While this saying can help to a certain extent to become more self-motivated and inspired, getting rid of self-imposed illusory limitations, it also can actually disconnect us from our “true Self” that is connected to the Divine and the role we are here to play as soul-embodied individuals, the lessons we are hear to learn and talents to develop (which includes [conscious] struggle, especially when sincerely engaged in the alchemical process of awakening and the inevitable disillusionment/death of the conditioned personality).
Most often the idea of “no limitations… you can do/be whatever you want to do/be” comes from the conditioned egoic mind that sees itself in (illusory) control, suffering under the disease of solipsism (only “my” truth exists and reality is what “I believe” it to be) and can “manifest” or have whatever it wants. This also ties into the distortion of the idea of “You Create Your Own Reality” (YCYOR).
Out of my experience there are healthy and necessary limitations that actually help us in our spiritual/soul evolution since all there is are lessons. Friction is necessary to ignite the [inner] alchemical fire of transmutation. Sometimes there are limitations we put on ourselves that are not healthy, coming from a self-diminishing, low self-esteem place, most often based on subconscious programs due to psychological trauma as well as cultural/social/religious conditioning, and growing up in a society where pathology has become normalized. But there are also limitations reflected back to us that are meant to bring us back to humility, from our inflated ego and its conditioned desires, guiding us back to the connection with the Divine and our unique path, if we get the message and “listen” without getting into victim/blame consciousness or comparing ourselves to others.
In the end it is about aligning personal will with “Divine Will”, our soul’s purpose (including the lessons we need to learn). In other words, embodiment and true wholeness, connected to our divine nature without the ego being in the driver seat is the state where we experience “no limitations” and can tap into true reality creation. That doesn’t mean there will be no struggle, but it is conscious struggle in order to learn valuable lessons for our evolution, as opposed to mechanical/unconscious struggle that results in “fighting the world” from a place of disembodied ego consciousness, based on forceful “doing” and “willing”.
In this process of alignment (which relates to your embodied frequency/vibration) you will receive what you truly “want” and “need” (from a soul-based level), which are delivered via the lessons you need to learn as you diligently-develop the gifts/talents you have that are unique to you…most of these abilities you may not be fully aware of (yet). This is how true “reality creation” works – in alignment with your soul’s purpose.
However, it’s vital to note that this process will conflict with any desires and goals you have/had which stem from ego/personality identification and social/cultural programming “insertions”. It also requires healing/letting go of any past hurts, grudges, resentments, shadow aspects, wounds, and traumas, which are being triggered/revealed even more so now in these days of accelerated energetic activity.
In other words, you need to clear your “vessel” for higher energies to be able to anchor themselves in you, reconnecting you to who you truly are (activating your original blueprint/DNA). That process has profound effects on the outside world (which is not really “outside” or separated from “you”) with regards to a reality-creation process that is based upon your internal healing journey (and resulting increase in embodied “Being-ness” frequency). This is very different from what is being promoted these days within the distorted New Age idea of “reality creation” or “law of attraction”, where the focus is usually restricted to a series of positive thought creeds, daily affirmations and visualization techniques.
To be clear, there is nothing wrong with any of that (focusing on positive thoughts, making affirmations, and engaging in visualizations). The problem is only if we do it forcefully, resulting in suppression of the shadow; oftentimes, this fear of “negative” thoughts and emotions (or even of “negativity” that’s taking place in the world around us) is because we feel that, by looking at it, we will conjure up that “darkness” in our own lives. The truth is, in fact, the exact opposite: whatever you suppress and /or ignore within yourself will, at some point, be mirrored back at you, and manifest itself in your life, waiting to be confronted and healed.
This New Age approach regarding “Reality Creation” can also result in black magic, especially when people call in “beings” to help them, thus creating a “pact with the devil” (so to speak) and involuntarily making contracts/traps of agreement with negative entities (posing as positive ones) who are more than “happy” to help you with your manifestation-goals, only for you to realize later (or not) that you are being hijacked into a STS (Service to Self) path. This situation arises even more frequently if you are trying to manifest desires which arise from the conditioned ego personality.
