DOS 1.0 Dominion Operating System 😄
Welcome again to the Practical Mysticism blog. Today I’ll discuss the very practical topic of dominion, something I believe we all seek but may fall short of attaining. For the best comprehension of the material in this post, I strongly recommend viewing the posts on this blog in chronological order, at least starting with Practical Mysticism 5.
It seems quite obvious to me that one of the main goals, if not the main goal, of all human beings is having control over their experience. It seems further obvious that when the experience of control is absent or wavering that this causes feelings of fear and anxiety to arise. And certainly, feelings of depression spring from experiencing oneself as powerless. Another way of saying this is that we all seek to experience ourselves as having power, as not being weak, defenseless, impotent door mats in our own lives, tossed about at random by outside forces.
In spiritual circles, the word control has gotten a bad rap. Often, the desire for control is put forth as an obstacle to awakening to our True Nature. Spiritual seekers who are taught that this is so then find themselves fighting against what feels like a natural impulse. Well, what if the desire to experience one’s Self as powerful, or the longing for dominion, could be the fuel for spiritual awakening rather than an impediment? I can tell you from experience that it can be if approached with zeal, and perhaps with a little help pointing in the right direction. Since the word control has a lot of negative past associations around it, I’m going to use the word dominion. The word dominion has a different flavor about it; a regalness, a dignity, and certainly a sense of power. It reminds me of the word sovereignty, which I think is also an appropriate and appealing term since it points to self-government.
Having dominion over the world of images is a by-product of living as and from your True Nature. Living as and from your True Nature is accomplished by understanding, accepting, and applying the principles and metaphysics of mysticism. (See Practical Mysticism posts 6 and 7 for more details on understanding, acceptance, and application.) Once you have understood, accepted, and applied the principles, and then are established as, and living from your True Nature, you have found your True Power. The focus of today’s post is to assist in discovering that True Power.
(Please don’t misinterpret the above image! Though it depicts a human body standing on top of the world, it is not suggesting that a human being has conquered the physical world and is now dominating it like some evil dictator! Remember the image is a metaphor for dominion, or for overcoming the world of images through living from your True Nature.)
Let’s start our discovery with another little metaphor. This metaphor is D.O.S., the Dominion Operating System, (like iOS or macOS). If you’re not currently running the D.O.S., then you’re running a severely outdated operating system. You were taught an operating system by minds who do not understand the nature of this world, the nature of themselves, or what the relationship between the self and the world really is. I’m like Apple. I’m letting you know that there’s an operating system update available. But you have to download it, install it, and actually run it! I can’t do that for you.
The main feature of the outdated operating system is the belief that I am an objectively existing human being in an objectively existing world of matter. This is the core erroneous assumption, and all ineffectual attempts at dominion sprout from there.
If I believe that I am a human being in a world of matter, then I’ll attempt to have dominion over my experience by manipulating matter and people, including myself. If I believe that I am a human being in a world of matter, then I have divided the world into two categories: me and everything that is not me. I have posited myself in subject-object relationship with everything and I seek to gain control of the “not me’s” by constantly evaluating, manipulating, and trying to fix my environment and the people and things in it. I further seek dominion over this thing called me, over this body, by similar relentless monitoring and fixing. If I believe that I am a human being in a world of matter, then trying to control the state of the body and it’s body of affairs requires constant care, concern and activity. Trying to control all the forces in a universe that seems to be outside of me is a formidable task with mixed and unreliable results at best.
The outdated operating system which is based on the belief that I am a human being in a world of matter offers three main strategies for gaining dominion:
—Outside seeking
—Fixing effects
—Defenses
Outside seeking:
When I am running the outdated operating system based on the belief that I am a human being in a world of matter, then I seek outside of what I identify as myself for supply, safety, health, sustenance, information, acceptance, approval, love, and many other things. I look to outside experts and authorities. I seek money and supply from employers, clients, governments, family, etc. I seek health from foods, medicines, supplements, treatments, ointments, doctors, etc. I seek acceptance, approval, love from friends, family, culture, co-workers, bosses, etc. While running this outdated operating system, I am always seeking in the world of matter for things, people, conditions, and well-being.
