The Path of Self-Mastery and the Process of Transformation to a Higher Level of Consciousness

Posted On June 17, 2020 / Written by Dr. Linda Gadbois

The idea that life on Earth is a school for the soul that’s designed to teach us in some way can seem a bit confusing to many because we often associate this idea with our pain and suffering brought on by the constant challenges that cause us to struggle in life. Sometimes our life can almost seem like a bad joke that can cause us to lose faith in ourselves, or we feel as if we’re being punished somehow for something that we’re not even quite sure of. But if we learn how to work with our own mind to change our perspective and form new realizations around our soul’s essence and purpose in life we can begin seeing all things as an opportunity for growth instead of a means to an end that ultimately resides as an all-pervasive yet obscured form of chaos and uncertainty.

One of the most persistent illusions for the human soul is that our material existence and the reality we serve to project is all there is and represents the ultimate prize to be won by how we conform to societies rules and work to serve the will of others. When we realize the temporal nature of life and our personal existence as a material, and therefore mortal being, we become overwhelmed with a sense of dread and intense fear at the thought of disappearing and no longer existing after the death of our body. With the death of our body also comes the death of our reality as a personal existence created while in our body. Even when we entertain the idea of our soul being eternal, and we’re faced with the realization that our soul merely resides in our body temporarily as the means of developing itself to a higher level of consciousness, we don’t always know what that means or how to comprehend it in a way that instills a sense of purpose for our life that inspires us towards a higher goal.

From as far back as we can remember most of us have been taught that our material existence and this lifetime is all there is, and that when it’s over and done with, we’ll be judged accordingly, and suffer eternal consequences as a result. Very few realize that our mind (soul) is comprised of three aspects that each perform different functions in creating a greater whole, and is the means through which we create all of our experiences in life. We’re taught that in order to be successful we need to go out into the world and work to accumulate material possessions and achieve a high status, while selling and bartering away whatever part of our soul’s essence necessary to do it. We’re taught that it’s not who you are as a conscious being that matters, it’s your position in life achieved through material accomplishments and your loyalty in serving what you perceive to be a higher authority in an obedient manner. We’re taught right from the start to strive to be a faithful worker of the establishment and a valuable part of the engine that makes things work.

We’re born into a reality of slavery where we’re mentally and emotionally trained, coerced and manipulated to perform our duty faithfully without questioning it, complaining or attempting to resist it in some way. Many work their whole life away while secretly dying inside emotionally and morally. They know what they really want to do but they’re too afraid to make the changes necessary in order to do it. On their death bed they look back on their life with a deep sense of disillusionment, regret over what they know they should have done but didn’t, and remorse over the fact that they sold their soul in order to live what amounted to a meaningless life. Even when we know deep inside that there’s more to life than meets the eye, we cling instead to quiet feeling of desperation for something we don’t even know for sure exists.

Self-Realization

When we, as a soul, form a belief around the idea that we are our body, and we live our life out of our formative conditioning as whatever we’ve been taught to think and do, our soul becomes lost in and subordinate to a realm that it was actually intended to rule. As we begin questioning the true meaning of life, we begin a form of soul searching to find out who we really are. This inquiry into the true meaning of things is what begins the initial process of realizing our true identity, and is the only part in the process that requires a belief in what is unknown or not yet realized. As we set out on our journey of self-discovery we’re required to employ faith in finding the path that will eventually lead us to the truth of who we really are. It’s only through the search for greater meaning that we find new answers that connect us with a higher Truth. Once we remove our steadfast belief in our bodily existence as being all there is and begin placing it in our soul instead, a whole new path and way of living opens up and becomes available to us as a result.

The first step in spiritual awakening comes when we recognize that as long as we’re aligned with and devoted to our physical existence as being all there is, our spiritual path remains latent and hidden behind the veil of illusion placed in front of it. The path doesn’t begin unfolding until we make a decision and commitment to follow it by taking the first step. It’s only when we take the first step as an inner awareness and commitment that the next one unfolds in our outer awareness. This is due to the fact that our reality as an outer awareness is actually being produced by us as our perception. All of what we experience as reality is a mental construct created within our own mind. Not by our brain, heart, or body, but by our mind, soul, and spirit. It’s the invisible aspects of us that are actively creating the visible world in which we live and create experiences of our self.

