The Power of Intention Read online

  Recently my 19-year-old daughter, Sommer, told me that she’d quit her temporary job as a restaurant hostess and wasn’t sure what she wanted to do before resuming her college studies. I asked her what made her feel most purposeful and happy, and she said it was teaching horseback riding to young children, but she refused to return to the old barn where she’d worked a year before because she felt unappreciated, overworked, and underpaid.

  I was in Maui writing this first chapter on a new perspective on intention when we had this telephone conversation. I launched into my intention-as-a-force-in-the-universe spiel and told my daughter that she needed to realign her thoughts, and so on. “Open up to receiving the assistance you desire,” I told her. “Trust in intention. It exists for you. Stay alert, and be willing to accept any guidance that comes your way. Stay in vibrational harmony with the all-providing Source.”

  The next day, at the very moment I was searching for that additional example of intention to put into this chapter, the telephone rang, and it was Sommer, bubbling with enthusiasm. “You’re not going to believe this, Dad. On second thought, I’m sure you’ll believe it. Remember yesterday how you told me to be open to intention? I was skeptical, even thinking, That’s my weird dad, but I decided to try it. Then I saw a sign on a telephone pole that said Horseback-Riding Lessons and there was a telephone number. I wrote the number down and just called it. The woman who answered told me that she needed to hire someone she could trust to do trail rides with young kids. She pays exactly double what I was making at the restaurant. I’m going out to see her tomorrow. Isn’t that cool?!”

  Cool? Hell yes, it’s cool! Here I am writing a book, looking for a good example, and it arrives in the form of help I was attempting to offer the day before to my daughter. Two for the price of one!

  Merging Your Individual Thoughts

  with the Universal Mind

  Our individual thoughts create a prototype in the universal mind of intention. You and your power of intention are not separate. So, when you form a thought within you that’s commensurate with Spirit, you form a spiritual prototype that connects you to intention and sets into motion the manifestation of your desires. Whatever you wish to accomplish is an existing fact, already present in Spirit. Eliminate from your mind thoughts of conditions, limitations, or the possibility of it not manifesting. If left undisturbed in your mind and in the mind of intention simultaneously, it will germinate into reality in the physical world.

  In simpler words, “All things whatsoever ye pray and ask for, believe that ye have received them, and ye shall receive them” [Mark 11:24]. In this scriptural quotation, you are told to believe that your desire has already been fulfilled, and then it will be accomplished. Know that your thought or prayer is already here. Remove all doubt so that you create a harmonious thought with universal mind or intention. When you know this beyond doubt, it will be realized in the future. This is the power of intention at work.

  I’ll close this section with words from Aldous Huxley, one of my favorite authors: “The spiritual journey does not consist in arriving at a new destination where a person gains what he did not have, or becomes what he is not. It consists in the dissipation of one’s own ignorance concerning one’s self and life, and the gradual growth of that understanding which begins the spiritual awakening. The finding of God is a coming to one’s self.”

  In this first chapter, I’ve asked you to stop doubting the existence of a universal, omnipresent force I’ve called intention, and told you that you can link to and be carried to your destination on the energy of intention. Here are my suggestions for putting this to work in your life.

  Five Suggestions for Implementing the Ideas

  in This Chapter

  1. Whenever you feel out of sorts, lost, or even in a sour mood, visualize the trolley strap hanging down from the field of intention three or four feet above your head. Imagine floating up and allowing the trolley to carry you to your built-in intention. This is a tool for implementing surrender in your life.

  2. Say the word intent or intention repeatedly when you’re in a state of anxiety or when everything around you seems to have conspired to keep you from your mission. This is a reminder to be peaceful and calm. Intention is spirit, and spirit is silently blissful.

  3. Tell yourself that you have a life mission and a silent partner who’s accessible at any moment you choose. When ego defines you by what you have or do, or compares you to others, use your power of free will to terminate those thoughts. Say to yourself, “I’m here on purpose, I can accomplish anything I desire, and I do it by being in harmony with the all-pervading creative force in the universe.” This will become an automatic way of responding to life. Synchronistic results will begin to happen.

  4. Act as if anything you desire is already here. Believe that all that you seek you’ve already received, that it exists in spirit, and know you shall have your desires filled. One of my ten secrets for success and inner peace is to treat yourself as if you already are what you’d like to become.

  5. Copy this ancient Hasidic saying and carry it with you for a year. It’s a reminder of the power of intention and how it can work for you every day in every way.

  When you walk across the fields with your mind pure and holy, then from all the stones, and all growing things, and all animals, the sparks of their soul come out and cling to you, and then they are purified and become a holy fire in you.

  In the next chapter, I describe how this field of intention might look were you able to see it, and what the faces of intention look like. I’ll close this chapter with another quotation from Carlos Castaneda’s teacher, Don Juan Matus: “ . . . the spirit reveals itself to everyone with the same intensity and consistency, but only warriors are consistently attuned to such revelations.”

  Readers and warriors alike, proceed in the spirit of free will to access the power of intention.

  THE

  SEVEN FACES

  OF INTENTION

  “Four thousand volumes of metaphysics will not teach us what the soul is.”

