It’s been around as long as we’ve been aware of our own mentation, of the phenomenon of consciousness. It’s spelled out in ancients texts from traditions all over the world, and passed down through oral teachings in traditions that don’t use texts. Intention is the backbone of transformational work, without which results are flimsy and without substance (soundtrack to this rant: Talking Heads’ Making Flippy Floppy)... which is to say, intention is nothing to be taken lightly.
I’ve rubbed elbows and bumped auras with my fair share of Affirmations Enthusiasts over the years, and I’m simultaneously heartened and irked when I listen to them speak (as intriguing as it sounds, those sensations do not make for a winning combination) because though they are often standing within spitting distance of "the point", they just as frequently miss it!
I’ve heard people say they don’t need to tend to their finances any more because they’re “Investing in the Universal Bank of Eternal Bliss”. I’ve heard them blithely declare that they have rid their bodies of disease by doing nothing more than taping healing statements to their bathroom mirrors. It’s as if they see dragons and monsters clawing at their door, and choose to call them “rainbow-eating unicorns”, even as they’re devoured alive.
What gets me is that there is a grain of truth in each of these approaches. But (and I take care to never start sentences with “but”)... that grain of truth has not been given what it needs to germinate, sprout, and grow into a real thing... and that is a certain something I like to call subtle attention.
You need to get your subtle attention aligned with the subtle energy of money, the subtle energy of healing, even the subtle energy of the monsters at the door, if you have any hope of influencing them with intention/affirmation. You can't stand in your customary mindset and expect to influence the most subtle and mysterious processes in the known universe- you have to adjust your own mentation, which means going within. And, as you develop that skill, you also have to be crystal-clear that what you are asking for is exactly what you want. I mean crystal-clear as in, there is no room for ambiguity or misinterpretation; as if you were hanging by your knuckles from a cliff edge and precision in speaking would save you:
Rainbow-eating unicorns are hell on your food budget.
The act and art of intention as it is marketed today, (and it is marketed; don’t get me started- again) it’s as if a candy-flavored decal has been manufactured that you can just slap over existing truths and situations in a sugar-glazed denial of anything that needs introspection, attention, or the most jonesed-after of activities for the Breakthrough Junkie: Inner Work.
The Spanda-Karikas are a heady, philosophically dense collection of pithy sanskrit verses that, properly understood, outline the entire relationship between our mental processes and the power that manifests the universe (spanda). I could spend my entire career unpacking just the 22nd verse of the first section (from Jaideva Singh’s translation):
“In that state is the spanda-principle firmly established to which a person is reduced when he is greatly exasperated or overjoyed, or is in impasse reflecting what to do, or is running for life”
In short, it is precisely during those times when we are thrown mentally off-track by some heightened emotional state (and whether it is interpreted as “good” or “bad”, “happy” or “afraid” matters not a whit) or are at a complete mental impasse, that we are in a position to access and influence the creative pulse out of which the world throbs its way into being.
The commentary on this verse describes the manner in which the yogin(i) must grasp hold of the mind at precisely the moment that the heightened state arises, in order to bear influence on the situation.
In western culture it is customary to ignore the immense power in these heightened states. When in fear or anger, we grasp at nothing (least of all, our minds) and let the situation spin out of control by focusing on more of what is wrong, unwanted, or unnecessary... thereby creating more of it. Or, and this is where Modern Affirmationists often miss the boat even while standing on the deck, we craft a phrase or picture that is the opposite of the reality that's got us all fired up, and pretend it's true. The old "fake it 'til you make it" routine does have its virtues; it is a great warm-up exercise for the work we're talking about here - but it does not manifest the whole enchilada.
What is required, and what this verse describes, is a stealth operation carried out by the experient on his or her own perceptions. It is a skill that requires diligence, practice, and steadfastness on the part of its practitioner. Having caught hold of the mind in the moment between one thought and the next, the yogin is instructed to immediately turn within. When this is accomplished, the experient is in the company of the manifesting power of the universe and uses laser-like focus to create the desired outcome. The commentary goes on to say that those who are not yogis (practiced at turning within) will remain only stupefied.
In other words, this ain’t no platitudinous, candy-ass bumper-sticker philosophy; it’s a rigorous discipline that involves wrangling with the realities of the situation-as-it-is, while harnessing the subtle, yet run-away-train nature of the emotions. And yes, it can bring you wealth. And turn illness to health. Monsters into unicorns? Sure, if unicorns are truly useful to you (and if you can train them to eat whole enchiladas instead of rainbows). But the trick is, and the point that pop-shrink marketers the world over are missing, is that it is Subtle. Sub. Tle. And it
Requires
Your
Participation.
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