It’s only when we change our focus and what we’re investing in as the means of creating ourselves, and begin tuning into our inner awareness, which is what provides us with true guidance, and we willingly take that first step into the unknown, that the next step becomes apparent. We then have to be willing to take that step before the next one will appear. Our path doesn’t appear in front of us in complete form as a means of reassuring us as a guarantee of where it’ll ultimately lead, but requires us to trust in the process. This is because our mind is what’s forming our perception, and it’s through the repetition of already existing patterns that we can predict the future as a continuation of the past. When we commit to a truly new way of being, we step willingly into the unknown and have to trust that we’ll know what to do in brand new and unfamiliar situations. This initial process of spiritual exploration that brings us into contact with our true being requires trust, belief, and faith in the fact that it’s real and not just fantasy. This is because when you break away from conventional belief-systems of the group mindset and venture out on your own, the entire outer world and everything you’ve known up to that point will seem to oppose you. You begin walking contrary to the very life you initially acted to create.

Undertaking our spiritual development in a fully conscious manner is always difficult because it requires us to shift our center of gravity from a primary focus on the outer world and place it firmly on our inner feelings and awareness stemming from our inner self. As we begin tuning into our inner awareness around outer things, we begin forming a new relationship with ourselves as a kind of intimacy. The more familiar we become with ourselves internally, the more we naturally begin detaching from the image of our self we created using material ideas, and we can begin seeing the outer world for its true purpose in terms of what it serves to awaken and bring alive inside of us. Once we begin honestly realizing that we’re the one creating our experiences based on whatever energies are alive and active inside of us, we start touching on our true power as a soul and spirit. We can begin realizing that we create our reality based on how we manage and work with our own internal energy. We can only work with an energy (quality of consciousness) while it’s alive and actively expressing within us. We can sit for years contemplating ideas while telling ourselves that we are that way, meaning we know it, because it’s very easy to manage qualities while they’re in a passive and latent state. It’s only when we encounter something that activates that quality within us that we actually have the opportunity to work with it in whatever way we choose.

The Human Soul and the Nature of Reality

The human Soul is a sovereign being of greater intelligence that resides in its natural state on a higher plane of existence and acts to create an image of itself by first constructing a etheric blueprint for fashioning an animal body which it then inhabits as a means of creating within the lower, material plane. The Soul is formed out of memory that it acquires through the experiences it creates while in a physical body. It completely designs the life of its own physical existence from a higher plane, and then enters into the body as a means of experiencing its own creation from within it, having it. As it enters into the dense realm of the subconscious as an infant, it’s acclimated to the body through conditioning, and the higher, self-aware mind is birthed while fully in the body, where it becomes identified with its material form and life conditions. Because the conscious aspect of the lower mind is birthed within the body, it mistakes itself for being the body and can live its entire life out of its initial conditioning, often without ever realizing that it actually has the higher power in being able to direct and determine its own development, and it can becomes lost in its own delusions as a result.

The higher Soul’s purpose in a material existence lies is in its ability to develop its own moral character through active use of its higher creative abilities. But in order to utilize higher capacities that exist initially in a latent state, it has to realize that it possesses them as a fundamental part of its being. These higher abilities come as realization around the power of our mind and the nature of our higher Soul in operating through it, the ability to reason, make calculated decisions based on rational evaluation, and exercise will in acting out those decisions. All realization, which comes through our own mind as an essential form of self-realization, only comes through experience. All knowledge, which is essentially knowledge the Self, is only attained through the realizations born out of experiences. We can think about something all day long while imagining what it would be like, but until we actually experience it, we don’t realize anything because of it. As the Soul creates experiences of itself through a physical existence, it acquires knowledge of itself as its own creator. As we create our own experiences, we then absorb those experiences and translate them into memory as the building blocks for producing more experiences of the same kind.