The more that you are in alignment with Divine Will (and have embodied your connection to spirit), the less you will have any need to engage in any form of manifestation techniques because you are “in the flow” of divine creation, and positive synchronicity occurrences – which are in alignment your with individual and unique soul growth potential – will increase exponentially.
This a state of being where you don’t fight the world, or find yourself at odds with it (because you realize – on an embodied level – that the inner and outer are not separate, and all there is in this life are lessons for your personal soul evolution); you disconnect from any forced, will-full doing, and instead act from a grounded place of being, fully tuned-in to the present moment as you respond consciously to what life brings into your sphere of influence. Instead of making decisions from head-centric analysis, you become a conscious instrument/vessel for spirit/the divine to work through you.
This is also based on a deep ‘knowing’ and trust in both life and yourself, connected to your inner guidance which is grounded in your belly/pelvic floor. However, it’s a long road to reach that level of fully awakened Being-ness, and the path itself is different for each of us; regardless of individual circumstances, this journey is not without obstacles and opposition as we continuously learn (and re-learn) our lessons.”
The so-called “Law of Attraction” (as it is commonly used these days in corrupted New Age/pop-spirituality concepts of “You Create Your Own Reality”) is a gross distortion of its deeper esoteric meaning and source, just as the saying “Ask and You Shall Be Given” has also been corrupted from its original esoteric meaning and watered down into “I can have anything I want from the “universe”, if I just “ask” for it and align my thoughts and emotions with my desires”.
First of all, the “law of attraction” (based on the saying “like attracts like”) was geared towards the sincere seeker engaged in esoteric self-work, meaning that he/she will “attract” (through his “SINCERE asking”) anything that will help him/her for his/her soul evolution with the aim of union with the “One”, i.e. soul embodiment, self-realization, awakening/enlightenment, etc. . The phrase “Ask and You Shall Be Given” also relates to esoteric Knowledge, Truth, assistance, and “occult secrets” that will help him/her on the path , not a “thing” (or job, money, relationship) based on the ego’s culturally-conditioned cravings.
However, what he/she will be “given” or “attract” is not up to “him/her”, but relates to his/her soul lessons and even includes (besides “positive” things, such as the right teacher/teaching, and assistance appearing at the right time) challenging situations, trials and initiations (including attacks by occult forces, which can be teachings/initiations in disguise) that may seem “negative” to the uninitiated eye, but are necessary lessons for him/her to pass through as part of the awakening process. They have nothing to do with “attracting them because of his/her negative attitude”. In the end, it’s about letting go of the monkey mind conditioning, and realizing the illusion of “personal will” (ego identification) so as to give way to Divine Will – becoming an embodied sovereign Individual, a conscious instrument for Spirit to work through, expressing itself in this reality plane by merging with him/her/it as a unique frequency anchor.
“To those people who simply pry into the occult from mere curiosity, we have nothing to say. They will obtain just as much as they deserve, and nothing more. “Ask and ye shall receive, seek and ye shall find, knock and it shall be opened unto you” is equally as true today, in relation to esoteric knowledge, as it was 2000 years ago. … It invariably presupposes that the supplicator and the knocker are in real earnest, and that they seek only to satisfy the deep yearnings of the immortal soul.
The doorkeeper, or guardian of the temple of truth is as mute as a granite rock to all others. They may supplicate, they may shout and bawl until they are hoarse, they may knock and buffet the door until they rouse a nation with their clamour, and if they approach in any other spirit than [earnest desire to satisfy the deep yearnings of the immortal soul], it is all to no purpose. We can never take the Kingdom of Heaven by storm.
Those students who are unable to comprehend the sublime import of the mighty system of cycles and periods … would preferably be occupied in eschewing occult studies for the adoption of others adapted to their sphere of thought. … They must remain contented until the time arrives when conditions are evolved in the scale of the succeeding human races, conditions which will permit of the expansive budding and blossoming of their soul’s now latent attributes.…
There is no such thing in the entire cosmos as equality. There is, instead a hierarchy, not as something tyrannical, and especially not based on birth, riches, or the power of the stronger, but as a “sacred authority” sanctioned by the nature of things. There is only one royalty, one aristocracy: that of intelligence. … This alone can lead to cosmic equilibrium and happiness. …
There are also numerous students who, although being in a condition suitable for the perception of truth, and for the true significance of nature’s grand mysteries, are yet totally unqualified for the perception of this knowledge, owing to their natural but terrible elemental affinity. The result of this fearful psychical condition is … that the occult powers which they might develop, would be used for purposes of a purely selfish and worldly nature.
