Since the beginning of time people have searched for the meaning of life. They have asked the questions we have all asked at one time or another: Why are we here? Where did we come from? Does any part of us continue beyond death? And if so, where does that part go when our bodies die?
This search for the meaning of life has led to all manner of teachings and theories about heaven and hell, purgatory and paradise, but still something seems to be missing. In this series we will attempt to offer our own ideas about why we are all here on the earth plane and where we will go when our bodies become obsolete.
Of course, we could never be presumptuous enough to say that our ideas about the meaning of life are any more or less accurate than others that have been put forward. We offer this series simply as one possible explanation for our existence on this planet and in the universe. If you have strongly-held opinions about the matter which are not in agreement with the ideas in this series then you should feel free to maintain them. The universe is a big place and there is room enough for all attitudes, approaches and beliefs.
That said, we do hope that you find this series to be both insightful and valuable as you progress further along the road of your life…
If you are like most people, you probably view the beginning of your existence as the time when you were born on this earth. If you are a little more thoughtful, you might view the beginning of your existence as the moment in which you were conceived by your parents.
Whilst either of these events could be viewed as the beginning of your most recent earthly existence, neither of them are accurate in describing the beginning of your existence as a spiritual being. The fact is that spirit is eternal. It has no beginning and it has no end. Therefore you as a spirit being have no beginning and no end. You have always existed and you always will exist. This is the meaning of the word ‘eternal’.
This view of your existence throws up much more than the question of where you will go when your physical body expires. It also throws up the question of where you came from before your physical body came into existence.
If you study the scriptural texts of any major religion or philosophy, you will find that – in the majority of cases – one point is agreed upon. That point is that, in the beginning – before anything had manifested itself on the physical plane of existence – all that existed was pure potentiality. This potentiality, from which all things were created, is traditionally referred to as God.
Now most people have broken free from traditional views and come to the conclusion that God is not a white-bearded man sitting on a celestial throne and wielding a big cosmic stick. God is simply energy, and can probably be more accurately described as a Universal Intelligence (which may or may not be related to the so-called Dark Matter which many scientists believe to occupy 96% of the known universe). It knows all because it is all. It is everywhere because no place exists without it. It can do all things because it is all things.
Now if all things came out of that one energy which we call Universal Intelligence, then everything which exists in the universe is a part of that Intelligence. On a quantum level everything that exists is energy. In other words, everything you see around you is a manifestation of the same energy. You are energy. Your cat is energy. Your next-door neighbour is energy. All is energy and nothing is not part of the same energy.
So the question of where you were before you were born physically onto this plane is both simple and complicated at the same time. You were everywhere, because you are energy. And where will you go when your physical body dies? You will go everywhere, because you are energy.
In Create a New Self-Image IV we presented Step 2 and Step 3 of our five-step process to recreate your self-image. We will now end the series by presenting Step 4 and Step 5…
Step #4 – Create a New Self Image
Your new self image should be based on the information that you gleaned from your visit to your future self. What inner beliefs enabled your future self to succeed in achieving his or her desire? What had your future self done to succeed? What habits had your future self established?
The answers to these questions should now be adopted as your new self-image. Realise that as of right now, you already are the future self you visited earlier. If you adopt the same beliefs, habits and attitudes, your future will be an exact replica of the one you saw a few moments ago.
Forget past limitations. Forget earlier programming. From this point on you are born again! Your whole life will change, because you have changed at the very core.
Step #5 – You Are The Source
Most people assume that they have to wait for success to come to them. The truth is that success is something which is projected from your own self image. Now that you have a new self-image of success and achievement, you will actively begin to take steps which will ultimately lead to the realisation of your goals and dreams.
Your only task as far as this step of the process is concerned is to meditate on the fact that your future self is being created moment by moment, and that your new self-image will now assist your use of the Law of Attraction in ways you cannot yet imagine. Use it wisely and create good things!
In the last article in this Create a New Self-Image series we presented Step 1 of our five-step process to recreate your self-image. Let us now introduce Step 2 and Step 3…
Step #2 – Future Glimpse
Now watch the globe below you begin to spin faster. Time is passing quickly. As the world turns, imagine that you are looking at the Earth five years from now.
At this point in time, in this alternate universe which you have just created in your mind, you have already succeed in achieving what you currently desire most. You are at the pinnacle of your potential.
Descend slowly towards the earth and visit your future self. Where are you? What are you doing? What do you look like?
Now ask your future self about his or her self-image. What inner beliefs have enabled this future self to succeed in achieving his or her desire? What has your future self done to succeed? What habits has your future self established? What habits has your future self discarded? What limiting beliefs did your future self used to have, but which are now no longer part of his or her self-image?
