242. The World Is You
Everywhere you look, you see yourself. You’re looking out at the world, but you’re seeing yourself reflected back at you. This happens because what you see depends on your perspective, and your perspective is shaped by the rigid structure of your own attachments.
Your attachments are to intentions — to particular desires, aversions, and beliefs that you have. This can include any of the things you know, your values, the rules you enforce on yourself and others, the institutions and traditions you support, and more.
Intuitions and feelings can temporarily alter the shape of your perspective, but they are not as stable or dominating as your attachments. The world is always the world as you see it, so the world is always showing you the structure of your own attachments. You’re blocked from seeing any further because this structure is opaque. It lets through some of the light but not all.
You also see yourself in the world for a different reason. It’s because the world is literally you. To recognize this in every moment requires great awareness. It means understanding that the distinction between you and the world around you is not final or binding. It means seeing that world you interact with as an individual body is also a continuous extension of yourself. That you cannot exert direct control over its every limb does not make it less you.
To expand your awareness is to learn how to feel the whole world, to feel it is you and you are it, which means your perspective will change. The structure that was once opaque then becomes more transparent. Your intentions will still exist and influence you, but their hold on you will be limited. For now you are free, and your perspective is one of much greater possibility.
To see the world as possibility is to see yourself as possibility. So much is possible for you in this moment and in every moment. Freedom is possible, creativity is possible, joy is possible. But you cannot reach these things if you do not first become capable of seeing them in yourself.