How often does Hollywood look at this theme of self-mastery? Credit: Wallpaperno.com
It’s amazing how differently things look after a spiritual experience. Or how things that were mysterious before are not mysterious after. Etc.
A sense that I had before, but which was undeveloped, is growing rapidly.
I’m coming to see, much deeper than I did before, that there’s something I’m in complete control of, something I have total charge over, something that I’m not expected to relinquish control over and in fact cannot do so.
That something is me.
I’m master and commander over myself. And by the Law of Freewill, I’m master over nothing else.
I’ve said this before (1) but it’s coming alive for me in a way it hadn’t before.
I realized that I’m being inefficient and ineffective the way I’m managing myself. I often drift or choose on the spot or make it up as I go along.
But what I miss out on in abstaining from self-leadership is setting long-range goals for myself and accomplishing any effort that takes oversight, diligence and perseverance over time.
Our sources speak about “self-mastery” and prior to last week I’d have said that self-mastery meant mastering every thought and emotion.
I still think that would be a good development, but I’m coming to see self-mastery more as whether one functions as monarch in one’s own domain or not. An enlightened monarch, to be sure, but the person in charge nonetheless. There continues to be no one in charge of this domain of me.
It’s the assumption of control over my own process, wishes, and proclivities that self-mastery points to, I think.
All of this leads to a topic that many people prefer to avoid: personal responsibility. We avoid it probably because being a victim serves so many useful purposes in old-Third society.
It lets us off the hook. It wins attention, mainly sympathy. It shows us and others that we’re a member of the tribe. Since everyone else is posing as a victim, we choose to conform. We go with the herd and feel comfort in belonging.
Personal responsibility sees us coming from the point of view that we’re the source of our thoughts, feelings and actions, that our input is crucial to all outcomes involving ourselves – if not completely crucial to the total outcome, since others are involved, then at least completely crucial to our response to events.
I probably do so-so in the area. I used to do better. Lots of room for improvement. Note to self: Do better.
Personal responsibility encourages us to see how much of life we can take responsibility for without moving to the other extreme – assuming responsibility for and wanting to rescue everyone.
In the old Third, we were either a victim needing a rescuer or a rescuer needing a victim or a patsy. A patsy is one who aids and abets a victim, mostly by going into agreement with them on their stories of victimization, which by the way many of us do almost automatically every time we have coffee with a friend. It’s a hard habit to break and may offend our compatriot if we ask them to leave the victim story aside.
I take personal responsibility for the shape of my world. It isn’t OK with me that there are people starving, being used as sex slaves, being forced into marriage, forced into war, etc. It’s my world and it isn’t alright that these are features of it.
At this moment about all I can do regarding the shape of my world is bring up the love from the heart and send it out. Later there will be the opportunity to do much more.
I’d like to propose an hypothesis: that personal power varies directly with the extent to which we’re able to take responsibility for our lives and our world. That hypothesis should lead to awareness experiments to test its validity.
Coming back to recent events, this new release of love – more like a constant wash of love, really – invites me to consider larger and larger involvements. It lends confidence. It clarifies the mind and strengthens the intention.
But at the same time, in a case of a breakthrough like this, I know that growth has to be balanced and slow, with us expanding and anchoring, as AAM said. If I get unbalanced with it, I’ve put an impediment in the way of love and I no longer want to do that.
Footnotes
(1) See “Monarchs in Our Own Domain” at https://goldenageofgaia.com/2014/08/05/monarchs-in-our-own-domain/ and “What Do I Bring to the Work of Building Nova Earth” at https://goldenageofgaia.com/2013/01/05/what-do-i-bring-to-the-work-of-creating-nova-earth/.
(2) Archangel Michael: Part of your – and part of our – recommendation to you is to play, to laugh, to enjoy, to be physical, so that you are anchored in the physical reality – because you are here to be a transition point and to be able to show people how to do both.
If you were completely involved in your full awakening you in very great likelihood would not be forming a platform with me. You would be off somewhere in an ashram meditating. …
Ground yourself. Be human and love the experience of being in form.
SB Boy. Eat, drink and be merry!
AAM It is difficult, no? [Because I have the proclivities of a monk.]
SB Yes, it is difficult. (Personal Reading with Archangel Michael through Linda Dillon on May 6, 2013.)