It is quite a minority of this class who can grasp any actual power, for upon the contrary they frequently become the very dupes and slaves of the powers they so ardently seek to control.
To all such we fervently and solemnly say: abandon all thoughts of spirit-intercourse, flee from occultism, and spiritualism, as you would from a pestilence, and may the divine guardians of the human race preserve your souls from the bottomless abyss, upon the brink of which you may possibly have been unconsciously reposing.”
– The Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor: Initiatic and Historical Documents of an Order of Practical Occultism by Joscelyn Godwin
More here:
- TIMELINE-REALITY SPLIT, FREQUENCY VIBRATION, AND THE HIDDEN FORCES OF LIFE
- THE PERILOUS PATH TOWARDS AWAKENING
Related quotes and excerpts from other sources:
“It is usually the psychic [soul, higher self] which guides the being. One knows nothing about it because one is not conscious of it but usually it is that which guides the being. If one is very attentive, one becomes aware of it. But the majority of men haven’t the least idea of it. For instance, when they have decided, in their outer ignorance, to do something, and instead of their being able to do it, all the circumstances are so organized that they do something else, they start shouting, storming, flying into a rage against fate, saying (that depends on what they believe, their beliefs) that Nature is wicked or their destiny baleful or God unjust, or… no matter what (it depends on what they believe). Whilst most of the time it is just the very circumstance which was most favorable for their inner development.
And naturally, if you ask the psychic to help you to fashion a pleasant life for yourself, to earn money, have children who will be the pride of the family, etc., well, the psychic will not help you. But it will create for you all the circumstances necessary to awaken something in you so that the need of union with the Divine may be born in your consciousness. At times you have made fine plans, and if they had succeeded, you would have been more and more encrusted in your outer ignorance, your stupid little ambition and your aimless activity.
Whilst if you receive a good shock, and the post you coveted is denied to you, the plan you made is shattered, arid you find yourself completely thwarted, then, sometimes this opposition opens to you a door on something truer and deeper. And when you are a little awake and look back, if you are in the least sincere, you say: “Ah! it wasn’t I who was right — it was Nature or the divine Grace or my psychic being who did it.” It is the psychic being which organized that.
If you have within you a psychic being sufficiently awake to watch over you [individualized soul embodiment, connected to the Divine], to prepare your path, it can draw towards you things which help you, draw people, books, circumstances, all sorts of little coincidences which come to you as though brought by some benevolent will and give you an indication, a help, a support to take decisions and turn you in the right direction. But once you have taken this decision, once you have decided to find the truth of your being, once you start sincerely on the road, then everything seems to conspire to help you to advance.”
– from “The Psychic Being – Soul: Its Nature, Mission, and Evolution, Selections from the Works of Sri Aurobinbdo and The Mother”
“[…]What makes the YCYOR (You Create Your Own Reality) evangelist fatuous is precisely the fact that all such personal decreeing, positive thinking and confident imagining takes place in an inevitable context. There are implications! There are repercussions! No one decrees in a personal or private, solipsistic vacuum. There is a variegated World of myriad “pulls” and “claims” coexisting along with the private desires and designs of the given ego-subject.
But “so what?” we hear the die-hard “reality-creator” claim “don’t we remain untouched by those ‘co-existents’ as long as we keep secure in the confidence of our own private deservedness, our own authoritative affirmations and specific commissions of positive thought-re-inforcement?”
