The Power of Intention Read online

  In order to grasp the significance of beauty as one of the faces of intention, remember this: Beautiful thoughts build a beautiful soul. As you become receptive to seeing and feeling beauty around you, you’re becoming attuned to the creative power of intention within everything in the natural world, including yourself. By choosing to see beauty in everything, even a person who was born into poverty and ignorance will be able to experience the power of intention. Seeking beauty in the worst of circumstances with individual intent connects one to the power of intention. It works. It has to work. The face of beauty is always present, even where others see non-beauty.

  I was deeply honored to be on a panel with Viktor Frankl in 1978 in Vienna, Austria. I strongly recollect that he shared with me and the audience his assertion that it’s the ability to see beauty in all of life’s circumstances that gives our lives meaning. In his book Man’s Search for Meaning, he describes a bowl of filthy water with a fish head floating in it, given to him by his Nazi captors in a concentration camp during WWII. He trained himself to see beauty in this meal, rather than focus on the horror of it. He attributed his ability to see beauty anywhere as a vital factor in surviving those horrific camps. He reminds us that if we focus on what’s ugly, we attract more ugliness into our thoughts, and then into our emotions, and ultimately into our lives. By choosing to hang on to one’s corner of freedom even in the worst situations, we can process our world with the energy of appreciation and beauty, and create an opportunity to transcend our circumstances.

  I love the way Mother Teresa described this quality when she was asked, “What do you do every day in the streets of Calcutta at your mission?” She responded, “Every day I see Jesus Christ in all of his distressing disguises.”

  5. The face of expansion. The elemental nature of life is to increase and seek more and more expression. If we could sharply focus on the faces of intention, we’d be startled. I imagine that one of the faces we’d see is a continuously expanding expression of the power of intention. The nature of this creative spirit is always operating so as to expand. Spirit is a forming power. It has the principle of increase, meaning that life continues to expand toward more life. Life as we know it originates from formless intention. Therefore, one of the faces of intention looks like something that’s eternally evolving. It might look like a tiny speck in a continuous state of duplicating itself, and then enlarging itself, and then moving forward, all the while continuing its expansion and expression.

  This is precisely what’s happening in our physical world. This fifth face of intention takes the form of what is expressing it. It can be no other way, for if this ever-expanding force disliked itself or felt unconnected, it could only destroy itself. But it doesn’t work that way. The power of intention manifests as an expression of expanding creativity, kindness, love, and beauty. By establishing your personal relation to this face of intention, you expand your life through the power of intention, which was, is, and always will be, a component of this originating intention. The power of intention is the power to expand and increase all aspects of your life. No exceptions! It’s the nature of intention to be in a state of increased expression, so it’s true for you, too.

  The only proviso to this forward movement of intention is to cooperate with it everywhere and allow this spirit of increase to express itself through you and for you, and for everyone you encounter. Then you will have no worry or anxiety. Trust the face of expansion and do what you do because you’re loving what you do and doing what you love. Know that expansive, beneficial results are the only possibilities.

  6. The face of unlimited abundance. This sixth face of intention is an expression of something that has no boundaries, is everywhere at once, and is endlessly abundant. It’s not just huge, it never stops. This marvelous gift of abundance is what you were created from. Thus you too share this in the expression of your life. You’re actually fulfilling the law of abundance. These gifts are given freely and fully to you just as the air, the sun, the water, and the atmosphere are provided in unlimited abundance for you.

  From the time of your earliest memories, you probably were taught to think in terms of limitations. My property starts here. Yours over there. So we build fences to mark our boundaries. But ancient explorers gave us an awareness of the world as potentially endless. Even more ancient astronomers pushed back our beliefs about an immense dome-shaped ceiling covering the earth. We’ve learned about galaxies that are measured in the distance light travels in a year. Science books that are only two years old are outdated. Athletic records that supposedly demonstrated the limits of our physical prowess are shattered with amazing regularity.

  What all this means is that there are no limits to our potential as people, as collective entities, and as individuals. This is largely true because we emanate from the unlimited abundance of intention. If the face of the power of intention is unlimited abundance, then we can know that our potential for manifestation and attracting anything into our lives is the same. The face of abundance has absolutely no limits. Imagine the vastness of the resources from which all objects are created. Then consider the one resource that stands above all others. This would be your mind and the collective mind of humankind. Where does your mind begin and end? What are its boundaries? Where is it located? More important, where is it not located? Is it born with you, or is it present before your conception? Does it die with you? What color is it? What shape? The answers are in the phrase unlimited abundance. You were created from this very same unlimited abundance. The power of intention is everywhere. It is what allows everything to manifest, to increase, and to supply infinitely.

