Your Life, A Masterpiece

Wealth is so close to you. So are good friends and good times. You can have the desires of your heart, fulfill many of your dreams, nourish your spirit, live a life of emotional prosperity, and strike a big gushing oil well of opportunity, as we’d say in Texas, and it’s easier to do than you might imagine. If you're interested, read on.

This is an article about turning defeat into triumph. Although we may not feel like it, how do we affirm today, this day, will be a great one for us?

The key is to take the feelings which we associate with "valley consciousness" [depression, lack of energy, anger] and move upward to the mountaintop where the sun glistens through fluffy clouds, view the events below from this upper level perspective, and live from this newer one. The thoughts at the valley level are real enough--at their level--but there are other levels and at those higher dimensions our thoughts in this range are just as real. Plus, the real benefit to us is we finally realize our heart’s desires, you know, the ones that seemed out of reach for so long.

So although we may not know from whom they may come, how they will arrive, or when, or where, we can affirm serendipitious events today. We can refuse to be locked any further into the energy-robbing grip of negativity. We can reject the negativity just as a healthy body rejects a splinter. The splinter I'm speaking about can range from a current job to a relationship or one's own impoverished view of life. We can shift focus from the “awful” to a magnificent picture of “what we may be,” realizing this shift will turn our life around. “Our thoughts, our words, and deeds are the threads of the net which we throw around ourselves,” (Swami Vivekananda).

We CAN affirm great days, great opportunities, great joy and hope coming our way; we can affirm the people we need to meet will find us, the opportunities we seek and which have eluded us in the past are now seeking us, the money we need to solve problems and enrich our lives will be offered, the place we've sought so long as a home will come to us. We ought to begin affirming the positive, just as, in the past, we have affirmed the negative, and then observe the magical transformations that will take place before our astonished eyes. Nothing, we discover, is too good to be true, and it will last! Believe, as I do, the words of author Louise Bogan who wrote, "I cannot believe that the inscrutable universe turns on an axis of suffering; surely the strange beauty of the world must somewhere rest on pure joy." Confess these words and watch the external world transform itself to become what you believe true of it. Later on we’ll look at how you can make this happen. What I’m going to tell you isn’t magic but the results you’ll get will seem magical. So, let’s begin.

“It [the game of life] is a game which has been played for untold ages, every man and woman of us being one of the two players in a game of his or her own. The chessboard is the world, the pieces are the phenomena of the universe, the rules of the game are what we call the laws of Nature. The player on the other side is hidden from us. We know that his play is always fair, just, and patient. But also we know, to our cost, that he never overlooks a mistake or makes the smallest allowance for ignorance. To the man who plays well, the highest stakes are paid, with that sort of overflowing generosity with which the strong shows delight in strenth. And one who plays ill is checkmated--without haste, but without remorse,” (Huxley, quoted in Elbert Hubbard’s Scrap Book, p. 90).

We live in a “mysterious universe,” one of design and, I believe, purpose. There are “fundamental principles” that bring us love, joy, peace and happiness and there are “ways of living” that do the opposite. Emerson tells us, “A little consideration of what takes place around us every day would show us that a higher law than that of our will regulates events; that our painful labours are unnecessary and fruitless; that only in our easy, simple, spontaneous action are we strong...Place yourself in the middle of the stream of power and wisdom which animates all whom it floats, and you are without effort impelled to truth, to right, and a perfect contentment.” And then, this amazing statement, also from Emerson: “Truth is always present; one only needs to lift the iron lids of the mind’s eye to read its oracles.” We’ll examine, later, who you really are. The answer may surprise you!

INNER TALK:

If we knew everything we said and affirmed would happen exactly as we said it, how many of us would change our vocabulary, would confess victory in the face of apparent defeat, knowing victory will come into the picture? Confess abundance in the face of apparent lack and abundance will begin, as a friend, to embrace you. “As you grow ready for it, somewhere or other you will find what is needful for you in a book or a friend, or, best of all, in your own thoughts--the eternal thought speaking in your thought,” (George MacDonald). Realize you can have what you say, although, frankly, most of us were, for years, saying inwardly what we presently have. And that's why we're stuck, why we get more and more of the same old thing, even though it may appear in different disguises while dogging us wherever we move. Neville, the great mystic writer, once said we must first hear [and see] inwardly what eventually manifests outwardly for us. Why delays, you ask? "We are always doing something, talking reading, listening to the radio, planning what's next. The mind is kept naggingly busy on some easy, unimportant external thing all day," (Brenda Ueland). Too easily do we let our attention be distracted and pulled away from our vision. And so, delay results. When unwaveringly committed, Goethe says "A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of incidents and meetings and material assistance which no man would have believed would have come his way. Whatever you think you can do or believe you can do, begin it. Action has magic, grace, and power in it."