Outside seeking is hit-and-miss strategy for managing the body and its affairs. The things acquired from outside of oneself/one’s body are not guaranteed to deliver the sought-for results. Furthermore, the things of this world are in constant flux, and are unworthy of trust and dependence on them. But more than this, the strategy of outside seeking is unreliable because it is founded on erroneous assumptions. We’ve been programmed with erroneous beliefs about the nature of this world and of ourselves, and we’re off and running trying to navigate our lives with these core errors at the root of all our vain efforts. We may believe that our identity is an objectively existing human body of flesh and matter and that the universe has its own objective existence made of solid matter, however, in truth, there is no world outside the mind! The so-called material world is all mind and only mind, and this includes your so-called material body! Furthermore, our True Identity, which is identical to the True Nature of the Universe, is Invisible, Eternal, Infinite, Boundless, Whole and Complete Spirit which is present here now “behind” the veil of mind images we call the world.This correction of the nature of the world and the nature of ourselves makes so-called outside seeking obsolete. In the updated operating system of True Dominion, we live as and from our Infinite True Self, depending on and trusting in its Self-Sustaining, Self-Maintaining, Harmonious Nature. Then the mind images of the world, including the body and its body of affairs, reflect that Divine Sustenance and Harmony.
Fixing and changing effects:
In order to understand why the strategy of fixing effects is also misguided, we must first understand the concepts of cause and effect. In short, the mind is causative and the seeming world of matter is the effect. Strictly speaking, cause and effect are not separate because the world is all mind and only mind. In other words, there isn’t a “mind over here” projecting a “world over there.” The world is all mind and only mind, much like the seamlessness of a nighttime dream. (For further clarification of the nature of the world/mind, see Practical Mysticism posts 1-7, especially posts 5-7). However, in practice it is helpful to state cause and effect as two concepts. If the mind is causative and the world of appearances is the effect, then it is prudent to work at the causative level rather than trying to fix or change effects.
The triangle in the image above represents the mind which is divided between the thought system of Truth and the thought system of falsehood. So the entire triangle is “cause” and the images of the world (the body and its body of affairs) are effect. In the outdated operating system based on a belief in an objective universe of solid matter, nearly all strategies are geared toward fixing or changing things “in the world,” ie fixing effects. The knowledge that the world is mind and not matter, and that the mind is causative, is nearly absent from this outdated operating system. In the past century or so, the knowledge that the mind influences matter, or even the knowledge that matter is mind, has crept more into awareness but by no means has permeated mass consciousness. So much like outside seeking, fixing effects is an unreliable strategy based on erroneous understanding.
In the outdated operating system we think of things, people, and situations as outside ourselves and we set about trying to fix them. In this model, we also try to fix our bodies and this is also classified as “fixing effects” because the body, too, is an effect of the mind. The entire cosmos, including what we think of as our own bodies, is effect. Some common effects we try to set about fixing and changing are our relationships, our bank accounts, our governments, our laws, our bodies, our locations, our living conditions, etc. In our ignorance of where the cause of these effects are, we spend our misguided efforts constantly trying to fix our bodies, other bodies, and the world.
However, if we choose the correct understanding of cause and effect, as well as the correct and True Nature of our Self and the Universe, then we have moved into the operating system of Dominion. The True Nature of the Universe—behind the veil of limitation imposed by the five senses—and our True Nature are One. This Nature is Infinite and Harmonious. If we choose this Infinite Harmonious Nature as Cause, then the world of effects will bear witness to that Cause. It will outpicture as the harmony, supply, and well-being of the body image and its body of affairs. The effects will reflect the Cause.
Defenses
Employing defenses in order to attempt to control the body and environment is an extremely insidious, yet highly faulty strategy of the outdated operating system used by those who believe themselves to be human beings in a world of matter. The secret of its faultiness lies in the quote in the image above.
