Nothing is certain and yet everything is possible. It’s up to each individual to make certain that which they desire. Intent is the energy behind making something a certainty rather than just a possibility. It is only with concerted effort and focused intent that a thing will manifest. Place your energy and your intent where it is most useful and meaningful to you and watch the possible manifest. It’s your life and your destiny, and it truly is in your hands.
Like clouds, dreams and fantasies manifest… – Photo by Jan Ketchel
Who has not had the occasion of a middle of the night awakening to the largesse of a fanciful thought seeming utterly possible? Upon awakening the following morning, as one rubs the sand of those late night castles from the eyes, the absurdities of such midnight logic come to light as they are banished from the realm of actual possibility.
Nonetheless, the power of these energized thoughts and fantasies do exert a stress upon the subconscious mind. And it is the stress generated by these enacted desires in the play of night that can powerfully influence the subconscious manifestation of their intent in the light of day.
The subconscious is the seat of power in human manifestation. It houses the best and the worst of human experimentation and evolution in its vast library of possible programs to be run, and has the direct ability to generate a major change in the self, overriding one’s current operating system of self definition. It even has the power to make changes in the physical body.
The placebo effect is nothing other than a direct suggestion taken up by the subconscious resulting in actual physical change. The advantage the subconscious has over the conscious mind is that it is not limited by rational thought, it is free to enact the possible without limiting beliefs.
I have often written about the power of a stated intent, mantra or prayer to influence the subconscious to activate a latent program or install a revised program to form a new habit. These efforts are instigated by the conscious will but are also often contradicted by doubt and limiting beliefs, which tend to weaken the stress placed upon the subconscious to generate change.
Contradictory messages to the subconscious tend to cancel the potency of one’s stated intent. This should not discourage the conscious will from stating its goal. However, do realize that by mitigating blocking beliefs, the stress for change, acting upon the subconscious, will strengthen.
Perhaps the most potent influence upon the subconscious mind is the enactment in the imagination of one’s intended intent. Although the middle of the night fanciful convictions might not survive the light of day, they are extremely emotionally impressive to the subconscious mind, accruing significantly toward their realization.
Thus, if one imagines a new business venture, a soulful relationship, or a life unburdened by a limiting habit, the subconscious is treated to thoughts, images and emotions that might activate both its attracting and enacting power.
Too often, we limit our freedom to consciously dream our desires, as we fear the possibility of them not coming true, with its consequent sting of disappointment. This refusal to fully imagine deprives the subconscious of a highly charged suggestion, which might indeed contain the very energy needed to enact the desired change.
Of course, we must also face the possibility that what we most consciously want may actually be at odds with the desire of another part of who we are, mainly the High Self. Although the subconscious may be influenced to realize a desire from our conscious will, if that desire is contraindicated for the greater balance of the self, the High Self might interfere with its realization.
In general, intentions do best that reflect the greater good of the whole self. Sometimes the ego intent is partial to its limited purview, which often compromises its realization. In setting any intention, one does well to first present it to the boardroom of the greater self. When there is consensus of the greater self an intent is freed to move smoothly forward.
Cleared of inner prejudice, let your intent be stated aloud and given the full freedom of imaginative play and realization, whether it be in the middle of the day or the middle of the night. As always, no attachment to outcome, but rest assured, the stress of your desire is mounting toward its enactment by the subconscious mind.
Tune into an attitude of optimism for maximum benefit in all aspects of life. Feed your mind the good food of positivity so that good things become attracted to your good attitude and flow your way. With optimism comes a sense of overall wellbeing that is hard to beat. An optimist stays focused on what is right and good and always has an eye on the future and its potential to answer all the big questions and bring the big rewards. Even a simple dream is a bright light to work toward in an optimist’s world. An optimist knows that everything is possible and is more likely to go with the flow because that’s where life is leading anyway, and an optimist is always eager for what is sure to come.
We are beings of suggestion. In shamanic terms, what we intend is what we suggest, and that we become.
Our power lies in maintaining ownership of our intent. As suggestible beings, we are subject to the influence of many outside and inside intents, beyond our conscious awareness, that have the power to put us into trance. Once entranced, we manifest the dictates of those prevailing intents.
Take, for instance, waking in the night to a worrisome thought. If we are unable to fend it off that thought commandeers our central nervous system, and we become victim to its drama and a sleepless night. The thought was just a traveler in infinity, seeking an entertaining night in the theatre of a human body.
