Dominion Operating System Feature: Releasing Projections
This post is part of a three-part series on the topic of dominion. I think it is safe to say that we all want to experience a sense of power and to have dominion over our experience. The posts in this three-part series are geared toward offering what I humorously call an operating system update named DOS Dominion Operating System. This operating system is meant to replace the outdated operating system that had been programmed into our minds by those who did not have a proper understanding of metaphysical truths. The outdated operating system which has heretofore dominated our thinking and behavior has proven to be a faulty and unreliable means of dominion over our experience. The main features of this outdated operating system were addressed in the previous post: Practical Mysticism 8: Dominion Over the World of Images Part 1. If you haven’t already read that post, or listened to it on my Video page or YouTube, I recommend that you do so before proceeding with this post. Some key foundational ideas were set forth in that previous post and this present post is meant to build on that one.
In the previous post we focused on the main features of the outdated operating system. This is helpful because we need to know what beliefs, behaviors and strategies to let go of in order to free our mind, to live as and from our True Nature, and to experience True Dominion. The three main strategies for dominion offered by the outdated operating system are:
Outside seeking
Fixing effects
Employing defenses
Today we will look at a specific application of these outdated strategies which involves the misguided attempt to gain false power or false dominance in relationships. This specific tactic, called projection, is commonly employed as an ineffective means to experience oneself as adequate or powerful, or as a fallacious means to have power over others. This strategy relies on the use of others for its implementation. The word “use” is appropriate here, as this misguided attempt to feel adequate or powerful requires the use of others as a projection screen.
If we don’t know who we truly are, if we are not in touch with, or even aware of our True Nature, then by default we feel somehow deficient. If we identify with the body and personality, including our thoughts and emotions, we naturally feel inadequate, unworthy, and often guilty and shameful. In this condition, typical of the outdated operating system, we seek outside ourselves in an attempt to add to our self image in order to feel better about ourselves. Some common ways we attempt to add to our self image in an attempt to feel adequate and worthy is through identifying with our culture, religion, education, skills, talents, material worth, physical appearance, and countless other “outer” things we seek and acquire in a misguided attempt to fill a hole left by wrong identification. Sometimes we use others to feel better about ourselves through association. An example of this would be the strategy of name-dropping. Yet there is another way that we use others in a misguided attempt to feel adequate and secure. This culturally insidious and ineffective strategy is called projection. As a strategy, projection is a bottomless pit, a circular process which actually PRESERVES feelings of inadequacy and unworthiness. Projection is a defense and like all defenses, they do what they would defend. In other words, projection has the effect of reinforcing feelings of unworthiness and inadequacy in the one who employs projection as a strategy.
Generally speaking, projection occurs when a disowned part of ourselves, which is painful to accept, is falsely assigned to someone else. If I’m feeling inadequate, insecure, unworthy, guilty, or inferior in some way, this is very painful. These painful feelings are common when we misidentify ourselves. In fact, these feelings are unavoidable if I identify myself only as a body and a personality, or if I identify myself with any impermanent “outer things” or concepts, whether positive or negative. If I identify myself with anything of a changeful nature, then feelings of inadequacy must accompany that identification. Because these feelings are so painful, we try to not feel them by suppressing them within ourselves and projecting them onto others. We attempt to position ourselves as good, right, adequate, powerful or superior in comparison to someone else. Projection only works by comparison, and it takes two to tango, which is demonstrated in the triangle metaphor image. The two bottom angles represent two different people or groups involved in the process of projection. The two people or groups are not inherently different in their True Essence, but they must be made or perceived as different by the one doing the projecting. Projection is an attempt to get rid of my own feelings of inadequacy by putting them on someone else. The projector posits himself as right, good, or superior and labels the receiver of the projection as bad, wrong, or inferior. Our own feelings of inadequacy and inferiority are projected onto someone else, much like a movie is projected onto a screen. When we project the judgment of inferiority or wrongness onto someone else it’s as if we’ve erected a screen in front of that person on which to project our judgments. It’s as if we don’t actually see them, we only see what’s on the screen we’ve put in front of them.