Let me cite you an example of how the energy and vitality that radiates outward from your being influences others. It comes from the writings of the Indian mystic Vivekananda: “The pure man...has the power of bringing it into a certain state of vibration, which can be conveyed to others, arousing in them a similar vibration. You see that in everyday actions. I am talking to you. What am I trying to do? I am, so to say, bringing my mind to a certain state of vibration, and the more I succeed in bringing it to that state, he more you will be affected by what I say. All of you know that the day I am more enthusiastic the more you enjoy the lecture.” That is how a higher truth is communicated to receptive minds.

Don’t be disappointed if others do not understand what you’re doing for yourself. Your husband, children, boss, friends may think you’re bonkers as you pursue your own spiritual destiny. That is not your concern, nor should it be. You must realize, as you seek out your own original design and life pattern, that “No man can see over his own height [just as true for women also]. Let me explain what I mean. You cannot see in another man any more than you have in yourself. Your own level strictly determines the extent to which he comes within your understanding. If your intelligence is unawakened, mental qualities in another, even though they be of the highest kind, will have no effect on you at all...his higher mental qualities will no more exist for you than colours exist for those who cannot see,” (Schopenhauer). The desire to please others and avoid rejection could stop you in your tracks unless you are able to tap into your own inner reserves when others say, “I just don’t get you.” Shrug your shoulders and go on. Schopenhauer’s quote, applied to ourselves, tells us we can easily misjudge others also. “What will people say--in these words there lies the tyranny of the world, the whole destruction of our natural disposition, the uneven vision of our minds. These four words bear sway everywhere,” (Auerbach).

THE ACTIVE VERB:

Cause and Effect exist in the universe. Why, then, be a subject acted upon when you can be the verb acting upon the objects around you? An Hawaiian canoe peddler said, “We know we are creating our own wind, so we don’t want to become angry and send out storms we have to sail through.” Our images, and their intent, form a psychic force that is projected out ahead of us. The key is to affirm, write, and think over and over about your good and how all is now available, how the magical purse of the spirit is open to you, how every good you could ever want is now flowing into your life. Shift focus and place awareness beyond the problem level, valley consciousness, to the solution, to the desired result level [mountaintop consciousness or the "God's eye view" rather than our usual "worm's eye view"]. Every great vision you hold, drenched in feeling, has its appointed time of appearance. Call your vision into existence. "Faith," we are told in the book of Hebrews, chapter 11, "is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." Call into existence what is unseen. Pray and invoke the Higher Powers. See what happens! “If we liberate our souls from our petty selves, wish no ill to others, and become clear as a crystal diamond reflecting the light of truth, what a radiant picture will appear in us mirroring things as they are, without the admixture of burning desires, without the distortion of erroneous illusion, without the agitation of clinging and unrest,” (Buddhism). If we want peace with ourselves, this is a good place to start.

HEADLIGHTS:

We can send our mental headlight beams from the laws that work at the bottom of the valley to the spiritual dimensional laws operative at the peak of the mountain. Here we become aware, "I am an observing center of the moving, changing, immense and eternal flux about me. I am also a creative center and can place awareness, my mental spotlight beam of consciousness where I please. I am not my feelings. I am not my body. I am not my thoughts. I am an observing, creative center of Pure Awareness." As Pure Awareness, I possess the power to be the predominately creative force in my own life.

THE LUCIOUS ICE CREAM CONE:

My thoughts come and go, but I direct awareness. I choose which thoughts remain as house guests. When we choose our mood, choose more life, and it comes to us plentifully and abundantly. I send out the mood that comes back to me. I send out the love that flows back to me. I send out the opportunities that find their way back to me. I send out the mental energy waves, the higher frequencies that tune into and are tuned into by others. We find what we seek has been seeking us. We find our good overtakes us at long last. The law of Causation says I send out my good and it returns to me multiplied, like a lucious ice cream cone, pressed down, shaken together, running over.