No. Man does not live by “commission” alone. This is why you do not create your own reality, but merely generate reality-hypotheses or scenarios which are continuously reflected and tested against the Whole; and the Whole, being inseparable from the Potential of your own innate-global Being, is constituted by the explicit and implicit alike, by that which is produced through active or positive commission and that which results from the gaps, blind-spots and vacuums of interpretive omission. All the lines, potential and actual, exist within one’s being and are inevitably calculated into the total account! This is what it means when we say there’s a context in which all our desire-formulation and “decreeing” takes place.
This is a Deity-centered reality, not an ego-centered reality. Only the totality of the soul-nature is in touch with the Totality of Spirit-being. Anything else necessarily involves a partial perspective, a conceptual self-estimation producing inevitable blindspots.
What you have selectively omitted from “your reality”, is manifested as well! We can of course say the “victim” still deserves his fate or has drawn his fate to himself by a quality of callousness embedded in his characteristic thought-formulae; and occasionally this interpretation may touch on some real factor involved in the negative effect. But neither the simple presence of some attitude toward elements of the ultimate negative resultant, nor explanations of residual “karma” (or anything of the kind) may adequately account for all cases in the same category. It is just simply not true that every rape victim somehow “invited” the experience as a personal form of “commission”.
The converse implication of this, of course, is that only in alignment and integral consonance with the Whole-value of Being may Reality be accurately manifested through the medium of “personal expression” for then there is no discrepancy between “personal” and Universal, the perspectival “part” and the indeterminate Whole.
For, understood in this way it may be seen that unimaginable effectiveness results when the expression of one’s “personal” will is not different than or removed from the Spirit of Divine Will, i.e. the Will to reveal Spirit as the Truth and authentic character of everyone’s illimitable Being. This means that, in terms of “personal will”, only the Spirit of the Teaching Function remains.
There is no will remaining in the repertoire of “personal will” except that which expresses perfect alignment, integration and identity with Divine Will. This is the Destiny of everyone.
Contrary to unwarranted popular opinion, such initiated alignment with the Will of Absolute Spirit-being does not result in “working one’s will unopposed”. On the contrary, the very presence of the Awakened Truth in the form of the Spiritual adept has always generated immediate opposition; it has always “awakened” a corresponding reaction from the collective ego’s self-protective slumber.
This fact does not belie the Whole-being efficacy of that “will” which is so aligned with the Totality.
It simply means that such opposition itself, having become part of the manifesting pattern, incorporates as occasion of the Teaching Demonstration as well in whatever form expresses through the “confrontation”. Initiated alignment of will with the creative Whole doesn’t guarantee “smooth personal circumstances”; on the contrary, look at the story of every adept, examine the events surrounding the Masters known to history. Rather it ensures that such events will possess the character of an authentic teaching-demonstration, to all who have the Soul to see.
It ensures the Will of the Whole is always done, regardless the partiality and prejudice by which that Whole may be perceived in any given case.”
– from Why “You” Don’t “Create Your Own Reality” by Michael Topper
“The only free will in the world is the one divine Will of which Nature is the executrix; for she is the master and creator of all other wills. Human free will can be real in a sense, but, like all things that belong to the modes of Nature, it is only relatively real. The mind rides on a swirl of natural forces, balances on a poise between several possibilities, inclines to one side or another, settles and has the sense of choosing: but it does not see, it is not even dimly aware of the Force behind that has determined its choice. It cannot see it, because that Force is something total and to our eyes indeterminate.
Behind this petty instrumental action of the human will there is something vast and powerful and eternal that oversees the trend of the inclination and presses on the turn of the will. There is a total Truth in Nature greater than our individual choice.
This apparently self-acting mechanism of Nature conceals an immanent divine Will that compels and guides it and shapes its purposes. But you cannot feel or know that Will while you are shut up in your narrow cell of personality, blinded and chained to your viewpoint of the ego and its desires. For you can wholly respond to it only when you are impersonalized [embodied] by knowledge and widened to see all things in the self and in God and the self and God in all things.
The state of ignorance in which you believe that you are the doer of your acts persists so long as it is necessary for your development; but as soon as you are capable of passing into a higher condition, you begin to see that you are an instrument of the one consciousness; you take a step upward and you rise to a higher conscious level.”
– Sri Aurobindo, The Integral Yoga
