Being able to consciously walk out of the movie-making complex of the false self is the same as the power to free yourself. Why? Because once you walk out of this tiny darkened theater that your lower nature considers the whole world, you know for certain and at last: there is something outside the world of your usual mind. And once you walk into its light, you know that everything can be forever new for you.
From this day forward, be a careful observer of the moving pictures in your own mind. Learn to watch all the various scenes without casting yourself as any of the players on the screen. Remember, nothing you see in that darkened theater is who you really are. Use these truths to help keep you awake:
- Before we can change the kind of events we experience in our lives, we must first change our own nature, for we never attract anything to ourselves other than what we are.
- You can only be as free as you're willing to see the extent of your inner captivity.
- To catch the false self in the act of stealing your life, just quietly notice how it can't stop thinking, or talking, about the very thing it says it can't stand.
- When inwardly challenged to come to any fear-filled decision, never let yourself forget that struggling to get more of what hasn't brought you happiness can't possibly make you any more happy.
- Like the light of a single candle cuts through the darkest night, your true need to be free is far more powerful than any shadow of doubt.
- Being captive of fear is always senseless so, to free yourself, just catch the false self creating the conditions in your mind where that fear seems reasonable.
Here's a helpful exercise you'll want to call upon over and over again. Watch how its healing influence brightens and lightens your days. Practicing this new action will put the power of your true self to work for you. Inner freedom follows.
Make a practice of catching yourself in front of the "big screen." One way to know you're sitting in the front row of the false self is to detect negative feelings that imply there's nothing that can be done about the way you feel at the moment. Fear, anger, depression, and frustration are a few of the inner conflicts that this level of mind loves to project through your psychic system.
At the moment you catch these mental crooks stealing your life within the darkness of that mental movie, remember that you always have a higher option. Instead of looking for another self-created scene better than the one you're in, deliberately take your mind off of the mental screen of thoughts before you. Wake yourself up! Here's a good place to start.
Notice the tension in your hands, or the feel and temperature of the air around you. Become conscious of the expression on your face. Listen to the sound of your own voice as you speak.
Placing your attention in the fully present moment helps to snap whatever psychic spell you may have been under. Your wish to be awake and free, coupled with your new level of awareness, is the same as walking out of the theater all together.
Now, once you're out, do your best to stay out! Allow the sunlight of your own momentarily awakened nature to gently warm you. Let your new freedom remind you of what real pleasures are. You'll want more and more sunlight, and less and less of the false self's dark backstage dramatics.