MOUNTAINTOP'S VIEW:

But how can you send out what you feel you do not now possess? It seems ironic that you begin by affirming what is not yet in your possession as though it already were. Read Joel 3:8 and see that this is the meaning of "Let the weak say I am strong." This is "doing within while you're outwardly doing without." Neville refers to the time it takes for the manifestation of your inner vision to appear as "the incubation of the manifestation." Some patience will be required while this work is going on. Your intensity of feeling determines the timeline for its appearing. Stay on beam, however long it takes, and take heart from the words of Meister Eckhart: "When the soul wishes to experience something, she throws an image of the experience out before her and enters into her own image." That's the job description given, in this life, to your soul being. To make all this clear, consider the words of Joseph Campbell in his book The Hero With a Thousand Faces: "For when a heart insists on its destiny, resisting the general blandishments, then the agony is great; so too the danger. Forces, however, will have been set in motion beyond the reckoning of the senses. Sequences of events from the corners of the world will draw gradually together, and miracles of coincidence bring the inevitable to pass." Plus, and there is this angle to consider, “We, ignorant of ourselves, beg often our own harms, which the wise powers deny us for our good; so find we profit by losing of our prayers,” (Shake-speare). Those occasional “No’s,” must be seen as paving the way for your bigger “Yes.” “It is only when we come to view our life as a connected whole,” Schopenhauer wrote, “that our character and capacities show themselves in their true light; that we see how, in particular instances, some happy inspiration, as it were, led us to choose the only true path out of a thousand which might have brought us ruin.”

INSIDE JOB:

So, you do the inner work of affirming--over and over, drenching it in feeling--the truths of opportunity for service, prosperity, health, and other like manifestations appearing and soon they do so. Your inner pictures find ways to outpicture themselves, when we begin to live from that which we desire and not just think about it. The inner vision, in time, becomes the external movie of your life. How things will work out, the sequence, is out of our hands. Only remember the words of the novelist Eudora Welty who wrote, "The events in our lives happen in a sequence in time, but in their significance to ourselves, they find their own order...the continuous thread of revelation." Leap, and the net will appear! Seeing is believing, but from the mountaintop perspective, believing is seeing!

IMAGE TRAFFIC CONTROLLER:

Therefore, as a center of pure awareness, we come to realize we can direct our own awareness, place it anywhere we choose, at any time we choose to do so. Right now I can place it on this page in front of me, place it on the seashore, place it in my mother's room in Texas, place its beam of consciousness anywhere in the universe I choose it to outwardly stream. This process is aptly described by Starhawk who wrote, "Younger Self--who can be as balky and stubborn as the most cantankerous three-year-old--is not impressed by words. Like a native of Missouri, it wants to be shown. To arouse its interest we must seduce it with pretty pictures and pleasurable sensations--take it out dining and dancing as it were. Only in this way can Deep Self be reached."

YOUR FULL MOON:

When awareness is ordinary, what I call "daily consciousness," you could say we are a sliver of the full moon aware. In this state we usually get bitten by daily events. They eat at us. They wear us down. It's one trivial, ticky tack thing after another. We become inundated by snowflakes. But when our awareness expands, other laws come into play. We see more, we see further, we see more deeply, we see or sense the essence beyond the visible, perhaps even sense a greater Presence around and within us. The universe, as the novelist Colin Wilson says, becomes a vast spider's web stretching infinitely in all directions and revealing meaning. Our appetite for the absolute begins to be satisfied. When we pull open our mental blinds or shutters, meaning is no longer blocked from coming in. When the shutters are closed, sunshine--like meaning--ceases to stream in. The effect is like living in a mansion but occupying only the basement of this place with its many rooms. So, then, you move through life in the narrow, claustrophobic space of mind, sneezing from a spiritual head cold that won't go away. A vaster expanse of air is required for breathing.