The outer world of material phenomenon exists in polarity with the inner world of thought and feelings, and serves the primary purpose of stimulating us internally bringing correlated qualities into an active state, providing us with the opportunity to see them as they truly are and work with them accordingly. When we don’t realize what’s happening as inner qualities come alive in us due to an outer stimulus, we allow them free reign over us and they act to shape our perception and experience without any real awareness on our part of the fact that we can change them by simply learning to manage them using our mind. We often form the perception that the outer world is separate from us and is experienced by us in an objective manner, yet nothing could be further from the truth. This is very evident by simply observing the fact that several people who are apart of the same event or situation will all perceive it in a different way, form a unique experience of it through the story they tell themselves about it, and conduct themselves in different ways as a result.

While we tend to think that there’s an objective reality that exists out there separate from us, and there is in the common sense of a material construct that we all share in common (called Nature), however reality in its most basic sense is always subjective, because each person perceives it in a different way that’s unique to them based on their mental paradigm. Our paradigm is the energetic structure of our mind formed out of personal memory. We filter the outer reality through our paradigm as a means of interpreting what it means, and we reshape it according to the meaning we give it. We naturally reshape everything outside of us to “be like us” through our very perception of it. This isn’t done as a conscious act that we’re aware of, but as a natural (unconscious) act that’s formed automatically. Reality is what’s created as our mind’s ability to perceive it. Perception is the most fundamental form of creation we naturally engage in.

All of what we call reality is based on an individual perception formed by our mind as it works through our brain and nervous system. Our higher Soul is our mind as an organized field of information comprised of memory that vibrates at a certain frequency and has a pattern inherent in it as a 3-D model (hologram), along with a self-organizing force. We organize the information available in the outer field of the group and cosmic mind to be of the same nature as our inner model. We organize reality through a dynamic filtering system that restructures it to match us. Our true self isn’t our body, brain and nervous system, it’s our mind as an invisible sphere of energy that not only permeates and inhabits our body, but extends quite some distance around us as an emanation and projection that serves to form our perception of reality as a continuation of the same idea (pattern). What we perceive as being ‘out there’ is a direct reflection as an extension of what’s ‘in here’, because the same mind is creating both.

In order to develop our soul as our character we work through the agency of our mind, which are essentially the same thing. The mind is an aspect of the Soul that’s used as the means for structuring reality as a projection in order to experience itself as and through that reality. The reality itself is formed as an expression of the inner self that allows the Soul to gain knowledge of itself through its own self-created experiences. What lies hidden within us that we’re consciously unaware of, is revealed to us as a fundamental part of our outer environment because it plays a crucial role in stimulating us inwardly as a form of self-recognition. The agency of the Soul that forms the inner and the outer to be of the same nature and likeness, is our character which is shaped through our moral development.

How we develop ourselves morally forms the bridge between our mortality and immortality. If we live a life of poor morality by blending with inferior energies that are void of any real consciousness, then we create ourselves as a lower being driven by blind impulses and instincts. We allow ourselves to be shaped by our passions and emotional states. If we choose instead to only couple with equal or superior energies that are of a virtuous nature and fully conscious in terms of who we really are, then we ascend in mind and spirit to higher levels of sovereignty and true individuality. As long as we remain unconscious, we perceive others as separate from us and capable of determining us based on how they act to stimulate us inwardly, usually through emotions of some kind that we tend to readily take in and internalize to produce correlating experiences of ourselves as being the same way. Whatever we absorb and readily take on from others and our environment serves to adjust our mental state to be of the same nature, and we act to willingly participate in co-creating a joint-reality with them.