So projection necessarily depends on judgment. First there is a judgment against ourselves, whether conscious or unconscious, and then that judgment is cast onto someone else in a misguided attempt to get rid of the pain of that self-judgment. Judgments such as inadequacy, unworthiness, shame and powerlessness are really just expressions of a deeper foundational judgment: I am a tiny physical being in a great big universe of matter. Other ways of stating this foundational judgment are: I and my Father are not One; I am not created by God; my identity is my body, my thoughts, my emotions, and my “fill in the blank;” my identity is material and not spiritual; and all such similar and related judgments regarding identity.
The one engaging in projection, ie the one who is disowning his self-judgments and assigning them to someone else, falsely believes that by projecting the judgment onto someone else he has effectively gotten rid of it. This is untrue. All thoughts, beliefs, concepts, and judgments originate in the mind and they can only be “gotten rid of” by letting them go within oneself and not by attempting to project them onto others. What I mean by that is that projection is just a label or a judgment, which came from your own mind, and it’s not like an object you toss over to someone else and now you longer have it. In order to project it, you must have it!—in your mind. That’s how the psychological defense of projection works. In other words, that projection screen is actually a mirror of the contents of your own mind.
If the one you’re attempting to project onto buys into or agrees with your judgment/label of them, then they have accepted your projection; they’ve caught your projection “germs” but you still have the germs too. You have not gotten rid of those “germs”/ judgments by attempting to transfer them to someone else. The triangle metaphor may help clarify this:
The triangle represents the mind with two different perspectives represented by the top and the bottom of the triangle. The entire bottom of the triangle is one perspective in your mind. In other words, both angles/judgments at the bottom of the triangle are in your mind. That’s why projection never works as a strategy to get rid of your own self-judgments. Both poles of the judgments are in your mind. The only way out of projection, and thus out of the pain of false identification and self-judgment, is by dropping the opposites.
If you are the target of someone else’s projection, you have a choice whether or not to accept it (I recommend you don’t accept it!). If someone judges you or labels you, you have the choice of not agreeing with their judgment. Unfortunately, many of us do buy into the judgments and labels others assign to us, especially as children. We are more prone to accepting the judgments of others when we have falsely identified ourselves. In fact the only way to truly be unaffected by the projections of others is through proper Self identification. (We’ll talk more about that below.) Accepting the projections of others, ie believing in or buying into the judgments, is very painful. Perhaps, if you’ve been in the role of the target of projection, you are familiar with the painful emotions resulting from this dysfunctional dynamic. These painful emotions are the effect of the belief or judgment you have accepted. Emotions are triggered by thoughts and beliefs. The only way out of painful emotions is to drop the triggering thought/belief/judgment/label.
The dualistic dance of projection relies on the concept of opposites. With projection, one is good, the other bad. One is right, the other wrong. Superior, inferior; powerful, powerless; innocent, guilty; righteous, evil; and many other poles of opposites. With projection, one makes oneself right or good in comparison to someone else they’ve labeled as wrong or bad. So projection is necessarily based on perceived inequality. Perceived inequality is a judgment, and not a fact. In our Essence, in our True Abstract Identity, we are equal with one another and equal in likeness to our Creator. All judgments, labels, and opposites are completely inapplicable at the level of Spirit. Any differences are only temporary differences at the level of the lower/false/personal self, particularly at the mind level. Some minds are further along in the process of purification of illusory beliefs that all must eventually complete. If the focus is on the personal level of differences, and a hierarchy of judgments is assigned to these differences, the painful, circular strategy of projection will not be escaped. In order to escape the pain of projection, whether you’re the projector or the “projectee,” the focus must be on the abstract sameness of Spiritual Identity.