  — Voltaire

  Moving from Thinking about

  Intention to Knowing Intention

  Yesterday, while writing this book here on Maui, I experienced a knowing that I’ll attempt to explain to you. A woman from Japan was pulled from the surf, her body bloated from an excessive intake of seawater. I knelt over her, with others, attempting to get her heartbeat going with CPR, while many of her friends from Japan cried out in anguish as the futile attempts at resuscitation proceeded. Suddenly I felt a quiet awareness of this woman’s spirit hovering above our lifesaving attempts. As I watched the rescue scene on the beach, I felt the presence of blissfully peaceful energy, and in some unfathomable way I knew that she wasn’t going to be revived and that she was no longer connected to the body that so many well-meaning people, including myself, were trying to bring back to life.

  This quiet knowing led me to stand up, put my hands together, and say a silent prayer for her. We were from different parts of this world and didn’t even share a common language, yet I felt connected to her. I felt peaceful, with a knowing that her spirit and mine were somehow connected in the mystery of the transient/ephemeral nature of our physical lives.

  As I walked away, the pain of death wasn’t dominating my thoughts. Instead, I knew and felt that the departure of this woman’s spirit from what was now a lifeless, bloated body was inexplicably all a part of perfect divine order. I couldn’t prove it. I had no scientific evidence. I didn’t think it—I knew it. This is an example of what I mean by silent knowledge. I still feel her presence as I write this, 24 hours later. In Power of Silence, Carlos Castaneda describes silent knowledge as “something that all of us have. Something that has complete mastery, complete knowledge of everything. But it cannot think, therefore it cannot speak of what it knows. . . . Man has given up silent knowledge for the world of reason. The more he clings to the world of reason, the more ephemeral intent becomes.”

&nb
sp; Since intention is being presented in this book as an invisible energy field that is inherent in all physical form, intention, then, is a part of the inexplicable, nonmaterial world of Spirit. Spirit eludes our attempts to explain and define it because it’s a dimension beyond beginnings and ends, beyond boundaries, beyond symbols, and beyond form itself. Consequently, written and spoken words, our symbols for communicating our experiences in this world, can’t really explain Spirit the way they do the physical world.

  I agree with Voltaire’s statement at the beginning of this chapter and readily admit that I can’t definitively teach anyone what Spirit is or use words that give a precise picture of what it looks like. What I can do is describe a way that I conceptualize intention— if it were somehow possible to remove the veil that keeps the field of intention from our sensory perception and reasoning mind. I’ll give you my concept of what I refer to as the seven faces of intention. These points represent my imagined picture of what the power of intention looks like.

  Intention is something that I believe we can feel, connect with, know, and trust. It’s an inner awareness that we explicitly feel, and yet at the same time cannot truly describe with words. I use this concept to help guide me toward the power of intention that’s the source of creation, and activate it in my daily life. It’s my hope that you too will begin to recognize what you personally need to do to begin activating intention in your life.

  The descriptions that follow are distilled from my experience with master teachers, my professional work with others over the past 30 years, the veritable library of metaphysical books I’ve read and studied, and my personal evolution. I’m attempting to convey my personal knowing of the extraordinary benefits of linking to intention. Hopefully you will feel inspired by the silent knowing of the power of intention and go on to create an increasingly enchanted experience for yourself and everyone else in your life.

  Silent knowledge starts when you invite the power of intention to play an active part in your life. This is a private and very personal choice that needn’t be explained or defended. When you make this inner choice, silent knowledge will gradually become a part of your normal, everyday awareness. Opening to the power of intention, you begin knowing that conception, birth, and death are all natural aspects of the energy field of creation. Clinging to attempts to think or reason your way to intention is futile. By banishing doubt and trusting your intuitive feelings, you clear a space for the power of intention to flow through. This may sound like hocus-pocus, but I prefer to think of it as emptying my mind and entering the heart of mystery. Here, I set aside rational thoughts and open to the magic and excitement of an illuminating new awareness.

  A great teacher in my life named J. Krishnamurti once observed: “To be empty, completely empty, is not a fearsome thing; it is absolutely essential for the mind to be unoccupied; to be empty, unenforced, for then only can it move into unknown depths.”

  Take a moment right now to put this book down and allow yourself to trust and gently experience an awareness of your nonphysical self. First, close your eyes and empty your mind of rational thoughts and the multitudinous ever-changing chatter that goes on. Next, hit the delete button every time doubt appears. Finally, open to the emptiness. Then you can begin to discover how to silently know the power of intention. (In the following chapter, I’ll discuss in more depth other ways to access and reconnect to intention.)

  But now, I’ll describe what I think our view might be if we could be outside of ourselves, floating above our body, like the spirit of the Japanese lady on the beach yesterday. From this perspective, I imagine myself looking at the faces of intention through eyes that are capable of seeing higher vibrations.

  The Seven Faces of Intention

  1. The face of creativity. The first of the seven faces of intention is the creative expression of the power of intention that designed us, got us here, and created an environment that’s compatible with our needs. The power of intention has to be creative or nothing would come into existence. It seems to me that this is an irrefutable truth about intention/spirit, because its purpose is to bring life into existence in a suitable environment. Why do I conclude that the life-giving power of intention intends us to have life, and have it in increasing abundance? Because, if the opposite were true, life as we know it couldn’t come into form.

