Desire is a thought of creation and this thought has the fuel of your “interest” (emotional and mental interest). This fuel, of your interest, is the initial propelling force that launches your desire into the space of life-energy and it’s added to your already existing life-stream. Your life-stream is basically the movement of life-energy towards the manifestation of your desired realities which contains all your intents/desires including the ones that were part of your non-physical perspective and the ones that you set forth while moving through this journey on Earth. All these desires are individual energy movements but they are coordinated by the intelligence of your life-stream, which ensures that there is a sync between the desires and there is a non-chaotic sequence in which they manifest.
What’s important is to understand that the manifestation of a desire depends on beating all the odds that are stacked against its manifestation and ironically the biggest impediment/odd to the manifestation of your desired reality is mostly your own inner resistance. The fascinating part is that your life-stream’s intelligence takes upon itself to beat all the odds including the impediment of your own resistance – so once the desire is launched it starts orchestrating events in order to beat the odds, this orchestration includes creating events, or situations, that invoke insights/understanding/growth in you to reduce your inner resistance. In fact, even the journey towards inner wholeness is nothing but a part of a requirement for a certain desired reality, or expression, to manifest – the state of inner wholeness is highly resistance free, and this state may be required for the manifestation of a certain desired reality especially the one which involves a wider impact. This is one reason why not everyone is required to move into a state of inner wholeness, it’s not a necessity until it’s required for a certain desire/expression to manifest. (this desire could be a part of the intent you had from your non-physical perspective or an intent that got created during your physical journey).
What creates inner resistance to a desire?
Our mind prefers the security a familiar life situation even when it has lost its juice/passion or it’s no longer compatible with who we’ve grown into. The idea of being open to a new reality is quite frightening to the mind – new relationship, new location, new job, new circle, new perspective, new outlook – the mind has an obvious resistance to the new, this is because the “new” is also the “unknown”, and the mind is afraid of the unknown. You can’t change this aspect of the mind, what you can do is reduce your mind momentum so that this aspect is no longer an influencing factor in your being. When the mind loses its intensity/momentum, it also loses its grip on your being, and hence its fears no longer act as a resistance to the flow of your life-stream.
Growth is the eternal movement of life, and it can’t be avoided. Any aspect in your life which is in tune with your growth will remain steady in your reality – for example, if your relationship with your partner is aligned with your growth, the relationship remains steady. There are many couples who stay in a single relationship for their whole life out of fear of change, on the other hand there are many couples who remain in a single relationship because they find it compatible to their growth – the former creates sense of stagnation, the latter has an ever present sense of aliveness. So it’s not really about changing everything for the heck of it, it’s actually about growth, it’s about constantly staying true to your growth.
You can be rest assured that you will always be well supported by life if you have this attitude of growth, where you don’t fear the unknown and are willing to let go of an old reality when it loses its sense of inspiration. The only reason we try to hold onto, or compromise, with an old reality, which is no longer compatible with us, is out of a fear of the unknown – you don’t have to “force” a change, you just need to let go of the reality within yourself, in your mind, just dis-identify with it, and the energy will be removed from this reality allowing a new reality to take shape in a comfortable manner. There no need or necessity to take any hasty actions or create undue friction, what’s needed is to work with your thoughts, with your inner space, and let life take care of the outside – your job is not to sort out the outside from a place of struggle, your job is to work with your inside and move from a place of inspiration, inspired actions are the one that feel supported by your life-energy.
The other factors that create resistance, to a desire manifestation, are as below
Doubting the possibility/probability of the desire manifesting – It’s normal to have some doubt, but if you are totally cynical about a desire manifesting then your thinking becomes a huge resistance. Hope is a huge factor towards releasing resistance, positive expectation and belief is an even stronger force that removes all forms of inner resistance. You can’t develop belief by forcing it or by “affirming” it through rote. Belief in a desire develops naturally as you first start allowing a hope, as you start bringing a trust towards the intelligence of your life-stream, as you start observing evidences of your life-stream intelligence operating in your reality – you cannot force your mind to believe in a desire, just start with a hope and then observe the evidences, synchronicities, ideas, inspirations and understandings that come forth from this place of lower resistance, this will allow the mind to develop a belief slowly but surely.
