The central notion of manifesting is the understanding that you have within yourself the ability to attract the objects of your desire. This idea may still seem to you to be out of your power. But, if you have understood the previous three principles, then you are beginning to know that this power is within you. Being able to attract your desires may seem more likely when you consider how things are created from the spirit world of the formless seemingly moving into the material world.
In one of the most intriguing sentences in the New Testament, St. Paul addresses this process of creation. He said it this way: “Things which are seen are not made of things which do appear.” St. Paul is telling us that the creative energy is neither solid nor restricted. The physical world of form originates in something other than form itself, even though we know it is all one world, when viewed from a hologrammatic perspective.
St. Paul’s words form the basis for my writing about this principle and for several of those to come in this book. I believe they suggest how energy informs our ability to attract what we desire. St. Paul is giving us a clue about manifesting our desires into the world of matter.
ENERGY AS A FORCE WE CAN TAP
In a film about his boyhood, Albert Einstein describes picking up a compass and watching in fascination as the needle moved when he changed direction. He said that he became obsessed with understanding the invisible force that moved the compass needle. Where was the force located? Who controlled it? Why did it always work? What was it made of? Were there places where it didn’t operate? These are the natural questions of an inquiring genius.
This force has many characteristics that are quite impossible to detect with our physical senses. We call the force energy. Energy is in all things in our universe and has an impact upon objects around it with something that we describe as the power of attraction. In magnetic fields we can easily see it at work, yet we are unable to detect the formless energy with our sensory apparatus. The force is there, attracting and repelling, and it is everywhere on our planet.
If it is everywhere, then it is also within us. It seems unlikely that our senses will inform us any better than they help us comprehend how a magnetic pole works. We can see the results, but the force itself is always elusive and in motion.
Our planet is in a perpetual state of spinning, orbiting and hurtling through space. Everything on the planet is a part of this movement, even though it appears to our senses that we are motionless. You are on the planet. The energy that moves it moves you. The energy that is in the very essence of the planet is in you. It is magnetic and electrical in nature, with the force of attraction built into it.
The essence of the fourth principle of manifestation is that we can utilize this energy because we are this energy. We can use this universal energy to bring to us objects of our desire, because the same energy that is in what we desire is also in us and vice versa. It becomes a matter of alignment and will that allows us to tap into this force.
Bringing things into the physical world is a process that we call creation. What we create involves the use of the same power in all that is created. It is only a matter of degree. There is absolutely no difference in the power that brings anything from the world of waves into the world of particles, and the power that brings your thoughts or mental pictures into form. I encourage you to reread that previous sentence and commit it to memory.
The world of spirit from which all matter derives and the world of matter literally comprise one harmonious whole. They are separate but always together, just like the peak of the wave and its base, separate but forming an inseparable whole. To put this into perspective, think of manifesting as nothing more than transforming waves of possibilities into particles of reality. The transforming process requires energy. This energy is invisible but is always in everything, including us.
Your thoughts and visualizations are your source of manifesting. It is this energy that you want to activate and make work for you. The mental-picturing process and its application to the manifesting process are something that you can experience when you are in a state of complete faith. There is a part of you that knows you can attract what you desire with this energy.
YOUR MENTAL PICTURES AND THE POWER OF ATTRACTION
There is a power within you that allows you to form a thought or picture. This mental-picturing power is the energy of attraction that is in all creative processes. Moreover, it is identical with the power of attraction. This power is the very substance of life.
You can’t see, touch or hear this power, but it is within you. In using this power you are not in any way attempting to change or interfere with the laws of nature. You are fulfilling the laws. This undifferentiated power is the basis for the mysterious attraction that draws your desires to you.
It may help to think of yourself as a way that God has of particularizing. Then see your ability to formulate mental pictures as the divine creative power energizing through you. Can you see that the same creative energy that particularizes as yourself is what you use to manifest your desires? This power thrives on happiness, love, joy, contentment and peace. The more blissful and loving you are, the more the divine spirit particularizes within you and the more Godlike you become.
It is through your thoughts (or how you use your power to create a thought) that all creative energy is attracted to you. If your mental pictures are of being surrounded by things and conditions that you desire, and they are rooted in joy and faith, your creative thoughts will attract these surroundings and conditions into your life. This may sound a bit too much like wishful thinking, but, trust me, it is far more than wishing or hoping.
What is different is that you recognize that the power to even have a thought is a divine power, and then with this recognition of its sacredness you form a vision or a mental picture. Finally, you hold it lovingly in place with the inner knowledge that the God force that brought everything in the universe into existence also created you. The form that this energy will take will be controlled and directed by your will or your mental picturing. It is waiting to take any direction that you decide.
