Changing Your Concept of Yourself
"Health, wealth, beauty, and genius are not created; they are only manifested by the arrangement of your mind—that is, by your concept of yourself, and your concept of yourself is all that you accept and consent to as true."
—NEVILLE
There's a level of awareness available to you that you are probably unfamiliar with. It extends upward and transcends the ordinary level of consciousness that you're most accustomed to. At this higher plane of existence, which you and every human being who has ever lived can access at will, the fulfillment of wishes is not only probable—it is guaranteed.
After 18 months in relative seclusion, studying, meditating, and literally experiencing what it's like to live in this miraculous plane of existence beyond anything that might be labeled "ordinary" or "normal," I've undertaken this joyous task of writing about having wishes fulfilled. I've seen firsthand how virtually every wish or desire I've placed my attention on has transformed from a mental thought into an objective fact.
However, I'm not proposing memorizing an esoteric formula leading to a theoretical nirvana. My emphasis throughout this book is that manifestation is real and that it occurs when you make a specific decision to change your mind about who you are and what is possible for you to achieve within these parentheses in eternity called your life.
I'm inviting you to be receptive to a radical new idea about yourself. It's radical because ever since you left your mother's womb, you've been subjected to cultural conditioning designed to help you be content with living a "normal life" at the level of ordinary consciousness, which generally means accepting whatever life hands you. In many ways you've been programmed to believe that you do not possess the wisdom or ability to manifest the fulfillment of your wishes and desires.
I am saying as clearly as I know how to say it in these opening pages: There's a plane of awareness that you can opt to live at, wherein you can, if you are willing to change your concept of yourself as an ordinary being, find yourself fulfilling any and all wishes that you have for yourself. Throughout this book I'll explore with you what I've studied, learned, internalized, practiced, and, yes, lived regarding the powers of manifestation. It begins with changing your concept of yourself.
I would like to offer a few words on these two concepts of ordinary and extraordinary.
Ordinary is, well, so ordinary. It means that you do all of the things that your culture and your family have programmed you to do. It implies that you fit in, study hard, follow the rules, take care of your obligations, fill out the forms, pay your taxes, get a job, and do what every law-abiding citizen does; and then you retire, play with your grandchildren, and ultimately die. I want to emphasize that there is absolutely nothing wrong with this scenario—it is perfectly fine—but if it were completely acceptable for you, you wouldn't be reading this book.
Extraordinary encompasses most of ordinary, since we all live in the same physical world. There will be forms to fill out, rules that demand our obedience, bills to pay, and family obligations to attend to. But extraordinary consciousness is associated with your soul, that invisible, boundaryless energy that looks out from behind your eyeballs and has very different interests than your ordinary self does.
The ideal of your soul, the thing that it yearns for, is not more knowledge. It is not interested in comparison, nor winning, nor light, nor ownership, nor even happiness. The ideal of your soul is space, expansion, and immensity, and the one thing it needs more than anything else is to be free to expand, to reach out and to embrace the infinite. Why? Because your soul is infinity itself. It has no restrictions or limitations—it resists being fenced in—and when you attempt to contain it with rules and obligations, it is miserable.
Your invisible self is extraordinary because it is a fragment of the universal soul, which is infinite. The part of you that knows you have greatness, and is stirred by the idea of you expanding and removing any and all limitations, is what I am addressing in Wishes Fulfilled. This is your new self-concept, one that is inspired by your soul.
"Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world."
—ALBERT EINSTEIN
While walking down a crowded street in London many years ago, I noticed a window display devoted to the English poet William Blake. There was a quotation on a sign in the window that I read over and over. The words seemed to touch my soul, and I was prompted by an internal calling to write those words on the back of an envelope. Blake's 200-year-old words resonated strongly with me. I had a curious knowing that I'd one day be writing about what he'd had to say.
Fast-forward some ten years later to the day I began writing this chapter about that most mysterious function of our human lives—our imagination. During the morning before settling in to write, I was searching for some tax records in a desk drawer. Unsought, the Blake quote scribbled on the back of an envelope, which had long ago been misplaced, appeared. As I grabbed the ten-year-old envelope, I pondered for a moment how Divine synchronicity is always working, moving the pieces around while our ego believes we are in charge. Here I was, ready to begin writing a chapter on how to use your imagination, and today of all days, these scribbles reappeared after a decade of being "lost." How could I ignore this synchronicity?