First of all, let’s recall that the world is all mind and only mind. This means that it is an outpicturing of thought, beliefs and concepts. For example, if I believe in scarcity, then scarcity will be perceived and experienced in the world of images. Likewise, if I believe in conflict, then conflict will be my experience. But here’s where it gets a little tricky...you might think that if I believe in health rather than sickness, I should experience the outpicturing of health rather than sickness. But where the Dominion operating system is pointing to is the release of all beliefs and concepts associated with humanhood and the false world. It is a release of all concepts of opposites, like health and sickness, which are found at the bottom of our trusty triangle metaphor. The belief in opposites is the domain of falsehood. This is portrayed in the Bible metaphor of eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the knowledge of opposites, rather than eating of the Tree of Life, which is Life with no opposite, Wholeness with no opposite, Completion with no opposite; these are the domain of Truth, signified by the top of the triangle.
Now I’m going to offer a very broad definition of defenses. By employing defenses, I don’t mean simply sending troops, building walls, shooting intruders, or lifting up your hand to stop an object flying at your face! I mean defending against a concept or belief. An example here would likely be the best way to explain this. Let’s say I am very attentive to maintaining good health for the body. I don’t eat certain “unhealthy” foods, I exercise, I take supplements, I get regular check ups, and so on. Firstly you must recognize that you do believe in the opposites of health and sickness. This automatically posits your mind at the bottom of the triangle in a false identity and a false interpretation of the world. In other words, you are operating from erroneous belief and incorrect understanding. In this way, you will experience the ups and downs of humanhood, and the fear and uncertainty fostered by wrong understanding. Furthermore, the behavioral strategy of defending against ill health necessarily implies that you believe in ill health. This makes the concept of ill health real in your mind, and the mind outpictures in experience what you believe and what you think is real. Defending against ill health reinforces the belief in ill health which is “cause,” and outpictures that cause in the body and body of affairs as “effect.” This is why defenses do what they would defend. They cause the very thing they are defending against!
Now, this doesn’t mean you should run to your medicine cabinet and throw everything away. When you live from the Truth of your Being, you live by Inner Guidance from moment to moment, trusting in Its Wisdom and Intelligence. Today you may be guided to take a pill and tomorrow maybe you won’t. Also, living defenselessly is a matter of how deeply established you are in your True Nature. Giving up defenses does not work for human beings! Perhaps it’s better said that giving up defenses doesn’t work for those who still identify as human beings in a world of matter; for those who believe they are human beings with objective existence. So living defenselessly must be accompanied by understanding and trusting in the Infinite, Invisible, Self-Sustaining Nature of your True Self and your Creator. Trust and defenselessness go hand in hand.
So the principle in the example of defending against ill health transfers to other defensive thoughts and behaviors. Some common examples of this misguided strategy are defending against lack, defending against attack, and defending against loss. These defensive strategies reinforce in the mind the belief in a false identity as well as belief in the concepts of lack, attack, and loss, and perpetuate them in experience. You are not a concept! What you Truly Are is not a belief! And you have no need of concepts and beliefs to maintain your Existence. When the mind resides in Truth, it has risen above concepts and beliefs into Grace, which is another way of describing Dominion over the world of images.
In this post Part 1, we have taken a deeper look at the outdated operating system. We saw how it has operated in our minds and how it played out in behaviors. This is helpful because in this process of claiming our True Nature, we have to be aware of what to let go. We have to be aware of false beliefs and their subsequent behaviors so they can be given up and replaced with Truth, Inner Guidance, and trust in our own True Nature. This is the two-sided coin of mystical practice: releasing the false and choosing the True.
In the next post Part 2, we will look at the outdated operating system strategies of “outside seeking,” “fixing effects,” and “employing defenses” as they relate specifically to trying to gain power in relationships. Then in Part 3, we will look in more detail at the updated operating system, D.O.S. Dominion Operating System. If you’d like one-to-one assistance with the D.O.S. Dominion Operating System upgrade 😄, please reach out to me using the contact form on the left sidebar. Thank you. May Grace be your experience.
The audio presentation of this blog post, including images and diagrams, can be found below and on the Practical Mysticism YouTube channel:
