The Power of Intention Page 18

  Step 3: Be the peace you’re seeking from others. If peace is missing in your relationships with your family, it means that you have a place within you that’s occupied by non-peace. It may be filled with anxiety, fear, anger, depression, guilt, or any low-energy emotions. Rather than attempting to rid yourself of these feelings all at once, treat them the same as you do your relatives. Say a friendly Hello to the non-peace, and let it be. You’re sending a peaceful feeling to the non-peace feeling. The lower energies you’re experiencing will be strengthened by your peaceful Hi or Hello, and eventually vanish as the divine grows within you. The way to this peace is through any form of quiet and meditation that works for you. Even if it’s only a two-minute respite during which time you’re silent, concentrate on the name of the divine, or repeat that sound of “Aaahh” as an inner mantra.

  Step 4: Match up with the seven faces of intention. If you’ve forgotten what the universal mind of intention looks like, it’s creative, kind, loving, beautiful, always expanding, endlessly abundant, and receptive to all of life. Play the match game that I introduced earlier in this book, and very quietly and with unbending intent bring the face of the universal Source of all to the presence of everyone whom you feel brings you down or interferes with your peace. This kind of spiritual energy will be transformative—not only for you, but also for your relatives. Your intention to be in peaceful relationships is now taking form—first in your mind, then in your heart—and ultimately, it will materialize.

  Step 5: Review all the obstacles that have been erected on your path to familial peace. Listen to any inner dialogue that focuses on your resentment of others’ expectations for you. Remind yourself that when you think about what you resent, you act upon what you think about, while simultaneously attracting more of it to you. Examine your energy level for your tendency to react to lower energies with more of the same, and give your ego a reminder that you’ll no longer opt to be offended, or need to be right in these relationships.

  Step 6: Act as if. Begin the process of acting as if what you intend to manifest is already true. See everyone in your family in the love and light that is their true identity. When someone asked Baba Muktananda, a great saint in India, “Baba, what do you see when you look at me?” Baba said, “I see the light in you.” The person replied, “How can that be, Baba? I am an angry person. I am terrible. You must see all that.” Baba said, “No, I see light.” (This story is told by Swami Chidvilasananda Gurumayi in Kindle My Heart.)

  So, see the light in those others, and treat them as if that is all you see.

  Step 7: Detach from the outcome. Don’t let your authentic and peaceful attitude depend on your relatives’ behavior. As long as you remain connected to intention and radiate outward the high energy, you’ve achieved your peace. It’s not your place or your purpose to make everyone else in your family think, feel, and believe as you do. The likelihood is great that you’ll see dramatic changes in your relatives as you teach them with your own persona how you intend to be treated. But if they don’t change, and if they continue their nonpeaceful ways, let go of your need to see them transformed. It all works in divine order, and the saying Letting go and letting God is a helpful reminder for you. By letting go, you guarantee your own peace, and you dramatically increase the odds of helping others to do the same.

  Step 8: Affirm: I attract only peace into my life. I remind myself of this affirmation many times on a given day, particularly with my children and other more distant relatives. I also practice this in grocery stores, when greeting flight attendants, when visiting the post office, and while driving my automobile. I say this silently to myself as an absolute truth with unbending intent on my part, and it works for me all the time. People respond to me with smiles, acknowledgments, friendly gestures, and kind greetings all day long. I also remind myself of the cogent observation from A Course in Miracles when I feel other than peaceful in any given moment with my family: I can choose peace, rather than this.

  Step 9: Hold no grudges, and practice forgiveness. The key to having peace in all your family relationships is forgiveness. Your relatives are simply doing what they’ve been taught to do over a lifetime, and the lifetimes of many of their ancestors. Shower them with understanding and forgiveness from your heart.

  This passage from A Course in Miracles offers so much in the fulfillment of this intention:

  Do you want peace? Forgiveness offers it.

  Do you want happiness, a quiet mind,

  a certainty of purpose,

  and a sense of worth and beauty

  that transcends the world?

  Do you want a quietness that cannot be disturbed,

  a gentleness that can never be hurt,

  a deep abiding comfort,

  and a rest so perfect it can never be upset?

  All this forgiveness offers you.

  Step 10: Be in a state of gratitude. Rather than being in a state of non-peace concerning any family members, say a prayer of gratitude for their presence in your life and all that they have come to teach you.

  These are the ten steps that you can practice each day. As you work toward the absolute knowing that this intention will manifest for you, remind yourself on a daily basis that you can never remedy a bad relationship by condemning it.

  IT IS MY INTENTION TO:

  FEEL SUCCESSFUL AND

  ATTRACT ABUNDANCE

  INTO MY LIFE

  “God is able to provide you with every blessing in abundance.”

  — St. Paul

  “When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you.”

