Lesson 6 – The Reflective Attitude – Making Effective use of Catalyst
Hey guys, welcome!
I hope you have been doing your homework, so that you are feeling into the different aspects of your Consciousness at work during everyday life, as preparation for this lesson. If you did not do the homework, if you did not experience a more expanded view and feel of your everyday experiences—a more expanded, holistic, wisdom-based interpretation of everyday events, as opposed to an interpretation coming only from the physical mind—then I recommend you go back to the previous lesson and do the homework again. Maybe listen to the video one more time. (In general, I recommend you listen to, or read, each Academy lesson at least twice before continuing on to the next lesson.)
This lesson is called “The Reflective Attitude: Making Efficient Use of Catalyst.” What is catalyst? Well, in human terms, we would normally think of catalyst as suffering, basically. There is a difference, but what we typically refer to as “suffering” or ”challenge” or “struggle” is what I call “catalyst.” I refer to it as catalyst because it is catalytic in nature, especially if utilized that way consciously. It is catalytic—it has the potency or the potential to wake up the receiver / creator of the catalyst.
What Is Catalyst?
A catalyst invites the participant (or the creator / receiver of that challenge—and the receiver is always the creator as well, from a different level) to become more aware of who and what he or she is, and of what is going on with the inner dynamics, in the inner landscape of Consciousness. Catalyst is basically anything that pushes your buttons; anything that wakes you up or that attempts to wake you up. And make no mistake, challenge is here to help wake us up.
Ignorance, delusion, and the veil of forgetfulness sometimes seem so thick in this linear 3rd Density space-time reality. Everything seems so dense. Everything out there, which is not substantially real, seems so real, and the truth tends to seem unreal from the limited point of view of the physical mind. Again, that is why it is important to expand into the more non-physical aspects of your Consciousness and start perceiving from that state, from that vibration.
The underlying intention of anything that offers us challenge is to wake us up, to show us a specific new route, angle, point of view, perspective, or definition. It is there to give us more choice as to how we would like to redefine ourselves and our reality; to re-understand the whole picture. Basically, anything that challenges us invites us to a bigger perspective, to a bigger picture, and/or to direct our action and attitude in a new way.
In a nutshell, this is what catalyst means: Catalyst refers to a challenge that invites greater awareness of some kind, in a particular direction—or sometimes in no particular direction except towards the Inner Self.
Catalyst is almost always first offered to the individual on the mental level of the Being. We could say that we have a physical body, a mental / emotional body, a higher mental body (a more abstract, more logical mental body), and on a higher level, the Higher Mind (or the non-physical mind) and the Higher Self. If the Higher Mind or Higher Self notices that our attitude, our belief system, or our actions get too far out of tune with the intended “song” we came here to play, to whistle, to reverberate throughout our creation—if we are getting too far off-track, too far out of alignment for a consistent period of time—the first catalyst we will feel is the mental / emotional tug. Right?
Catalyst is given first to the mental / emotional aspect of our total complex or totality of our Being. It comes in the form of suffering; it comes in the form of feeling out of alignment; it comes in the form of feeling contracted and more limited than you really are. It comes in the form of simply feeling not-so-good, or even just feeling mediocre.
When we are not paying attention to these feelings of discontent or misalignment; if we are not paying attention to the catalyst when it is first offered to us on the mental and emotional planes; if we do not recognize the catalyst in that moment as catalyst, as the invitation for greater Awareness, as the invitation and challenge to align more perfectly with our True Being, with our non-physical minds and our Higher Selves and the theme for this life; if we do not recognize it when it is first given to us on the mental / emotional level, or if we consistently avoid paying attention or (mis)place the cause of our suffering outside of ourselves (this is the most common mistake people make), then it will eventually be transferred into our circumstances. And if we do not pay attention to that, it will be transferred into our physical bodies, to the point where it is crystallized in the form of, say, a disease or a perpetual inconvenience.
Physical Inconvenience and Healing
Whenever we see someone with a physical inconvenience, or when we ourselves attract physical inconvenience—even if it is something as seemingly simple as breaking a leg, especially perhaps before going on holiday, like a ski holiday for example—the question we want to ask ourselves is always: “What is the root cause of this that I have attracted to myself?”
