Mind is the master power that moulds and makes
And man is mind, and evermore he takes
The tool of thought, and shaping what he wills
Brings forth a thousand joys, a thousand ills
He thinks in secret, and it comes to pass
Environment is but his looking-glass

– James Allen, “As a Man Thinketh” (1903)

THE BASIC GOAL (1993)

Let’s now take a look at this so-called apparency, the world. The world is only an illusion that we created mentally. It is not external, but in reality within us, within our mind. Someday you’ll discover that you created this entire universe that you see. The method of creating is by first creating what we call a mind. We create our mind, which is nothing but a composite of all our thoughts, conscious and subconscious, and the thoughts create the material world. Every little thing that happens to each and every one of us is created in our thinking. We mentally set up a thing called time, which makes it even more difficult to see things because we think now and things happen years later, but the only creator there is, is the mind—your mind. Is God a creator? Yes, because you are. Thou art that! You set up a mind, and through the mind you create.

As you see the world, so are you

Recorded on June 14, 1966

As you see the world out there, so are you. The ego part of us rebels against it, but this can be used every day, all day, for checking ourselves to to see what our consciousness is. It is impossible to see something out there that is not in our mind. There’s nothing out there but our own consciousness. A master, a perfected being, sees only perfection.

So, if we would take this key and check ourselves during the day—on all the negative thoughts especially—and start looking within to discover the source of this, we will see that these thoughts are right in us. They are our thoughts. That power that we thought was out there is right in here.

Because we are in a state of the world that is relatively a low state, most of us have far more negative thinking because we accept negativity. Therefore, we can undo that negativity by facing it. By first learning how to discover this negativity. By seeing that if we see it out there, it’s right within us—otherwise we couldn’t see it—and then using it to let go of it.

Now using it to let go of it is the most important thing. So we look out there, and anything and everything we see that is not just right, we turn inward, and we look for this very thing within ourselves. And if we look honestly, we’ll discover that that thought was right within us, that that concept is our concept. That it doesn’t apply to what’s outside of us—that it applies right to us. And when we see it, we automatically let go of it, because we are seeking truth, we are seeking happiness, and it’s ridiculous to hold on to things that keep us miserable. So the first key was: “As you see the world, so are you.” Since happiness and sorrow is probably the thing that we are most concerned with every day, happiness and sorrow can be used as a means of growth. (Creating All You Desire)

Levenson, Lester (1993). Keys to the Ultimate Freedom: Thoughts and Talks on Personal Transformation. Sedona Institute. (http://www.freespiritualebooks.com/keys-to-the-ultimate-freedom.html)

The Mind Mirror

Recorded on May 31, 1966

Now why do we, who are more with this subject than others, why is it that we don’t have the joy all the time with no sorrow? Why, after having been with this subject and following the great masters, why can’t we get that thing we are looking for? What is wrong? Well, I believe if you’ll look into it, you will discover that there’s only one thing wrong, only one thing: our wanting this growth is not as strong as our wanting this world, as our wanting ego-approval. Therefore I try to be as practical as can be by presenting you with methods that you can use every day to grow by. There is no moment in life that cannot be used as an opportunity for growth.

There is no moment in life that cannot be used as an opportunity for growth.

Now, the only growth—and I’m underlining this word, only—the only growth is letting go of ego. When the ego is zero, God is all. If we are not finding enough of God, or enough of happiness, it is only because we are holding on to our ego-desires. So I think at each meeting I’ll present one particular method that we can use in everyday life to help us let go of our ego. And I think today I would like to say this: “As you see the world, so are you.” Now this is similar to: “As a man believes in his heart, so is he,” which is correct. But I say this is a much more advanced way of looking at it: “As you see the world, so are you.”

Now, every day when we wake up and open our eyes, we start looking at the world. We meet people. And as we see those people, so are we. It is impossible to see a fault in anyone else that we don’t have in ourselves. If the fault is not in us, it’s impossible to see it out there in anyone else. It’s almost the same as, in order to understand Greek, you must know Greek. Anything we understand out there, we know within. So, every time we see something out there that we do not like, a person who is doing something that we don’t like, and it bothers us, it is only because that very same thing is in us.

Now, this is a powerful method of growth, because most of us, unfortunately, see things that are wrong in this world. When a master looks at the world he sees nothing but perfection. We should try to get the same viewpoint. If we will hold on to just this one thing, there will be a tremendous growth. Every time you see something wrong in someone, look for it in yourself. And when you see it, let go of it. Keep letting go. And every time you let go of it, you’re letting go of a bit of ego.

The whole thing is very simple: “Thou art That” here and now. Remove the covering of the ego. Let go of the ego. And when the ego is completely gone, the only thing left is the infinite Self. Where the ego rises not, there is the Self.