It is important to be able to think in terms that are beyond our senses. Energy is the creative life force that allows us to do the things that we observe with our senses. It is an invisible force that supports the substance of our material life. This energy gives us the power to have thoughts, and it is the same as the energy of everything that appears to be external to us.
Your mental pictures are integral to this power of attraction, and to the subsequent authentic experience of creative energy when you are able to put these images into practice.
THE PRACTICE OF MENTAL PICTURING
The most important thing to remember as you practice mental picturing for the purposes of manifesting your desires is that humans never create anything. Our function is not to create, but to attract, combine and distribute what already exists.
Creations are really new combinations of already existing materials.
I am not speaking here of creating energy, but of transforming one form of energy into another. Our creative power is the ability to convert the energy of our thoughts into a newly materialized form. Manifestation is the result.
There is one indispensable condition for the manifestation of that picture into the visible and concrete world. The world of spirit is immune to the concept of time and space. Therefore, the picture must either be formed here and now or not at all. Once you have this awareness you will understand the necessity of picturing the fulfillment of your desire as if it is already accomplished on the spiritual plane.
That’s right, you must know within yourself that on the invisible level of your being, what you desire is already in place. You must know that the energy is here and let the how take care of itself. That is, if the end is secured, the means is also handled and you let go, knowing that success is guaranteed.
This is not a prescription for idleness, but for letting go of worry, anxiety and fear. You will work on the formulation of your mental pictures, and you will do it knowing that the end has been secured. The intelligence of the spirit or the great impersonal power is acknowledged. You, too, are intelligence. What you are doing is allowing one intelligence to cooperate with the other. It will not do it for you, it will do it with you.
You impress upon the universal mind the object of your desire, and you calmly and knowingly proceed to act upon that picture, allowing the greater intelligence, and your own, which is a part of that greater intelligence, to work through you to produce the results. You abandon all fear and return to the affairs of your life assured that the necessary conditions will soon come into view or are already there. Stay alert for any small circumstance that indicates the first sprouting of the seed that you have planted in the universal mind, and allow it to form in your life as a growing materialization.
I admit that this is not something that is consistent with our conditioning. But in order to make ourselves manifesters, we have to shed old beliefs and adopt an inner wisdom that helps us to stop manifesting the circumstances we want to change.
The more you do this mental picturing with faith and enthusiasm, the more likely you are to see it manifesting. What you are doing is literally visualizing in detail what it is that you want to manifest. You detach from the outcome and how it will be accomplished. You are not in the business of creating, but of attracting to yourself what is already in creation, and allowing the energy of the spirit to transform into the energy of matter. You see in great detail what it is that you want, and you repeatedly affirm this picture with faith in the absolute power that is in all things, including yourself.
You can picture yourself healthy, your business thriving, your sales quotas being met, your relationships healing, your house selling, finances coming your way or anything you desire. The key is to repeat these mental pictures until the truth of what you are affirming resonates within you without an ounce of doubt.
I find the best times for doing this deep work are early in the morning and just before I retire for the night. I also find the use of specific sounds and affirmations very useful. They are described in the seventh and eighth principles.
I am certain that a key question in your mind at this point is, “Yes, but what if it doesn’t materialize as I picture it?” This is worthy of your attention.
WHEN IT APPEARS THAT IT ISN’T WORKING
It is the way of the ego to try to force things when they are not going our way. We all know the folly of getting down on our knees and tugging away at the new vegetable shoots as they start to appear in the spring. They need to grow at their own pace, and they will flourish at precisely the right time.
If your picture does not manifest in the time span that you have designated, relax and retreat to your knowing that it is already in place in the spiritual realm. The energy is there by virtue of the power of your visualizing. Time is simply not a recognizable feature of the all-creating wisdom. Another facet that explains why your pictures are not showing up in the material world is the frequency with which you may be changing your pictures. The power you are working with is a sensitive force requiring dedicated and consistent mental picturing.
You may also be attempting to misuse your power by placing restrictions and contingencies on the universal intelligence. This all-creating wisdom, the originating principle, is not in any way dependent on specific people or things. It has no past, and it knows no future. It is in the eternal now, and most important for you to know, it creates its own vehicles through which it operates. If you begin ordering it around and making demands or insisting that it work through a specific channel, it will not accede to your requirements.
You will find it impossible to manifest if you are visualizing without an authentic will that is sufficiently steady to overcome any contrary idea or lack of faith in your own divine connection to God. The second principle in this book was about faith and trust. Reread that if you feel it needs to be reinforced. Your trust in the power of attraction is absolutely necessary. All of this is most effectively done in a private manner.
THE VALUE OF SECRECY
Making conscious contact with the highest all-creating infinite power is a very private matter. The naguals (a Native American term for spiritual masters or sorcerers) and mystics who practice and teach these methods guard their privacy. Moreover, they consider it a violation of their sacred trust to talk to others about their abilities and the “coincidences” of good fortune.
