Dreams, aspirations and ambitions are essentially just different names given to “what we want”. Life is so interesting that at some point or the other, we all would have experienced some amount of achievement as well as failure with regard to our dreams and aspirations. Howsoever insignificant, we have all experienced both aspects of what happens to what we want.
Ever wondered who decides which of our dreams will be granted and which of our plans will not fructify?
As we look around, the world has everything that we could desire for – yet some of it becomes available to us and some of it doesn’t. When we are unsatisfied, depending on our social conditioning, we tend to rationalize our failures by assigning blame to a bad attitude, ill luck, destiny, maybe even a lack of opportunity; what we grossly miss is the role “intentions” play in our lives.
The system governing our lives and destinies, let’s it the “universe,” is a perfectly balanced system. This self-balancing system is in perfect harmony because its forces are governed by certain metaphysical laws.
Before we explore what we mean by intentions, we need to first understand that the universe (system) is like a refrigerator stocked with lots of items – it’s just a repository; it plays no role in deciding whether we will get something or not. That decision is based on our intentions – what is it that we really want to get out of it –what we really want! The refrigerator cannot stop us from opening its door and taking out what we really want. And this is such a perfect system that someone would have already kept what you want in the refrigerator.
Now when you go up to the refrigerator, while you have access to all that’s contained in there, you walk away with whatever you most strongly “intend” to get at that movement – sometimes not even spotting things that you have no intentions of taking.
The universe is governed by what’s called the “Law of Three” as explained by Gurdjieff. In a nutshell, the law of three entails that three forces enter into every manifestation, every phenomenon and every event. For simple understanding we can call them positive, negative and neutral forces. In human terms, these forces are manifested as intentions – positive: those that take us toward a goal, negative: those that take us away from a goal and neutral: those that support whichever side is stronger. Now, the universe (like the refrigerator) supplies you with whatever it recognizes as the most intended. Paulo Coelho wrote that “when you really want something to happen, the whole universe conspires so that your wish comes true,” and we being an integral part of the universe stand at the centre of this conspiracy.
If you look at the “opportunities coming knocking” your way, you will realize that such opportunities always existed in the world, it’s just that your real strong intention draws you toward it. The universe is waiting for the intention to become strong enough. Opportunity knocks the day positive force supersedes the negative and neutral forces in the manifestation.
If life’s so simple why is it that there is dissatisfaction and misery all around?
The fact is that we, in our self-created belief that “we know it all,” send indirect intentions to the universe – a typical issue of management miscommunication (selective information sharing). We miss out on the big picture. Biggest victims of intending indirectly are people who intended to make a lot of money and did make it because of the sheer power of their intentions. With money came accoutrements that they never intended for (lack of time, stress, worries, fear, etc.), which drifted them away from what they actually intended to do. So now “money isn’t buying me happiness”!
Never ever in history have so many successful people felt such a sense of void.
Many people want to get married; when asked why they want to get married, they say so that we are “socially accepted”. Now here is the interesting dichotomy. They want to be socially accepted – but they are asking the universe to conspire for their “marriage”. Now a marriage is a marriage – it isn’t a guarantee of social acceptance…hence there is no surety whether the marriage will bring the required happiness.
If our intention is of social acceptance, let the universe decide how it wants us to be socially accepted (mother Teresa never married!). Most people marry with confusing intentions hence most marriages end up unhappy and in failure.
Happiness comes to us when we achieve what we are really passionate about, i.e. what we really intend to do in our lives. This also happens to be the purpose of our lives. Due to social conditioning we focus on the plan rather than the outcome – while we are only interested in the destination, our entire focus becomes the travel plan.
Hitler, arguably one of the most hated people in history, had a very strong intention – to create a better human race. In this process, he believed that the genetically inferior races should be eliminated so that the entire world becomes a better and more advanced place. His intention resonated with many people of his camp and hence became stronger and stronger. The means that they chose, however, were not which were intended by other parts of the system. Today, if you look at human existence it’s much better because of:
- The development of the psychological sciences (90% of which developed post World War II), which are helping humans live much better lives
- The technological advancement in transportation and communication that were triggered by WWII
- The enhanced focus on human rights, which enable humans to have a more meaningful existence
- The need for “peace” and “cooperation,” which came as an aftermath of WWII
The contribution of Hitler’s intention is phenomenal – his way of achieving his intention was based on controlling and hence he failed. Powerful intentions however never fail!
So how does one intend?
The universe cannot interpret nor can it understand indirect intentions. Hence we have to keep them simple and direct.
- Intend in the language of love: The only feeling that the universe can understand is love. Define your intention as the feelings that you would love to experience – wish for freedom to live on your own terms rather than money; love rather than marriage; security rather than a well paying job.
- Don’t intend for means; intend for the end state. If you want to travel the world and enjoy a luxurious life, don’t ask for a lot of money; ask for this life. You can have all this directly without having to toil for making so much money.
- Be clear about your intentions: The universe only picks up intentions that are extremely strongly intended. Half-hearted dreams can never be accomplished.
- Stop lying to yourself: Lots of our dreams and ambitions are “in-vogue” dreams. Lack of congruence between what you really want (your subconscious) and what you have convinced yourself (your conscious) to want may just not allow this system to work for you. The universe listens to your subconscious only.
- Stop being practical: You don’t have to think of what’s practical or not. When a child wants something, it doesn’t worry about practicality. Questioning practicality is our way of telling universe that we are not sure if we want it. If you want it, the universe will provide it, even through the most impractical routes (watch Slumdog Millionaire again!).
