Self-Concept

The most important thing in this world to you is your concept of self.

Everything depends on your concept of yourself.

“Whom do you say that you are?”
For your conviction of yourself, your opinion of yourself
will determine your expression in life.

My concept of myself molds a world in harmony with itself
and draws men to tell me constantly by their behaviour who I am.

Your world is forever bearing witness to your present concept of self.

Your concept of self determines the order of events you encounter.

The concept you hold of yourself determines the concept you hold of others.

We illuminate or darken our lives by the concepts we hold of ourselves.

Your concept of yourself is either your honor or your dishonor. 

It is our conception of ourselves which frees or constrains us.

You are free to choose the concept
you will accept of yourself.

This day, what was the concept you held of yourself?

The concept that I hold of myself is not that which I would like to be.
It is spoiled.
I don't throw it away, I don't commit suicide, I don't discard myself.
I rework the vessel, the very vessel I held in my hands,
I rework it into an entire different form that I resolve to be.
That man that I want to be, that man I now assume myself to be.

There is nothing to change
but your concept of self.

Leave the mirror and change your face.
Leave the world alone
and change your conception of yourself.

Give yourself a new concept of self for the old concept.
Give up the old concept completely.

Remain faithful to your new concept of yourself.

The process of rising

from your present concept to a higher concept of yourself

is the means of all true progress.

You, by changing your concept of self, 

change your relationship to things.

There is nothing to change but our concept of self. 

As soon as we succeed in transforming self, 

our world will dissolve and reshape itself 

in harmony with that which our change affirms.

Ideal

Your ideal is waiting to be incarnated

but unless you yourself offer it human parentage
it is incapable of birth.

Without the aid of anyone in the world,
sitting alone at home
you can construct a sentence which would imply the fulfillment of your ideal.

Forever in love with ideals, 

it is the ideal state that captures the mind.

You must now become identified with the ideal that you would serve,
and you must remain faithful to the ideal.

Never accept anything as true and final
unless it conforms to the ideal
you desire to embody within your world.

Claim yourself to be your ideal,
not as something that you will be in time
but as that which you are in the immediate present.

Be Who You Want to Be

You are that which you believe yourself to be.

At any moment in your lives

we are faced with an infinite choice:

what we are and what we want to be.

If you can be what you want to be,
why not become it?

You must be willing to give up what you are now
in order to be what you want to be.
That is the only price you pay.

With all your heart
you must want to be different from what you are.

If you would fall in love with what you really want to be,
you would become it.

Not a thing in this world can stop you
from becoming what you want to be but yourself.

For is there any power to stop me
from imagining that I am the man I want to be?
So that I actually clothe it with a feeling of reality?
If I can so clothe this imagined state with all the vivid sensitiveness of reality,
then I will ultimately actually clothe it in flesh,
for that's the Law, from within out.

You can be the man or you can be the woman that you would like to be.
Wanting it is not going to do it. 

You must be it.
You can't just say I would like to be it.
You must assume that you are.

If you really believe in your I Amness,
you must test yourself by daring to assume
you are now the being you desire to be.

What would I feel like if it were true?

What would you do if it were true?

What would it be like if it were true
that I am now the man
I am dreaming I would like to be?

You must define the person you wish to be
and then assume the feeling you wish fulfilled.

Conceive yourself to be the one you want to be
and remain faithful to that conception.

You are going to become what you contemplate.

You either do it or say 'I will be that man' and delay the process.
You will never reach 'I will be'.
You can only reach "I Am it.'

You must believe you are the one you would like to be,
or you will never become it.
Rather, you will remain what you believe yourself to be right now.

You must dare to assume you are what you want to be,
remain faithful to that assumption and it will come to pass.
If you are not faithful, it will not appear in your world,
and if you don't assume it, it will never come to pass.

If I become what I want to be then I am saved from what I was.
If I do not become it, I continue to keep locked within me a thief
who robs me of being that which I could be.

