You are what you think you are
“For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he: Eat and drink, saith he to thee; but his heart is not with thee.” — Proverbs 23:7
Far too many people get caught up in what other people may think about them, that they forget the opinion that matters most: what God — or their inner being — thinks about them. With social media being the way that it is, we’re all constantly inundated by criticisms that we know we’re going to get, but limit the blow by not fully exposing who we really are. Obviously, there are people who expose their true selves to the world, but with photoshop, facetune, etc., most want to exclusively put their best foot forward, which does nothing to incentivize a truly authentic culture. To put it bluntly: most of what we see online — and even offline — is fake.
When you log on to Instagram or TikTok, for example, you’re mostly seeing the highlight reel of someone’s life or a skit that someone put together. It’s highly unlikely that the majority of the accounts that you see are not edited. This obviously has a large impact on our culture, and we see its direct implications in the form of the normalization of plastic surgery, which ties into the vast amounts of narcissism running rampant in our society, as an example. Everybody wants to be famous… but famous for what, exactly? Most of humanity is way too attached to its own ego, making us all constantly in need of gratification of the self that we have created. As Eckhart Tolle puts it in The Power of Now, “Most humans are still in the grip of the ego mode of consciousness: identified with their mind and run by their mind. If they do not free themselves from their mind in time, they will be destroyed by it.”
Given how everything is playing out on the world stage right now, in terms of the pandemic and other chaos, it’s clear that this collective consciousness of humanity is at a breaking point, and if we want to progress in the most positive way possible, we must make the unconscious conscious, else we destroy ourselves and the planet that we inhabit. Tolle continues, “The collective ego-mind is the most dangerously insane and destructive entity ever to inhabit the planet.” Out of our minds is what springs all of the problems in the world. When we heal ourselves and become conscious of our deep-rooted fears and insecurities, and really just live in the moment, rather than concern ourselves too much over what happened in the past and what will happen in the future, we are free to build a conscious world based on love and acceptance.
It’s time that we make enjoying the moment and being one with all, the standard for which we interact with ourselves, others, and our environment. The lazy way out is to assume something about a given person or situation based on what they/it looks like, but who gains anything from that? We’ve been operating in this very way since we’ve existed as a species, and clearly, it’s not working. People talk about the second coming of Christ as if it’s a literal person coming back, but that couldn’t be farther from the truth. As Eckhart Tolle explains in The Power of Now, ‘The “second coming” of Christ is a transformation of human consciousness, a shift from time to presence, from thinking to pure consciousness, not the arrival of some man or woman.’ This whole coronavirus experience has really challenged us all to forget about time and to instead be in the now, rather than be concerned with when things are going to happen. We have been forced to become okay with the fact that we don’t know when things are going to return back to “normal”, and to press on regardless.
One of the major issues with our society today is that far too many people make assumptions, and don’t spend the additional time to just sit with themselves, and notice whatever thoughts and feelings come to mind. We’ve been conditioned to numb ourselves with sex, drugs, alcohol, and other distractions, instead of allowing our bodies to tell us what we need. As Tolle says, “Transformation is through the body, not away from it.” The more that we numb ourselves, the more that we prolong our much-needed transformation, and chaos. The mainstream culture seems to only encourage this unconsciousness, which is why I believe we are seeing the destruction of it before our eyes. Every day, people are waking up and seeing through the illusion that once had a tight grip on the masses. This is not even about red versus blue anymore (or black vs. white, etc), but instead about those who are conscious versus those who are not. Do not get it twisted and hate your neighbor because they are unconscious of what’s really going on. People wake up when they wake up, and we all must exercise both patience and compassion.
It’s not the culture that decides who we are, but instead, we who decide who we are.
“When we accept limitations about ourselves and our world we have swallowed imaginary mental snakes. And they are always real… until we find out otherwise. Once your subconscious mind has accepted a belief or idea, whether true or not, it will continually feed you thoughts to support that belief.” — Mind Power, by John Kehoe
We are supposed to be creating the culture, and yet many of us have become victims or exiles of the culture because it mostly doesn’t reflect who we are on a conscious level. The old is passing away, truly to allow space for the new to take its place. In this new world that we are collectively creating, we recognize that an individual is capable of doing whatever they set their mind to, regardless of what they look like or where they come from. We recognize that an individual’s greatest obstacle is their own thoughts and beliefs about themself and that it is no one’s responsibility — except the individual themself — to fix that. As the saying goes, “as a man thinketh, so is he.” I thought it was important to include the full Bible quote in the beginning because it speaks to the only opinion that ever really matters: what one thinks of themself.
Please keep in mind these additional quotes from Mind Power, by John Kehoe:
“In almost all problem areas of your life, you are the problem and you are the solution. It may not seem that way, but you are encountering your resistance not from outside sources, but from inside yourself — from your beliefs. When new beliefs are accepted by your subconscious mind whole new realities will open up.”
“Our self-image is exactly what it says: an image we have of ourselves made up of ideas that we have formed over the years. Once this image becomes imprinted on the subconscious mind, it takes a life of its own and we forget that it is something we have created, something which can be changed and altered.”
Ultimately, the culture has failed us because we’ve failed ourselves. The time is ripe for us to take our power back so that we no longer get bogged down by the vicissitudes of daily life. With people wanting to condemn people for their own beliefs, choose to be the light, to be different in how you treat others, and more importantly, how you treat yourself. As Kehoe says, “every person is special, unique, and deserves respect. Every person is a star.” When we see each other as the stars that we are, amazing things start to happen, and the collective consciousness of the planet increases.
“Learn to see beyond what people see in themselves. Everyone has the seed of greatness inside them and you empower people by seeing beyond their imperfections and problems to their potential, their depth, their inner beauty and their possibilities.” -Mind Power, John Kehoe
Seeing people as victims — whether of circumstance, ability, etc. — only disempowers them and contributes to that collective chaos. As I hope is clear by now — we are all who we think we are. If you want to be a victor, think of yourself as a victor. The power has, and always will be, in our conscious presence of who we really are.
Originally published at https://cultured.substack.com.