  — Lao Tzu

  One of my secrets for feeling successful and attracting bountiful abundance into my life has been an internal axiom that I use virtually every day of my life. It goes like this: Change the way you look at things, and the things you look at change. This has always worked for me.

  The truth of this little maxim is actually found in the field of quantum physics, which, according to some, is a subject that’s not only stranger than you think it is, it’s stranger than you can think. It turns out that at the tiniest subatomic level, the actual act of observing a particle changes the particle. The way we observe these infinitely small building blocks of life is a determining factor in what they ultimately become. If we extend this metaphor to larger and larger particles and begin to see ourselves as particles in a larger body called humanity or even larger—life itself—then it’s not such a huge stretch to imagine that the way we observe the world we live in affects that world. It’s been said repeatedly in a number of different ways: As is the microcosm, so is the macrocosm. As you read this chapter, remember this little journey into quantum physics as a metaphor for your life.

  This being the case, your intention to feel successful and experience prosperity and abundance depends on what view you have of yourself, the universe, and most important, the field of intention from which success and abundance will come. My little maxim about changing the way you look at things is an extremely powerful tool that will allow you to bring the intention of this chapter into your life. First examine how you look at things, and then how the spirit of intention does the same.

  How Do You Look at Life?

  The way you look at life is essentially a barometer of your expectations, based on what you’ve been taught you’re worthy of and capable of achieving. These expectations are largely imposed by external influences such as family, community, and institutions, but they’re also influenced by that ever-present inner companion: your ego. These sources of your expectations are largely based on the beliefs of limitation, scarcity, and pessimism about what’s possible for you. If these beliefs are the basis for how you look at life, then this perception of the world is what you expect for yourself. Attracting abundance, prosperity, and success from these limiting viewpoints is an impossibility.

  In my heart, I know that attracting abundance and feeling successful is possible, because, as I touched on earlier, I had an early
life of enormous scarcity. I lived in foster homes, away from my mother and my absentee, alcoholic, often-imprisoned father. I know that these truths can work for you, because if they’ve worked for any one of us, they can work for all of us, since we all share the same abundant divine force and emanated from the same field of intention.

  Take an inventory of how you look at the world, asking yourself how much of your life energy is focused on explaining away potentially optimistic viewpoints by preferring to see the inequities and inconsistencies in the abundance-for-all philosophy. Can you change the way you look at things? Can you see potential for prosperity where you’ve always seen scarcity? Can you change what is by simply changing the way you see it? I say a resounding yes to these questions. And the way to work at changing the way you see things is to take a hard look at something you may not have previously considered.

  How Does the Universal All-Creating

  Field of Intention Look at Life?

  The field of intention, which is responsible for all creation, is constantly giving—in fact, it knows no bounds to its giving. It just keeps on converting pure formless spirit into a myriad of material forms. Furthermore, this field of intention gives in unlimited supplies. There is no such concept as shortage or scarcity when it comes to the originating Source. So we’re looking at two major conceptualizations when we think of the universal mind’s natural abundance. The first is that it’s perpetually giving, and the second is that it offers an infinite supply.

  The power of intention is perpetually giving and infinite, so it seems obvious that you’ll need to adopt these same two attributes if you’re to fulfill your own personal intention to live successfully and attract abundance into your life. What should your message back to the universe be if you want to be abundance and success rather than strive for it? Your Source is abundant and you are your Source; therefore, you must communicate this back. Since your Source is always serving and giving, and you are your Source, then you must be always in a state of serving and giving. This Source can only work with you when you are in harmony with it!

  A message to the field of intention that says Please send me more money is interpreted as your seeing yourself in a state of scarcity, but this Source has no concept of scarcity. It doesn’t even know what not having enough money means. Thus, its response back to you will be: Here’s a state of needing more money because that’s how you think, and I’m the mind with which you think, so here’s more of what you don’t want and don’t have. Your ego-dominated response will be: My desires are being denied! But the real truth is, the universal Source knows only abundance and giving, and will respond with money flowing to you if your intention is: I have enough money, and I allow what I already have enough of to flow to me.

  Now this may appear to be mumbo jumbo and nothing more than twisting words around, but I assure you that it’s exactly how the universal mind of intention operates. The more you get back into gear with that which intended you here, the more you’ll see that unlimited abundance showing up. Get rid of the concept of shortages, because God hasn’t got a clue about such things. The creative Source reacts to your belief in shortages with a fulfillment of your belief.

  Now, think back to my opening observation in this chapter: Change the way you look at things, and the things you look at change. I can guarantee you that the universal mind only flows in harmony with its own nature, which is providing endless abundance. Stay in harmony with this nature, and all of your desires have to manifest for you—the universe knows no other way to be. If you tell the universal mind what you want, it will respond by leaving you in a state of wanting, never arriving and always needing more. If, however, you feel that what you intend to manifest has already manifested, you’re unified with your intention. Never allowing a moment of doubt or listening to naysayers, you’ll be in the presence of that all-creating field of intention.

