Power bypass is a real thing: renouncing my own inner power, I become small. In each complaint and in every sorrow is a lone cry for a savior, someone or something “out there” that will come and save me and make it all better.

Won’t someone pull me out of this mess? Won’t some powerful agent or force come from out of nowhere and recognize my specialness? When will some movement in life, some providential being change my life so fully that I can scarcely remember how it was before?

This false belief, as old as the hills, must be seen and strenuously rejected. Nobody can do this life for you. Nobody can live this moment in your place. You have to do the practice yourself.

“Boy does that sound like bootstrapping. Like self-help bromides. Such advice is as superficial and as damaging as it is bogus.”

While what is written (for instance, “You have to do the practice yourself”) may seem unduly “self-reliant,” that turns out to be a misinterpretation. All the grace you need is expressing itself, in fact, in every single genuine effort you make to make good on your ideal. Each affirmation is as much an utterance as an imprint of the divine will.

“You become,” yogis say, “whatever it is that you meditate on.” Therefore, there is a savior: it’s the indwelling intelligence. That savior is you.