Form a mental image,
a picture of the state desired,
of the person you want to be.

Define yourself as that which you desire to be
by feeling yourself to be the thing desired: I AM that.

Concentrate your attention upon the feeling

that you are already that person.  

Claim you are what you want to be.
Persist in that assumption.

You must assume you are
what you want to be and continue therein.

Live in the feeling of being the one you want to be

and that you shall be.

From this moment on you walk as though you were
that which you formerly wanted to be.

I dared to assume that I am the man I would be.

I am now the man that I want to be.
I am now the woman that I want to be.

I am no longer the man I was,
I am now the man I always wanted to be.

I AM

I AM is the self-definition of the absolute,
the root out of which everything grows.

I may forget who I am, where I am what I am,

but I cannot forget that I AM.

I AM - that's my real name.

You can't say I AM and point elsewhere.

I Am that in which all conceptions of myself
live and move and have their being
and apart from which they are not.

What is the most important thing about me? I AM.

I must first be before I can be anything in this world.

The I AM (your consciousness)
is the only door through which
anything can pass into your world.

I AM, the awareness of being,
is the way through which the thing shall come.

I AM the life of a state.

To know that I AM is to be conscious of being.

The very center of consciousness is the feeling of I AM.

I AM is the feeling of permanent awareness.

Claim yourself to be the thing desired.
I AM that.

When say I AM,
you are declaring yourself to be,
first person, present tense;
there is no future.

"I" - Christ in you - will miss my goals in life unless
"I" believe that "I AM" that which "I" formerly desired to be.

All things are possible to I AM.

Nothing is impossible to whom I AM.

Consciousness

Consciousness the one and only reality.

Consciousness is always objectifying itself.

Your consciousness is the cause of your world.

Your world in its every detail
is your consciousness objectified.

Consciousness is the way or door through which things appear.

Nothing is impossible to consciousness.

World

This world is a play, 

where divine imagination becomes human imagination.

Within your own wonderful human imagination the vast world exists.

Everything in your world that you behold,
though it appears without,
it is within in your imagination.

Not one thing in the world
is completely independent of your perception of it.

The world is only response, infinite response.

It is an echo.

The whole vast world only echoes.

This whole vast wonderful world 
is a response to the arrangement of man's mind. 

It is an egocentric world.

The whole vast world is the individual pushed out.

The world is your self pushed out.

We radiate the world that surrounds us 
by the intensity of our imagination and feeling.

The world is your mirror. 
You are its source.

Your world is a grand mirror 
constantly telling you who you are. 

The world is a mirror, 
forever reflecting what you are doing within yourself.

The world and all within it
are states of consciousness objectified.

The state from which a man observes the world 
determines the world that man describes. 

Your description of the world is a confession of the self that you do not know. 

The world belongs to you and it is always expressing your inner thoughts.

One day you will discover that you are the life of the world,
that everything you think of as permanent and independent of your perception 

is within you.
You will know that the world reflects your thoughts.

The world cannot change until you change your conception of it.

You will continue to see the world as you now see it,

unless you change your state of consciousness.

Only as he changes his thought and feeling does he change his world.

The day you change self, that day you change your world.

Vision

The whole vast world is vision,
and you are the one creating it all.

You are led by the vision.
You remain faithful to the vision.

Everything will add up to the fulfillment of your dream
if you remain faithful to that vision.

The vision is maturing.

No matter what happens to you,
can you center yourself upon the vision?

Regardless of what is seemingly is happening in your world
ignore it and remain faithful to the vision.

States

Think of the world as containing

an infinite number of states of consciousness
from which it could be viewed.

All conceivable states are awaiting
our choice and occupancy.

A state of consciousness is the sum total
of all man believes, accepts and consents to be true.

The conscious state you abide in
determines the kind of world in which you live.

The individual state of consciousness
determines the conditions and circumstances of life.

Man can select a state of consciousness
with which he desires to be identified.

