Personal Reality, Session 657
THE PRESENT IS THE POINT OF POWER
The above is one of
the most important sentences in this book in practical terms, and working
within the framework of time as you understand it. As mentioned earlier (in the 653rd session in Chapter Fourteen), you
actualize events from the present intersection of spirit and flesh, choosing
them from probabilities according to your beliefs.
All of your
physical, mental and spiritual abilities are focused together, then, in the
brilliant concentration of “present” experience. You are not at the mercy of the past, or of
previous convictions, unless you believe that you are. If you fully comprehend your power in
the present, you will realize that action at that point also alters the past,
its beliefs and reactions.
In other words I am
telling you that your present beliefs, in a manner of speaking, are like the
directions given to the entire personality, simultaneously organizing and
reorganizing past experience according to you current concepts of reality.
The future – the
probable future – is being altered in the same way, of course. To look backward for the source of current
problems can lead you into the habit of seeking only negative episodes from
your past, and prevent you from experiencing it as a source of pleasure,
accomplishment, or success.
You are structuring
your earlier life through the dissatisfactions of the present, and therefore reinforcing
your problems.
It is as if you
were reading a history book that was devoted only to failures, cruelties
and errors of the race, ignoring all of its accomplishments. Such practices can lead you to use
your own “history” so that it gives a very distorted picture of who and what
you are – a picture that then paints your present circumstances.
Those given to such
practices – constant examination of the past in order to discover what is wrong
in the present – too often miss the point.
Instead, they constantly reinforce the negative experience from which they
are trying to escape. Their initial
problems were caused precisely as a result of the same kind of
thinking. A great many unsatisfactory
conditions result because individuals become frightened at various periods in
their lives, doubt themselves, and begin to concentrate upon “negative”
aspects.
The situation may
be quite different in some ways. Large
areas of life may not be touched by certain attitudes, while others are. One person may be completely free physically
and in excellent health, and yet, because of certain experiences, begin to
doubt his ability to get along with others.
So he may begin to look into his past – with that belief in mind,
that he cannot relate – and then find within previous conduct all kinds of
reasons to support the idea.
If he journeyed through
his memories trying to find a different kind of proof instead, then in that
same past he would discover instances when he did relate well with others. Your present beliefs structure the memories
which will parade before you now – and what you remember will then seem to
justify the beliefs.
When you are trying
to alter your beliefs, look through your past with the new conceptions in
mind. If you are ill, remember when you
were not. Search your life for proofs of
your health. Your very life itself is
hard evidence that health is within you!
In almost
all cases of present limitation, there is one main theme in that particular
area: The individual has schooled himself or herself to stress “negative”
aspects, for whatever reasons.
I have frequently said
that beliefs cause reality, and that no symptom will simply fade away unless
the “reason” is ascertained – but such reasons go far beneath your current
ideas of cause and effect. They involve
intimate philosophical value judgments on the part of each individual. Beneath them, the apparent causes of
limitations in personal life, there are other far-reaching beliefs, and each
individual will use those elements in his private experience to back these
up. This applies to any kind of lack or
hindrance severe enough to be a problem.
You have been
taught that you are at the mercy of previous events, so your idea of looking
for the source of personal difficulty is to examine the past, but – to find
what you did wrong there, or what mistakes occurred there, or what
interpretations were made there! Again,
regardless of what you have been taught, the point of power is in the present;
and again, your present beliefs will be used to structure your
recollections.
Those memories will
be used to reach any conclusion, as statistics can be used, for example. Along the way you may settle for a given
remembered event or two, and assign to them the reasons for your present
behavior. If so, you are already
prepared to change your current beliefs and mode of action, and simply use the
occurrences or habits of the past as a stimulus or motivation. (See
the 616th session in Chapter Two.)
The question, “What
is wrong with me?” will only lead you to create further limitations, and to
reinforce those that you do have, through exaggerating such activities in the
present and projecting them into the future.
Which you? Which world?
These questions are to be answered in the “now”, as you understand it,
through the realization that your power of action is in the present and
not in the past. Your only effective
point of changing any aspect of your world lies in that miraculous instant
connection of spirit and self through neurological impact.
To rid yourself of
annoying restrictions then, my dear friend, you repattern your past from the
present. Whatever your
circumstances, you use the past as a rich source, looking through it for your
successes, restructuring it. When you
search it looking for what is wrong, then you become blind to what was right,
in those terms, so that the past only mirrors the shortcomings that now face
you.
Other events
literally become invisible to you. Since
basically past and future exist at once, you are at the same time dangerously
constructing your future along the same lines.
Individuals can go
from psychologist to psychologist, from self-therapy to self-therapy, always
with the same question: “What is wrong?”
The question itself becomes a format through which experience is seen,
and itself represents one of the main reasons for all limitations, physical,
psychic or spiritual. (See the 624th session in Chapter
Five.)
At one point or
another the individual ceased concentrating upon what was right in
certain personal areas, and began to focus upon and magnify specific “lacks”. With all good intentions, then, various
solutions are looked for, but all based upon the premise that something is wrong.
If such a practice
is continued, the concentration upon negatives can gradually bleed out into
other previously unblemished areas of experience.