  You can’t come from shortage, you can’t come from scarcity, and you can’t come from wanting. You must come from the same attributes as that which allows everything. This is a key word, allowing. Let’s take a look at how allowing is so often ignored in attempts to manifest feeling successful and attracting abundance.

  The Art of Allowing

  The universal mind of Creation is in a constant state of supplying. It never shuts down, it takes no vacations, there are no days off, and it’s perpetually giving forth. Everything and everyone, without exception, emanates from this universal mind we’re calling intention. So if everything comes from this infinite field of invisible energy, why is it that some are able to partake of it, while others seem so separated from it? If it’s always giving forth in an endless stream of abundance, somehow there must be resistance to allowing it to come into your life if you’re experiencing shortages or scarcity in any way.

  Allowing this all-giving Source into your life means becoming aware of the resistance that you may be placing in the way of the abundance that’s always being supplied. If the universe is based on energy and attraction, this means that everything is vibrating to particular frequencies. When the frequency with which you’re vibrating is in contradiction with the frequency of the universal supply, you create a resistance, thereby inhibiting that flow of abundance into your life space. Your individual vibrations are the key to understanding the art of allowing. The nonharmonious vibrations are largely in the form of your thoughts and feelings. Thoughts that emphasize what you don’t believe you deserve set up a contradiction in energy. That contradiction puts a stop to a hooking up of identical energies, and you’ve created a field of disallowing. Remember, it’s always about being in harmony with your Source. Your thoughts can either emerge from a beingness that’s in rapport with intention or in contradiction with it.

  Keep in mind that you’re a part of the universal mind, so if you see yourself in a harmonious way with the seven faces of intention, the universal mind can only work harmoniously with you. For example, suppose that you want a better job with a higher salary. Imagine yourself as already having it, knowing in your thoughts that you’re entitled to it, with no doubts about the job showing up because you can see it within. The universal mind now has no choice in the matter, since you’re a part of that all-creating mind and there’s no vibrational contradiction. So what can go wrong here? The art of allowing gets hampered by your habit of disallowing.

  There’s a long history of countless thoughts that have formed a field of resistance to allowing the free flow of abundance. This habit of disallowing grew from the belief system that you’ve cultivated over the years and that you rely on. Furthermore, you’ve allowed the resistance of others to enter this picture, and you surround yourself with the need for their approval in these matters. You solicit their resistant opinions, read newspaper accounts of all those who’ve failed to manifest the jobs of their choice, examine government reports about the poor job prospects and the declining economy, watch the television reports belaboring the sorry state of affairs in the world, and your resistance becomes even more convincingly entrenched. You’ve aligned yourself with the proponents of disallowing.

  What you need to do is look at this belief system and all of the factors that continue to support it and say, It’s too big of a job to change the entire thing. Instead, I’m going to start changing the thoughts that activate disallowing right here, right now. It doesn’t matter what you thought before, or for how long, or how many pressures you’re under to maintain your resistance. Instead, stop activating disallowing thoughts today, one thought at a time. You can do so by stating, I feel successful, I intend to feel the abundance that is here, now. Repeat these words, or create your arrangement of words, which continually inundate your thoughts during your waking hours, with a new belief of being successful and abundant. When you’ve activated these thoughts enough times, they’ll become your habitual way of thinking, and you will have taken the steps to eliminating your resistance to allowing.

  Those thoughts will then become what you say in silent, prayer-like messages to y
ourself: I am success; I am abundance. When you’re success itself, when you’re abundance itself, you’re in harmony with the all-creating Source, and it will do the only thing it knows how to do. It will be endlessly giving and forthcoming with that which has no resistance to it—namely, you. You’re no longer vibrating to scarcity; your every individual vibrational utterance is in concert with what you summon from your Source. You and your Source are one in your thoughts. You’ve chosen to identify thoughts of resistance and have simultaneously decided to stay out of your own way.

  As you practice allowing and living the faith of least resistance, success is no longer something you choose; it’s something that you are. Abundance no longer eludes you. You are it, and it is you. It flows unimpeded beyond your resistance. Herein lies another clue to the free flow of abundance: You must avoid becoming attached to and hoarding what shows up in your life.

  Abundance, Detachment, and Your Feelings

  While it’s crucial for you to have a firm vibrational match-up with the all-creating abundance of intention, it’s just as crucial for you to know that you can’t hang on to and own any of the abundance that will be coming your way. This is because the you that would like to hang on to and become attached to your success and your wealth is not really you, it’s that troublesome ego of yours. You’re not what you have and what you do; you’re an infinite, divine being disguised as a successful person who has accumulated a certain amount of stuff. The stuff is not you. This is why you must avoid being attached to it in any way.