You cannot serve two masters,

therefore to take your attention from one state of consciousness

and place it upon another

is to die to one and live to the other.

First imagine and then feel the state imagined.

Imagination is active at and through any state it is aware of.

You enter a state through the medium of feeling.

Feeling a state produces that state.

You must feel yourself into the state desired.

Get into the spirit of the state desired

by assuming the feeling that would be yours 

were you already the one you want to be.

Think feelingly only of the state you desire to realize.

A state of consciousness -
you enter it and clothe yourself with it and let it grow.

Dwelling in the state long enough clothes the state in flesh.

If you would make a state alive, you must be in it. 

Only you can make a state become alive.
You must enter a state and animate it
in order for it to outpicture itself in your world.

You must believe you are in a certain state. 

You cannot forget it if you want to externalize that state.

Do not look back at your former state and preserve it.

Live in the new state and no more in the old state.

Beliefs

Our real beliefs are what we live by.

Your belief is always externalizing itself on the screen of space. 

It has to, for it is in you and not out there.

Any modification in your body of belief 

will cause a change in your life.

There is no limit to your power of belief.

Desires

Your dimensionally larger self speaks to you

through the language of desire.

Desires are states of consciousness seeking embodiment.

Your desires are determined by your conception of yourself.

Your desires are ever fashioned within you 

because of what you now claim yourself to be.

Change your conception of yourself
and you will automatically change the nature of your desires.

As long as you remain in your present conscious state
so long will you continue desiring that which you now desire.

What you desire to be,
that you must feel you already are.

Build a structure that would imply your desire 

is already fulfilled, and enter its form with feeling. 

A desire, drenched in the feeling of fulfillment, objectifies itself.

The desire should be accepted by you as a physical fact now.

Live as though your dream (desire) was already a fact.

That which I formerly desired to be -

I no longer desire it because I am it.

Imagination

Everything you see in this world was first only imagined.

Imagining creates reality.

Man, through his imaginal activity,
literally "calls into existence the things that do not exist."

Imagination is the beginning of creation.

Your imagination sets everything in motion.

Become aware of what you are imagining right now.

As you imagine so is your life going to be.

Your imagination fulfills itself in what your life becomes.

Man becomes what he imagines.

Always use your imagination masterfully.

Imagination creates, conserves and transforms.

To live wisely we must be aware of our imaginal activity,
and see to it that it is faithfully shaping the end we desire.

Learn to control your own wonderful human imagination.
When you do, you will have heaven on earth.

Imagine better than the best you know.

To one's imagination all things are possible.

I imagine it to be.
I am still imagining it to be.
I will continue to imagine it to be
until what I have imagined is externalized in my world.

Assumption

The mind always behaves according to the assumption with which it starts. 

Therefore, to experience success, we must assume that we are successful. 

We must live wholly on the level of the imagination itself, 

and it must be consciously and deliberately undertaken. 

It does not matter if at the present moment external facts deny the truth of your assumption, 

if you persist in your assumption it will become a fact.

Can I dare to assume that I am exactly what I want to be?

See ourselves as we would like to be seen

by the whole vast world.

Then walk in the assumption that we are that person.

The degree to which you are faithful to your assumption, you become it.

Assume you are that which you wish to be; 

walk as though you were it; 

and as you remain faithful to your assumption — it will harden into fact.

View the world from that assumption instead of thinking of it.

You simply dare to assume the feeling of the wish fulfilled 

until it seems natural, 

until it takes on the tones of reality 

and when it does, it’s done.

Remain faithful to the assumption.

Assume things are as you want them to be,
for an assumption, persisted in will harden into fact.

If I want something I must now at that moment that I want it 

assume that I have it.

I simply walk in the assumption that I have it. 

Attention

What holds your attention has your life.

Whatever state has your attention holds your life.

All progress, all fulfillment of desire,
depends upon the control and concentration of your attention.

All progress depends on an increase of attention.

