Listen to this beautiful fact: You have no experience of life that doesn’t originate within you. What is your experience of life? “Look at that stupid chair! Who would buy a chair like that?” What’s your experience? You say it’s the chair, because that’s what you see. You don’t see the chair; you see the conditioned negative response to what’s there, and it gives you a chance to see you that you call the chair. The experience of yourself is originating within you, and the chair is showing you this.

Conditions will always continue to reveal what the self at large conspires to conceal. Have you ever gotten rid of someone in your life that you’re sure was the source of all negativity in the universe, only to get involved with another human being and realize, “I can’t believe it! Another one just like the last”? Guess what? You’re looking in a mirror.

The instant you get negative, you condemn the condition that you see in the mirror. Everyone you meet that you say is the cause of the struggle you’re in, every event that transpires that you blame for the state that takes you over – whether it’s anxiety, or fear, or depression – every one of those things are not your struggle, but reveal to you this nature. What you are really seeing is not the person or the event, but you are seeing something that is showing you you.

You’re already certain as to why you’re feeling the way you are. You couldn’t be sure that person was the problem unless you’d gone way past, “Why am I like I am?” to “because you’re you.” So the minute a person condemns one thing, they have condemned themselves to repeat the circle. When you condemn, what you have really done first is condemned yourself to the mind and its perception that sees the world as being the problem instead of the self that is the world it sees. It’s so easy to be tricked into thinking, “I would never be negative if you weren’t negative. I would never be like I am if you weren’t like you are.”

Catch yourself in this state of condemning the person or the situation, and realize that you have a choice in the matter. You can either choose to comprehend that situation, or continue to be its dupe and let the darkness laugh at you by being the one who condemns.

What does it take to comprehend anything? Receptivity. Would you say you’re receptive towards learning when you’re on fire about something? There is no receptivity in you — just false certainty born out of trying to believe that a person or event made you feel the way it did.

I hope you will make up your mind: “That’s it. I’m not going to take part in this anymore. Darkness has had its last laugh at my cost.” To any negativity you can say: You are not my struggle, but only reveal myself to me. These twelve words will allow you to see that the person or event mirror has just given you a chance to go into yourself, see yourself, and begin to invite the change that only the Light can make.