  Know that you’re connected to this life force and that you share it with everyone and all that you perceive to be missing. Open to the expression of the face of unlimited abundance, and you’ll be co-creating your life as you’d like it to be. As is so often true, the poets can express in a few short words what seems so difficult for us to grasp. Here is Walt Whitman speaking to us in Song of Myself. As you read these lines, substitute the face of endless abundance for God to gain a flavor of what the power of intention is.

  I hear and behold God in every object, yet understand God not in the least . . .

  I see something of God each hour of the twenty-four, and each moment then,

  In the faces of men and women I see God, and in my own face in the glass;

  I find letters from God dropt in the street, and every one is signed by God’s name,

  And I leave them where they are, for I know that whereso’er I go

  Others will punctually come forever and ever.

  You don’t have to have an intellectual understanding. It’s enough to silently know and proceed to live with your awareness of this face of endless abundance.

  7. The face of receptivity. This is how I imagine the seventh face, the receptive face of intention. It’s simply receptive to all. No one and no thing is rejected by the receptive face of intention. It welcomes everyone and every living thing, without judgment—never granting the power of intention to some and withholding it from others. The receptive face of intention means to me that all of nature is waiting to be called into action. We only need to be willing to recognize and receive. Intention can’t respond to you if you fail to recognize it. If you see chance and coincidence governing your life and the world, then the universal mind of intention will appear to you as nothing but an amalgamation of forces devoid of any order or power.

  Simply put, to be unreceptive is to deny yourself access to the power of intention. In order to utilize the all-inclusive receptivity of intention, you must produce within yourself an intelligence equal in affinity to the universal mind itself. You must not only become receptive to having guidance available to you to manifest your human intentions, but you must be receptive to giving this energy back to the world. As I’ve said many times in speeches and earlier writings, your job is not to say how, it’s to say yes! Yes, I’m willing. Yes, I know that the power of intention is universal. It�
�s denied to no one.

  The face of receptivity smiles on me, as what I need flows to me from the Source, and the Source is receptive to my tapping in to it to co-create books, speeches, videos, audios, and anything else that I’ve been fortunate enough to have on my résumé. By being receptive, I’m in harmony with the power of intention of the universal creative force. This works in so many different ways. You’ll see the right people magically appearing in your life; your body healing; and if it’s something that you want, you’ll even discover yourself becoming a better dancer, card player, or athlete! The field of intention allows everything to emanate into form, and its unlimited potential is built into all that has manifested even before its initial birth pangs were being expressed.

  In this chapter, you’ve read about my concept of the seven faces of intention. They’re creative, kind, loving, beautiful, ever-expanding, endlessly abundant, and receptive to all, and you can connect to this alluring field of intention. Here are five suggestions you can implement now to put into practice the essential messages in this chapter.

  Five Suggestions for Implementing the Ideas

  in this Chapter

  1. Visualize the power of intention. Invite your visualization of the field of energy, which is the power of intention, to appear in your mind. Be receptive to what appears as you visualize your concept of this field of energy. Even though you know it’s invisible, close your eyes and see what images you receive. Recite the seven words that represent the seven faces of intention: creative, kind, loving, beautiful, expanding, abundant, and receptive. Memorize these seven words and use them to bring you to harmony with the power of intention as you visualize it. Remind yourself that when you feel or behave inconsistently with these seven faces of intention, you’ve disconnected from the power of intention. Allow the seven words to decorate your visualization of the power of intention, and notice the shift in your perspective as you regain your connection to it.

  2. Be reflective. A mirror reflects without distortion or judgment. Consider being like a mirror, and reflect what comes into your life without judgment or opinions. Be unattached to all who come into your life by not demanding that they stay, go, or appear, at your whim. Discontinue judging yourself or others for being too fat, too tall, too ugly—too anything! Just as the power of intention accepts and reflects you without judgment or attachment, try to be the same with what appears in your life. Be like a mirror!

  3. Expect beauty. This suggestion includes expecting kindness and love along with beauty to be in your life by deeply loving yourself, your surroundings, and by showing reverence for all of life. There’s always something beautiful to be experienced wherever you are. Right now, look around you and select beauty as your focus. This is so different from habitually being alert for ways to feel hurt, angry, or offended. Expecting beauty helps you perceive the power of intention in your life.

  4. Meditate on appreciation. Cherish the energy that you share with all living beings now and in the future, and even those that have lived before you. Feel the surge of that life force that allows you to think, sleep, move about, digest, and even meditate. The power of intention responds to your appreciation of it. The life force that’s in your body is key to what you desire. As you appreciate your life force as representative of the power of intention, a wave of determination and knowing surges through you. The wisdom of your soul as it responds to your meditation on appreciation assumes command and knows every step that must be taken.