The truth is that thoughts are just illusory bait with no substance. In and of themselves they cannot hurt us. What does hurt us is our own energy giving them life, if they hook our attention. Their lifeless drama comes alive through the fear and anxiety we lend them as they take over our imagination.
Parasites they may be, but guides they are as well, those thoughts that manage to take root in our fertile soil. We are shown where our weaknesses are when thoughts penetrate our walls. And those weaknesses likely call us to our recapitulation journey, where we are given the opportunity to retrieve a lost part of our Soul and thereby shore up our wall.
We may have to journey through a nostalgia, a sensitive memory or longing, with its requisite emotions. We may need to feel, to release, and to witness the fullness of this nostalgia before its energy can be freed to join us in our current life. This recognition and appreciation allows for an old nostalgia’s completion, as it gracefully frees its energy to go forward into the self of now. And, with that, a fully permeable wall of total detachment from the nostalgia forms, as there is no longer a vulnerability left in us to cause a trigger or fear.
As beings of suggestion, we must face just how powerful the law of attraction really is, as it manifests the dictates of an intent. We do manifest what we self-hypnotically tell ourselves. When the mind entertains a thought in the night, the little soul of the subconscious delivers us a body riddled with anxiety, the intent of the thought manifested.
Carlos Castaneda taught that a merchant mentality is the ruling intent of our time. This is the ego-Soul fixated at the solar plexus chakra. Even the highest ideals of the New Age, those glimpsed at the heart chakra, are contaminated by fame, self-importance, and the profit motive. On the surface we turn to the light, but beneath the surface we unknowingly cling to security and self-interest, the merchant ego-Soul state.
Our intent is thus unconsciously fragmented, whereby confounding intended outcomes—the groundhog day scenarios of our lives. Without facing the fullness of our personal shadow merchant selves we remain beings of contradictory suggestions, who often then surrender our personal intent to outside influences, to make things happen.
Once a year, in a faraway land, the King, the great world father, stands before his people and proclaims the greatness of his kingdom. “Ours is the richest and strongest kingdom of them all,” he reassuringly proclaims. “The state of our economy is the envy of the world.” Many are moved to tears and applause, even those who would challenge the Gaia-destroying consequences of his policies. Calmly, he warns that the greatest threat to safety and continued success would be to question his rule. This mythological example exemplifies the reality of our current lives.
Many are lulled to surrender their personal intent, to resolve their inner contradictions and find hope and security by internalizing a powerful outer intent and manifesting its demands. The world—inner and outer—is a marketplace of such powerful intents, each vying for the most consumers. We are, by birth, hypnotic beings who must learn the art of consciously taking charge of our own intent!
Taking charge requires the following:
Observe the content of the inner dialogue. Our personal intent, our personality, is a manifestation of the words we repeat to ourselves incessantly. The little soul listens to those words as instructions for the physiological creation of body and emotion.
Change the tense of self-descriptive verbs and adverbs in inner and outer dialogue. “I will never” becomes: “In the past I never.” A further evolution is a positive and definite instruction: “I intend…”
Shield the self from the marketplace of intent, both in the inner and the outer world. If an alien “idea” seeks to seduce from within, stop it in its tracks. This might take the form of identifying it as “thought” and shifting attention away from it, but it might require blatant warfare: “OUT!!!!!!!!” Yes, it may be necessary to return to the issue in recapitulation, but that will be on one’s own terms; never give overbeing in charge.
Limit exposure to outside intent. Everything we read and listen to has its own intent, even as simple as liking a picture or quote. Liking something is an exchange of energy. Carlos Castaneda actually stressed this point to the level of inanimate objects in museums, where adorned objects feast upon and drain the energy of viewers. Of course this doesn’t mean not to go to museums, he stated, but one must be careful to guard the influences upon one’s energy, even in such an innocuous circumstance as appreciating a work of art.
Archetypes are our true original parents. “I am the Lord, thy God…” These authoritative influences upon one’s personal intent are constantly and automatically projected onto high office holders. Recognize these projections, whose intents so easily supersede one’s own personal intent. Go to the heart center. What is the intent of one’s own High SOUL? Reconcile with that intent, taking full responsibility for life in this world.