When the ego is completely gone, the only thing left is the infinite Self.

So, in everyday life, as we meet people, situations, every time we see something we don’t like, we should turn within. See it within ourselves and let go of it. Now this will not clear us in one day or one week because there’s an awful lot to be cleared. We have developed through many lifetimes ego-attachments and desires, and they don’t disappear in one or two days.

When we start letting go of the ego, it appears sometimes as though the ego is getting stronger and stronger, and bigger and bigger. That’s not true; it will never get any bigger than it is right now. What happens is that as we let go of it, more of it presents itself to us. We are looking at it more, and it appears sometimes as though the ego is getting bigger. Actually we are just facing up to more of it that was there all the time. Looking away from ego does not dissolve it: it just remains there until the time comes that we are forced to let go of it.

So, daily, right through the entire day, if we will just look at the world and realize that we are seeing it through our own eyes, through our own consciousness, through our own understanding, that what we see out there is nothing but ourselves, this can effect a rapid positive growth that will show results immediately. The first week, you will feel better. And as you keep doing this you’ll get lighter and lighter and lighter. Happiness will become more and more and more. Sorrow will become less and less.

But the main warning I give you is: don’t expect it overnight. And if the ego appears to loom up larger it’s only because you’re facing it, whereas before you were looking away from it.

Nancy just asked, “Well, how do you do it?” Well, you see someone out there who’s trying to be the life of the party, the number-one, and you don’t like it. If we don’t like the other one trying to be the number-one, it’s only because we want to be the number-one. All right, so what do we do? You have to go within and look for it, and stay with it until you see it. If you will go within, meditate on it, quiet your mind, the answer will always come. You will see: “Why, yes. I, too, want to be the number-one. And I was resentful because the other one was trying to be the number-one.” And then when you see you want to be the number-one, say to yourself: “This I must let go of,” with a wish to let go. And just by the wish to let go, you are letting go of a bit of ego.

There are no better lessons than those we get from our family. You’ll find family the best means of growing. And the main reason for that is that we choose our parents. And we choose parents who have similar characteristics to our own. And so there’s always a to-and-fro between parent and child because of this. The parents are telling the children what to do and the children are fighting right back—forward and back, forward and back, all the time. Most of the time the parent and child are together there’s a constant to-and-fro on the thing we’re talking about. Because we have it in ourselves, we see it in our parent, or we see it in our child, and they see it in us. Which causes quite a lot of friction. Now there can be the opposite relationship, too, where we can have an ego-lift if our parent has the things that we like. The parent and child are together on something that they both agree on, then there’s an elation, a support of the ego going on all the time. That’s possible also.

Now, ego, the same way it goes down on rebuff, goes up on praise. So we should look for it in two ways. Now, remember, anything that can be lifted by words of praise can be as quickly dropped by the opposite words. And the state that we want to attain to is one of equanimity, where we are always happy. Where our happiness does not depend on people and things outside of ourselves. The real Happiness, with a capital H, is our natural state, and is independent of people of things. Any time it’s dependent upon anything outside of ourselves it’s an ego-pleasure, which must necessarily have an ego-pain after it. And yet all joy that we feel in this world is only the feeling of the Self, more or less. Even though we attribute it to someone or something outside, that feeling of joy that we feel is nothing but the Self. And so I say, all joy has its source in the Self, and all misery that we feel has its source in the ego. And there’s another way of letting go of ego: every time we feel unhappy, look for the ego-motivation. There’s something we want, and we’re frustrated and we’re unhappy. Seek the ego-source: when you see it, you’ll automatically let of of it and you’ll feel happy again.

All joy has its source in the Self, and all misery that we feel has its source in the ego.

Another way of saying it is: “There’s nothing out there but our consciousness.” Whatever we see wrong out there, the mote is in our eye. A master sees nothing but perfection, in you, in everyone and in everything. If he says otherwise, he’s just talking for the benefit of the hearer, in order to communicate.

There is only the truth: the absolute, eternal, infinite, unlimited joy, omniscience, omnipresence, all-glorious. That’s all there is in truth. Anything other than that is the falsity, the appearance, the delusion, the maya. So what you ask is, “Well, isn’t this maya true?” So the only thing I can say is, “No, it isn’t.” See the truth and you’ll see that everything is absolutely perfect. Everyone is trying to return the the full Self, to let go of their ego. Some of us make errors in that direction. By going further into an ego-direction we get more and more apparently in trouble—and it’s all an apparency—until the apparency gets so difficult that we start looking in the other direction. If you want to know light, don’t look at the darkness. If you want to know truth, good, don’t see evil.

Ego is the sense of separation from the All. Before we got ourselves into this apparent delusion, we were that infinite being that we are now seeking. Through some quirk in beingness, we decided to play a game, really a game of limitation: we decided to be just a little limited. Now, in order to be that way, we had to move away from the All—the All is unlimited. And so we drew a wide circle around us. We were nearly unlimited at that moment. And then we wanted to play with the feeling of becoming unlimited again. But when we started in that direction we fell into a trap. In the game of limitation, instead of going back to the unlimited, we went further and drew a less-wide circle around ourselves, and became more limited and tried to get out of that. We kept doing that. And the main divisions of it are, first, we were what is called a causal body. We created a body to be separate in. And in the causal body it’s the realm of ideation to us now, the realm of ideas. And in that causal body, the moment we had an idea, it was completely fulfilled. It’s almost like hurting yourself and stopping and saying, “Gee, that feels good.” We create a little separation and it feels good to go toward the All each time.

So, we first created the causal body. And the moment we had a idea, a thought, a wish, it was immediately fulfilled. Then we tried playing more limited through an astral body, which to those of us who are now in the physical is a heavenly life. In the astral body, whatever you think is immediately effected. We’re not limited by time there.

Then we moved from the astral into the physical, which is the slowest, the most dense realm possible to any being in the universe. This is the lowest state possible—the physical. There’s only one possibility of going lower, and that’s lower in the physical. But the physical state is the lowest state. This is the deadest state that’s possible unto us. When you know this you’ll never fear death, because death feels like a wonderful freeing. It’s a tremendous experience—after you do it, not before! (laughter) Because before, we think we are nothing but this body, and when this body goes, we go. And even the pain of death is not nearly as much as the pain you suffer through life. You have migraine headaches, and diseases, and mental agonies with families, and heartbreaks in love—that’s more severe than dying at death. Because dying at death generally is just a pain for a moment, and then this tremendous feeling of freedom.

So, we came down to this most limited and densest state called the physical. And now all of us are on the way back. And there’s no question about that. We’re in a period of the world that is relatively low in vibration, very difficult, very physical, and those of us who are on the path are definitely on the way out. Because if we can get the right direction in this morass of living as it is today, it’s because we started on this a long time ago, and we’re continuing it in spite of the world, so to speak.

And we can go from the physical, we can graduate, get our wings, and fly off into the astral. And you can spend far more millennia in the astral than you do here because it’s an easier way of life. And then we can graduate into the causal. But if you understand what the ego is, you can go all the way from the lowest realm that we are in now, back to the highest, by eliminating the ego-sense. When we lose all of our ego-sense we are fully realized. We go all the way. We return to being the All. The opportunity to do this exists more in this realm than in any other realm, because it is so difficult that the incentive is greatest in this realm. As life gets easier, the incentive to grow gets less. But when you think you are not going to eat, and the whole world is going to collapse on you and so forth, and you have a sick body and all these troubles, you have a tremendous incentive to get out of that. And the incentive being so much stronger in this realm, it’s possible to transcend all the realms and go right back to the One, or the All.

So, this sense of egoity is very basic, and very important. It’s the start of all trouble, and letting go of it is the elimination of all trouble. It’s the sense of not being the All, of not being that God which we are. And if you’re not the All, there’s something missing and you’re trying to get it. First a hundred dollars, then a thousand, then a million, and a billion, then the Earth, then the moon, then the solar system, then the galaxy—until you wake up the the fact that everything you’re trying to get, you are. And once you see that, there’s nothing to be gotten anymore: you are It. It’s really a joke when you see the overall picture of how people struggle to get tiny bits of what they are.

So, every time you see something wrong in the world, look upon it as a mirror, and that’s all it is. It’s reflecting to you your consciousness. And if you accept this, you can use it to undo your ego. There’s nothing out there but our consciousness. If you ever want to know what your consciousness is, just take a check on what is around you and what you see and what you go through every day in life. That’s your consciousness.

This is the danger in reading newspapers, listening to the radio. The world in general has a very negative consciousness. If you go with it, it moves you in that direction. Now if someone tells you that that’s escape, it’s not. Any time you acknowledge anything in the world, you’re supporting it. If you acknowledge war and death and misery, you’re supporting it; that’s the mental thoughts you’re sending out. You see, we all send out thoughts. Every time we have a thought, we think it’s a secret little thing within ourselves. It goes out to the universe. So, the masters support the world; they counterbalance all the apparent negativity by just sitting in a cave and sending out the good whole thoughts, constructive thoughts, thoughts of oneness. So, the only way we can give real help to the entire world is by helping ourselves. The more positive our consciousness is, the more we send that out to everyone.

END