So I share these words with you from my spiritual mentor back in the 18th century:
The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a Green thing that stands in the way. Some see Nature all Ridicule and Deformity... and some scarce see Nature at all. But to the eyes of the Man of Imagination, Nature is Imagination itself.The greatest gift you were ever given was the gift of your imagination. Within your magical inner realm is the capacity to have all of your wishes fulfilled. Here in your imagination lies the greatest power you will ever know. It is your domain for creating the life that you desire, and the best part of it is that you are the monarch with all of the inherent powers to rule your world as you desire.
The essence of this great gift is found within another observation made by William Blake, the intuitive poet who lived at the time of the American Revolution. Writing in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, he made this wry comment that is the great secret for living a life of creative manifestation: "What is now proved was once only imagin'd." Allow yourself to contemplate this. As this one line of great wisdom sinks into your consciousness, your imagination will then begin to take over.
Look around you. Everything that you can experience with your senses was once in someone's imagination. This is the great truth that you must come to realize for yourself. In order for something to get into this world where things exist and are proved, as Blake says, they must first be placed firmly into your imagination. Without your imagination as the reason for future creations, the process of creativity is halted. You have this great power within you. It is a power that is virtually unlimited, and it has been given to you as your birthright.
Before putting this gift to work, it is crucial for you to know that virtually all spiritual teachings have spoken of the power that Blake comments on in that insightful sentence, "What is now proved was once only imagin'd." In the year that I spent researching and living the Tao for my book Change Your Thoughts—Change Your Life, this truth jumped out at me in the lines of the 40th verse of the Tao Te Ching. "Being is born of nonbeing" was Lao-tzu's observation 2,500 years ago. The visible world of being originates in nonbeing. Some 500 years later Jesus would tell his followers, "It is the Spirit who gives life" (John 6:63). I could go on through all of the great spiritual traditions and offer you quote upon quote that states that it is in the invisible formless realm that the originating spark of life begins.
Today, the world of quantum physics confirms that the universe is made of formless (spirit) energy, and that particles (that is, things) do not originate from particles (things). Everything springs from something that is akin to your imagination. You can't touch, taste, see, hear, or smell it. It has no boundaries. You can't prove it with mathematical formulas or scientific verification. Yet we all know that it exists. These invisible thoughts that you have—these ideas that continue to percolate within you, these fanciful images that are always with you—are beyond the scope of science to prove or disprove.
I love this observation made by Max Planck, the father of quantum theory: "Science cannot solve the ultimate mystery of nature. And that is because, in the last analysis, we ourselves are part of nature and, therefore, part of the mystery that we are trying to solve." You simply know that you have an imagination, and that this imagination is the Source of all being. It is up to you to channel and use this magnificent endowment to work in the creation of all that you choose to place in that imagination.
Your wishes—all of them—can indeed be fulfilled. By using your imagination and practicing the art of assuming the feeling of your wishes being fulfilled, and steadfastly refusing to allow any evidence of the outer world to distract you from your intentions, you will discover that you, by virtue of your spiritual awareness, possess the ability to become the person you were destined to be.
The Power of Your Imagination
Figuratively tattoo these words of Neville onto your forehead. In other words, memorize them, and repeat them to yourself every time you look into the mirror:
Disregard appearances, conditions, in fact all evidence of your senses that deny the fulfillment of your desire. Rest in the assumption that you are already what you want to be, for in that determined assumption you and your Infinite Being are merged in creative unity, and with your Infinite Being (God) all things are possible. God never fails.Your concept of yourself is being replaced by a new concept of yourself.
A new self-concept begins with you placing it in your imagination and living from this new perspective. You can count on your five senses to attempt to convince you that you should pay homage only to them and treat your imagination as unimportant and illusory. But that doesn't mean that you have to allow them to usurp your new concept of yourself.