The escape to freedom and Dominion is represented by the top of the triangle. The metaphor of the top of the triangle is spiritual vision, a correct perspective of self, others, Creator, and world based on Truth. To be set free by the Truth, one must know the Truth. What Truth? The Truth of the abstract, Invisible, Infinite, Whole, Complete Identity of our Self, the Self of others, of the Universe, and of our Creator. This spiritual vision has nothing to do with the body’s eyes but is a deep knowing of, and faith in, Spiritual Identity. This perspective is beyond pairs of opposites. This is the perspective of peace, of loving kindness, and of happiness. In this Identification there is nothing to seek, nothing to defend, nothing to prove, nothing to assert, nothing to project, and no holes to fill.
How projection is an aspect of the outdated operating system:
Before we get to a step by step process of solving the problem of projection, let’s look at the dynamic of projection in light of the main strategies of the outdated operating system mentioned above and discussed in the previous post:
We can see that the use of projection utilizes all three of the main strategies for dominion offered by the outdated operating system:
Outside seeking
Fixing effects
Employing defenses
Outside seeking: Projection is definitely a strategy that aligns with outside seeking as a faulty means of exercising dominion because you need someone outside yourself to project on! Instead of experiencing True Worth, True Adequacy, and the True Innocence of one’s True Identity as Infinite, Whole and Complete Spirit—which requires absolutely no dependence on anyone—with projection you always need someone “out there” to project on. This is sometimes referred to as codependence. However, you can stand Alone (in Unity with your True Self) at the “top of the triangle” instead of being a “bottom dweller” in a never-ending, dualistic dance of projection.
Fixing effects: Projection definitely falls into the category of fixing effects. We seek the use of projection because we haven’t addressed the cause of our disturbance which is within ourselves. We try to project the belief onto someone else rather than letting it go within ourselves. If we don’t address the cause (our internal belief), then we set about trying to fix the effects of that cause. The cause is a mistaken belief about ourselves and the effects of that mistaken belief are twofold:
Effect 1: Feelings of inadequacy, unworthiness, powerlessness, insecurity, sadness, anxiety, etc
Effect 2: Outcomes in behavior, relationships, and all other outer circumstances.
If we haven’t looked within ourselves for the erroneous beliefs and let them go, then we seek to assuage the painful emotional effects, and to gain false dominance in relationships and situations through projection.
Defenses: In trying to gain dominion over our self image, our feelings, and our relationships, we use the defense of projection. We employ the strategy of projection in an attempt to defend against, or block from awareness, our own painful beliefs and feelings of unworthiness, inadequacy, and inferiority by assigning them to someone else. Since defenses do what they would defend, the defense of projection actually reinforces the very beliefs and feelings we are attempting to get rid of.
How to free the mind by undoing the mechanism of projection:
Sometimes we’re in the position of the one who is doing the projecting and other times we’re on the receiving end; in the position of the one being projected onto (the “projectee”). Very often, especially in longer term relationships, a dynamic is established where we tend to consistently play just one of those two roles. We saw earlier in this post that both the projector and the one who buys into or accepts the projection suffer from the same exact underlying problem which is misidentification of self. By corollary, both the projector and the “projectee” share the same exact solution of right identification. The way out of either role is proper identification as Whole, Complete, Innately Good, Spirit; the Offspring of a Loving and Whole Creator. For deeper clarity, let’s look into the specifics for escaping each role separately.
When you’re in the role of “projectee”:
For those who find themselves in the role of the receiver of projection, and who often feel painful emotions associated with this role, the solution of Identification as Spirit could be achieved with this multifaceted approach:
Refuse to accept the projection. In other words, do not agree with, believe in, or accept the labels or judgments that the other is attempting to project onto you. This is done internally, within your own mind.
After rejecting the projection, be mindful of the temptation to dart over to the other side of “the bottom of the triangle” and now assume the role of the projector. Once you have refused to accept the projection, it is very tempting to take a stance of righteousness and superiority, and subsequently to judge the other. If you do this, it may seem as if it gives you a temporary sense of relief or power. But this is not true freedom or Dominion. The only true freedom and Dominion is at “the top of the triangle.” Furthermore, by now engaging in projection yourself, you are actually retaining the erroneous beliefs and false identity in your mind and these beliefs will continue to play out in your experience until they are let go. The thing to do with judgments, of either yourself or others, is to let them go.