Staying focused on the present negative reality – If you want a desired reality to take shape you have to release you identification with your present negative reality, in your mind. Remember that the key is to dis-identify in your “mind” first, instead of trying to push at the situation forcibly with your actions. Let your life-stream’s intelligence take care of the orchestration of events, it has the bigger picture and it will take you through the path of least resistance. Your job is to simply release identification in your mind, this is how you make yourself available to a new reality. After your desire has been lauched, for a new reality, you will be in your old reality for a while – things don’t change immediately/overnight in most cases, however you need to stop focusing on the old reality (by giving it identification) as much as possible and basically start letting go of it within you.
Viktor Frankl, who authored the book “Man’s search for meaning”, talked about his experience in the Nazi concentration camp at Auschwitz, he was surrounded by evidence of stark suffering and inhuman treatment, he was subjected to several atrocities along with his fellow compatriots, his family, including his wife, died in the camps, and he only had his own death to look forward to. In the midst of this suffering he had a realization that no matter what his external situation was like, in his own mind, he could find strength, and meaning, by envisioning a different reality. He thought of his wife and the love he felt for her, he sensed that the thought of his beloved could override any feeling of suffering and he started focusing on thoughts about her, he also thought of a future where he would be free and would be able to talk/write about his realization of the ability of a man to go beyond the influence of circumstances no matter how starkly desolate they were.
In his book he wrote about his realization in the camp, it was something along these lines (this is totally my own translation from what I remember reading a long time ago) – “You can subject a man to atrocities externally, you can humiliate him or strip him of any sense of external freedom, but you cannot imprison his thoughts, you cannot hold someone’s imagination hostage. A man has the freedom to choose his attitude, irrespective of the circumstances. He has the power to stay with the vision of his love (desire) even in the midst of a negative life situation. This vision gives meaning to one’s life and is powerful enough to shift his reality towards it”.
Viktor was among the few prisoners to be freed from the concentration camps, and later he wrote his world famous book (titled in his language as “Saying yes to life in spite of everything”) which was later published in English under the title “Man’s search for meaning”. The bottom line of his treatise was that being “cynical” towards life is the worst negativity you can possibly hold as it causes you to lose meaning; being cynical closes down your heart, your desires, your spirit and makes you hollow within. The reason we become cynical is because we lose touch with our heart’s desire, we stop believing it, we stop focusing on it, we stop envisioning its manifestation – that’s when our life becomes lifeless, when we become dead to our heart.
Feeling guilty about materialistic desires – When you are in a physical world your focus will naturally be on physical desires, or desires of the material kind. Of course, it’s important to be aware of our non-physical nature or our nature as pure consciousness, and have an understanding of the oneness of life, this recognitions allows for a deeper connection with our self, however it should not become a new “mind game” where you try to renounce your physicality or materialistic desires – it’s all about a balance, to be connected with your inner stability while also enjoying your journey as a physical being on this physical realm. If you feel guilty about your material desires, you will constantly be in resistance to their manifestation, and what you would end up is in a scarcity driven physical life. Allow your materialistic desires to have a free flow so that you can create a bountiful and aesthetic reality for yourself on this physical plane.
Failing to understand your natural makeup – You will always resist your heart’s desire, and vie for desires that are not really congruent with your being, when you have little, or no, understanding of yourself. As humans, we are diverse in our personality types which inherently stems from the natural makeup of our brain and heart – actually, a lot of us are not even sure of our own personality as we constantly keep pretending to be someone else, constantly wearing fake personas based on how we think we “should” be. Unless you are very clear within yourself about who you are, you can’t ever be really clear about your desired reality, because you can’t know your heart and mind vividly enough. Ending up in incompatible relationships, passionless careers or jobs that we don’t really have an aptitude for, taking up courses that we have no interest in, living a pretentious lifestyle out of a need to fit in etc are ways in which we attract incongruent realities due to an absence of self-connection or self-realization. It’s amazing how much resistance can get released simply by becoming aware of your natural makeup and accepting/aligning with it – a lot of guilt, confusion, conflict, resentment, uncertainty can get released simply by accepting yourself as you truly are, unconditionally, without judgment.
