Don, thanks for sharing that quote with me, it hits home, you have given me a gift for which I am most grateful.... And Kathy, my gratitude to you too for posting the link to the thread mentioned earlier.... My heartfelt thanks and much love to both of you... Time is short for me at this moment too; this body needs sleep! See you all in my dreams, Tim

ok, thanks Paul, I was hoping someone would mention "highest good".
there seems to be a fine line between what I would like to see happen, and what is the highest good that I must get out of the way of, so I can perhaps perceive that is what I really want. surrender is a part of that, to surrender my fallacies. I seem to reenact this scenario infinetely, so that it becomes a letting go, a release of beliefs perhaps sometimes, yet more of what is called a little willingness to allow the highest good within trust. I reflect on some things Kathy and Tim say here. Awareness enters a mind that has grown quiet. one can rest in that. yet to live here, to be here is to be a part of it, the noise necessarily returns, but yet the quiet has now become easier to find, because of the surrender part. in the quiet, the awareness can sense much, tune into much, and see what was hidden. I have found that I can no longer differentiate between joy and grief, that they are the two ends of the same thing. to feel, for me, was to know I am alive, but even this, I can sense shall be surrendered in my willingness for that highest good and to know that good, whatever it turns out to look like. to not know, becomes ok to not know, and also to anticipate knowing within surrender of ego, provides a road to travel to peace that is for the most part, unknowable. ha ha! Kiss...keep it simple silly!

Letting go of beliefs is by far the hardest part, we are so ingraned with various belief systems that we have built over our lifetimes, hard to tear the walls down!
Ricardo

Ricardo, 

I can imagine myself jumping over the moon and even place my intent to do so.  I might even be psychotic or naive enough to totally believe I can do this.  But of course the universe and its laws are indifferent to my delusional whims.  I can shape my reality, but I cannot create it.  What I can do is this: look at my life from the perspective of being "at cause" rather than "at the effect" of my experience.  Of course, I can only succeed in this perspective to a very limited extent.  This mode of experience was at the heart of Werner Erhard's est training seminars in the late 70s. 

Let me give you an example.  A guy boarded a Boston subway to go to an est seminar, but the train broke down for a half hour in the tunnel.  As a result, he was a half hour late, a no--no!  He was confronted at the seminar door by a fierce beauty who asked him this series of questions:
"Are you late?"  "Yes."  "Do you have an agreement to  be on time?"  "Yes."  "Did you break that agreement?"  "I guess so."  "DID YOU BREAK THAT AGREEMENT?!"  "OK, yeah I did."  "Who is responsible for breaking that agreement?"  "The Red Line."  "Let's go through my questions again..."
The guy could only enter the room if he took responsibility for breaking the agreement.  When he finally told her what she wanted to hear, she asked him, "Are you willing now to recreate your agreement to always be on time?"  "Yes."

That's ridiculous, folks will say.  Of course it is at one level.  But the purpose of est was to get us to experience life from the perspective of being "at cause" rather than "at effect" in the creation of our experience.   The guy could have anticipated the subway breakdown and come much earlier to ensure that he arrived on time.  He could have taken another form of transportation, etc.

Of oourse, we don't crealte all our own reality.  A mother does not arrange prior to her birth to take her kids for a walk so that they can be torn apart by a pack of dogs. 

Here I betray my bias.  After a thorough study, I'm convinced that the doctrine of sequential or parallel incarnations of the "I" is nonsense and often confuses the memories infused by possession with reincarnation.  But I concede that, to some extent, it can be useful to look at life from the standpoint of how you contribute to setting up whatever happens to you, whether you are at fault or not.

Don

Hi Matthew- Great question!

You suggest that "thought and intention" may be sufficient to generate a physical reality. I'd like to ask you, what is it that you mean by "physical reality"? That is, can you truly and unequivocably differentiate a "physical reality" from the processes of your "thought and intention"? And, if you can, of what is the "physical reality", including its bosons, hadrons, quarks and fields, ultimately composed?

I'm inclined to agree with Seth (ugh!) that there's only one rule, but it seems possible that the rule defines the manner in which thoughts come to be taken for things more permanent because of the intention that we ascribe to them. Then there's the converse, the definitions we adopt by that intended ascription, and through which we become subject to them in precisely the manner of physical objects because of our attachment to intention, whatever that might mean.

I seem to detect a circularity in the phrasing of the issue. As if the question is misleading in itself, and thus there can be no answer. But that doesn't mean we can't resolve the reality of intentional thinking, simply that we need to do it in other terms.

As an example, in "physical ailments", placebos are (statistically verified to be) 15-30% effective. That could mean that (1)  placebos become eg. antibiotics by virtue of the patient's intention, or (2) that "physical ailments" are actually thought foms and subject to treatment by other thoughts, such as those about the placebos. And so on.  This approach doesn't seem very useful.

The late physicist Archibald Wheeler suggested that everything was information. If I recall properly, the Greeks felt that it all came out of Chaos, and the early  Gnostics suggested that this was through an initial immanent Rule or Logos. Perhaps this is more in line with your initial question? In that case I think that we are simply looking for the thought that thinks itself in voidness, and thus leads to manifestation.

dave

yes, I would be interested in hearing talk about applying intention and what happened...
in what area of life are we placing intention?
  seems like a silly question. Mathew mention applying intention within meditation and being surprised at the result. if he could explain...

I have not understood Moen's crook of the little finger exercise to phase...however, I do a little exercise to recall dreams where I focus on what I was feeling in the dream and a flood of images are produced so I can remember. I don't think that is placing intention but it's fun.

I have placed intention to do a specific retrieval when asked and it has worked. I have concentrated on getting an answer to a question, and that has worked as intention I suppose.

could an affirmation be an intention? I see an affirmation as a re-programing, so I'm not sure.
affirmations do work but not instantly.

if an intention manifests quickly, I say it's definetely encouraging and I'd like to hear about it!

This is outstanding Tim.

Love, Mairtreya

Tim,

I reject Seth's blanket claim that "we create our own reality."  That said, I think this discussion of placing intent is an important variation of the kind of faith that, according to Jesus, works miracles.   In this regard, the word 'faith" can be misleading because it has many meanings and is often retricted mental assent to God and spiritual principles.  In fact, what Jesus had in mind is a highly nuanced attitude and implicit practice, of which your recent story is a good illustration.

Don