After letting go of judgments of both yourself and the other, claim your True Identity, your Real Strength and Completion, your Inherent Worth as a creation of God. Know this True Nature as abstract identity; invisible yet wholly Real.
Know in your heart the True Identity of the “other,” who is now equal with you, on an abstract level, as creations of your one Father. If there are behaviors in the “other” which seem to contradict his True Holiness, remind yourself that his True Holiness is intact, but that his mind is still clouded with illusory and erroneous beliefs about his identity. This fosters compassion in you, as well as a feeling of gratitude for having been shown the way out of such delusions.
If you are successful in the above process within yourself, the other may still attempt to project on you but you will no longer play the receiving role. Also, you will find yourself in these relationship dynamics much less frequently because you have risen above this dynamic which is based on erroneous assumptions. These unhealthy relationships/dynamics will disappear partly on their own because your experience always reflects your state of mind. This “disappearance” may sometimes include you walking away from certain relationships because you no longer play that game and furthermore, it’s no fun!
When you’re in the role of projector:
If you find yourself in the role of the projector, the solution of right Identity is the same as for those on the receiving end of projection. This solution of Identification as Spirit could be achieved with a similar multifaceted approach:
Become aware that you’re projecting. Know that this means you are attempting to get rid of something undesirable within your own mind. Look into your own mind to find the upsetting cause, ie the erroneous, limiting beliefs and thoughts about yourself. For example, if you’re judging someone as inadequate, ie projecting inadequacy on them, this implies that the belief in inadequacy is in your own mind. In order to not feel the negative self-assessment and subsequent emotions associated with inadequacy, you realize you’ve been trying to feel adequate in comparison to someone else whom you’ve labeled inadequate. You understand that the belief in inadequacy is actually how you feel about yourself and is based on self misidentification. This is called “owning the projection.”
After owning the projection or judgment, you must then let it go. Sometimes this is called forgiving the projection, or simply forgiveness. Remember, what you are projecting is a judgment, and now you have to let the judgment go. You are letting go of the self-judgment that you projected onto someone else. Some examples of common judgments that are frequently projected by human beings are judgments of inferiority, inadequacy, shame, and powerlessness. But these judgments sprout from the one foundational judgment of false identity.
After owning and dropping the judgment, claim your True Identity, your Real Strength and Completion, your Inherent Worth as a creation of God. Know this True Nature as abstract identity; invisible yet wholly Real.
Know in your heart the True Identity of the “other,” who is now equal with you, on an abstract level, as creations of your one Father. If there are behaviors in the “other” which seem to contradict his True Holiness, remind yourself that his True Holiness is intact, but that his mind is still clouded with illusory and erroneous beliefs about his identity. This fosters compassion in you, as well as a feeling of gratitude for having been shown the way out of such delusions.
Remember, if you hold false beliefs about your identity or the identity of others, you will engage in projection!! Projection follows false identification! If you falsely identify yourself and others, you are fated to ping-pong back and forth between “the angles at the bottom of the triangle,” in a perpetual cycle of attack and defense! This dualistic, painful dance of projection is the best you can hope for if you identify yourself and your fellow beings as anything less than Whole, Complete, Innately Good, Abstract, Infinite Spirit!!
Dominion is an inside job! All efforts at dominion over experience should be directed within to the purification of your own mind from erroneous, limiting, illusory beliefs about self, other, Creator, and world! And how wonderful it is to know where the true arena of dominion is! This is True Empowerment! Responsibility for one’s own state of mind is the key to Dominion!
In Part 3 of this three part series on Dominion, 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 full time experience.
The audio presentation of this blog post, including images and diagrams, can be found below and on the Practical Mysticism YouTube channel:
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