Taking charge ultimately requires raising the ego-Soul’s consciousness from the marketplace arena of the solar plexus to the quiet and clarity of the heart center. The proving ground for this ascent is the assumption of legitimate power by ego-Soul.
The fact is that ego-Soul is an orphan, separated from its wholeness as a condition for undertaking life outside infinity, in the finite space and time of this world. This sets up the foundation for all of humanity: inadequacy and inferiority. The trapping to compensate for this inadequate state of being is to enter the marketplace of self-importance and attach to its offerings to elevate the ego-Soul’s validity. The Shamans of Ancient Mexico countered this trapping with the mantra: “I am nothing.” The intent of this mantra is to refuse identification with the false gods of the marketplace.
However, this is simply not the full truth. Indeed, “I am nothing” is the counter to the crutch of inflated self-importance, but, despite the fact that I am nothing, I AM! Can I strip away the crutch of self-importance, with its emphasis on validation and esteem, and simply acknowledge the purity of the fact that I AM. And with that acknowledgement of I AM, I am announcing that I am responsible for figuring out and taking charge of the life I am in.
Ultimately, it rests with ego-Soul to take charge of life in this world and that might even, at times, mean having it venture beyond the intent of its own High SOUL. In the final analysis, it is ego-Soul that has taken up this journey in space and time, a life that will end in this form some day. Take charge, refuse the not-I intents of the marketplace, and realize the wholeness of the I AM intent in this life.
Is it chaos or a work in progress? – Photo by Jan Ketchel
What we think is what we get. Make the central focus of life calmness. From the place of calm we find the freedom to be at ease, with the mind as a tool to find clarity and channel the truth. Without calm the mind is blown about in free association with all its resultant emotional storms. These are the storms that breed negativity, as we feel ourselves overwhelmed by the anxieties of thoughts seeking to birth in the center of our minds.
We get to calm by weeding the mind of invasive thoughts that grow bigger as they seek to root in the energy of our attention. We cultivate the mind by being in charge of where we place our attention. As all gardeners know, invasive species are a fact of life. However, like the gardener, we can be in charge of which thoughts receive our greatest care and which we discard as mere weeds.
There are infinite seeds of thought that seek to take root in the soil of the mind. The mind is daily flooded with a highly charged marketplace of thought-offerings that vie for the currency of our attention. The outer expression of this is eloquently mirrored in the insatiable attention-seeking behavior of political leaders, whose viewpoints thrive on the food of our attention, rendering us powerless and energetically bankrupt.
But we are not victims. The Shamans of Ancient Mexico confirmed that although extreme trickery is allowed in all realities, in the final analysis we must sign up or agree for our energy to be taken. Even in the most extreme of captive circumstances, pointed out Victor Frankl, referring to his stay in a death camp, are we still free to choose the attitude we will take toward our circumstances.
From the place of calm we arrive at detachment. Detachment does not mean dissociation. There is a distinction between objective emotion and subjective emotion. To be mindfully present does not free one from the power of emotion. In fact, it insists that we be fully present to all that is: thought, feeling, sensation, and intuition. Objective emotion is genuine reaction to the truth.
The story is told of the teacher monk who cried at the death of his son. His students were flustered at his display of deep emotion, this apparent failure of detachment. He replied that his son had died. What more appropriate time to shed tears?
Subjective emotion arises from thoughts that stray from actual reality, thoughts that catastrophize as they hook into the present and enhance it to archetypal proportion, leading to dissociation from reality.
From the place of calm detachment we see the truth and know right action. This is positive action, because whatever action that might be, it is the necessary response to the truth. If we know right action and act in accordance with it, we are in deep alignment with inner truth and feel positive, regardless of the phase of the moon. Ending a relationship, leaving a career, even leaving this world if it’s truly time to leave, brings with it an inner certainty of rightness of being that launches one’s full energy into new life.
The world is now undergoing deep transformation. Nature is daily acting out these fundamental changes. Of course, we are all free to ride the thoughts of illusion that deny the truth, or play it for profit. An alternative is to accept what is objectively there but not fall prey to catastrophic interpretation and attachment.
If we realize that our collective thought energy is what feeds the machine that controls us—or, put another way, generates the reality we live in—we are free to employ our thought energy, our intent, on positive outcome. State, for instance: “I intend a world aligned with the truth.”
