The Power of Intention

Intention is a force in the universe that allows the act of creation to take place. Intention is not something you do, but as an energy you're a part of. We're all intended here through the invisible power of intention. Intention is a field of energy that you can access to begin co-creating your life!

Everyone and everything that shows up in the world of form in this universe originates not from a particle, as quantum physics teaches us, but from an energy field. That energy field can be called God, soul, spirit, or consciousness. It looks a certain way, sounds a certain way, and feels a certain way. I try to stay in harmony with what I believe it sounds and feels like.

This source that creates worlds always is creating and loving, and it excludes no one. It is a source of unlimited abundance. It is a source that has no judgment. Anytime we have a thought that excludes others, a thought of unkindness, for example, or a thought of non-love toward ourselves or anyone else, we lose the power of intention. The power of intention is the power to manifest, to create, to live a life of unlimited abundance, and to attract into your life the right people at the right moments.

To cite Patanjali, a great scholar and divine avatar who lived back in India a couple of thousand years ago. He said that when you are steadfast in your abstention of thoughts of harm directed toward yourself and others, all living creatures will cease to feel fear in your presence. Steadfast means you never slip. Be steadfast in not having thoughts of harm - thoughts of judgment, worry, or hatred - directed toward themselves or others.

Most of the time goal setting puts too much energy and attention on being someplace else, instead of helping you appreciate where you are. Goal setting is fine if you want to be the warrior archetype. These people are setting goals constantly and trying to get someplace else. They say, "If you don't know where you are going, then you won't know when you get there."

But when you get to a higher level of consciousness, when you get into a spiritual approach to life, you are not trying to get someplace else, because you never can get it done. You never are going to get there.

Instead, what you want to do is get to a place where you are at peace. You are connected to God, you are enjoying every single day you have, and the your growth will take care of itself.

The No. 1 principle in the universe is "I intend to feel good." Feeling good is what you should be doing every day of your life.

A friend of mine visited Swami Muktananda in India. As my friend was going into the ashram, Muktananda stopped him and said, "Do you know the difference between good and God?" and my friend said, "Zero." Muktananda held up a zero and said, "That's right. When you look at God and good, the only difference between them is one little zero."

So, when you are saying you want to feel good, what you really are saying is you want to feel God: I want my thoughts to be the same as the source from which I emanated. I want to have thoughts that exclude no one. I want to have thoughts of abundance. I want to have thoughts of love, of kindness, of beauty. I want to be on a rampage of appreciation every single day.

There is a very big difference between the words motivate and inspire.

Motivation means we have an idea and we are going to carry through on that idea. We work hard at it, and we are disciplined. A highly motivated person takes an idea, goes out there, and won't let anybody interfere with them.

Inspiration is exactly the opposite. If motivation is when you get hold of an idea and carry it through to its conclusion, inspiration is the reverse. An idea gets hold of you and carries you where you are intended to go.

The word inspired comes from being in spirit, accessing a force out there. Patanjali said when you are inspired by some great purpose, some extraordinary project, all your thoughts break their bonds. Your mind transcends limitations. Your consciousness expands in every direction, and you find yourself in a new, wonderful world.

Patanjali also said dormant forces, faculties, and talents, things you thought were inaccessible and unavailable to you, come alive when you are inspired. You discover yourself to be a far greater person than you ever dreamed yourself to be.

When you are connected in that way, everyone around you is inspired. What it takes to reach this place I'm speaking about is to be in spirit. You shift who you are away from what you have, what you do, what your reputation is, what people think of you, and all of that ego-based thinking.

You shift into the understanding that who you are is a piece of God - who you are is a piece of the source - and when you stay connected to that in your thoughts you inspire others to do the same. So, it's really about modeling it and letting people know you are an inspired person, a person who is in spirit, and then those forces that Carl Jung called synchronicity begin to show up and, lo and behold, the universe provides for you.

The most important thing people can do is refuse to have any resistance to staying connected to their source. People resist being able to attract abundance into their lives. They take on an attitude that says it can't be done, it isn't working, the economy, my work, or this and that is bringing me down.

I have a sign on my door. I look at it every single day of the week. The sign says, "Attitude is everything, so pick a good one."

You need a very strong internal knowing. See what it is you would like to attract into your life. See how you would like your business to go, your relationships to go, and even your body to go in terms of overcoming addictions and dealing with weight and health issues.

All of us emanate from a source of well-being. If you do not have well-being in your life, physically or emotionally, then you have to look at what kind of energies, thoughts, and spirituality you have chosen that take you away from your source. One of the ways to get back to it is to think from the end.

Thomas Troward, who wrote beautiful lectures on mental science, said that the law of flotation was not discovered by contemplating the sinking of things. Rather, it was discovered by thinking about things that float naturally.

One of the important principles I live by is the idea that you have to contemplate yourself as surrounded by the conditions you intend to produce. The difference between highly functioning people - the people Maslow called self-actualizers - and people who live with ordinary levels of consciousness is that the self-actualizers never put their intention on what they don't want. They know that what you think about is what expands.

If you are thinking about, talking about, and spending energy on what is missing in your life, what is wrong, what you don't like, or what always has been, then you are going to continue to attract those things into your life. We become what we think about.

Self-actualizing people, highly functioning people who live at extraordinary levels of awareness, train their minds to focus on what they intend to create and what they intend to manifest, and they won't let anybody change their mind. I always think of the Wright brothers heading out toward Kitty Hawk, N.C., about 100 years ago. I don't think Orville and Wilbur said to each other, "This thing is heavier than air, so how will it get off the ground? That's an absolute impossibility." The law of flying was not discovered by the contemplation of things staying on the ground.

So, you have to contemplate yourself surrounded by the conditions you wish to produce and know you can attract divine energy to help you. Dormant forces come alive when you put your attention on what you intend to manifest and when you stay connected to your source of well-being, your source of kindness, and your source that excludes no one.

When Francis of Assisi was looking for peace, he didn't say, "Please give me some peace. I don't have any peace. I've got to have peace." What he said was, "Make me an instrument of thy peace." What I say to my source, what I say to God, always is, "Make me an instrument of the abundance that I came from, make me an instrument of thy well-being, and make me an instrument of thy love."

"What is it you want in life?" The correct answer, or the most effective answer, for anyone, is to feel good.
It always boils down to energy. Every thought you have affects everything in your body.

I would model well-being by presenting myself as a high-energy person who loves what I am doing.

Carl Jung's work has been terrifically important to me. Abraham Maslow's psychology work has been very influential in my life. I would also emphasize the work of many contemporary people out there: Louise Hay, Deepak Chopra, Marianne Williamson, Gregg Braden, people who are involved in this same kind of energy.

But even technical work filled with formulas can be valuable and important. Einstein offered a lot of technical work on quantum physics. I refer to his work, and I have studied it, but I am not a physicist. But look at Einstein's simple statement that the most important decision you ever will make is the decision whether you live in a friendly universe or a hostile universe. To me, that alone is a life-saving thing. When I look at the news and all the things that are hostile out there, I remind myself that for every act of evil in the world, there are a million acts of kindness.