YOU HAVE FOUR DIMENSIONS🔗

Apart from these two, there is a third identity you carry, which is the image or expectations that others have about you. This is called anyakara or OTHERS' IMAGE about you.

■ How others perceive you may be different from how you project yourself to them, because people create their opinion about you from the subtle signals you give them, rather than what you openly project. Human beings are intelligent enough to catch even what you don't say - or especially what you don't say!

The fourth identity is very subtle, because it is not directly related to you. It is ■ called sva-anyakara or LIFE IMAGE. Life Image is what you experience life to be for you.

For example, you may feel -Life is lonely, or Life is complicated, or Life is sacred, or Life is scary, or Life is always showering me with everything I need. Please understand, this is also your identity, because it defines the exact experience you will be receiving from the people and situations in your life!

■ Authenticity means living at your peak in each of these dimensions. Almost all root thought patterns are negative, even the ones which may lead to success in your life, because they are born out of your feeling of powerlessness.

Some common root thought patterns are:

■ I am a failure

■ Nobody loves me

■ I am alone

■ I am ugly

■ Life is out there to cheat me

■ I am weak and unhealthy

■ I am powerless, so I have to please everybody

■ Life is hard, so I have to be extra-smart

■ Life is too big for me to understand

All thought patterns are based on inadequate cognitions, because life is different every moment, and you need to respond to itspontaneously. But right now, you are nothing but a bunch of programmed actions and patterns that never let you contact life as it happens.

You have many thought patterns, but a root thought pattern is one of the few defining thought patterns that are continuously running your life without your knowledge!

Even the conflicts among your identities are nothing but the result your root thought patterns. If you have a certain idea about yourself inside, but you project a different personality outside, that is inauthenticity.

If you look deep, all your problems arise from conflicts among your four identities. When any of your dimensions is out of alignment with the others, it causes disease, suffering and incompletion in your life.

HOW DOES AUTHENTICITY UNLOCK THE POWER OF THINKING?

Now, when one identity is fighting with another identity, how can your thinking be focused? All your energy is going to be used in reconciling your fighting identities. When all your identities or 'images' are in tune, all your thinking will be aligned in one direction. Your thinking becomes clear and sharp, like a laser beam. You will awaken the Power of Thinking.

With authenticity, there is no more space for unconscious thinking and living, because you will always be aware of the causes and effects that are playing in your life.

WHATEVER YOU CAN IMAGINE IS REAL!

Your thinking goes hand-in-hand with the way you want to build yourself. These four parts of your thinking need to be completely purified. Look inside and identify the images that you carry about yourself. You can then rewrite what you feel will be the peak possibility, the best qualities you can possess, of these four images. Let your

Usually, your Inner Image will be much lower than the identity you project outside to others. But understand this very important truth - if you can project a higher identity to others, it means that the higher identity is already there in your visualization space, in your thinking space. And whatever you can think of as yourself, you already have the capacity to make that into reality!

EXERCISE TO ALIGN YOUR INNER IMAGE AND OUTER IMAGE

1) Make two columns in your workbook titled Inner Image and Outer Image.

2) In the first column, make a list of your top ten inner images - beliefs you have about yourself eg. I am weak, I am friendly, I am unlucky, etc. In the second column, write the corresponding outer image that you project to others. For example, you may project yourself to be strong, friendly and lucky.

3) Now compare each inner image and outer image you have noted down.

4) Wherever there is a conflict, start tuning your inner image and outer image -

what you perceive as you, and what you project as you to others - by always choosing

the higher idea. For example, wherever your outer image is higher than your inner

image, decide to tune your inner image to your outer image. Don't reduce what you

project yourself to be for others, increase what you perceive yourself to be for you.

5) Repeat this for each point. Compare both identities. Whatever qualities are best in

both, choose those. Draw a star against all your best inner images. Draw a star

against all your best outer images.

6) If there are some great qualities in your inner image, you need to raise your outer image

to match that. If there are some great qualities in the outer image you project, you need to

raise your inner image to match that which you project. Continuously tune yourself to

your PEAK IMAGE.

BRING AUTHENTICITY TO YOUR THINKING

Authenticity in thinking has two steps:

1) First, find out what you REALLY want in your life, by sincerely contemplating on what you want your four dimensions to be. Make a list of your best inner image, outer image, others' image and life image and place it by your bedside, your office desk or anyplace where you can see it as soon as you wake up and all day.

2) Now, identify the obstacles that stop you or distract you from achieving what you want to be, who you want to be, how you want to be. One of the biggest obstacles for most people is self-doubt, which is a negative thought pattern that happens because of the memory of past failures.

Whichever thought is in alignment with your peak possibility, encourage it, enrich it and entertain it. Whichever thought is not in alignment with your peak possibility, complete with it. Consciously, decisively complete with that pattern. Go on completing every day with those patterns which are stopping you from achieving your peak possibility. When you start living Authenticity, you know the right way of thinking and will use your thinking to achieve what you want in life. In Hindu spiritual practice, this is the second step, known as manana, authentic thinking.

Let your thinking be established in Authenticity, continuously expanding you towards your peak possibility. When you achieve a powerful clarity in your thoughts that makes whatever you think into a success, you have unlocked the Power of Thinking.