience is being made by the beliefs, thoughts, imaginings, and expectations you hold in your mind.

If you want, I am happy to help with these fundamental principles and their application.

– Do you feel you have a solid understanding of these principles?
– Do you understand the process by which your everyday, personal experience is being made?
– Can you explain it to someone in simple terms? Or write it out for yourself?

Once you feel you have a solid understanding of the process of the creation of your personal experience, you can observe the process in real-time as your experience is happening. The more you observe it, the more you will notice the direct correlation between what you are experiencing, and what you believe you know about yourself; what you are thinking; what you are imagining; what you are expecting to happen in your experience.

The more you observe the process in real-time, you will notice that what you are thinking about and imaging might happen (good or bad), will happen with less of a delay between the imagining and the experience. Also, you will realize the process of creation of personal experience has always been happening your whole life, and in the life of all, because it is a fundamental truth – a principle of creation. And now you are awake to it.

You will notice that what you are thinking, imagining, and expecting to happen, will happen - sometimes immediately, sometimes with a delay. Observing the process of the creation of your personal experience directly for yourself is one of the most liberating realizations you can have.

You can ask yourself, "What am I imagining? What am I thinking? What am I expecting?" throughout your day, and you will know and understand how your personal experience is being made. And you will know that there is no world independent of your own mind. Your world IS your mind.

All experiences (good or bad) are made by the same process.

Within the Prism of your own mind, ask and answer these questions with your highest ideals. The world you are experiencing is a perfect reflection of what is in your mind. Your world IS your mind. Your mind IS your world. Make it beautiful. Make it amazing. Make it reflect the highest ideals you can imagine. What do you want? Imagine the most beautiful experience for yourself and for others, think about it, expect it, and watch it happen.

Who am I? – Right now, who or what do I believe I am?
What do I want? – Right now, what do I want to experience?
What am I imagining? – Right now, what am I imagining?
What am I thinking? – Right now, what am I thinking?
What am I expecting? – Right now, what am I expecting?

You can experiment with these ideas, and observe the process of creation for yourself. Your everyday world of experience will show you, reflecting back to you, the answer to those questions.

When your personal desires are in harmony with those of the universe, and are for the benefit of all, the whole universe will work to fulfill your desires.

Understand the principle of creation, and prove it to yourself consciously and intentionally. If you do so every day for a year, you will have amazing results.

Self-Mastery - Self Knowledge

WHATEVER WE FREQUENTLY THINK OF with depth and feeling, that we shall gain the consciousness of; this is a law through which any hidden secret may be brought into the light of a clear, positive understanding.

The seventh essential mental state is the realization of supremacy; the knowing of the truth that you, yourself, are the supreme ruler over everything in your being and in your world. We must remove the idea of exercising control over the person through the use of objective will-power, and in the place of that idea establish the realization of supremacy.

When one knows that he is the supreme master of his being, he rules supremely without trying to do so; and herein we learn why he who has attained the mastery of self never tries to master or control anything, not even himself.

You are the supreme master of your being, and to think the truth, you must think of yourself as such.

He is what he is who knows that he is; and he who knows what he is, does what he can do by the virtue of being what he is.

He who knows that he is supreme in his own being exercises supremacy by the virtue of being supreme.

He who is supreme cannot do otherwise but exercise supremacy; and since man is supreme in his own being he must necessarily exercise supremacy in his own being; that is, when he knows that he is what he is.

Man in the real is a master; therefore, when in the consciousness of the real, he does master; and does not have to try. He who tries to be a master does not know that he really is a master; when he knows that he is, he will do that which he has the power to do, not by trying, but by doing what he is in being.

The sun does not try to shine; it is light; therefore, it does shine. The sun does not have to control the sunbeams: the sun creates the sunbeams by being the cause of sunbeams; the sunbeams are created to give light because they proceed from that which is light; and that which is created to give light will give light because it is light; it will not have to be controlled to do so.

So long as we try to master ourselves we shall not succeed in mastering anything; but when we discover that we in truth are masters, we shall succeed in mastering everything without trying in the least to do so.

The realization of supremacy is therefore of the highest value, because this realization will reveal man to himself. He will know that he is supreme in his own being; he will know that he is created with that power, and when man knows what he is he will act accordingly.

Christian D. Larson - "Self-Mastery"

Eternal Dreamer of Birth and Death

I am an immortal being conceiving myself as man, and forming worlds in the likeness and image of my concept of self.

What we imagine, that we are. By our imagination, we have created this dream of life, and by our imagination we will re-enter that eternal world of light, becoming that which we were before we imagined the world.

In the divine economy nothing is lost. We cannot lose anything save by descent from the sphere where the thing has its natural life.

There is no transforming power in death, and whether we are here or there, we fashion the world that surrounds us by the intensity of our imagination and feeling, and we illuminate or darken our lives by the concepts we hold of ourselves. Nothing is more important to us than our conception of ourselves, and especially is this true of our concept of the deep, hidden One within us.

There is nothing to change but our concept of self.

It is our conception of ourselves which frees or constrains us, though it may use material agencies to achieve its purpose.

Because life molds the outer world to reflect the inner arrangement of our minds, there is no way of bringing about the outer perfection we seek other than by the transformation of ourselves.

No help comes from without; the hills to which we lift our eyes are those of an inner range.