Attention is forceful in proportion to the narrowness of its focus,
that is, when it is obsessed with a single idea or sensation.

The power of your attention is the measure of your inner force.

Take Your Attention Away

You rise to a higher level of consciousness
by taking your attention away from your present limitations
and placing it upon that which you desire to be.

To remove the manifestations,
all that is required of you, the conceiver,
is to to take your attention away from the conception.

To dissolve a problem that now seems so real to you
all that you do is remove your attention from it.
In spite of its seeming reality, turn from it in consciousness.
Become indifferent and begin to feel yourself to be that
which would be the solution of the problem.

Just as the vine is pruned
by cutting away its useless branches and roots,
prune your imagination by withdrawing attention
from all the unlovely and destructive ideas
and concentrating on the ideal you wish to attain.

Just as a branch withers and dies
if the sap of the vine ceases to flow towards it,
so do things and qualities pass away
if you take yours attention from them;
because your attention is the sap of life
which sustains the expression of your life.

Inner Speech

Inner speech reveals the state of consciousness
from which you view the world.

Right inner speech is essential.

Inner speech reveals the state of consciousness
from which you view the world.

Our attitudes unfold within us 

in the form of mental conversations.

Right inner talking is the first step
to becoming what you want to be.

Inner speech calls events into existence.

With our words, our inner talking, we build our world.

You create your future by your inner conversations.

The circumstances and conditions of life
are outpictured inner talking, solidified sound.

All that we meet is our word made visible.

What is your aim?
Does you inner talking match it?

Does you inner talking
match what you would say audibly
had you achieved your goal?

The right use of inner speech is the speech that would be yours
were you to realize your ideal,
in other worlds, it the the speech of fulfilled desire.

Make your inner conversation match you fulfilled desires.

Practice the art of controlled inner speaking.

Become master of the words, master of the inner talking.

Inner speech: it is truly the greatest of the arts.

Think From the End

It is the state from which we think
that determines the objective world in which we live.

Every state is already there as "mere possibility"
but is overpoweringly real when you think from it.

We must move mentally
from thinking of the end
to thinking from the end.

The spanning of the bridge
between desire - thinking of -
and satisfaction - thinking from -
is all important.

You pass in thinking of to thinking from
by entering your imagination in the feeling of the wish fulfilled.

Go to the end and dwell there as if it were true.

Go to the end and view the world from that end.
Don't think of it, for if you think of it, you are not in it.
Now act in it.
How it would be if it were true.
What were the feeling like if it were to be true.
This is simply taking the end and drenching it with feeling.
I assume the feeling of the wish fulfilled
and I drench myself with that feeling.
Then I open my eyes and the world denies it.
It doesn't really matter.
Let me remain faithful to that end and it will come to pass.

The acceptance of the end automatically rules the means of realization.

As the end is accepted, you become totally indifferent to possible failure

for acceptance of the end rules the means to that end. 

The acceptance of the end wills the means toward the fulfillment of that end. 
Do not be concerned with anything save the end. 
Always bear in mind that the responsibility to make it so 
is completely removed from your shoulders. 
It is yours because you accept it as so!

We must actually be there in the imagination.

Thinking from the end
is an intense perception of the world of fulfilled desire.

In man's ability to live in the end, 

to live in the feeling of the wish fulfilled, 

lies man's capacity to live the more abundant life.

Thinking from the state desired is creative living.

Thinking from the end is the secret of it all.

Feeling

There is a definite feeling associated with every idea in the mind of man. 

Feelings are the causes of the actions and circumstances of his life.

 

He never entertains a feeling which does not contribute to his happiness.

A change of feeling is a change of destiny.

Anything is possible if you can feel it.

Feeling is the secret of creation.

Feeling of the Wish Fulfilled

Feel that things are as you wish them to be. 

Through feeling
the conscious desiring is joined to the thing desired.

Determine what it would feel like,
and adjust your thinking by assuming you are feeling it now.

Assume the feeling of the wish fulfilled.