CLIMBING STAIRS:

What is necessary, at this point, is to see that awareness can climb the stairs from the basement, leave it, and occupy other rooms of the mansion, even hiking upstairs for a view of the attic from time to time. The attic might be termed transpersonal awareness, those instants of immense intuition, when one feels as great as the universe and as calm as a god. When "attic consciousness" occurs, one's vision expands, we fling open the doors of our musty five senses mansion and gaze outwardly toward wider multidimensional vistas. We are "alive" at last, as though awakened from a long sleep, and everything about us takes on a newly minted look. The new moon, which was there all along, is no longer our personality in eclipse. Its light, like the light of the moon, is full-orbed [as we are now ourselves]. Our former sliver of awareness expands past the quarter, half, three quarters dimension, and we astonishingly discover that life, our life, the life of everyone and everything around is enormously interesting again. We have been resurrected from the deadness within our own skull and become a transformed being.

FIRST STEPS:

Such is the power of where we choose to place our attention! As Joseph Campbell pointed out, "I have found that you do have only to take that one step toward the gods and they will then take ten steps toward you." That's what is meant by "Pray and Invoke the Higher Powers." In doing so, you throw out many "luck lines." And where our consciousness goes, energy flows. As writer Harold Sherman has aptly phrased it, "The subconscious [suggestible mind] is a powerful sending and receiving station with a universal hookup." If your mind thinks from abundance [not about abundance], the universe responds in kind. The same principle holds true in so many areas of life. Desires set the law of attraction in motion, and the first step is working through a statement of what you desire that is emotionally satisfying [equivalent to a farmer planting the seed in receptive soil], and then conveying to the suggestive mind the sense that the work has already been done, living in imagination from the desired end.

Anything we love increases. This is true of money. Those who have money arrived at an inner conviction they would always have it. Fear of loss, however, will, in time, bring loss. Keep that in mind. Make sure where you place your attention is in what nourishes you, because what receives your attention is also nourished by you and it also responds in kind. Marcus Aurelius wrote, “It is in your power, whenever you choose, to retire into yourself. Nowhere can you retire with more quietness or more freedom than within your own spirit...Constantly give yourself to this retreat, and renew yourself.”

PSYCHOLOGICAL PAYCHECK:

Eliminate worry by living from a bigger concept of security. If, so far, you haven't fared well, you've been living with a poor idea. That's all. Know also that we increase what we praise. Want more miracles? You can do no better for yourself than to first have a thankful spirit. No matter how things are going in the external world, your job is to keep them going right in your mind. By your "lifted spirits" you solve a lot of your own problems--instantly. Let your bigger concept of security include the thought, "The prosperity I'm seeking is also seeking me. "When you send your vibrant thoughts out into the universe in a radiant stream of focused energy, you stir the atmosphere in the minds of other people. These higher pulsations attract them to you. Prosperity, you see, is an inside job.

GOT A MATCH?

Thought is striking the match. Intention is the hand that strikes it. The suggestive mind can only reply "Yes." Every time we make a statement, positive or negative, we are reinforcing our future. We raise our mind to the level of prophecy [in that we are foretelling our future]. To affirm, then, means to "make firm," to declare our goals are already so and living from the realization of our desires fulfilled. Neville, whom I quoted earlier, condenses the above into this profound satement: "The world moves with motiveless necessity. It has no motive of its own, but is under the necessity of manifesting your concept, the arrangement of your mind, and your mind is always arranged in the image of all you believe and consent to as true." Such is the power of the Words we speak! What you don't experience positively you will experience negatively. It's that simple.

IS IT FICTION OR TRUTH?

In life, there are good fictions and bad fictions, just as there are good poets, writers, musicians, workers, and those who do these things but do not produce work as good as those in the first class. How do we determine "good" and "bad"? By the fruit those actions produce! When we have made our life a living hell, we can remake it, so the fruits are closer to love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, gentleness, forgiveness [of others and ourselves]. The process of "remaking" is described in the earlier pages of this article. Dorothea Brande, many years ago, wrote an article in which she suggested we "Live as if it were impossible to fail." While failure might happen, isn't it a better philosophy to live by the "apparent fiction" that we are lucky, that our success in life is inevitable, that we were born, not to fail, but to triumph? Isn't this a better "fiction" than "I always mess up"? The novelist Cyril Connolly wrote, "We must select the illusion which appeals to our temperament and embrace it with passion, if we are to be happy."

