It Must Come From Within

Reflect on this and see if whether or not you think it’s true: The thing that has the biggest effect on you and your life experience is you. I say this because no matter what situation is presented to you, you have the power to look at said situation in any manner you please. This is the power of freewill. It is the power to choose your own understanding, the power to choose your own vantage point. From your particular vantage point of life you see only that which you want to see (and in so doing choose to be oblivious to all else). It is this moment to moment choice which determines the tides of your emotions, which moreover determines the condition of your life experience. And while external factors do inspire you to look at things in creative ways, you are the one who chooses precisely what is created. Everything comes from within. All external things are colored by internal conditions. Every apparent vantage of reality is fabricated by the particular set of parameters of one’s personal mindset. This is not only true of our observations of life; it is also true of our understanding of life. All the answers to the questions you seek about life and life’s great “unknowns” must ultimately come from within because nothing you learn from any outside source will ever truly have meaning to you until it is confirmed within yourself. Example: anyone who has ever cared for a child knows that you can tell a child, “Do not touch the stove because it’s hot and it might burn you,” a thousand times or more, but in a moment when your attention is diverted that same child whom you had repeatedly warned about the dangers of touching a hot stove will still proceed to touch the stove to see for himself if what you say is true. No amount of warning or promises of punishment from you will discourage a child from touching a stove (if this is his determination) until that child begins to tell himself that perhaps going around touching hot stoves is not the wisest thing to do. And we are no different than that child. Nothing we read, nothing we see, nothing anyone tells us will ever have as much impact on us as the stuff we tell ourselves. So in seeking self realization, in searching for answers to satisfy a soulful longing, the answers must come from within. Books may inspire you, people may inspire you, situations may inspire you (for a moment) to think and look at things in ways which are new and exciting to you. But ultimately these inspirations will not last unless the thoughts initially inspired by the book, person or situation are thoughts that begin to come from you, to you, and are steadily affirmed by you through your actions. This is what affects the condition of your life experience. This is what opens the door to true revelation. Self awareness, self esteem, self contentment… must come from within. It never comes from without because no one else, and nothing else, can give you that which you deny yourself. So while you may look to people and you may look to things for inspiration, for actual realization you must always look within. To “look within for that which thou needest,” is one of the marks of spiritual maturity. Therefore, it is wise to be open to schools of thought which you may not be accustomed to. Not for the purpose of filtering these unfamiliar schools of thought through your personal biases in order to give yourself a rational reason to denounce such ways of thinking, but for the purpose of impartially trying said thoughts within your heart (intuitively), within your gut (instinctively) as well as within logic. And it is only when you can truly say that you have no preference for the outcome of such a trial that you are truly impartial.