When we step into our true identity as the one creating both our Self and our outer experience of life, we realize that anytime we’re being stimulated by something outside of us that it provides us with the opportunity to work with that quality inwardly as a means of gaining the realizations necessary to transform and develop them in whatever way is necessary in order to not be controlled or overwhelmed by them. As we work on our inner mental state we transform our outer perception accordingly. The outer environment itself stays the same in terms of the same basic elements that compose it, but how it appears to us changes and what aspect of it we mentally interact with changes also. When we no longer take on the emotions and attitudes being projected by others towards or around us, we remain calm inside and able to control ourselves. As we control our own reactions by not taking on and internalizing the emotions of others, we neutralize them while remaining calm inside. We can bring forces that are causing an imbalance as an extreme of some kind back into a balanced and harmonious state by not giving them our attention.

We can exercise our true power to create by taking on the role and perspective of being the creator rather than being the creation. We move from allowing ourselves to be created by others and the events of our life, to being the one creating ourselves by way of them. Our most basic quest in life comes in how we form our identity. By what it is we identify with based on how we sense ourselves through our experiences of life. When we remain in a primarily unconscious state and lack true self-awareness, we create the experience of being created by our external world and others. As we begin waking up to our true higher nature and mental power, and we realize that we are in fact the one creating our own reality as the means of creating ourselves as that reality, we step into our true identity as a higher Soul and engage in the process of creating ourselves while in a fully awake and conscious state. We move from a perception of ourselves as having no self-control in being a product of our circumstances, to one of actively being the one doing the creating by managing our own internal state of mind. We no longer feel helpless in directing our own life experiences and begin working internally to create and determine how we experience ourselves within the conditions and circumstances of our daily life. It’s never about what happens to us, but how we use what happens to the best possible benefit in consciously facilitating our own growth.

Bringing Knowledge into Practice

What this tells us is that whatever feeling, quality, or emotion we’re being stimulated with from the outside world, is providing us with the live opportunity to work directly with that quality in a fully conscious and self-aware manner. We don’t need to argue as to whether or not the outer event is real and warrants whatever response it naturally provokes, but simply turn inward instead and place our full attention on what’s alive and actively expressing inside of us. As we focus on the inner feelings being propagated we can gain new awareness around it that spawns a whole series of new realizations. If we continue to close off the outer stimulus and relinquish the need to somehow validate its credibility, and focus purely on the inner quality it served to bring alive inside of us, we can choose to work with that energy in whatever way we desire. If we stay awake during emotional charges instead of going unconscious and forming a natural reaction based on past memory it also serves to activate, we can work at the level of cause instead of by trying to somehow change the outer effect.

When we’re stimulated with fear that’s overwhelming and causes extreme anxiety, we have the opportunity to work with it internally and learn how to manage it psychologically. We can utilize our will as the means of directing the internal forces of Nature that we experience as emotions. We begin this process through our rational awareness of what’s happening which is what allows us to subdue it to the point where it’s not overwhelming and intense. Just the act of learning how to subdue and calm it down within us, is the first step to managing and bringing it under the direction of our Will. Once we’ve brought it under control of our higher Will, and it begins subsiding accordingly, we can decide how it is we want to transform it as a means of utilizing it in a productive way as a means of creating in an intentional and deliberate manner.

We only learn through experience and all growth comes by learning how to take control of our own mind in creating our experiences. Every internal activation is an opportunity to work with the quality being activated. While we can only employ knowledge in theory as a means of preparing ourselves for using it, we only have the opportunity acquire the essence of the knowledge by how we apply and utilize it in a live situation where its active and expressing as an event of some kind. When we can learn how to work with the spiritual forces of Nature that are designed to drive instinct by employing our higher, rational Soul in balancing them, we acquire knowledge of them as knowledge of ourselves. This knowledge comes as self-realization and is utilized as the means of experiencing our self in relation to the outer world. The outer world or event itself doesn’t change, it’s only our experience of it that changes. It’s our perception that changes and how things appear to us, and it no longer acts to stimulate us in an unconscious manner, because we’ve transformed and equalized it within, neutralizing it as a result. We’re then able to be in the same type of situations while remaining calm and unaffected by them, and we perceive them in a whole different way as a result.

Dr. Linda Gadbois

Transpersonal Psychologist, Personal Transformation Coach, and Spiritual Teacher

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