Self-mastery is often thought of as the capacity to control the negative impulses and resistance hindering the actualization of our potential. That is, becoming the best we can be in what we do, by managing those qualities and activities that help us accomplish our goals and enjoy the comfort or recognition they provide.
Whether it’s playing a musical instrument, developing the necessary skills for a chosen profession, cultivating harmonious interactions with others, or achieving anything you consider worth pursuing, it invariably requires practice and commitment, because your desires propel you forward while unconscious impulses tend to hold you back.
Recognizing this is crucial to bring any endeavor into fruition. But true self-mastery is more than self-actualization. Your need focus and perseverance for worldly pursuits, but they don’t necessarily require self-awareness. Self-mastery does, for it is the process of clearing the path to your true Self by diminishing the ego-mind that controls your perception and behavior with a constant flow of thoughts and desires (see Without Self-Awareness All You Can See Is Ego).
When you attempt to reclaim this control, however, your ego triggers immense resistance to stop you. This can show up as fear, self-doubt, guilt, physical ailments, and all sorts of dramas with partners or family, as well as sudden financial difficulties and disruptions. The key here is understanding which changes may be prompting this opposition to your desires.
Your ego-mind is made of the past—previous experiences, impressions, and unfulfilled desires. It keeps you attached to what’s familiar because it becomes “real” through your identifications. If you believe to be your story, it becomes your identity, even though it’s not fixed or the real you, since it fluctuates and changes over time.
Even just giving continuity to a process of self-exploration, to leave the past behind, takes much courage and perseverance. You may not realize this, but the process itself is the most important aspect to gain the mastery you seek. Your desire is a proverbial dangling carrot nudging you forward, but to bring it into reality, you have to remove the distorted ideas and beliefs about you that get in the way of expressing yourself fully and freely (see How To Overcome Your Resistance To Grow).
Self-Mastery Is Self-Knowledge
This demands self-awareness and love. Self-awareness is love, and love heals all wounds. Awareness is the light of the eternal Self you are; it makes everything real through your individual consciousness. Love removes the illusion of individuality, thus erasing the separation between self and “other” that the ego-mind creates to provide individualized experiences. Realizing this is the real purpose of all human life.
To be your own master, you need to know yourself. This means you must investigate the ego with which you identify while surrendering to the totality of life as it is, without trying to control it in any way, to access the eternal Self you are. You get a taste of your true nature whenever you dismiss the ego-mind to experience peace, love, compassion, gratitude, joy, forgiveness, or bliss.
Here are 3 fundamental tools to get you started:
- Discipline the mind by reclaiming the power of your attention. Where your attention goes, your energy follows, which means you’re investing it in those things, people, and activities you focus on rather than in yourself or what you truly want. The ego-mind is continuously distracting you from looking within by drawing your attention outwards—toward others or to yourself but in relation to others. You need to inquire on an ongoing basis, “Where is my attention?” to redirect it inwards, to your center, in the eternity of the present moment, which is where your true Self abides. Being aware is being awake, while judging and comparing to others is giving your power to the ego that traps you in the past—in a wounded, codependent child archetype that yearns for external validation.
- Trust the perfection of life to live in the present. Life is love, and love is life. Think how alive and joyful you feel when you fall in love, or when a new baby is born. It is because of love—no matter how tainted with lust and attachment—that you were born as well. Love drives you to pursue your desires, engage with the world, and seek happiness. Even your pain is a gift of love from Divine Consciousness to help you wake up from the delusions of your ego. When you stop focusing on what is wrong or deficient, you stop fighting your own life-movie. This allows you to perceive how things happen the way they do, in perfect synchronicity to help you heal and transcend the suffering you’ve created with your own distorted ideas about yourself.
- Drop all your identifications to remove your resistance to grow. The thought “I am” is the first thought of the Cosmic Mind that becomes the ego in the human mind to create the world of forms. This I-am-ness is the essence of your existence, the only constant in your life, no matter how many changes you go through. But the thoughts that follow it, such as “I am this or that,” produce suffering through your identification with the body and mind. To achieve self-mastery, you need to discipline your mind by anchoring your attention in your heart, in the consciousness “I am,” where all other thoughts and emotions dissolve.
Because Divine Consciousness is paradoxical, it experiences the world of appearances—through you—while gradually dissolving the false ego-self that creates it. This long process of evolution and involution, allows you to realize the totality of your existence in and beyond the world. So contact me today to get started on your journey to self-mastery, which is emotional and spiritual freedom!
© 2022 Yol Swan. All rights reserved.