While cheerfulness in the face of adversity may seem a "fiction," yet, isn't it better to live from "cheerfulness" than "despair"? The thankful heart is always close to the riches of the universe. The great French physician Emil Coue' wrote, "Never lose sight of the great principle of autosuggestion: Optimism always and in spite of everything, even when events do not seem to justify it. Suggestion sustained by faith is a formidable force." Assume, then, a virtue such as wealth, if you have it not. Make your claim and press it home to your suggestive mind until every doubt is heard and seen by the inner you as a "Yes." If your life theme is, "I can't have what I want in life," and you don't get it, which is often the case, your idea that you are losing in life is erroneous. You are winning! Your "negative wins" may appear as more losses, but they ARE wins! Learn to create and live by better and beneficial "apparent" fictions. Live as if it were impossible to fail! To quote Shakespeare, "Assume a virtue if you have it not." In other words, look as though you have already succeeded. Look, dress, act the part. Be successful in your own thoughts first.

GETTING THERE:

Play to win, even if, in the end, you fail. Don't play to lose. What motivates all of us is the hopes our dreams will come true. Play them to come true. For instance, Michael Shurtleff in his book Audition says "Checkov's THE THREE GIRLS is about three girls who don't get to Moscow. The real story, however, is about three girls determined to do it. And it ends in tragedy because the answer is no, but a good actress does not play the end during the journey, she instead plays the dream. Don't play the end of the play before you get there. Play to win. Play to get what you're fighting for." When you play to win you live emotionally and imaginatively from the end [being in Moscow] rather than thinking "about" getting there. These concepts mesh.

So we return to the notion of creating "fictions" that work, "positive fictions" that often give us positive results. To cite an example, no one knows the exact outcome of a relationship, whether it will last a lifetime or a few weeks, months or years. To risk means going into the unknown, where the outcome is unknowable, and creating the "positive fiction" that it will last and commitment is worth it. We can create the sense of loss we worried about by worrying too much about the outcome and picturing it as a potentially negative one. We lose much joy by such worry and easily bring upon ourselves the very thing we feared. So take off your mask and make yourself comfortable!

A HIGHER CLAIM:

The philosopher Spinoza wrote, "As long as a person believes that a certain task is impossible, for the exact period of time the task will be." Again, it's worthwhile to follow Brande's advice and "Live as if it were impossible to fail." Create life scripts that work! You can do it, as the Director of your life. Do not submit to the hypothesis that you are unlovable, can't find anyone good, and then picture yourself living out a lonely existence. Remember the words of William James who wrote, "The desire for a certain kind of truth here brings about that special truth's existence." Our faith, he adds, acts on the powers above us as a claim and creates its own verification. To quote the British writer Colin Wilson, we are likely to find [by creating and living from "better fictions"] "that the untrue can be made true by an act of belief, because the untrue was secretly true in the first place." The key is this: Let's learn to script better "fictions" that work! "A lost battle, " Field Marshall Foch, quoting De Maistre, "is a battle one thinks one has lost. The battle is won by the fiction that it is won. It is so also in...life, in the whole art of living. We may then regard thinking as fiction that helps us to live."

To quote Neville again, "Assume you are there and view the world from that assumption. What would the feeling be like if this were true? This is taking the end and drenching it in feeling. Dare to persist in that assumption and the outer world will re-arrange itself and reflect that assumption until, in the eyes of the world, I am that person." You'll have no one to blame but yourself when things go right!

ALICE IN WONDERLAND:

Which "fiction" better represents you at this moment? Mountaintop consciousness--the view from the summit, or "valley consciousness," the antlike perspective that sees only an extremely portion of the total spectrum of creation? Stop and ask, "What am I thinking NOW?" for that is what is crystallizing in your manifest world. In this sense, we do make our own world! Again, Neville, "If you do this, all things will conspire to aid your harvesting and upon reflection you will see how subtle were the threads that led to your goal. You could never have devised the means by which your imaginal activity employed to fulfil itself." You can, right now, twirl thoughts into emotion-packed statements that cast your future with exciting possibilities. "We can't believe impossible things," said Alice to the Queen. "I daresay you haven't had much practice," reproved the Queen. "When I was your age I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast," (Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland). Know, when you affirm something, the whole universe is listening in and is in instantaneous communication! Remember, we think in secret and it comes to pass. Environment is only our looking glass. That to which we fully give our attention will reveal itself! As is true with all of us, it too likes to be seen and noticed.