When we speak to others about our efforts to manifest, our power is weakened. In general, when we describe these activities it is because the ego has entered the picture. This kind of approach considerably dissipates our power of attraction.
It is human nature to talk to others about problems because we want to alleviate their influence in our life. By sharing, we hope to relieve some of the pressure of the problem. So, too, when we articulate our power to attract something, our attention shifts to the reactions of those in whom we are confiding. Energy is dispersed in the direction of their reactions in the same way that it is when we share problems. The moment a thought is presented to another it is weakened. Maintain privacy concerning your own unique, possibly mysterious to others, powers to attract to you what you desire.
Your etheric energy body is yours and yours alone. You can learn to project your energy outward and have an impact on the external world in ways that you have perhaps never even considered before. However, in order to tap into this extraordinary energy and use it in the co-creation process, it must remain yours and yours alone. The moment you discuss it with anyone who is alive today is the moment it diminishes. Your energy shifts to an interest in the good opinion of the other.
This higher energy, which is infinite, must create its own vehicles for manifesting, and it does so in the privacy of those vehicles. This highest infinite, all-knowing wisdom is a life force that you will recognize when you become familiar with its nature.
THE NATURE OF THE VITAL FORCE
It is difficult to comprehend a force that we cannot see, touch, hear or smell and still know that it exists. It is similar to electricity. You plug in your appliance and you cannot see, touch, smell or hear anything happening, but your electric hair dryer responds when you press the On switch.
The life force is electrical in nature, regardless of where it appears to be localized. In our own bodies, the chi, or prana, the life force, flows in tiny charges along our nerves from cell to cell. Ancient Hawaiian healers known as kahunas believed that thought forms could be carried back and forth on this current. They believed that thoughts had shadowy, microscopic and almost invisible bodies. This kind of knowing permitted the kahunas to participate in phenomenal healing practices. They were able to transmit the will to heal along these currents and to facilitate health where disease had existed.
I have visualized a current flowing between my thought and a painful or ill area of my body. Using my will and visualizing the current, I sent messages from my will to those areas to be free of the pain, or to heal the wound. I have had stunning results. The shadowy bodies of my thoughts became things I could send along this invisible current, and because I knew it would work, it did.
This is a good way to think of the vital force that is the all-creating God force as well. It is invisible, electrical in nature, always flowing and always attracted to that which plugs into its source. A second characteristic of the life force energy is that it is always expanding, and it is unlimited in supply.
The nature of the universe is abundance. It goes on beyond our concepts of beginnings and endings and boundaries. When we think we have it categorized and locked into a time-space boundary, it expands beyond our awareness almost as if it must move farther away from observation. This force is always moving, ever expanding and unlimited.
You are an aspect of that force, and therefore you, too, are flowing, ever expanding and unlimited. If you study yourself under a microscope with high magnification you will see that you are empty spaces with ever moving particles that have no material form. When you turn up the magnification on the particles, you see that they are moving at incredible speeds, beyond your capacity to measure them. When you look outward through the telescope, you see the same phenomena. That is, the universe within you and outside of you work in the same fashion.
It is your nature to be able to attract, to expand, to be unlimited. The force is in you, and the force is outside you. The force is you. By knowing the nature of this force and seeing yourself as a divine expression of it, and by going within to the power that permits you to picture a desire, and then tapping that power with a private, loving, cheerful knowing, you are on your way to using this vital force in ways that were unavailable to you with your conditioned view of yourself.
Here are a few suggestions for putting these ideas into practice in your life as you begin mastering this fourth spiritual principle of manifestation.
SOME IDEAS FOR PUTTING THIS PRINCIPLE TO WORK
Athwart the shapeless vastnesses of space.
How should I think, how breathe a single breath, how speak, if, out of myself,
I could not launch, to those, superior universes?
Swiftly I shrivel at the thought of God,
At nature and its wonders, Time and Space and Death,
But that I, turning, call to thee O soul, thou actual Me,
Thou matest Time, smilest content at Death,
And fillest, swellest full the vastness of Space.
The key phrase in this passage, for me, is “…thou actual Me….” And so it is with you, no different than Walt Whitman or anyone else in the universe.
This concludes the fourth principle of spiritual manifestation. A summary of this principle tells us that there is an intelligence and a power in all of nature that is creative and responsive. This intelligence is amenable to suggestion from us.
You are a part of nature and of this intelligence that is greater than any single individual. The individual you are is also a particularized form of this intelligence. This infinite power is in all things and all space, and it will manifest from the spiritual or formless energy that is in the unseen world into the world of form and boundaries.
When we know this beyond a doubt, and put it into practice in our lives, we will see the pictures of our hearts’ desires transformed into our outer reality. The fifth principle explains the importance of our feeling absolutely worthy of receiving these gifts.