The probability of a desire manifesting is hugely dependent on your inner resistance towards it. It may seem counter-intuitive to hinder our own desire but that’s exactly what most of us do from a place of negativity. Staying in a space of allowing, through the practice of relaxed awareness, lets you to release the load of your past negativity, plus it reduces the negative momentum in your mind, allowing for a huge decrease in your inner resistance thus bringing you to a place of being receptive/co-operative to the unfolding of your desired realities. You can also focus clearly on your desired realities when you are not burdened with the constant negativity of your mind in its high momentum and the intensity of the emotional load of your past accumulation. Ultimately, it’s love that gives meaning to your life, and your desires are an expression of love. However, it’s not about becoming enslaved by your love (leading to insecurity) but about loving from a place of inner freedom, I would call it a “conscious love”.
Sen beautiful article,
Why is it that a state of inner wholeness will be more important for a desire of a wider impact? I am very interested by this statement and would like to understand it better
And how would you explain Hitler and the Nazi movement in terms of inner wholeness and wider impact Sen?
Jim, the human consciousness on Earth has been evolving over the years since its inception. The evolution of consciousness happens from a deeply unconscious state of being totally identified with the mind’s fears and discrimination, towards a conscious state of recognizing its true nature as the oneness of life. Nazi movement was one of the examples of stark unconsciousness of being identified with hate/fear. The human consciousness has evolved into a much more aligned place since then and such stark inhumanity would not find acceptance in today’s world, though this evolution towards becoming more conscious/balanced is an on-going process, I would call this an age of awakening in that many humans are becoming more conscious and several are consciously finding inner balance/wholeness.
rossana, by “wider impact” I just mean a desire/expression that requires the involvement of many resources or that which has the capacity to impact your life-situation in a major way. Such a manifestation would require you to be highly resistance-free so that you don’t impede the meticulous orchestration needed to put things in place with the right timing.
what difference is there between letting go of the mind completely and letting the universe put you into complete balance and consciously making sure you fully experience each and every emotion that comes up..
The second one seems forced/
Abet, the practice of developing a keen awareness of the mind space and emotional space is just an initial/temporary practice, and it does feel forced initially until you develop an interest towards it. This practice is not really required, but is given when a person has very low awareness of his/her mind and emotional space, this is so that this person develops some inner connection, to get some focus to go within instead of being so rooted outside. What’s really needed is to move into a space of total allowing, letting go by resting in your space of being to let your life-stream’s intelligence bring the required balance to the mind.
Hi Sen – in regards to Jim’s question about Hitler and his motivations/impacts, I’m not so convinced that violence/atrocity/”evil” directly implies unconciousness. I have met humanitarian activists who are just as unconcious as fundamental zealots. In the end, the content or the belief structure has little to do with the individual’s level of conciousness.
So, instead lets take Hitler as the point of discussion rather than the nazis who followed him. Because I strongly suspect those very same nazis may have happily followed Gandhi in a “truer” purpose in a different time and place. Mob mentality swings both ways.
Take the example of Anders Breivik – the Noweigian mass murdered who recently massacred 77 people. I’ve been carefully following his case and especially watching his behaviour, reactions etc. Other than the fact that he is a killer, he doesn’t strike me as very unconcious. His belief may be fanatical and his actions shocking. But watching him sitting in the courtroom I am immediately drawn to how present he is. Far more than most of the other civilized folk in the courtroom.
Remember Hannibal Lecter (Silence of the Lambs) – I know he was fictional, but some of the greatest tyrants in human history were not unconcious men but rather were highly concious.