Right now, in this moment, you can practice this. Say aloud or to yourself, By placing new I ams into my imagination, my future dream is a present fact. Repeat the statement a few times. Can you feel your ego resisting? Which of your five senses is most adamantly annoyed? Notice and repeat. This new concept of yourself as God, or at least as a spark of God, asks you to think like God, Who "calls those things which do not exist as though they did."
Here, you are creating an ideal of what you want to be and assuming that you already are that person. This is what Neville calls the Law of Assumption, and he states emphatically, "If this assumption is persisted in until it becomes your dominant feeling, the attainment of your ideal is inevitable."
Remind yourself that your imagination is yours to use as you decide, and that everything you wish to manifest into your physical world must first be placed firmly in your imagination in order to grow. Let Neville's words guide you:
Therefore, to incarnate a new and greater value of yourself, you must assume that you already are what you want to be and then live by faith in this assumption—which is not yet incarnate in the body of your life—in confidence that this new value or state of consciousness will become incarnated through your absolute fidelity to the assumption that you are that which you desire to be.This is a total transformation of your entire being.
Within your imagination, you can conceive thoughts of what you want as already here—prior to their birth in form in the sensory world. This means that your thoughts aren't along the lines of: I will be. I hope it works out. I'm praying for good results. Instead, you say to yourself: I am—acknowledging the I am presence as God dwelling in me. Then your mind as that I am presence will become the dominant creative feature in your life. This generative force will gently assert its authentic creativity and power as you conceive it, and in the process replace a dependency on your physical and intellectual abilities. Your renewed reality does not rely exclusively on those five senses that keep you attached to the false beliefs that you are your body or its possessions, achievements, and reputation.
You've already discovered that the different bodies you've occupied throughout your life so far no longer exist for your senses to experience. Now you can choose to consciously participate in this nonsensory supreme reality—your imagination—where you assume your future dream to be a present fact and live from this new awareness. This isn't pretending or fooling yourself, it is inviting your spirit rather than your physical form to generate the creative essence of your reality. It's what it means to transform your life.
The word transformation has the word form right smack in the middle, preceded by trans—meaning going beyond form. Live from the place that will indeed take you way beyond the limits of your seemingly limited life. Explore imagination, which is the Source of all being or physical reality.
Throughout my life I've often been called excessively persistent and even obsessive in going after what I wish to fulfill. The truth is that I have within me a very powerful knowing that when I place something into my imagination, it is already a fact for me. I just don't seem to have the capacity to erase from my mind what it is that is already my reality. For instance, earlier in my life when I applied to a doctoral program, I already saw myself with a doctorate, although I hadn't taken even one course toward that degree. When I was told that nine out of ten doctoral students do not receive their degree because they cannot complete the vigorous requirements of writing a dissertation, I knew that this did not apply to me, because I was already a doctor in my imagination. I persistently acted as if my dream were a present fact.
I've had this same kind of "thinking from the end" in every phase of my professional career. As a young boy I saw myself on television shows and vehemently held this inner picture in my imagination, ignoring a lot of naysayers! And these imaginings ultimately were taken from my mind, where they were real, to the material world, where my senses finally caught up and confirmed them as truths.
The facts are, for me, that a picture in my imagination is already my reality. I live from this perspective, and nothing can dissuade me from this stance because I am not hoping to get someplace else. I am already there. I just don't know how to erase what I am living in my imagination, even if the whole world attempts to persuade me of the folly of my dreams. This is a mind-set you can choose to embrace.
Let go of all doubt, forget about the when. It will develop into a material fact on Divine time. Forget about the how. Live it inwardly. This is a great power that you possess if you are willing to claim it as your own.
I cannot emphasize strongly enough how vital it is for you to claim this inherent power of God and use it for manifesting the life you desire. Be obstinate regarding this idea. Hold your vision relentlessly, and more than that—live each day as if that idea you have in your imagination is in fact your reality. In The "I AM" Discourses, Saint Germain repeatedly reminds us that we are the master and have dominion in our lives; once this is part of your awareness, you can access the energy, power, and intelligence of the mighty I am presence, which is your very birthright. This I am presence is always with you.
