Every man’s consciousness

Every man’s consciousness

Every man’s consciousness is constantly changing, is trapped at the knife-edge

overlap of past and future, reacts rather than acts, is incomplete and partial,

eternally seeks itself, for since the mere state of being throws no light on that

state, consciousness learns of itself through reaction to outside stimuli. If a man

comes to believe he is unsuccessful, it is because he carries the impression he

has been unsuccessful, and this conclusion, once adopted, inescapably molds him

into the shape of the thing he believes, locks him in a prison of his own making.

The magic by which a man becomes free is imagination. By training himself to

cast up mental pictures of the thing he desires, by resisting sensual stimuli, even

envisaging the exact opposite, he tends to assume a factual position in

accordance with his vision, for his vision then becomes his experience, rather

than the sensual stimuli that moved him before. Consciousness always assumes a

form to suit its knowledge of itself, and where such knowledge breaks beyond the

limits imposed by sensory experience, man begins to grow into the image of the

Secret Self.

There is only one mind in all creation; that mind is in everyone, is in its true state

of being not confined to anyone, not confined to the body. It is a central, knowing

consciousness in which everything dwells, which dwells in everything. In a bodily-

confined state it assumes the limitations imposed upon it by the knowledge of

itself which it receives through the senses, but when bondage to those

senses is broken by development of an inner power to perceive and know directly, then

slavery to its embodiment is at an end.

Perfect action and perfect works stem from an inner conviction of the mental

cause behind all things. A man changes the state of his outer world by first

changing the state of his inner world. Everything that comes to him from outside

is the result of his own consciousness. When he changes that consciousness he

alters his perception and thus the world he sees. By coming to a clear

understanding of the process and effect of mental imagery he is led irrevocably

along the correct path to his goal. By working with this cause of all things—his

own consciousness—he achieves infallibility in works, for inasmuch as his mental

imagery propels him into action, that action is always true to the picture in his

mind and will deliver him its material counterpart certainly. 

U.S. Andersen

The Magic in your Mind