Imagination School: Practical Metaphysics

A practical, actionable lesson that, if you will apply, will absolutely change your life for the better.

By Steven Ravnstag

In anticipation of Class 3 of Imagination School, it seemed like a good idea to spoil the whole thing and take away any incentive you might have to enroll…

By giving away one of the best and most important lessons we plan to teach in one (relatively) short, practical post.

I’m kidding, of course…

But only kind of.

The truth is that it is in our best interests…

And, more important (at least as far as you are concerned)…

In your best interests that you do something, anything to start taking conscious control of your Imagination and using it on purpose.

Otherwise, you’re going to continue hurdling through the consequences of your unnoticed and unrecognized and unperfected imaginal activity…

Wondering why on earth the harder you try, the harder life seems to get.

It’s counterintuitive but totally true:

If I can show you something that really works…

And be charming and persuasive (or annoying) enough to get you to actually do it…

Your life is going to start getting better right away (which makes me feel good and helps my atone for all the pranks I like to play on my grandmother)…

And you’re more likely to enroll in our courses and come and laugh and learn and have fun with us.

If you don’t have the time or resources to enroll this time around, this is your chance to not use your circumstances as an excuse to not do that which will be fun to do…

And rewarding to have done.

So, with that in mind, following are Neville’s Four Fundamentals of Practical Meta-Physics that we’re going to be covering in Imagination School.

Step 1: Uncritical Self-Observation:

I have to begin by breaking it to you that, in all probably, you wouldn’t know how to be “uncritical,” especially when it comes to yourself, if your life depended on it (and it does.)

Still, though, you have to start somewhere…

And a great “somewhere” is to see if you can look and see how critical you are…

Without being critical about that.

Observe your thoughts as you move throughout your day…

And see if you can avoid explaining, justifying, condemning, or coming to any conclusions about them whatsoever.

As our beloved teacher Bill Harris use to say, just say to yourself:

“Hmm…isn’t that interesting?”

Step 2: Non-Identification:

This kind of goes along with not being critical, as criticizing your thoughts tends to both come from and lead to identification with them.

More specifically, criticism (and justification) of your thoughts comes from and results in identification with the state of consciousness that generated the thought…

But we’ll talk more about that in Imagination School.

For now, look for the assumption and/or the feeling that suggests “This is me” as you are watching what is going on in your mind, in your life, etc.

Sometimes this identification is obvious, and sometimes it’s more subtle.

For example, you might be saying to yourself (or assuming) that what you’re thinking, feeling, or doing or what is being done to you or what is or isn’t happening to you in your life means something about you, about your value, your worth, your goodness or badness, etc.

If you look closely, there are often Acts of Identification hidden in these subtle mental activities.

Since they’re already happening happening whether you notice them or not…

Why not try seeing if you can spot them…

And then letting whatever you see be as okay as you can?

Step 3: Definition of Aim:

Since you are observing your thoughts…

And since you aren’t being critical of them or identifying with them…

You might as well allow whatever you see going on in that noggin of yours to prompt you to wonder about what it is that you want…

To think, to feel, to have, to do, to be, to see, etc.

Don’t make this a big deal…

Treat it the way you’d treat deciding what you want to wear on your day off, what flavor of ice cream you want to get, whether or not to rearrange your furniture this afternoon, etc.

In other words, treat it lightly…

And just let “what is” invite you to think about “what could be” instead.

For example, if you notice yourself being critical of yourself, your partner, your children, or whatever…

Ask yourself what it would be like to be you if, at this moment, you were thinking kind, friendly, encouraging, loving, or even simply neutral things about whatever the subject happens to be.

Please pay close attention, because this is a key point:

You aren’t forcing yourself to think the positive thought…

And you certainly are punishing or criticizing yourself for not being positive (see Step 1.)

What you are doing is seeing what you are thinking about, how you are thinking, what you are assuming, etc…

And asking yourself what it would be like if you were already thinking something higher, lovelier, more fun, more satisfying, more energizing, more good feeling, etc.

Step 4: Detachment (Sacrificing the State You Formerly Believed Yourself to Be):

If you do the above correctly, this step will be the automatic and natural and inevitable consequence.

As you see what you are thinking…

Without identifying with it by being critical of it or by justifying or condemning yourself of thinking it…

You automatically detach yourself from the state of consciousness that caused the thought.

Most people’s problem is that they make the mistake of punishing themselves for making mistakes…

Which just creates unnecessary hurt and gives them another mistake for which they have to punish themselves.

It’s like this:

If you get careless or distracted and accidentally touch a hot stove top and burn your hand…

You are punished by your mistake…

So you obviously don’t need to be punished for it.

What many people do, though, is punish themselves for touching the hot stovetop…

By forcing themselves to touch the hot stovetop again.

This is stupid, of course…

Which means that their punishment for Mistake #1 constitutes Mistake #2 which, to them, also demands…

A punishment!

Instead, forgive yourself in advance for anything and everything that you might see as a result of your Self-Observation practice.

Rather than feeling bad about what you see…

Feel good about the fact that you are making the effort to observe…

And have faith in observation’s ability to change you for the better by allowing you to see that you are not (and never actually were) anything of the things you have thought, felt, done, or encountered in your life.

Well, I’m sure the marketing gurus would really be mad at me now…

Because you really aren’t supposed to write super-long articles where you give away the meat of your course while trying to get people to pay money to sign up for your course.

I have faith in my own wonderful human imagination, though…

And I have faith in you, too…

And one of the nice things about this kind of faith is that, the more you practice it, the less you have to follow stupid rules that only apply to the rest of the world.

So, if you like what you see (and if you think you can put up with me for 9 weeks…

Why not enroll in Class 3 of Imagination School today?

It’s going to be loads of fun…

And we hope to see you there!

Love,

Steve and Melissa

https://www.everbetterlifeuniversity.com/imagination-school-practical-metaphysics