Assume the feeling of being it,
the feeling that would be yours
were you already the embodiment of your ideal.

Capture the feeling associated with your realized wish 

by assuming the feeling that would be yours

were you already in possession of the thing you desire

and your wish will objectify itself.

Wear this feeling as you would a suit of clothes
and persist until the feeling takes on the tones of reality.

When you know what you want,
you must deliberately focus your attention 

on the feeling of your wish fulfilled
until the feeling fills the mind 

and crowds all other ideas out of consciousness.

Assume the feeling of the wish fulfilled
and simply ignore everything else that denies it.

Whenever your feeling is in conflict with your wish, 

feeling will be the victor.

The dominant feeling invariably expresses itself.

Practice making real to yourself
the feeling of the wish fulfilled.

That which you feel yourself to be, you are

and you are given that which you are

so assume the feeling that would be yours 

if you are already in possession of your wish

and your wish must be realized. 

The feeling of the wish fulfilled,
if assumed and sustained,
must objectify the state.

Assume the feeling of your wish fulfilled
and continue feeling it until it is fulfilled,
until that which you feel objectifies itself.

Walk, drenched in the feeling that it is an objective fact, 

until it becomes so.

Sleep

Sleep is the door through which the conscious waking mind passes

to be creatively joined to the subconscious.

 

Your conception of yourself as you fall asleep 

is the seed your drop into the ground of the subconscious.

 

Always feel the wish fulfilled before you drop off to sleep.

 

How would I feel if my wish were realized? 

This is the feeling that should immobilize and monopolize your attention

as you relax into sleep.

 

You must be in the consciousness of being or having 

that which you want to be or have

before you drop off to sleep.

 

Feel yourself in the state of the realized wish and consciously drop off to sleep.

 

Night after night you should assume the feeling of being, having and witnessing

that which you seek to be, possess and see manifested.

 

Sleep conceals the creative act while the objective world reveals it.

Cause

Basically we are trying to find the cause of the phenomena of life.

What makes things happen in my world?

Every natural effect in this world has an imaginal act as the cause.
It is not caused by things round about you.
It is the unseen cause, the imaginal act, that produced it.

Causation is simply the assemblage of mental states.

You assemble images.

We do not know and cannot perceive their hidden cause,
for it lies in the imagination of man.
All things spring, not from the ostensible causes to which they are attributed,
but from that which is hidden - man's own wonderful human imagination!

Every physical effect has an imaginal cause and not a physical cause.

A physical cause only seems a delusion of our fading memory.

We do not remember when we imagined it.

The so called outside causes are all delusion
based upon our own faulty memory.
We can't remember what we imagined.

You cannot find a cause outside of your own consciousness.

The cause of it all was my assumption
and my faithfulness to that assumption.

You caused it all and you can change it all.

You cannot say that a devil causes some things and God others.

You will have set yourself free from secondary causes.

When a man has no other being to whom he can turn, 

he can't turn to another,
then he is freed from the tyranny of second causes.

When you know who you are there is no secondary cause.
None whatsoever.

Faith

What is faith?

It is the assurance of things hoped for, 

the conviction of things not seen with the mortal eye.

The world was constructed in the mind's eye, 

out of things unseen by the mortal eye, and made alive by faith. 

All things exist, and the mystery of their creation must be understood in terms of faith. 

But faith does not give reality to that which is unseen. 

Faith is loyalty to the unseen reality!

If you have a goal, although it is unseen, it already exists. 

Your normal mortal eye cannot see it, 

but by rearranging the structure of your mind,  you can see it clearly. 

If, as the days follow one another, 

you remain loyal to this unseen reality, 

and your goal is reached, 

you will have discovered the mystery of creation.

I will have faith in the reality of invisible states. 

I have faith in the existence and the reality of the invisible state 

I want to externalize.

If you will be faithful to your unseen assumption, it will externalize itself.

Walk in complete trust that things are as you want them to be.
This is loyalty to unseen reality.
This is faith.