IMAGE MAKING:

Robert Collier, a successful advertising writer, wrote an extraor-dinary book many years ago called The Secret of the Ages. In that book Collier made this remarkable statement that applies to this article's specific purpose. He wrote, "The images we hold steadfastly in our minds over the years are not illusions: they are the patterns by which we are able to mould our own destinies." He recommended we try "imagineering," which is letting our imagination soar and then engineering our fantasies down to earth by clearing away "the mass of encumbering material of thought, bringing into plain view the precious thing at the center of the mass." Life on earth, for us at least, appears to be a kind of kindergarten in image making. To create images that work requires a laser-like focus and intensity. We learn to bring our drifting and wandering attention back, time and again, to our original vision until it is captured by it and becomes, we might say using religious terms, "a believer." Then, serendipitious things begin to manifest--and usually very quickly. Get ready! "The readiness," Shakespeare wrote, "is everything." Be willing for your life to be wonderful and then get ready for it to be all that you affirmed.

PAUSE FOR PRAISE:

Another aspect of outpicturing your life's desires is related to our ability to praise and be thankful for what we already possess and to be grateful for what is on its way to us. Charles Fillmore said, "Praise is closely related to prayer...we increase whatever we praise....We can praise our own ability and the very brain cells will expand and increase in capacity...." We are fools when our hearts are set on riches, a mate, health, while our souls admit defeat. Praise what is currently yours, praise yourself for reading and putting into practice the ideas contained in this essay, for whatever is praised and blessed multiplies.

James Allen wrote, "Dream lofty dreams, and as you dream, so shall you become. Your vision is the promise of what you shall one day be. Your ideal is the prophecy of what you shall at last unveil." The world, we discover, is a looking glass and gives back to all of us the reflection of our thoughts. So image upon your mind only the things you want to see reflected in your outer circumstances. Begin to believe that "Opportunity is like oxygen. It is so plentiful that we fairly breathe it." Live as though you already possessed the thing you want. It is just as easy to talk in millions as in single dollars. It is better for us to believe in love's enduring qualities than focus on people's imperfections, especially those who disappointed or "failed" us. It is far more pleasurable to speak words of health and vibrancy than filling people's ears with stories of doctors and pills.

LAW OF INCREASE:

When I suggest, as I'm going to here, that--in order to increase future opportunities--you "cast down your bucket where you are," I'm passing along a profound truth: Use what you have and more will be given you. That's why the Bible gives us what we might call the "formula for increase." It goes like this: "To him that hath shall be given more." What does that mean to you? Praise what you have already been given to enjoy, use it in constructive service, and MORE will be added to you. Prayer, incidentally, in the Old Testament is "palal," and means to "judge yourself to be a marvel of creation; to recognize amazing wonders deep within your soul." Prayer, another writer has said, "is the spirit of God pronouncing His works good." Can you do the same? Even if at first you don't believe it, say good things about yourself and, in time, you'll come to believe them.

FUTURE SCRIBE:

Be the novelist prophet of your personal future in the sense Gustave Flaubert viewed writing: "It is a delicious thing to write, to be no longer yourself, but to move in an entire universe of your own creating. Today, for instance, as man and woman, both lover and mistress, I rode in a forest on an autumn afternoon under the yellow leaves, and I was also the horse, the leaves, the wind, the words my people uttered, even the red sun that made them almost close their love-drowned eyes." Multisensory writer and affirmer that you are, you realize the words of the poet Rilke ring true to your own situation when he says "The future enters into us in order to transform itself in us long before it happens." How, then, is it possible for anyone to prevent you from doing what you love with your life? Especially when your images, your intent form a psychic force that is projected out ahead of you? Be the dreamer flying into vast lands looking for new landing strips. Be the dreamer who knows he or she is surrounded by MANY, MANY OPTIONS. Live from faith, for faith sees an ordered universe rushing in to do its bidding!