As Within, So Without

“As within, so without.”

We’ve heard this phrase many times before. It’s a mainstay in the spiritual community. You will hear it when talking about positive thinking and attitude. It’s a saying. It can even be called cliché. This is why I want to discuss the phrase.

Like anything we become very familiar with, we can become numb to cliches. We just don’t hear them anymore. This is unfortunate. The reason a phrase became a cliche is because it was so useful that people repeated it enough to make it cliche. When it comes to proverbs and terms of wisdom, we actually have a tendency to heed them less if they become too familiar. And, as a result, we are ignoring some of the most important pieces of advice from our ancestors. I believe that this is what is happening with this phrase today.

I am choosing to reinvigorate this particular phrase because I believe it to be true. I have personal experience with this topic. My own outside life has mirrored my own inside life and continues to do so. At times in my life when I complained, cursed, raged, worried and pointed blame internally, my outside life produced more to complain, curse, rage, worry and blame about. Conversely, the more (and every time) I maintain a loving, abundant, peaceful and calm internal state, the more life sends me love, abundance, peace and calm. This is my personal perspective.

In case it’s still not clear, the term “as within, so without” means that however you feel and think inside yourself (in your mind), will be what is produced in your life outside of yourself (the world). If you are thinking and feeling grateful, the world will give you more to be grateful for. If you are thinking and feeling jealousy, the world will give you more to be jealous about. The idea is to create an internal state that matches your ideal external state. Since the only thing we can truly control is our own internal thoughts, it can provide a mechanism to influence everything we can’t control (other people, for example).

Before you make a judgement about if this philosophy works, let’s talk about why this philosophy works (or would work). There are a few possibilities.

Body Language

One reason why the world mirrors our internal state could simply be a matter of body language. If there is truly nothing spiritual in the world, our own body language alone would still influence the outside world enough to make our “without” match our “within.” Body language is very important. It is said that over 80% of all communication is non-verbal. And, unless you are an actor or trained physical performer, chances are you cannot hide your body language. When we are feeling angry, our body language shows this anger to the world, even if only with tiny, subtle movements. When we are feeling loving, our body language would show this too. Other people read these clues. Even if we don’t consciously recognize someone’s body language, our subconscious does and this effects our perception of the person and situation. Naturally, someone who is emanating loving or happy body language cues will cause other people to read and respond to love or happiness. This alone would impress you. If every person is even 5% nicer to you, you would be able to say that your life is better. So, maybe the reason this phrase works is purely because of our social biology.

Our Perceptions

Another reason why our outside world mirrors our inside world could have nothing to do with the outside world. Our perceptions dictate our every experience. Two people can see the same situation two different ways. This isn’t because the situation was different for each person (it wasn’t). This is because those two people are different. They have different perspectives. Our perspectives can make anything good or bad. In fact, our perspectives can make a good situation seem bad. For example, if someone won the lottery but their only thought was, “so what, I’m still gong to die one day,” that person would be unhappy, even after winning the lottery. To tie our phrase into this idea, if our internal state is positive, we will interpret the situations we encounter as positive. Once again, if we perceived our lives to be just 5% more pleasant, we would be able to say that by changing our internal state, we were able to make our external life better. A 5% change in perspective is a 5% change in experience. The actual experience doesn’t need to change at all for us to PERCEIVE a change.

These are two down-to-earth, material, physical reasons why the phrase “as within, so without” is worth studying and applying. Since this publication features articles about mindfulness and meditation, I’m not sure how many black-and-white materialists would read my work. But, if you are a materialist reading this right now, you can feel comfortable applying this philosophy to your life without having to change your relationship with the spiritual.

Manifestation

In addition to these, there is a whole universe of spirituality that talks about how our internal state effects our external state. The Law of Attraction is a topic that is becoming more popular. The Law of Attraction states that “like attracts like.” Happy people attract happy things. People who worry about disease would attract disease. The Law of Attraction would also say that you cannot draw in happy things while in an unhappy state of mind. As within, so without.

Religion

The idea of prayer is also in this arena. When we pray, we INTERNALLY wish for a change in our environment from a higher power. Praying is completely mental and spiritual. Praying takes place “within.” Faith is also internal. Faith is belief. A religious person could say that without faith (your state “within”), your prayers cannot be answered (your state “without”).

As with anything spiritual, it is difficult to find exact proof. As you can see, there can be many different reasons why something happens. Those reasons can be physical or spiritual. And, at times, different people can identify different reasons for the same result. If someone gets a great, new job, that person’s four friends could have four different reasons for the accomplishment. One friend could say that the person got the new job because their body language was excellent, which was recognized by the new workplace. Another friend could say that the new job is mediocre and that it is only the person’s perspective that makes it “great.” A third friend could say that the person “manifested” the new job with the Law of Attraction. And a fourth, devout, friend would say that the great job was granted by the almighty because the person had faith. A final answer might never be agree upon.

What we can agree on is that the person with the new job was very happy that they maintained their state within, regardless of which force granted their wish. Whether you are a skeptic or a believer, a scientist or a monk, you can find a reason to create an internal state that you love.

Burak Uzun is an award-winning writer and a Certified Meditation Teacher.

Burak Uzun also co-wrote a feature film called Team Marco, which was featured in over fifty film festivals around the globe and was distributed by Samuel Goldwyn Films.

Please feel free to reach out to Burak here.

Learn more about SOCA LLC and Burak’s classes here.