It is thus to our own consciousness that we must turn as to the only reality, the only foundation on which all phenomena can be explained. We can rely absolutely on the justice of this law to give us only that which is of the nature of ourselves.

To attempt to change the world before we change our concept of ourselves is to struggle against the nature of things. There can be no outer change until there is first an inner change. As within; so without. I am not advocating philosophical indifference. I am suggesting that we should imagine ourselves as already that which we want to be, living in a mental atmosphere of greatness, rather than using physical means and arguments to bring about the desired change.

Everything we do, unaccompanied by a change of consciousness, is but futile readjustment of surfaces. However we toil or struggle, we can receive no more than our subconscious assumptions affirm.

To protest against anything which happens to us is to protest against the law of our being and our rulership over our own destiny.

The circumstances of my life are too closely related to my conception of myself not to have been launched by my own spirit from some magical storehouse of my being.

If there is pain to me in these happenings, I should look within myself for the cause, for I am moved here and there and made to live in a world in harmony with my concept of myself.

Intense meditation brings about a union with the state contemplated, and during this union we see visions, have experiences, and behave in keeping with our change of consciousness. This shows us that a transformation of consciousness will result in a change of environment and behavior.

The pictures and circumstances we see in dreams are creations of our own imagination and have no existence save in ourselves. The same is true of the pictures and circumstances we see in this dream of life. They reveal our concepts of ourselves. As soon as we succeed in transforming self, our world will dissolve and reshape itself in harmony with that which our change affirms.

The universe which we study with such care is a dream, and we the dreamers of the dream, eternal dreamers dreaming non-eternal dreams. One day we shall awaken from the dream, awaken from the nightmare in which we fought with demons, to find that we really never left our eternal home; that we were never born and have never died save in our dream.

Neville Goddard - The Search

Basic Truth – As Within; So Without

Now I have told you time and time again, my friends, that you construct your physical universe and your private environment in line with your inner expectations, for they mirror perfectly the deepest areas of your own inner reality.

This is perhaps the closest I can come in handing you anything that approaches a basic truth. All of our material follows from this, and any other information contained in the material follows and flows out of this primary statement.

I do not speak symbolically, but quite literally.

When you find yourselves therefore noticing more and more the inequalities, the disasters and the shames that come within your sphere of perception, you add to their existence. This may confound what common sense may tell you. However, concentration reinforces the quality which is concentrated upon.

When you are concentrating upon destructive elements, you lose on two points. You reinforce the destructive qualities by the very act of concentrating upon them, and you rob yourselves of the constructive qualities that you could be concentrating upon, and therefore that you COULD be reinforcing.

You will in all cases attempt to construct as physical reality your inner conception of what reality is. Your physical environment and conditions are a mirror of your own basic conceptions of reality.

If the environment changes it is because your inner conceptions have changed, and no smallest alteration is made within physical reality that has not first been made within the inner self.

Seth - The Early Sessions - Book 6 - Session 253

Nisarga Yoga: The Self Knowledge Teachings of Nisargadatta Maharaj - the PDF Book is here:

https://docs.wixstatic.com/ugd/2e8850_7b21aea740334c43a2533b2d048e603b.pdf

The Practical Application & Fruits of Self Knowledge: I AM The Practical Application & Fruits of Self Knowledge: I AMTHIS IS ONE OF THE MOST practical articles I have ever written, as it cuts to the core of how to

To Know That, "Nothing Is," Is True Knowledge
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Why not work on the theory that you are your own creation and creator.
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You are free now. What is it that you want to desire? Desire it. Collect and strengthen your mind and you will find that your thoughts and feelings, words and actions will align themselves in the direction of your will.
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At the root of all creation lies desire. Desire and imagination foster and reinforce each other.
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The world is but a reflection of my imagination. Whatever I want to see, I can see.
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The world has no existence apart from you. At every moment it is but a reflection of yourself. You create it, you destroy it.
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Who came first — you or your parents? You imagine that you were born at a certain time and place, that you have a father and a mother, a body and a name. You have made this world and you can change it. A world of which you are the only source and ground is fully within your power to change. What is created can always be dissolved and re-created. All will happen as you want it, provided you really want it.
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The diversity [of the world] is in you only. Your own creative power projects upon it a picture and all questions refer to the picture.
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There is no power separate from me.
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Of course you can [change the world]. But you must cease identifying yourself with it, and go beyond. Then you have the power to destroy and re-create.
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Be aware that whatever happens, happens to you, by you, through you; you are the creator, enjoyer and destroyer of all you perceive.
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Absolutely — there are no things. To know that "nothing is," is true knowledge.
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My stand I take where nothing is; words do not reach there, nor thoughts. To the mind it is all darkness and silence. Then consciousness begins to stir and wakes up the mind which projects the world, built of memory and imagination. Once the world comes into being, all you say may be so. It is in the nature of the mind to imagine goals, to strive towards them, to seek out means and ways, to display vision, energy and courage. These are divine attributes and I do not deny them. But I take my stand where no difference exists, where things are not, nor the minds that create them. There I am at home. Whatever happens, does not affect me. Things act on things; that is all.
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"Nothing is me" is the first step. "Everything is me" is the next. Both hang on the idea, "There is a world." When this too is given up, you remain what you are — the non-dual Self.
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You are the Infinite Potentiality; the inexhaustible possibility.
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You are the all-pervading, eternal and infinitely creative awareness — consciousness.
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Nisargadatta Maharaj – from I AM THAT