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August 14 - August 26, 2023
Our point of view creates our reality. When we are stuck in our beliefs, our reality becomes rigid, stagnant, and oppressive. We become bound to our attachments because we have lost our ability to recognize that we have a choice to be free of them.
The more attached I am to my beliefs, the more difficult it becomes to see myself for who I am at this moment, and the less freedom I have to see life from a fresh perspective and perhaps choose a different path.
Smokey Mirror—the smoke that doesn't allow us to perceive our Authentic Self.
When you look in the mirror, instead of accepting yourself for who you are at this very moment, you likely start telling yourself why you are unacceptable in your current form, and what you need to do to be able to accept yourself: I must meet this expectation to be worthy of my own love.
Self-judgment resides where self-acceptance wishes to be. Our attachment to these negative beliefs and self-judgments can become so normal that we don't even recognize them as condemnations anymore; we accept them as a part of who we are. But at a very basic level, our self-judgments are all consequences of what we believe about ourselves at our core—whether we accept or reject ourselves.
Let go of the attachment that you must obtain some image of perfection in order to be happy.
We think that in order to be worthy of our own love we must live up to the expectations we place on ourselves—but we need to realize that these expectations are the expression of our agreements, not of our true nature.
You can choose to view yourself from a place of acceptance based on the undeniable truth that
view life through the eyes of an artist and accept that everything is a work in progress, a never-ending masterpiece.
Existing within this as-soon-as-I-have-this or once-I-do-that mentality chains us to the belief that we are not free to live our lives now.
do not make changes in my life today because I feel I must change in order to accept and love myself; I make changes to express myself and experience more of life, because I already accept and love myself for who I am.
“I am because I am at this moment.”
This is what freedom is: the ability to enjoy and be exactly who you are without suppressing yourself in the form of judgment.
But if we accept ourselves for who we are at this very moment, we change because we want to grow and evolve with life; love is no longer the condition for change, it is the starting point for change. This is the true meaning of unconditional love.
We either engage each other in a relationship based on respect, or we impose and subjugate each other disrespectfully with a need to make each other fit the mold of our own beliefs and ideals.
Harmony exists when we engage one another with respect, honoring each other's yeses and nos as we construct the dream of us.
I am only responsible for what I say; I am not responsible for what you hear.
If I look at all the things I have placed my sense of self in, I will find that my identity is placed in it. Fear comes when these things are threatened, because through my attachment I have interpreted these as being a part of myself; thus, an attachment is created to resist the possibility of that loss. When we look closely, we can notice how we're always defending the object of our attachment in one way or another. In essence, we are defending our definition of self.
The challenge I have for you is to change your agreement, to see yourself as a perfect human being, and to realize that there is no object, idea, or knowledge that you need to be complete. You are perfect because you are alive in this present moment, transforming continuously with life. If we can see ourselves as perfect just the way we are because we are alive at this moment, we are free. Our attachments no longer define us. Instead, the knowledge we gather becomes a tool that can help us decide how we want to engage in dreams—the personal and collective—and how we choose to act is the
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Looking at the story of your life, do you take action as dictated by your attachment to knowledge, or do you use knowledge to take an action based on the awareness of your present moment?
Level One: The Authentic Self
purest form of joy, stemming from your pure desire to experience life without conditions.
This ability to attach and detach easily allows you to invest an emotional side of yourself that will enjoy the ups and downs of a great game. Life is happening, and you are able to share it with those around you, regardless of how they see themselves.
you have internalized your attachment to such an extent that it has become a condition of self-acceptance. Thus, you begin to impose this image onto the people you love as well as the people you interact with in your everyday life.
Whenever we believe something without question, we are at risk for attachment at this most extreme level—and it can exist in the most unlikely places.
Turn on any news station and it's easy to see. It's important to realize that when we, or anyone else, become attached to a set of beliefs at this level, it is easy not to see the humanity of an individual since we can only see the personalization of an idea that we stand against.
You will learn how to assess what level you are on for every belief that you have—not as a basis for judgment, but to perceive a deeper understanding of self. The goal is to shift your perspective and see the potential that is present beyond your beliefs, and notice how your understanding of love and respect changes as your attachments' hold on you diminishes.
“Is knowledge controlling you, or are you controlling knowledge?”
The Authentic Self is always present, and it is only our attachments that keep us from remembering who we really are.
They saw the unlimited potential of our Authentic Self—the life force that could take any action in any direction that would lead to those possibilities. But as we grew up, those possibilities diminished, as our vision of what we were able to do and be became narrowed by our attachments until we believed we had little choice in life. The truth is that we narrowed our possibilities by our own will. Yes, it is true that the Dream of the Planet can narrow our possibilities if we wish to play along with its rules; but the agreements we make with
The only thing that separates us from one another is our point of perception; together we make a whole.
Engagement is the action of interacting with the focal point of our attention.
regardless of our degree of attachment, we are always our Authentic Selves; we just simply forget that as we move up the levels of attachment.
With the practice of awareness we develop a discipline, a strengthening of our will that allows us to remain in a state of harmony longer . . . if we choose to.
This knowledge is an instrument of transformation, and experiencing it is the manifestation of the Authentic Self.
We are all creating, producing, learning, engaging, and loving life. We are all the personification of life; we are always the Authentic Self. We simply make the choice to see it in ourselves and others.
There is a moment when the Authentic Self becomes no longer an abstract term, but an experience. I believe we all experience such a moment. It could be during meditation, while painting or dancing, working or working out, lecturing or talking, making love, eating, or playing. It's the moment when judgment stops and pure harmony takes over.
The Authentic Self is the harmony of mind, body, and soul as the expression of Life.
To tell the story of the Authentic Self is to tell the story of life, regardless of where humanity may be in the form of an individual's awareness.
The awareness that we are the living being that gives life to our beliefs, to our knowledge, lets us choose with complete freedom where we want to place our intent and create, for as long as we choose to engage it by our agreement.
In this state of harmony we have the potential to love unconditionally because we have no conditions for self-acceptance, just a willingness to engage love with a respect for self and
Because our love is not based on a behavior that we agree with or find acceptable, we love them even through such instances.
We have the freedom to evolve as life evolves and to engage the people we love without the need to domesticate them to our point of view.
clean mirror— we see every situation as it is, unclouded by smoke.
We have the awareness that the act of engaging in life is an act of love, and because we are choosing the direction in which we want to go and how we want to live, this is the act of unconditional love for ourselves.
By approaching our lives as a work of art based on our own self-love, this allows us to unconditionally love the people in our lives for who they are without needing...
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Every thought and idea that forms our belief system has power only through our agreement in the form of yes or no; and it is our preference of how we want to engage the Dream of the Planet and life.
I can change my mind when I no longer fully agree, or I may agree with it my whole life.
This is what gives power to my agreements; I make them because I want to.
This is my art, my agreement: to allow myself to experience life in its ever-changing truth with love.