Before things like this happen, most people have already received many signals (intuitively, mentally and emotionally) that they are defining some part of their life, or some part of life in general, or some part of their identity, in a way that is out of alignment with their true purpose here on Earth, with their true thematic exploration of the One Infinite Creator in form. They are out of alignment with their True Self, basically.
Those initial nudges are sometimes consistently not noticed (which is actually rare), or if they are noticed, they are misplaced; their cause is misinterpreted. This is what happens most frequently on planet Earth—people put the cause of their suffering outside of themselves. They don’t take responsibility for their vibrational attitude, for their set of definitions and belief systems. They don’t recognize that they are attracting these challenging scenarios to themselves, whether physically or circumstantially, as a result of not having paid attention to their inner alignment.
When they start paying attention to their inner alignment, the physical severity of the catalyst is eased, is soothed, is taken back, so to speak. Then healing starts to take place. What we call “healing” is nothing other than when the Being—whose catalyst for learning has progressed all the way into the physical manifestation of their body and their circumstances—has no other choice but to pay attention, to start asking the right questions. Usually an extreme scenario such as this is what it takes for most people in our society to truly start asking themselves the right questions.
For most people, physical healing can begin when they wake up and start asking the right questions, when they point their Consciousness in the right direction, when they make the vibrational and belief system adjustments needed, when they begin to listen to their intuition and their gut-sense and their Higher Mind, which is constantly communicating to them. They are finally paying attention! Of course, you don’t have to let it get this far, because you have all the tools you need right now.
Physical healing is not the result of anything circumstantial or any type of physical intervention—not really. We can use these things as “permission slips,” but then we are taking physical action to compensate for a lack of vibrational alignment. If we give ourselves a permission slip to believe that some type of physical intervention (like removing a tumor through surgery) works for us, then it will work temporarily.
However, if the real cause is not investigated; if the cause is still placed outside of oneself and the belief is that healing comes from the doctor cutting away the tumor; that “people get tumors that need to be removed surgically”—when we do not understand that the tumor was a reflection meant to inspire the reflective attitude of increased and accelerated learning, of paying attention—if we miss these signs, even at the point of physical healing, then it is almost guaranteed that a similar disease or the same disease (a form of non-ease) will return to the physical vehicle or circumstances.
This is why so many people “heal” from cancer—it gives them a break, it gives them relief. The relief perpetuates itself for a while and the person perhaps feels grateful to be alive again, but usually, the underlying belief systems are still out of alignment. The person still does not know; they still do not fully have the appropriate awareness and the tools to use their free will to direct their attention in the right direction. And so, the same principle of manifesting disease continues to apply—from first receiving a mental / emotional catalyst and not really noticing it, to placing the cause for discontentment outside of oneself, to not paying attention further and further—this forces the dis-ease to re-crystallize in form as some kind of a disease that calls for attention.
This is what catalyst is. Catalyst is transferred from the higher vibrational levels of the subtler mental / emotional body into the circumstantial and the physical. So, pay attention in the early stages when you don’t feel so good. Of course, in most cases, the catalyst will not immediately be transferred into the physical vehicle and / or into the circumstances. It will first be offered to you (quite repeatedly) on the mental / emotional level, so that you have time to catch up with yourself; so that you have time to realign yourself.
So, pay attention! If you pay attention, you are on the right track. If you develop an attitude or a craving for the reflective attitude—if you become really happy in your reflective attitude—you can learn just about anything your Higher Mind wants you to learn and use it to accelerate your spiritual journey and expansion. If you use catalyst properly, if you pay attention, you can almost exclusively use the imaginative levels to learn everything you need to learn. Your communication becomes non-physical; you start to communicate very directly with your non-physical Higher Mind.
When Things Aren’t Working Out for You
Now that you understand what catalyst is and how the transfer of catalyst works, let’s talk a little bit about the two main reasons that things don’t work out very well for you. There is another reason—well, there is sort of a combined reason for this—and you already get the feeling of it.
When things are consistently not working out for you—when things seem to work against you; when things are not flowing very well; when you don’t feel very good physically or emotionally or mentally; when circumstantially, things are just not going the way you want them to go—this can indicate that your desires are out of alignment. This means that what you think you want, and the insistence with which you believe you want it, is not actually what You as an overall Being truly desires.
You, from a higher, wiser, more expanded perspective, sees and knows that it would be a disservice to allow you to get the thing you think (and insist) you want. Sometimes that thing will be given to you, if you are too insistent to wake up before receiving it. And then, once you have it, it can be shown you that it is not really what you wanted after all.