  The very fact that we can breathe and experience life is proof to me that the nature of the life-giving Spirit is creative at its core. This may seem obvious to you, or in fact it may appear confusing, or even irrelevant. But what is clear is: You are here in your physical body; there was a time when you were an embryo, before that a seed, and before that formless energy. That formless energy contained intention, which brought you from no where to now here. At the very highest levels of awareness, intention started you on a path toward your destiny. The face of creativity intends you toward continued creativity to create and co-create anything that you direct your power of intention toward. Creative energy is a part of you; it originates in the life-giving Spirit that intends you.

  2. The face of kindness. Any power that has, as its inherent nature, the need to create and convert energy into physical form must also be a kindly power. Again, I’m deducing this from the opposite. If the all-giving power of intention had at its core the desire to be unkind, malevolent, or hurtful, then creation itself would be impossible. The moment unkind energy became form, the life-giving Spirit would be destroyed. Instead, the power of intention has a face of kindness. It is kind energy intending what it’s creating to flourish and grow, and to be happy and fulfilled. Our existence is proof to me of the kindness of intention. Choosing to be kind is a choice to have the power of intention active in your life.

  The positive effect of kindness on the immune system and on the increased production of serotonin in the brain has been proven in research studies. Serotonin is a naturally occurring substance in the body that makes us feel more comfortable, peaceful, and even blissful. In fact, the role of most antidepressants is to stimulate the production of serotonin chemically, helping to ease depression. Research has shown that a simple act of kindness directed toward another improves the functioning of the immune system and stimulates the production of serotonin in both the recipient of the kindness and the person extending the kindness. Even more amazing is that persons observing the act of kindness have similar beneficial results. Imagine this! Kindness extended, received, or observed beneficially impacts the physical health and feelings of everyone involved! Both the face of kindness and the face of creativity are smiling here.

  When you’re unkind, you’re blocking the face of kindness. You’re moving away from the power of intention. No matter whether you call it God, Spirit, Source, or intention, be aware that unkind thoughts weaken, and kind thoughts strengthen, your connection. Creativity and kindness are two of the seven faces of intention.

  3. The face of love. The third of the seven faces of intention is the face of love. That there’s a life-giving nature inherent in the power of intention is an irrefutable conclusion. What would we name this quality that encourages, enhances, and supports all of life, if not love? It’s the prime moving power of the Universal Spirit of intent. As Ralph Waldo Emerson put it: “Love is our highest word and the synonym for God.”

  The energy field of intention is pure love resulting in a nurturing and totally cooperative environment. Judgment, anger, hate, fear, or prejudice won’t thrive here. So, were we able to actually see this field, we’d see creativity and kindness in an endless field of love. We entered the physical world of boundaries and beginnings through the universal force field of pure love. This face of intention that is an expression of love wishes only for us to flourish and grow, and become all that we’re capable of becoming. When we’re not in harmony with the energy of love, we’ve moved away from intention and weakened our ability to activate intention through the expression of love. For example, if you aren’t doing what you love and loving what you do, your power of intention is weake
ned. You attract into your life more of the dissatisfaction that isn’t the face of love. Consequently, more of what you don’t love will appear in your life.

  Thoughts and emotions are pure energy; some higher and faster than others. When higher energies occupy the same field as lower energies, the lower energies convert to higher energies. A simple example of this is a darkened room that has lower energy than a room bathed in light. Since light moves faster than non-light, when a candle is brought into a dark room, the darkness not only dissolves and disappears, but it seems magically converted into light. The same is true of love, which is a higher/faster energy than the energy of hate.

  St. Francis, in his famous prayer, beseeches God: “Where there is hatred, let me sow love.” What he is seeking is the power to dissolve and ultimately convert hate to the energy of love. Hate converts to love when the energy of love is in its presence. This is true for you, too. Hate, directed toward yourself or others, can be converted to the life-giving, love-granting life force of intention. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin put it this way: “The conclusion is always the same: Love is the most powerful and still the most unknown energy of the world.”

  4. The face of beauty. The fourth of my seven faces of intention is the face of beauty. What else could a creative, kind, and loving expression be, other than beautiful? Why would the organizing intelligence of intention ever elect to manifest into form anything that’s repugnant to itself? Obviously, it wouldn’t. So we can conclude that the nature of intention has an eternal interaction of love and beauty, and add the expression of beauty to the face of a creative, kind, loving power of intention.

  John Keats, the brilliant young romantic poet, concludes his Ode on a Grecian Urn with: “‘Beauty is truth, truth beauty,’ that is all/ Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.” Obviously truth exists in the creation of everything. It’s true that it shows up here in form. It’s now here in a form that’s an expression of the invisible creative power. So, I agree with Keats that we need to silently know that truth and beauty are one and the same. Out of the truth of the originating spirit in an expression of the power of intention comes truth as beauty. This knowing leads to valuable insights in relation to exercising your individual will, imagination, and intuition.