The Mastery of Self takes the Toltec philosophy of the Dream of the Plan
et and the personal dream and explains how a person can:
- Wake up
- Liberate themselves from illusory beliefs and stories
- Live with authenticity
Authentic self
As a master of self, when I look into the eyes of another individual I see another Authentic self, a beautiful expression of the Divine. No matter where this person is in the process of awakening. I respect that his or her intent is just as powerful as mine, and doing so is an act of unconditional love. If I were to try to control this person, I would be lost in the fog and place conditions on my love and acceptance of him or her.
Seeing the world through the eyes of conditional love
If you see the world through the eyes of conditional love, you are by definition attempting to control others, imposing your will so that they conform to the definition of who and what you think they should be.
If they don’t agree to your demands, they will receive the punishment of your judgment. This is conditional love in a nutshell. But remember, every time you judge someone you are punishing that person for not following agreements they never made.
As you look back over your life, you can see that many of the relationships battles you thought were for your own personal freedom were really battles of who was going to domesticate whom. And every time you experienced a moment of anger, outrage, indignation, or any other negative emotion as the result of someone else’s behavior, you created a dream of villains and victims, and you were once again caught in the drama of the party.
Perceiving yourself as a victim and another as a villain doesn’t allow you to see the person who is actually standing before you: you don’t see their story, their past, their heartbreaks, and how all of that has impacted their life and contributed to forming the person you’re talking to. All you can see through the fog of domestication is that the person you have cast as the villain in the story isn’t living up to the values you think they should be.
Practicing unconditional love is the Master of Self
But when you see another with the eyes of unconditional love, you are then able to clearly see who is actually in front of you, a living being who is trying to survive and thrive in a world filled with domestication and conditional love. Unconditional love allows you to disagree with the choices or beliefs of others while still respecting their rights to have them.
Once you have recognized, released, and forgiven the self-judgments that have arisen from your own domestication, you can then recognize and forgive others when they act from their domestication. The person in front of you has been domesticated, and now they want to pass that on to you because it’s all they know. However, they can only subjugate you with your permission.
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Complement The Mastery of Self with The Mastery of Love