When you have this information, proceed to…
Step #3 – Erase Your Old Self-Image
Now that you know that your chief desire in life is part of your life purpose, and you have visited your future self, ascend back into space. Do not stop until the world is once again spinning below you.
At this point, realise that all of your current beliefs about who you are and what you are capable or incapable of are based on nothing more than the opinions of other people. Rather than sort through which beliefs are true and which are not, simply decide to ‘erase’ your old self-image. To do this, imagine a blank white sheet on which your new self-image will be created.
In the last two parts of this Create a New Self-Image series we established that the self-image can either hinder manifestation or help it, and that if you recreate your self-image you will begin to recreate your entire life. With all of that said, we are now ready to present the Create a New Self-Image process.
Create A New Self-Image Process
This process is divided into five easy steps, all of which will be covered in the next few parts of this series. All but the last step involves a brief meditation on a specific mental image. Follow each step as directed and you will effectively re-program your self-image. For best results this entire five-step process should be repeated often, preferably on a weekly basis for at least five weeks.
Step #1 – Before Birth
Close your eyes and imagine that you have not yet been born. You are an infinite, eternal spiritual being who is about to choose to live as a human for a finite period of time.
Imagine looking at the earth from a ‘gods-eye-view’. The world spins slowly below you – a rotating globe of blue and green.
From this perspective, think about your human desires. What is it that you want to achieve more than anything in your forthcoming lifetime? Career success? Romantic happiness? Spiritual evolution?
Whatever your overwhelming desire is, realise that this desire is not foolish or beyond your reach. On the contrary, the fulfilment of this desire is most probably your life’s purpose, in which case it is imperative that you succeed in achieving it.
Look at the globe of the earth again, and realise that you are going to live as a human in order to achieve this purpose. You are destined to achieve it. You need to achieve it. And most of all, you are already fully equipped to achieve it.
In this series you will create a new self-image through the process of using a series of carefully designed mental images. The process isn’t complex, but it will take some time on your part. The rewards, however, are well worth the effort you put in. Before we start presenting the process itself (which we will do over several days) we should first spend a few moments discussing how using the process will benefit you in your personal life.
We have said that the self-image often works to sabotage the efforts you make to change your life in any positive way, be this financially, physically, emotionally or spiritually. This is because your current self-image was programmed during childhood in an almost slip-shod manner, based on the input of parents, peers, educators, leaders and other influential people.
The process we provide in this series enables you to go back beyond this ‘accidental’ self-image and start creating a new one from scratch. This new self-image will be deliberately created by you to help you achieve your goals and desires faster than you ever thought possible.
Although this series of articles is presented in modern language, the act of redesigning the self-image is not new. In many ancient scriptures, people were encouraged to be ‘born again’ and to ‘cast off the clothes of the old man, and put on the clothes of the new man’. Both of these terms, and many others like them, were simply ways of saying, ‘Forget your past programming and re-create your self image. Doing this will change your entire life, from the way you perceive the world to the results you get from your involvement with the world.’
As anyone who goes through this process properly will testify, when you re-create your self-image, you are in fact re-creating your entire life. And it all starts in the very next part of this series…
Creative visualization is one of the most popular metaphysical techniques in the world. If you have been reading the articles here at Create Good Things for a while you will certainly be familiar with the concept: If you want to manifest something or some quality in your life, you should sit down on a regular basis and visualize yourself as already having that thing or quality.
Unfortunately, some people find that they can’t seem to make visualization work for them. It doesn’t matter how hard they try, the results just don’t come. It’s as if something is actually preventing the manifestation from taking place.
In most cases, something really is preventing the process, and that ‘something’ is the self-image of the individual.
Your self-image is the mental representation of who you truly believe you are. In most cases it consists of one or a series of mental images which represent, as far as your subconscious mind is concerned, the ‘real you’.
Now here is the vital point: Your subconscious mind will never allow you to experience anything in life which is in conflict with your self-image. No matter how hard you work, visualize, affirm or meditate, your self-image will always dictate what can and what cannot be manifested in your life.
Since this is the case, you should now be able to understand why visualization and other similar metaphysical techniques don’t work for some people. In almost all such instances, the self-image of the individual over-rides all metaphysical efforts in an effort to preserve the ‘status quo’. Let us give you an example of how this often takes place.
Jane, a young lady in her mid-twenties, had learned about creative visualization and decided to begin using it to increase her level of career and financial success. Every day for several months, Jane sat down and visualized the things she wanted in her life – a fine home, a smart automobile, a rewarding career and financial independence.