This is why many people who become famous or rich—especially those who have gone through some years of fame and recognition and money—understand that this is not actually what they were looking for, even if initially it seemed really exciting, they worked really hard for it, and they intended very insistently upon it.
For some of these people, it was genuinely in their theme to become famous and make a lot of money; it was naturally part of their theme to do so. But for many of these people, this fame and money is part of their personal, physical mind’s insistence and free will to choose that path. But, as they embark upon this path and make progress in that direction, they will notice more and more that something is out of alignment; something is still not quite right; they are not quite connected to what they truly desire.
On the other hand, when things are not going your way, it can also be that the desire is a true desire of yours, but you cannot quite receive that reality, because vibrationally, you are not yet in full alignment with it. You are not yet a vibrational match to the experiential, symbolized, physicalized, crystallized, imaginative form of it. Everything is imagination, as you know, but in the experience we call “reality,” you are not quite at the vibrational matching point to where you can be tuned-in enough to that reality to fully perceive it as real. Basically, it is like you are listening to a particular radio station, or channel. You know there is better music out there, you know there is a channel you would like more, but you don’t quite know the frequency yet; you are not quite able to get there.
In terms of the emotional body and the Emotional Guidance System (see Empowerment I: Lesson 3), when you use the Emotional Guidance System, it will effortlessly (and without fail) lead you in the direction of your truly desired realities—those realities that are truly commensurate with, and truly reflective of, your Heart’s desire for its theme here on Earth, and for its expression of the One Infinite Creator.
So, it may be that the desire you are tuned into is true; that it is an interpretation of your truest desire from the Higher Mind’s point of view. It may be that your ability to intuit what you truly desire is fairly accurate, and therefore, your interpretation is spot-on in many ways. It may be that what you think you want is what you truly want as a whole Being. If this is the case, but the things you desire are still not quite manifesting, you will find that it is because you are holding onto negative definitions that your Soul does not need you to hold onto, because they don’t serve you anymore.
When Negative Definitions Hold You Back
Negative definitions always contain some version of lack. They usually include a variation of unworthiness or undeservability, as well as a belief about not being capable of holding that reality, of not being able to truly be who you are. There is also usually a projection of: “If I get this thing I truly desire, or if I become this person I truly desire to be, I cannot remain a good person.” Whatever it is, there are mixed frequencies; there are conflicting definitions that block the process of receiving, of allowing these experiences into your reality.
So, let’s say that your ability to intuit and imagine what your true desire is, is kind of on track (as much as you can be on track from your present state of vibration). You are using your imagination, and you kind of know what it is that you want. The desire is not about vanity; it is not about pleasing the ego-effect. It is not about trying to fill up lack beliefs, or voids that are created through lack beliefs. No—the desire is an actual passion of yours, inspired by something higher, by your imagination, by your Higher Mind. You have paid attention and the desires you have downloaded are true desires.
Assuming this is the case, if things are not working out, it is because you are holding on to a belief or a definition or an idea that is no longer serving you. As you follow the “breadcrumb trail” of your joy, you will consistently bump up your frequency, to the point a where a no-longer-necessary belief is inevitably brought to the surface. And you will be able to identify it. Once it has been identified, you will be able to let it go by seeing that it no longer makes sense for you to hold onto it.
If you increase your frequency to the point where you feel capped—where you feel you cannot go any higher; if it feels (because something is contracted) that you do not quite believe you are ready for it, that it is not quite coming to you; that it is very close, but it is not quite there consistently, then ask yourself, “Why?” Investigate the limiting beliefs and transform them.
There are many lessons in The Academy that will help you do this. Go back through some of the lessons of the Empowerment courses, as well as the Enlightenment courses. They will help you put together a holistic, vibrational tool-kit that will support you throughout any challenges or invitations for expansion.
So again—even briefer: You are on track with your desire. It is a true desire; a truly inspired desire or imagination, and you are on track. Higher Self goes, “Yay! Happy! Good job!” Higher Mind is in support of the desire, and is already wanting to offer that reality to you. But you—the personal consciousness, the conscious mind’s point of view (really it is the unconscious part of the physical mind)—are blocking the allowing of that reality. So, you need to find out what the negative definition is and clean it out.