You are not at the
mercy of past beliefs, therefore. On the
other hand, the sooner you begin to act upon new ones the better. Otherwise you are not trusting them in the
present. If you are poor and want to have
more money, and tray to maintain a belief in abundance – while still faced with
the fact of present poverty – you must in your reality make some symbolic move
that shows you are willing to accept change.
As foolish as it
may sound, you should give some money away, or in whatever manner that suits
you act as if you did have more money than you physically have. You must respond to your new beliefs, so that
neurologically the new message gets across.
You perform
habitually in certain manners as a result of your beliefs. Now if you willfully change some of those
habits then you are also getting the message across. The initiative must come from you, and in the
present. In a very real manner of
speaking, this means changing your viewpoint, that particular perspective
with which you view your past and present and imagine your future.
You must look
within yourself for evidences of what you want in terms of positive
experience. Examine your past with that
in mind. Imagine your future from the
power point of the present. In such a
way at least you are not using the past to reinforce your limitations, or
projecting them into the future. It is
only natural to contrast what you want with what you have, and it is
very easy to become discouraged in so doing, but looking for errors in the past
will not help you. A correctly utilized
five-minute period of time can be of great benefit, however. In this period concentrate upon the fact that
the point of power is now. Feel
and dwell upon the certainty that your emotional, spiritual and psychic
abilities are focused through the flesh, and for five minutes only direct all
of your attention toward what you want.
Use visualization or verbal thought – whatever comes most naturally to
you; but for that period do not concentrate upon any lacks, just upon your
desire.
Use all of your
energy and attention. Then forget
about it. Do not check to see how well
it is working. Simply make sure that in
that period your intentions are clear.
Then in one way or another, according to your own individual situation,
make one physical gesture or act that is in line with your belief or
desire. Behave physically, then at least
once a day in a way that shows that you have faith in what you are doing. The act can be a very simple one. If you are lonely and feel unwanted, it can
merely involve your smiling at someone else.
If you are poor, it can involve such a simple thing as buying an item
you want that costs two cents more than the one you would usually buy – acting on
the faith, even that feebly, that the two cents will somehow be given you or
come into your experience; but acting as if you had more than you do.
In health terms, it
involves conducting yourself once a day as though you were not sick in whatever
way given you. But the belief in the present,
reinforced for five minutes, plus such a physical action, will sometimes bring
literally awesome results.
Such effects will
occur however only if you cease looking into the past “for what is wrong”, and
stop reinforcing your negative experience.
These same principles can be used in any area of your life, and in each
you are choosing from a variety of probable events.
Those of you who
believe in reincarnation in more or less conventional terms, can make the error
of using or blaming “past” lives, organizing them through your current
beliefs. It is bad enough to believe
that you are at the mercy of one past, but to consider yourself helpless
before innumerable previous errors from other lives puts you in an impossible
situation; the conscious will is robbed of its power to act. Such lives exist simultaneously. They are other expressions of yourself,
interacting, but with each conscious self possessing the point of power
in its own present.
It is for this
reason that “past-life information” is so often used to reinforce current
social situations – because, like the past in this life, such memories are
constructed through present belief.
If such information
is given to you by another, by a psychic, for example, that individual is also
very apt to pick up those “lives” that make sense to you now, and –
unconsciously of course – to structure them precisely along the lines of your
beliefs. This may not seem
obvious. If an individual believes that
he is basically unworthy he will recall, or be given, those lives that justify
that idea. If he thinks he must pay for
his sins now, then that belief will attract memory of those lives that will
reinforce it; this will be highly organized recall, leaving out everything that
does not apply.
If an individual
believes that he is being taken advantage of, and is caught in a mundane
existence, unappreciated, then he may receive from himself or others information
showing that in other lives he was greatly honored – thereby reinforcing his
belief that now he is taken for granted, or worse.
These statements of
mine are general, for each individual will have his or her own way of
reinforcing beliefs. If you think you
are ill, most likely past-life information will show that you committed crimes
for which you are now doing penance. In
whatever framework you choose, you will always find proper reinforcement for
your belief.
The truth as far as
it can be stated is this: YOU FORM YOUR REALITY NOW, through the
intersection of soul in flesh, and in your terms the present is your
point of power.
Each of your
reincarnational selves are born as a creature in flesh, like you. Each one has its own “points of power”, or
successive moments in which it also materializes daily existence in a linear
manner from all the probabilities available to it.
In a way that will
be explained in another book for those interested in such matters, there is a
kind of coincidence with all of these present points of power that exists
between you and your “reincarnational” selves.
There are even biological connections in terms of cellular “memory”. (See
the 653rd session in Chapter Thirteen.) So through your current beliefs you can, in
your own space and time, attract tendencies toward certain experiences shared
by these others. There is a constant
interaction in this multidimensional point of power, therefore, so that in your
terms one incarnated self draws from all of the others what abilities it wants,
according to its own specific, localized beliefs.
These selves are
different counterparts of yourself in creaturehood, experiencing bodily
reality; but at the same time your organism itself shuts out the simultaneous
nature of experience. This does not mean
that at other levels you cannot perceive it, but that generally speaking events
must seem to appear in a series.
In quite real
personal and racial terms, the past is still happening. You create it from your present according to
your beliefs. A removed appendix will
not reappear physically. There are
certain frameworks that are accepted, built into your creaturehood. There is far greater freedom, however, even
on the cellular level.
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