Now during the course of this visualization programme, several opportunities arose which could have enabled Jane to realise her ambitions. Yet when she came to take advantage of these various opportunities, every one of them vanished. Job offers were withdrawn for no reason, help which she had been offered from friends and acquaintances was not forthcoming and so on.
After several months of such let-downs, Jane lost her faith in visualization altogether. ‘It just doesn’t work,’ she would tell her friends. ‘I’ve tried as hard as I can, but even when things start looking up, something happens to take me right back to square one.’
The problem in this case wasn’t creative visualization at all. As many thousands of people can testify, visualization is one of the most effective metaphysical techniques there is.
So what was the problem?
The problem was that Jane’s self-image was in direct opposition to the things she was visualizing. Far from seeing herself as a person worthy of success, Jane always felt inferior. She viewed successful people as though they were automatically better and more deserving than she was.
In other words, Jane’s visualization efforts failed simply because she was trying to achieve something which would actually jeopardize her own self-image, and because of this her subconscious mind set to work – acting to prevent her visualized goals from ever becoming a reality.
Now the idea of one aspect of an individual working against another aspect of the same individual may sound strange, but in fact it happens all the time.
Consider a person who wants to quit smoking. He tries once, twice, three times, but he always ends up lighting another cigarette.
Or consider the person who wants to succeed financially. He tries once, twice, three times, but he always seems to end up right back where he started.
In both of these situations – and in a very many others – all that is happening is that the subconscious mind works to ensure that the individual fails. Why? Because the man who smokes has a self-image of himself as a smoker, and the man who wants to succeed financially actually has a self-image of failure and poverty. In both cases, the subconscious mind simply must ensure that they do not reach their goals, because if they did their respective self-images would be shattered.
In the world of metaphysics, the self-image can be likened to the ‘homing device’ on a powerful missile. The homing device is pre-programmed with a definite destination. When the missile is launched it always looks to its homing device for directions. Of course, the wind may blow the missile off track on occasion, but in these cases it simply refers once again to its homing device and corrects its own path so that it finally reaches the destination that has been pre-programmed.
If you are not progressing as quickly as you think you ought to be, in whatever area of life, then the chances are that your self-image is pulling you in a different direction.
That’s the bad news. The good news is that you can deliberately re-programme your subconscious mind with a brand new set of instructions which are automatically geared towards helping you to manifest prosperity, happiness and success in all areas of life, and this is where creating a new self-image comes into play.
The third and final Step Out of Body exercise (and the one that brings this series to a conclusion) is called The Gateway, and it is based on the observation that the universe is much more than the physical world. There are other planes of existence which can only be explored when you separate your consciousness from your physical body. Exploring these planes is something which almost always leads to a state of higher awareness about the universe and your place in it, but be aware that such exploration is never complete. Once you begin to achieve higher states of awareness about the universe and yourself the learning curve goes on for infinity, so be prepared to spend a lifetime exploring and enjoying the process.
The Gateway exercise will help you explore the universe and your place in it, and can be summarised as follows:
Go to a place where you will not be disturbed for at least half an hour. Darken the room and sit comfortably in a chair or on the floor with your back straight.
Now close your eyes and still your mind by simply watching your breathing for a minute or two.
When you are completely relaxed and your mind is still, remind yourself that the real you is not your physical body. Rather, your physical body is a mere shell which you can step out of at will.
With that fact in mind, mentally ‘step out’ of your body by imagining yourself standing up and taking one step in front of your physical body.
Now imagine a swirling gateway of energy in front of you. This gateway is the route to other planes of existence which you are free to explore and enjoy. What you will find on the other side is something you must discover for yourself.
When you are ready to begin your journey of exploration, step into the gateway and pay attention to what you perceive.
Where are you? Is there anyone else here? If so, who? Can you communicate with these entities? If so, introduce yourself. Ask questions. Receive answers. Explore and enjoy.
To bring your consciousness back into your body, simply think of your physical fingers and move them. This will bring you back to full consciousness in your physical body.
The benefits of travelling through The Gateway can only be experienced, not described. On the other side of The Gateway lie the answers to all of life’s questions, for it leads to a place where you can finally discover who you really are, and why. The answers won’t necessarily come immediately, but once you have gone through The Gateway you will learn a little more about yourself and the universe, and because of this you will want to go back – often.
This technique is one which we consider to be invaluable, but you will only know its true value by acting on what you are reading. So decide right now to enter The Gateway as soon as you feel ready, and prepare yourself for the journey of a lifetime.