When Your Desire Is Out of Alignment
The second cause for things consistently not working out for you—when the manifestation you desire not coming your way—is that you are looking in the wrong direction. You have ideas that make you want things that You do not truly desire; that are not really in alignment with your over-arching theme for this life.
If these things were given to you, you would only get more distracted. You would become more perverted, you would become more distorted, and you would walk further and further away from your true alignment. The desire would not serve you as a Being; it would dis-integrate you, rather than integrate you. It would separate you further, it would cause more confusion within the overall complex of your Being—and this is desired to be avoided at all costs.
You can insist, insist, insist for a very long time—and in a way, Higher Mind will try to find some leeway to honor your free will—but it will consistently not give you exactly what you want, because it is exactly the opposite of what you need. So now, it is time for you to pay attention in quite a different way.
Now, the way in which you are paying attention shifts. You are not paying attention in terms of, “OK, why do I believe I’m unworthy of this frequency or this desire I wish to manifest?” The question is slightly different; it is more along the lines of, “How am I misplacing my desires? Why am I thinking this is the direction I want to go in? The fact that the desire is not working out is not a roadblock because of my lack beliefs; it is actually an arrow pointing me in a different direction—but I am not interpreting it as such.”
“How can I see that these are simply signals from my non-physical, supportive Mind, from the higher aspect of my overall Being, which is trying to coax me into moving in a different vibrational direction? How can I see that my overall Being is wanting me to define things differently, to understand things differently altogether, so that I can discover more of my True Identity before I think I know what I want?”
Cultivating the Reflective Attitude
In either scenario, it is about realigning yourself. Sometimes you need to investigate an underlying lack belief, and sometimes you need to investigate your direction or focus itself, because it might not be in alignment with your truest desires. In this case, Higher Mind will support you, and protect you from your own ego-effect, so that you cannot walk too far out of alignment from your true path.
The reflective attitude is all about understanding. First of all, it is about understanding that you are not just a physical mind. You are also a non-physical Higher Mind, and beyond that, you are the Love-Light of the Unified Nature—the combination of all of your expressions in one, which is the Higher Self. Again, the Higher Self is not as practically relevant to your life as the non-physical Higher Mind, which is paying attention to every step you take and is always nudging you and guiding you.
The Higher Mind is the bridge for the Higher Self’s true desire—a thematic exploration in this life, which is sort of an overarching desire. The non-physical Higher Mind makes that desire more specific, and guides you as you are going along the way, nudging your free will to pay attention. But it is up to you to pay attention.
The reflective attitude is something you must intrinsically desire for yourself. You need to understand that, if you are not paying attention, you will make things worse and worse for yourself. No matter how many tools you have at your disposal (for example, The Law of Attraction or empowerment or “waking up”), you must be willing to be humbled. You must be willing to listen and pay attention to You—because that is who you truly are; the personal conscious mind is not really who you are.
You must be humble enough to detach from the assumption: “This personal consciousness is who I am,” and understand that there is a greater part of yourself. From the greater part of yourself, you would really regret it if you were to be insistent upon what you think you want. Upon death for example, or during an expanded experience in which you realize that you have been egotistical in a way—that you have been overly insistent and overly controlling of your journey, and therefore you have sort of “missed the boat,” in terms of what this life could have become… If only you had trusted the impulses of your excitement, the impulses of your intuition—with greater clarity, with more humility, with greater meditation and silence of self, with openness of mind…
Have an open mind. I highly recommend it, because if you are not paying attention, things will, in some way, continue to get worse. On the other hand, if you pay attention, overall, things will always become better. This doesn’t mean there will be no more challenges; it doesn’t mean there will be no more catalyst. Catalyst will always be here—it is part of the nature of this type of an illusory incarnational experience.
Nevertheless, this can become a highly enjoyable ride—rich with learning, rich with waking up, rich with expansion, rich with the amplification of service to others. Your journey will become rich by extracting all of the information, learning, and transformation that you are responsible for, and integrating it back into the Soul’s journey, so that it can expand and move even closer to the One Infinite Creator, on its own level.
So, pay attention and be humble enough to let things be given to you and flow to you. The best way to be selfish—the best way to fulfill your dreams—is to be humble enough to listen to what your dreams might be instructing you to do, rather than imposing your dreams upon your reality. This is important to master, at least to some extent, before you move on to Empowerment III, in which I explain how to “paste your preference” onto your reality so that shifts can happen very rapidly. But in order for you to do this with alignment (without confusing yourself), you need to have mastered, to a reasonable extent, the abilities to listen, to pay attention, to open up, to be receptive, and to be humbled. So, take this lesson seriously, or rather, sincerely. Always take everything not so seriously, but sincerely.
