Tips for Manifestation

Shadowofwind:

You're correct, I was indeed having yet another stab at something that has been eating me. I think it is excellent that you noticed it, because few do (they usually just write me off as a mindless "skeptic" or just another asshole who doesn't get it. Perhaps I am) There is so much more to this subject, and in the name of pushing the conversation I was doing a little baiting with questions to which I knew there are no answers. Clearly it did not go well!

The stuff that forms the foundation of LOA or manifestation runs very deep within us all, and talk like this shows that the participants might be interested in plumbing those depths. So I gave it a shot. I hope you'll forgive the effort, because I did get a bit snippy there.

I think I have more to say before I yet again pack up my toys and go home, but it's late, my mind is frazzled, so I know I'll regret anything I try to post tonight. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe never, who knows?

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Originally Posted by juroara

NO ONE has gone through their entire life "happy" or blissful. That's just an outright self-delusion. Such a person wouldn't even be recognizable as sane. They would be half naked in the streets, laughing, dancing, raving 24/7 and we would all think they're off the wall mad.

Nor you can say with certainity that just because you know someone to be "very happy" that they have never had such secret sadness in their heart. Or that this person has never known doubt. Or that this person has never known fear.

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You are absolutely right. No sane person can maintain perfect happiness from cradle to grave. In truth I didn't even realize I said that, though I obviously did. I guess I was accidentally waxing hyperbolic there, just to make a point. And by extension sure, everyone must suffer pain fear, or doubt in their lives, no matter how happy they generally are (or how well they cope with the hurt, I suppose). Sorry if I overreached.

Yes, I cannot guarantee that my perception of others' happiness is accurate, but if they're faking it, then they are masters of deception indeed!

Considering where I've been and where I've gone, I have nothing to fake. But even with such an extraordinary liberation from suffering as I've gone through, people are still capable of pissing me off. I just get through it, and trying to change the situation as quickly as possible. EFT helps, which mcwillis posted a video of near the OP.

Omnis Dei,

Your statement "people claim to have figured out how it works but it hasn't endured enough scientific rigor to be considered a valid theory" seems to me to be an understatement times a billion.

As you may have noticed, a hundred years ago radio was a high sounding buzzword, hence the brand name 'radio flyer' for a child's wagon for instance. The New Age movement was in its heyday at the same time. Science is another word that late 19th and early 20th century spiritualists threw around a lot (Christian Science, Thought Science, Science of Mind). This is the only sense I can make of how people talk about 'frequencies'. I'm unable to connect it in any meaningful way, metaphorical or otherwise, with what I know about oscillations in nature, such as in chemical bonds. If you can do that I'd be interested, because people use the same words to describe astral matter, and that's something I'm interested in understanding better.

In the Schrodinger cat example, its the interaction between the cat and the physical system measuring it that forces it into a definite state within that system. As far as the physics description goes, the consciousness of a scientist that is completely irrelevant. Interacting particles work this way whether people are observing them or not, otherwise your computer would go nova the moment your attention wandered.

I think the hows and whys do matter in the sense that if you don't fully understand something you can't tell if the results you're getting are really what they seem to be. But of course I agree that a person doesn't need a full understanding in order to understand something.

You can't claim that just because something stops existing when your attention wanders from it, that means it won't function the same way as before when you put your attention back on it. While there are limitations as far as what results the environment can stimulate, within these limitations is chaos. Hence Chaos Magick, the idea that you can alter the information as long as you aren't trying to alter it beyond its arbitrary capacities.

Frequency is the basic code for existence. It's no more a buzzword than bit is a buzzard when describing information in a computer. Life is made up of code, and the most basic code for all life is categorized into frequencies. Frequencies are how information is communicated between systems, just how bits are how virtual information is communicated between computer systems.

Peter J Carrol explains this much better than I can.

^^ Theory, Omnis Dei, is important, especially when trying to understand, and utilize, something we all know very little about, like this.

Your post convinced me finally to put up the following, which I wrote last night but sensed even then was losing relevance here quite rapidly. Whether it's too late, or never mattered at all doesn't matter now, I suppose -- it's here. I hope it makes sense.

To all the participants here, especially Omnis Dei:

Following is a short post script to a response I made to Shadowofwind earlier. It seems to already be somewhat out of date, but I figured I’d stick it in anyway. Why? I haven’t a clue. If my tone seems condescending or emotional, just ignore that -- I don’t feel that way.

