^6.144.1 It required a change in their belief to make this possible.
You are in a similar position in regard to these Letters.
^6.144.2 Those people who discount and ridicule them are like the people
who believed in a flat earth and were afraid of falling over the edge
if they sailed too far to the west or east of their known environment.
^6.144.2.1 Their horizons were severely limited by their false beliefs.
^6.144.3 So are the horizons of those people who believe the world to be solid,
also severely restricted.
^6.144.4 Day after day, they lament and grieve over the misfortunes
which have befallen the world, believing there is no escape from them.
^6.144.5 But the people who can grasp and welcome
the Truth of Consciousness I am presently giving the world,
are like those who perceived that travel on the oceans
could be limitlessly undertaken in all directions,
providing they had the will to set out on such a journey.
^6.144.6 Therefore, your state of consciousness
is the most important consideration in your life …
not your relationships or possessions or your position in life.
^6.145 Tend to your consciousness
and the blessedness in all aspects of your life will follow.
^6.145.1 By your consciousness you feed yourself with inner love
and harmony, joy and beauty, even in the backstreets of a slum.
With such a consciousness, you will find yourself being removed
from the streets of the slum into an environment in keeping with
your inner self. So do you climb out of unpleasant circumstances.

^6.146 From the foregoing, you should now be able to see that only you
create the quality of your internal world, whether you find yourself
externally in prison or in command of a battleship!

^6.146.1 And you can enhance your surroundings
by radiating to them the life-force which animates your thinking.
^6.147 And again, your consciousness is your reality,
– not your husband or wife, children, home, garden,
possessions, qualifications, workplace, friends.
^6.148 For whatever place your people and your possessions occupy
in your consciousness – good or evil – this place is only your personal
perception of them. The reality of these people is not truly known to anyone.
^6.148.1 No one has access to the innate goodness hidden
in an apparently negative character. Conversely, no one may suspect
the hidden drives and desires of a seemingly personable human being.
^6.149 Your external life only impinges on your consciousness.
^6.149.1 It does not – cannot – create or determine your conscious responses.
^6.149.2 You are the creator of your responses.
^6.149.3 Your type of creation depends entirely on your deepest perceptions
and beliefs regarding existence.