How to Have More Power
This Power is like the water in our earlier example in the sense that a larger container is needed to carry greater quantities. You cannot expect that just because your Higher Self is plugged into the Ultimate Power, Intelligence and Wisdom of the universe, that you can just turn it on, because if you did you would blow yourself right out. So in order to get our lives to work, and take greater advantage of this energy, we have to build a bigger channel for Creative Intelligence to flow through.
To enlarge this channel we have to expand our consciousness. Expanding our consciousness involves expanding our ideas and beliefs regarding ourselves and our relationship to this Power. And as we do this, we begin to experience more of this Ultimate Power, and our ability to create greatly increases.
You and I are creative beings, and we always have the capacity to create more. In fact, we are always creating, consciously or unconsciously. By knowing who we are and the process by which we can expand the power within, we can begin to move our creation from the unconscious to the conscious.
When we create on the conscious level, we are able to make choices. When we create on the unconscious level we cannot make choices.
We often hear about how we have the “power of choice”, but that is not entirely accurate. It is misleading to say someone chooses a dysfunctional relationship, money problems, or any other negative situation in his or her life. Most of the time we are operating in the “default mode” which is based on our past conditioning.
Choice implies being conscious. However, when you are unconscious, you cannot make conscious choices. You are operating in the “default mode” or on “automatic pilot”. The default mode is the survival mode. This is where the mind takes control without us even being aware of what is happening.
Choice begins when you stop identifying with your conditioned patterns of the past. Until you reach that point, you are unconscious.
This means you are compelled to think, feel and act in certain ways according to the conditioning of your mind. When we can make choices, we’re no longer the victim of our unconscious reactions.
If our unconscious negative thinking does not support what we want, rather than trying to eliminate it, all we have to do is center on “right thinking”. “Right thinking” is a thought pattern that is based on truth. Truth by its very nature must always be “right”.
There is No Growth Without Discontent
Your Higher Self always knows what is best for you. All you need to do is to assert that you want something better than you have right now. Realize that there is no growth without discontent. While it is important to live in the present moment and accept “what is”, it is also important to grow from where we are.
Study your dissatisfaction very carefully because it will tell you something about yourself. Your life is an ever-changing canvas. What are you going to paint on it? Are you going to paint lack and limitation? Because if you do your canvas is going to reflect lack and limitation.
Are You Chained to Your Limitations?
Have you ever gone to the circus and noticed that the great big elephants are tied to a wooden stake with just a thin rope? Also the baby elephants have a big chain around their legs that is tied to a long metal stake that goes deep into the ground. This happens because the baby elephants must be chained up when they are very tiny to keep them from trying to get away.
If the stake is driven far enough into the ground and the chain is strong enough, the baby elephant won’t be able to budge. Eventually the day will come when the baby elephant stops tugging and never tries to pull away again. Someone then replaces the metal stake with a wooden one, because they know the elephant has been conditioned to believe that he cannot get away. By creating our own limitation through our belief system, we do the very same thing. We become limited not by reality, but by reality as we perceive it to be.
I once had a cat that seemed to believe that he couldn’t jump onto high places, so he wouldn’t even try. As the cat got older, he grew senile and simply forgot he didn’t know how to jump. One day I came home and the cat was sitting on the highest shelf on the bookcase. He had knocked over all the books and art objects. You see, in the cat’s senility he forgot what he couldn’t do!
What would happen if we became senile in a positive way? We would quite possibly forget all the things that we can’t do and just do them.
Understand the Rules of Life
Understand that if your life does not work the way you want it to, it is because you have accepted false beliefs that keep you from being all that you can be. Unfortunately, the majority of people on this planet feel stuck. When we look at the world and see the suffering, misery and impoverishment, when we see so many well-intentioned people doing without, the world looks insane. We see people giving up, believing that they have to take from others in order to have anything for themselves.
Rarely do we look within for the answer to this confusion. Rarely does the individual really look to see what the rules of life are. So what happens is that in our ignorance of ourselves and of life, we hassle, fight and strain to get what we want. And it ends up not working anyway.
Playing the Game of Life
You see, life is a game. Some people play the game of struggle. Some people play the game of sickness. Some people play the game of poverty. Some people play the game of being right all the time. Some people play the game of being late. But some people play the game of happiness, abundance and health. It just helps to understand that each individual plays a game that he or she sets up, and that no one game is necessarily better than another. If the game were not bringing us some sort of a payoff, we’d stop playing.
Look at your own life. Try to see the secret satisfaction that you get out of not being fully in charge of your life. What kind of secret satisfaction could there possibly be in feeling victimized? How could anyone enjoy feeling weak, or poor or inadequate? The answer is in the payoff or pay value. For example, if you play the weak game, others will have to love you, take care of you and protect you. It is the ultimate way to get attention. If you play the game of being undecided all the time and let other people decide for you, then you are protected from blame if you make a mistake. In other words, if you keep both hands tied behind you, then you can expect someone to take care of you. In playing the helpless routine, you are actually controlling others. The power of “powerless” people is remarkable. They are good at making others play the part that they have written for them.
Look at the value that you are getting out of your payoff. An example is being sick. Look at the value you get out of being sick. You may be saying, “That is insensitive and cruel. You don’t know what I’ve been through.” No, it’s not cruel. It’s crueler to deny it. What you are really saying is that your disease has more power than you do to decide your destiny. The question here is who is giving the illness such power?
If you are experiencing illness, just take a look at it. Don’t pass any judgment on yourself. Just let it tell you something. Know that no matter what is going on in your body, it begins in your mind. Illness is the body’s reaction to your mind. Since your body is a feedback mechanism of your mind, it will always let you know what is going on in your consciousness and an emotional level. Let your body be your teacher.
It is interesting that in our society it is totally okay to spend 50,000 Euros on a heart attack, but what would people say if you spent that amount of money on just having fun? They would think you were crazy, and they would probably resent you. It seems we have our priorities mixed up. Perhaps if we spent 50,000 Euros on having fun, we wouldn’t have so many heart attacks! Think about it. Having pleasure is abnormal, but having pain in normal.