Now:

First, this was one of the best conversations that I've encountered in a long while on the topic of thought/emotion driven desire-based creation (aka: LOA, manifestation, thought forms, thought energy, positive thinking, prayer, prana, Clear Light, white magic, etc, etc, etc -- every mystic who ever stepped outside himself for three seconds thought he "discovered" the potential of mystical manifestation, so the list of "original" versions of essentially the same thing is very long). This is true not only for your thoughtful posts but for your interest and commitment to this wispy subject. You're on to something for sure, and should never stop searching -- or smiling!

That said, the reason that I posted what I did was because I already knew my main and likely by now long forgotten question could not be answered. I was hoping through asking it, though, to see a conversation emerge about the depth and potentials of this stuff, rather than just another billboard about getting good fortune or easy living with minimal effort, with the requisite and enforced acceptance that LOA is an actual physical law. The thread, and its participants, seemed ripe for growth.

Sadly for me, but not you guys, the bulk of my question went fully ignored, with only my throwaway points getting discussed. This I suppose makes sense if all you want to discuss is “How to,” and not get into questions like “What if?” “Why?” and “Where can we take this?” I get it, now, and should have gotten it earlier when reading the simple dismissals of any questions regarding the actual metaphysical validity of the OP, or LOA. My bad.

And no, Shadowofwind, I was not looking for a concrete explanation for how specifically that LOA's compass works. I really don’t care about that. I was looking only for a description of the compass itself. You guys are throwing an enormous amount of words about, but your focus is very narrow. Sure, the OP’s steps are interesting, but is that it? -- PS: sorry to make you add all those words about your "theory" of how LOA functions, Omnis -- it was entertaining, but unnecessary.

Stepping beyond the standards of threads like this -- "It is because it is," obsession with minutia, all the anecdotal “evidence,” and now (as per Omnis Dei’s last post) actual dismissals of deeper exploration -- for a few minutes to more carefully examine or at least imagine from our various perspectives the source of the “magic” behind this stuff might have taken us closer to actually manipulating the energies we all sense exist, rather than simply come up with schemes that we know in our hearts really don't work.

Know in our hearts really don't work?

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Originally Posted by Omnis Dei

Know in our hearts really don't work?

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Sure. It's just an opinion about which I could be of course be wrong (though it is based on personally testing disciplines like this for decades -- which I know also means nothing in the real world).

But think about it. If you had a method for manifestation that truly worked, would you really be spending your days on this site, or on your computer at all, given that all your desires would be met with relative ease through a very pleasant process. Surely your deepest desires don't include typing shit on a web forum! ;)

I must note as well that once again only the throwaway bit of my post was acknowledged or questioned. Perhaps I should not have bothered?

For me sageous, its not the method ive doubted, its everything else

And I dont feel ive only answered the throw away bits of your post....

Sageous,

I still think you might get better results if you didn't try to nudge us around with hints as if we're children playing at the feet of a master. We're not being obstinate, we're just not picking up on what you're hinting at much of the time. Maybe you can put your concern in a very specific question, not one that's in the direction of the question, but the question itself? If you've already done that I keep missing it.

Omnis Dei,

I don't see that frequency is how information is communicated between systems, any more than amplitude, or phase. Any arbitrary information can be communicated with just one frequency. I'm not just making this up or repeating something someone has said, I can explain this in great detail.

If a clock does not exist while your attention is away from it, what causes it to be on time when you put your attention back?

Physics, including quantum physics, requires things to exist while your attention is away. If you posit that they don't, then I don't think the Schrodinger cat example is relevant, because you're not talking about quantum physics.

If the most basic code for life is known to be categorized into frequencies, then someone should be able to show that categorization, preferably in text. M-theory could arguably be interpreted as a theory of frequencies. But there the frequencies that define the modes of existence in our world are fixed, the atoms in the bodies of different individuals don't vibrate at different frequencies according to their natures, for example.

I'm uncomfortable with this line of discussion though, and am glad to let it go if you want to.

Incidentally, I dreamed of you last night, you were named Ben Peterson I think. (I don't expect that is very close to your real name, the letters and sounds in the name would be by association with other things.)

According to scientists, the earth is already about halfway through its habitable life cycle. (I know this seems off topic, but I'm going somewhere with this.) The sun is gradually getting hotter, and will eventually bake everything. Also the moon is getting further away, and will eventually no longer stabilize the axis of rotation, which will go through a chaotic period and end up in the orbital plane. The oceans are expected to be gone by then though. If the path of evolution tends towards morality, as you have suggested, that morality was still built upon hundreds of millions of years of tooth and nail brutality, encompassing at least half of the whole history. For every Bach that can create something beautiful, scores of artistically ugly people failed to accomplish their hopes and dreams and were weeded out. They felt that failure and suffered. Unfortunate people have been born and continue to be born with horribly painful defects, without a chance at a good life, with or without the 'law of attraction'. I realized this morning that I need to feel these people, they are a part of the world that is a part of me. I'm not advocating this for other people, at least not in the same way, but it is who I am. Without this I feel cut off, damned up inside. So I think the only way for me to be free of pain is for the world and its history to become free of pain. I'm not saying that I can't know joy also, or that I should punish myself, or make my own life worse for the sake of solidarity those who didn't have the same opportunities that I did. I'm just saying that I will allow myself to feel what is there, and not shut things out. A couple of days ago I said something like this in relation to external relations, but this applies internally also. For me this supersedes other considerations in the context of 'law of attraction'. Again I'm not trying to convince anyone of anything here, I'm just explaining something about where I'm coming from that I now realize.