In the world of spirituality too, some of the most realized masters have also been great exploiters. Therein lies the dichotomy. What if ones lifestream moves in ways that are not benevolent or beneficial tothe masses and even violent? After all nature creates and destroys unmercilessly without judgment or explanation?
I think its a misconception many people have that somehow awakening to the truth of who we are suddenly makes us naturally benevolent and good – whereas in my experience it is quite different ie with awareness the stakes just get much higher and the ability to have an impact – positive or negative increases exponentially. Our power of self discernment becomes laser like because the margin of error drastically reduces and becomes greatly unforgiving.
Thoughts?
Take care Sen – hope to catch up soon 🙂
Shiv, Violence/exploitation as well as “self-sacrificing benevolence” (what you called humanitarian zealots) are both “imbalances” and indications of being a prisoner to the mind’s imbalnace towards its dark nature and its light nature respectively. The term “being conscious” can be defined by different people in different ways, so let me be clear about how I define it – Being conscious is the state of becoming authentically aware of the imbalances in one’s mind in its dark or light nature (or both), and thus consciously bringing a balance within through integrating the dark and light nature. There are two types of imbalance – 1. over-identification/over-indulgence 2. suppression.
So its not just about being conscious of the imbalance, but also about the ability to allow a balance to come in – that’s what “being conscious” means, the way I define it. A lot of people are conscious of their imbalance in their light or dark nature, but they continue staying helpless to its drive anyway, so this is not really being conscious, it’s just a state of being aware without the conscious allowing of a balance to take place – thus basically staying a prisoner to the imbalance in the mind. True balance is established when one is able to integrate one’s dark and light nature together and this can only be done by being conscious. I’ve mentioned about this in the post – Integrating your light and dark nature.
Unwise-violence/atrocities/evil/exploitation are expressions of a mind imbalanced in its dark nature, the person may be very intelligent, may even be a genius, with a lot of charisma (which makes you feel that he/she is “being conscious”, but just because a person has a high level of brain intelligence, or charisma, doesn’t mean he/she is capable of bringing an inner balance – it takes letting go of mind’s pull) but this person is still totally dominated by his mind’s pull. “Self-sacrificing benevolence”/obsessive love/imbalanced empathy/doormat-behavior/unnatural-humility are expressions of an imbalance in light nature, this person may appear to be a really “nice” person but a look at his/her personal life would show that amount of suffering he/she is going through within due to this imbalance – plus his actions (though seemingly humanitarian) may come from a place of hatred towards people of dark nature and this hatred causes a negative reflection in his reality.
Of course, going into an imbalance is also an “intention” in life-energy/consciousness, it does so to awaken to its sense of wholeness by first experiencing imbalance – you can’t know wholeness/balance consciously until you’ve experienced the imbalance first, just like you can’t know joy if you had not experienced sadness; so this game of existence serves the purpose of being a channel for “self-realization” as an experience, for life-energy (in the physical form), by affording the opportunity of consciously coming into wholeness as a part of evolution or growth. I’ve mentioned about this in the post A Non-physical Perspective.
A person who has come to a place of inner balance consciously is really “being conscious”, and a person who is on the journey towards this balance is also “being conscious”, but a person who knows the imbalance but is still lost to its pull is “unconscious”, and a person who is lost in the imbalance, without even knowing this imbalance, is deeply unconscious. When one has an iota awareness, and you are authentic with yourself, you will also sense your imbalance – after that it’s a question of whether you are “being conscious” enough to allow the balance to take place by “letting go” of the pull of the imbalance, or if you continue living in the imbalance – the latter is just unconscious living.
So how does a person behave when he/she has inner balance? Each person has his/her individual expression but one thing is assured that a person with inner balance would neither resort to atrocities/evil/exploitation nor end up in “Self-sacrificing benevolence”/obsessive love/imbalanced empathy/doormat-behavior/unnatural-humility. The middle way as the Buddha called it is what really ensues, and it’s a way that doesn’t work from a place of harm but from a place of wholeness.