Primer on creating your own reality

I used the term 'create' just for people to relate too, but 'shifting' is more accurate.

The idea that reality is just a reflection of your current beliefs. But there is a difference between believing and wanting to believe.

The whole process works on levels:

Do you believe you can manifest your highest joy/bliss? (You need to believe this first)
Do you believe that the external reality is just a projection of you and your beliefs? (You must also believe in this)
Figure out what your joy/bliss actually is (What you want).
Now you are at the stage where you know what you want, and you know that all you have to do is believe it to make it real.
Now you are at the stage where you realize that there is a difference between wanting to believe something in order to make it real, and actually believing in that thing. (Wanting to believe vs Actual belief)
Now you are at the stage where you know all of the above, and are struggling with the concept of 'actual belief' and what that means. This is as far as I got, and am still trying to figure it out.

Guide: Yes follow your bliss, yes act it out, but never make it a 'some day' thing, because then it will always be 'some day'. Instead you have to anchor it into the present, because there only is the present. You have to act it out and go through the motions of the ideal you in the now, as if it is already present. Picked up this final note by listening to a Bashar Q&A late on Friday night, and it really resonated.

Guide: You can further boil this down to the following affirmation: When is x gonna happen for me? Answer: As soon as I anchor it into the present. So whenever you ask when is it gonna happen, catch yourself and always answer with "As soon as I anchor it into the present." You will find that you will do this 40 or more times in a day.

Guide: What Bashar is saying is that there is no objective external reality, reality only reflects your current state of being.

The goal is to be your highest joy, that joy is the beacon or light house that you move towards by being more and more of your true self, and dropping the baggage that doesn't belong to you, lighten-up to get enlightened.

If you go up to a mirror and see that the reflection is frowning you can't change the frown on the mirror itself, instead you have to smile first, and then the reflection will have no choice but to smile.

Beingness also involves acting it out (Actualizing it out), you have to be the change that you want to see. This is the final step, and often the part people struggle with, they can understand the mirror analogy intellectually, but in order to make a change you have to internally change your state of being first, and the critical part is acting it out, you have to act out the YOU that you want to be. Picture the YOU in the reality of your highest joy and then act out the behavior and mannerisms of that YOU.

The final test will be if you can keep behaving as that ideal YOU even if the outer reality hasn't changed yet. This is how your prove to your higher self that YOU actually have changed, and then the reflection (outer reality) will reflect it.

It has to work like this because belief systems have to be self-reinforcing, otherwise reality would be too slippery and there would be no deep experiences. So when you see that the outer reality hasn't changed yet it's because your old beliefs have this self-reinforcing mechanism as part of the framework of experience. You have to push through these old beliefs by responding differently to the same circumstances, and keeping up the state of being of your highest joy, then the new belief system will push through, and the change can be reflected, because your higher self sees that YOU have truly changed.

The ego only resists because it thinks that it will die if you let it go. you have to make the ego understand that it will not die, and that you are just establishing a harmony between it and the higher self. Then the ego can relax, and the reality of your highest joy will synchronistically and beautifully flow from withing you.

The tightness of the ego is in fact the valve that regulates how quickly your highest joy will flow through, so if you can get it to relax and loosen up then things will speed up for you.

Guide: Reality takes the form of your current strongest beliefs and definitions.

You have to be the vibration before you can see the new reality. You have to ACT IT OUT, (Actualize it out, out into the 'external experience')

You have to embody the new reality and act it out before it can manifest. Even if you don't see it manifest yet, you still have to stay in the vibration of the preferred new reality.

If you want your reflection in a mirror to smile, you have to smile first, don't just stand there saying that you will be happy when the reflection smiles. YOU have to smile (ACT IT OUT), and then the reflection will have no choice but to smile.

Please do yourself a favor and listen to this about 20 times until it clicks, it helped me more than anything:
Beyond The Secret: [link to ia600807.us.archive.org]

Also check out these Bashar Talks:
Slipstream: [link to ia600709.us.archive.org]
The Simultaneity of existence part 1: [link to ia700807.us.archive.org]

Guide: Breath and the Three Steps of Manifestation

Breath in:Setting the intention
Holding the Breath:The Sacrifice
Release of Breath:Giving it up to the Transcendental

The Sacrifice stage is putting in the effort on whatever level is meaningful, the work you put in.. "God loves a trier" (I say 'Higher Self' instead of God).

Yes put the work in, but it can be as simple as holding the breath, i.e how else would a paraplegic person do the second stage? It has to be as simple as a holding of breath.

The out breath isn't forced, it's just a release.

This is also the same set of steps in prayer and sex.

The egoic self cannot create a miracle, it ends up trying to connect a string of dots of how to make it happen, but it just ends up logic-ing it to death.

You have to give it up to the higher self which can then bring it about in a graceful and transcendental way.

Bashar boiled it down to a humorous yet impactfull statement: 'When you stop needing it to make cents, then you will start making dollars'.

It's not about getting rid of the ego though, the ego and the higher self have to be brought into harmony, the goal is to relax the ego so that it can let the higher self flow through. Acknowledge the role of the ego, it is there to facilitate tactile reality. When the ego is relaxed in the knowledge that you are not trying to kill it then it will loosen up and work with the higher self.

To me the higher/inner self is the 'real thing', whereas Gods/ET/Contact etc are all just on the symbol set level that is really just pointing to your higher self. Going beyond those symbols to the real thing is the final step and takes you out of adolescent spirituality and into a mature self responsibility.