Faith is loyalty to the unseen reality.

Your faith will not give it reality, for faith is your loyalty to the unseen reality. 

My faith is not going to give it reality, but my loyalty to the unseen reality will.

Faith is feeling.

"According to your faith, feeling, be it unto you."

Remain faithful to the knowledge 

that your consciousness, your I AMness, your awareness of being aware, 

is the only reality.

Your faith is measured by your confidence in yourself.

Your faith is measured by your confidence in yourself.

Faith is yourself - that's faith in God.

Power

Power - effectiveness in achieving one's purposes

Don’t turn to any outside power.

Housed within you as your I amness, 
is the only creative power in the world.

"I am" is the operant power in you. 

The creative power of the world is housed within you now.

We are the creative power of the universe
and that power the world calls God.

There is no limit to God’s creative power, 

or your power of belief.

God’s infinite love is sheer power.

Your creative power, which is Christ,
can be used infernally or in a heavenly way.
Its use is entirely up to you.

It is entirely up to us -
what are we going to do with this creative power in the world
when we ourselves are that power?

He has the power within himself 
and the key to unlock every door in the world.

Remember, creative power will not operate itself.
Knowing what to do is not enough.
You, imagination's operant power,
must be willing to assume that things are as you desire them to be
before they can ever come to pass.

Now, do not misuse this power, but use it only in love.

There is no creative power comparable to love.

The power known to earthly man is nothing compared to the power of love. 

With that power you can stop the thought process of another, 

change it completely, 

and when you allow that energy to flow once more, 

he will move in a different direction, 

not even realizing that a change had taken place within him.

Love

So, why are we here?

Blake put it beautifully:

"We are put on earth a little space 

that we may learn to bear the beams of love."

Everything must be governed by love.

Until you are completely governed by love,
what horrors we create in this world.

Start now to change your world to conform to your acts of love
but you cannot do it without imagination.

Whenever you're in doubt, do the loving thing

and you have done the right thing.

When one wears the body of love 

he is incapable of doing anything save in love,
and therefore everything in his presence is harmless,
for perfect love casts out all fear.

I will be clothed in a body of love which is protection beyond measure,
for in it all fear is cast out.

You do not know love in the true sense of the word
until you are actually incorporated into the body of love.
Then you are love.

We will know one another as beings of love.

The Art of Revision

We can change the events in this schoolroom through the act of revision.

The first action or correction or cure is always to revise.

He revises his day and he repeals his day 
and projects a more beautiful picture onto the screen of space.

Rewrite yesterday's events and make them conform to the ideal 

you wish you had experienced.

I call it the art of revision.
I take my day and review it in my mind's eye.
I start with the first incident in the morning
and go through the day.
When I come to any scene that displeases me,
I stop right there and revise it.
I rewrite it.
After I have rewritten it
so that it conforms to my ideal,
I experience it in my imagination
as though I had experienced it in the flesh.
I do it over and over
until it takes on the tone of reality.

At the end of my day, I review the day.
I don't judge it, I simply review it.
I look over the entire day -
all the episodes, all the events, 
all the conversations, all the meetings -
and then as I see it clearly in my mind's eye,
I rewrite it.
I rewrite it and make it conform to the ideal day
I wish I had experienced.

I take scene after scene and rewrite it, revise it,
and having revised my day,
then in my imagination,
I relive the day, the revised day.
I do it over and over in my imagination
until this seeming imagined state 
begins to take unto me the tones of reality.
It seems that it's real,
that I actually did experience it.
I have found from experience 
that these revised days, if really lived,
will change my tomorrows.

So we don't discard because the thing is unpleasant, we revise it; 

revising it, we repeal it,

and as we repeal it it projects itself on the screen of space

bearing witness to the power within us, 

which is our wonderful human imagination.

Do not let one day come to its end
without revising and changing the imaginal acts of the day
and make it conform to your dreams, to your ideal.