  5. Banish doubt. When doubt is banished, abundance flourishes and anything is possible. We all tend to use our thoughts to create the world we choose. If you doubt your ability to create the life you intend, then you’re refusing the power of intention. Even when nothing seems to indicate that you’re accomplishing what you desire in your life, refuse to entertain doubt. Remember, the trolley strap of intention is waiting for you to float up and be carried along.

  Shakespeare declared, “Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win by fearing to attempt.” And Ramana Maharshi observed, “Doubts arise because of an absence of surrender.”

  You may well choose to doubt what others say to you or what you experience with your senses, but banish doubt when it comes to knowing that a universal force of intention designed you and got you here! Don’t doubt your creation from a field of energy that’s always available to you.

  In the following chapter, I offer what may seem to you to be unusual methods for polishing the connecting link between you and this enthralling energy field we’re calling intention.

  CONNECTING

  TO

  INTENTION

  “The law of floatation was not discovered by contemplating the sinking of things, but by contemplating the floating of things which floated naturally, and then intelligently asking why they did so.”

  — Thomas Troward

  Examine this observation by the great mental-science practitioner of the early 20th century, Thomas Troward. In the early days of shipbuilding, ships were made of wood, and the reasoning was that wood floats in water and iron sinks. Yet today, ships all over the world are built of iron. As people began studying the law of flotation, it was discovered that anything could float if it’s lighter than the mass of liquid it displaces. So today, we’re able to make iron float by the very same law that makes it sink. Keep this example in mind as you read and apply the contents of this chapter on connecting to all that you’re intended to become.

  The key word here is contemplating, or what you’re placing your thoughts on, as you begin utilizing the enormous potential and power of intention. You must be able to connect to intention, and you can’t access and work with intention if you’re contemplating the impossibility of being able to intend and manifest. You can’t discover the law of co-creation if you’re contemplating what’s missing. You can’t discover the power of awakening if you’re contemplating things that are still asleep. The secret to manifesting anything that you desire is your willingness and ability to realign yourself so that your inner world is in harmony with the power of intention. Every single modern advance that you see and take for granted was created (and creating is what we’re doing here in this book) by someone contemplating what they intended to manifest.

  The way to establish a relationship with Spirit and access the power of this creating principle is to continuously contemplate yourself as being surrounded by the conditions you wish to produce. I encourage you to emphasize this idea by underlining the previous sentence both in this book and in your mind. Dwell on the idea of a supreme infinite power producing the results that you desire. This power is the creative power of the universe. It’s responsible for everything coming into focus. By trusting it to provide the form and the conditions for its manifestation, you establish a relationship to intention that allows you to be connected for as long as you practice this kind of personal intent.

  The Wright brothers didn’t contemplate the staying on the ground of things. Alexander Graham Bell didn’t contemplate the noncommunication of things, Thomas Edison didn’t contemplate the darkness of things. In order to float an idea into your reality, you must be willing to do a somersault into the inconceivable and land on your feet, contemplating what you want instead of what you don’t have. You’ll then start floating your desires instead of sinking them. The law of manifestation is like the law of flotation, and you must contemplate it working for you instead of contemplating it not working. This is accomplished by establishing a strong connecting link between you and the invisible, formless field of energy—the power of intention.

  Entering into the Spirit of Intention

  Whatever you intend to create in your life involves generating the same life-giving quality that brings everything into existence. The spirit of anything, the quality that allows it to come into the world of form, is true as a general principle, so why not activate it within you? The power of intention simply awaits your ability to make the connection.

  We’ve already established that
intention isn’t a material substance with measurable physical qualities. As an example of this, think of artists. Their creations aren’t merely a function of the quality of the paint, brush, canvas, or any other combination of materials they use. To understand and grasp the creation of a masterpiece, we have to take into account the thoughts and feelings of the artist. We must know and enter into the movement of the creative mind of the artist in order to understand the creation process. The artist creates something out of nothing! Without the thoughts and feelings of the artist, there would be no art. It’s their particular creative mind in contemplation that links to intention to give birth to what we call an artistic creation. This is how the power of intention worked in creating you, someone new, entirely unique, someone out of nothing. Reproducing this in yourself means encountering the creative impulse and knowing that the power of intention is reaching for the realization of all that it feels, and that it is expressing itself as you.

  What you’re feeling is a function of how you’re thinking, what you’re contemplating, and how your inner speech is being formulated. If you could tap in to the feeling of the power of intention, you’d sense that it is ever-increasing, and confident in itself because it’s a formative power so infallible that it never misses its mark. It’s always increasing and creating. The forward movement of spirit is a given. The power of intention yearns toward fuller expressions of life, just as the artist’s feelings pour out in a fuller expression of his or her ideas and thoughts. Feelings are clues about your destiny and potential, and they’re seeking the full expression of life through you.