Learning from the Imaginal Level
Again, the reflective attitude is an attitude that must be intrinsically motivated. When you use it, it will help you to learn things before they need to become manifest. Isn’t this an amazing bonus to get from paying attention? You can now learn lessons on the imaginative level!
Much of the time, while I am just physically brushing my teeth or whatever, I am actually learning lessons that I otherwise would have to learn by going through physical catalyst and physical struggle and physical challenge. But instead, I am learning by simply being so receptive that my Soul is teaching me different perspectives. I can imagine, “How would I respond to this scenario? What would this mean; what would this teach me if it were to happen?”
So, even while I am brushing my teeth, all of these different perspectives are going on. This is because of my training and my desire to pay attention to the “nudges.” I am in very clear, direct communication with my Higher Mind all of the time. This is why I can offer reflection to other people in the way I am doing so now, and also in my personal life—because the communication with Higher Mind is unblocked. I am not in the way; I am not very biased anymore, if at all.
My joy has become the desire to be totally transparent. I want to inspire you to achieve the same kind of clarity (if not even more), so that you can truly be of benefit to all of the other portions of yourself; to all of the other manifestations within the collective dream that we all agreed to experience. In this way, this world can become an amazing collection of beings; of agreements that reflect the True Heart—that reflect Love, Compassion, and Wisdom—and that reflect waking up to the greater All-That-Is Oneness that we all share, that we all come from, that we all are, that we all will return to.
Adopt the reflective attitude! Use the symbolism of catalyst. For example, when something happens physically, see it as a symbol, see it as a reflection of yourself. Always see things as a reflection of yourself and you will guarantee yourself rapid and, I would almost say, “effortless” learning. It won’t always feel effortless, but it will be the path of least resistance, from a broader point of view. It will be much easier than insisting upon your way, being blind to what is being nudged in your direction.
Do not be insistent! Be open, be receptive. Be reflective all of the time and you will make yourself more transparent to your True Self. You will become an embodiment of your true desires, and things will manifest for you very rapidly—because you are no longer constantly misguided, you are no longer thinking you want something when you know it is not a true desire, you are no longer blocking yourself with beliefs of unworthiness.
The closer your vibration gets to the vibration of your non-physical Higher Mind, the closer your vibration also gets to the vibration of unconditional Love for yourself and for All-That-Is; the closer it gets to unconditional understanding of the fact that you are an endlessly deserving Being, that you are infinitely worthy of your True Self manifesting itself effortlessly and epically.
Take this to heart—please. Become the reflective attitude and make more efficient use of catalyst so that you can expand more rapidly, so that the things you truly want can be allowed into your reality. This is what we all desire; that is kind of the full package.
Homework
Go and practice this, go and apply this. Watch this video two or three or four more times over the course of the next week or so—just to get into the vibration of it; just to get into the clarity of seeing it and applying it to your life. Allow yourself to see how these things are symbolizing your inner state.
The homework for this lesson is also to:
- Meditate on the reflective attitude in general, and visualize yourself going through life being highly reflective, from a place that is more connected to the non-physical Higher Mind point of view. Just visualize the image—see it, feel it, be it. See it and feel what it would feel like to be that way, to learn that fast. If you want to use me as a symbol for that, you can use me as a symbol. What would it be like to live like me—or anyone else you admire in this particular way of transparency, of having sort of mastered the reflective attitude? Go ahead and have fun while you apply this to your life.
- The second piece of homework is, as always, to take this with you into everyday life and to become an observer. This is similar to the previous lesson, but with the additional knowledge of how catalyst is transferred first to the mental body. When you are not consistently paying attention to your Emotional Guidance System; when you keep placing the cause of your discontentment outside of yourself; when you keep insisting that, “This is what I want because it will make me feel better,” but you are not meditating, you are not silencing yourself, you are not receptive enough to pay attention to know what is truly desired within your overall Being—notice how this is then transferred into your circumstances and physical body.
If you have any discontentment physically or circumstantially, then you know you must take a couple of steps back and retrace it to the original cause, which is always a misaligned thought or direction.
Thank you very much. I love you. See you in the next lesson.