I guess I’m more of a Buddhist: the idea of “cultivating” a “mindset” has never made much sense considering the incredible transience of the mind. It is much more akin to a sandcastle than something to be fortified. In fact, to fortify a mindset seems to be just putting up a front to your idea of who you should be. And if it were really who you are, would you need to cultivate and fortify it so much - or could you let it grow like a wild and dense forest?

Your argument appears to center around this idea of the individual willing their thoughts to create a new reality, beginning with the perception of their current reality. This is something a bit parroted in derivative modern mystic perspectives and belies the point of physical-spiritual practices such as prayer and meditation that cultivate a relationship with the body. I wonder if you’ve read Tolle’s The Power of Now.

A scientific perspective on the use of the mind in a top-down fashion is this: The best that thought processes (a tertiary brain function) can do to influence our behavior is to change our perspective of “ourselves” and “the past” via frameworks and perspectives, and so influence habitual behaviors. This means seeking knowledge to have a better understanding of what is going on. We may “know ourselves” better through certain thought-based practices, but to insist on putting on someone’s sunglasses to see the world is advice I cannot tolerate.

Your advice sounds like self-imposed mind control along a certain idea of what is “good” or “virtuous” behavior or a way of being. I don’t think that we can “align” to our “highest selves” if we are following the advice of someone’s idea of what is good. There are plenty of practical, earthly arguments why we are already compassionate and why generosity and mercy make practical social sense. To ascribe some sort of ineffable spiritual value to cultivating these things is to attempt to define an unseen force or power (and what it wants from us), and to try to define that unseen power (and what it wants from us) is to assume unseen dominance over others. When you argue that it is our good and our goal to embody certain traits, do you claim to know what God wants for us?

I wonder that if by warping the mind to such a specific track of goodliness, we leave room for evil to grow within ourselves via the resentment of the rejected self.

For me, again, the biggest issue is this: How do I know what my highest virtues are when I’m told that the way to “align to my highest self” is to embody a very specific list of personality traits and actions prescribed by someone else? Who are you to tell me that my worth lies not in whatever I say it is and instead what I give to others?