I think I got it, but it sure is hard to keep a hold on it. Seth said, simply, "The outside is a reflection of who and what you are on the inside." Looking at that principle rationally is one thing; experiencing it is another matter entirely. Every so often, when the mood is exactly right, I have a fleeting glimpse of a unified internal and external self. It never fails to snatch my breath away.

Okay, it's a self-created reality, right? That means, everything on the outside is expressing who we are on the inside - the empty soft drink can in the gutter, the noise of an old dump truck rolling down the street, the fragrance of Chinese food cooking in the restaurant at the corner, the white doves coming in for a landing on the roof, the blue sky.

But what does it all mean? I don't know, and most of the time I'm pedalling too fast to stop and figure it out. It's all going to change in the next moment, anyway. Still, and rationally, I have no doubt that every scrap of paper blowing down the sidewalk has personal, unique significance to me. Seth said this, too - that nothing is insignificant.

I believe him. He wasn't in the habit of going around making up rules and then handing us an arm-long list of exceptions to them. Therefore, I must accept that the soft breeze ruffling my hair is every bit as important as the two-car collision that just occurred right before my eyes. And the scrap of paper that caught on my shoe, were I to pick it up and read the words on it, would tell me something else about my internal self.

Another thing - a truly delightful condition: The people around me at this moment, no matter that we seem to all be total strangers to one another, have a great number of things in common - from the dump truck rumble to the smell of Chinese food - or we simply wouldn't be here. Those are their internals, too.

Since we are living on the material plane in order to learn how to create (create, responsibly, yes, but that's not the point here), we have two planes on which to practice: the external and the internal.

Most of the time, we are practicing externally: It's much easier for us to pick up the box and move it, than to change our reality internally so that the box is sitting in the corner where we want it. The external stuff is the ABC's of reality creation. It's the kindergarten class where we learn that we do have the power to create and control our reality. To a small degree.

But we can't stop the hurricane from blowing over us, we can't unbreak the water goblet, we can't make our co-worker's anger go away, we can't create the love of our life out of thin air, we can't move the mountain. Not externally, we can't, anymore than we can comb our hair by stroking the comb over our reflection in the mirror.

Because that's exactly what the external is: our reflection in the mirror.

Remember the slang expression, cop-out? Often, these days, I feel like I'm copping out when I comb the reflection in the mirror: get angry, go next door, and scold the people whose dog is yapping for the tenth time; put up with the sinus infection for a week, feeling cranky and sorry for myself; tear the house apart, looking for my eyeglasses; suffer a seige of the same kind of weed in my garden every spring; slowly convince myself, man after man, that my ideal mate doesn't exist. If I'm looking for ways to "look busy," tackling these problems on the outside will use up a lot of time and energy.

But if I want the surefire cure, I'll have to train myself to "take one step to the right," as Seth said, and work from the inside out. In small ways, I know it works. More than once, I've saved a breakable from crashing to the floor by commanding, "No!" and meaning it. There have been times when I've stopped some eager beaver from pursuing a relationship that I really didn't want by internally discreating it, and ne'er a hurtful word was spoken. I'll never forget, too, that December 31 when I rushed out shopping for a New Year's Eve gown, and between two stores and one hour, had bought the entire, perfect outfit - easily within my budget.

The work of internal creation is hardest when it requires "curing some ill that plagues us" - some belief or attitude or deservability issue that prevents us getting what we want. Many times, we are quite attached to our lack of money/health/love/time/security/etc., and there's no shame in that. It's courageous experience, and whatever grief it causes us, still, we are consciousness expanding above all else. But I say, okay, I've had just bundles of experience by now - a good long dose of luxury, love and laughter will balance things out ever so nicely.