Juroara,

Thanks for your thoughts. I'd be interested in seeing your art. Did you paint your icon?

I also quit my job and assumed things would work out. I learned more about the extent to which people are expected to follow certain patterns in life. I also learned that just because things seem fated doesn't mean they'll work out well. Your thoughts determine what happens for you, but only in intersection with other people's thoughts, and other people may wish to take advantage of you. Everyone has a slightly different process they need to go through though. I'm happy to hear what you've been doing has been a positive process for you.

Ironically, I think that for me my relentlessly critical nature is a part of what freed me, even though I obviously pay a price for it also, and its something I want to continue to change. Its part of how I saw through patterns that I would have been trapped in otherwise. I think every person's failings are a special gift if they understand them the right way.

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Originally Posted by shadowofwind

Sageous,

I still think you might get better results if you didn't try to nudge us around with hints as if we're children playing at the feet of a master. We're not being obstinate, we're just not picking up on what you're hinting at much of the time. Maybe you can put your concern in a very specific question, not one that's in the direction of the question, but the question itself? If you've already done that I keep missing it.

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You are absolutely right, but I can't seem to stop myself. I don't know why. My last post, I think, was as close to specific as I can get, and I thought I was clear. But if you missed it, I have failed for sure.

Sometimes I think I reside on a different planet.

Keep up the chat guys, and listen to Shadowofwind. Maybe someday I'll find words and questions that attract attention, because, as I said, the root of this thread might represent a foundation of our very existence, and it would be real nice to discuss what it implies rather spend time outlining one of its side-effects (LOA).

I think I've run out of steam.

Sageous,

I posted a long reply last night to your 'why waste time on the internet if magic is real' question, and now its gone. But I saved it in the mouse buffer! So here it is again.

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Originally Posted by Sageous

My last post, I think, was as close to specific as I can get, and I thought I was clear.

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Originally Posted by Sageous

But think about it. If you had a method for manifestation that truly worked, would you really be spending your days on this site, or on your computer at all, given that all your desires would be met with relative ease through a very pleasant process. Surely your deepest desires don't include typing shit on a web forum!

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That's the question you asked two years ago, in your first response to one of my posts, in relation to psychic phenomena in dreams. I can't speak for other people but I can answer it again for myself.

If I lived where my kids live, I would never post online. As I see it, I can't fix that problem for two reasons. One is definitely out of my control: I'm a victim of economic forces which affect millions of other people also, and those forces are to a large extent a result of how our society as a whole thinks about personal gain. I suffer and other people suffer because humanity as a whole is selfish and shortsighted. The other problem is my own desire, I think it does have a supernatural effect on my fate, as I have suggested here. For instance, a part of me would like to screw new women, and I can't do that if I'm with my wife. That desire warps my fate so that I have opportunity, even though I don't use the opportunity because I have other stronger desires opposing it. To completely eliminate this effect I'd have to completely change my sexual nature, not merely suppressing it but completely changing it. That's not an easy thing to do. I also have a significant desire to do something about this religious/paranormal stuff, and that desire creates an opportunity to focus on it. To fix that, I have to satisfy that call somehow. "Changing my mind" about these things isn't good enough, it has to go to the core or it doesn't work. That's because the LOA principle is real, at least in that sense.

So why then do I post instead of doing other things? Like I've said elsewhere, I can't work and meditate and sleep 24 hours a day. Also, I really do like interacting with people, and this is a primary opportunity I have to do that, limited as it might be. If I could choose between manifesting riches and sharing meaningful experiences with people, I'll pick the latter every time. Though most of the discussion here is frustrating and limited, I do learn things. For instance I think I've made a little bit of headway on my heart-song topic as a result of this thread. And I think that's a critically important topic for me. If an internet discussion is the only way a particular piece can fall into place, then that's what I've got to do, even if it requires butting against a hedge for a lifetime. And there is a 'real' aspect to the social interaction. I've had dream experiences in relation to several individuals from the site, though I generally only discuss that in private messages, and this does seem to exercise and grow that part of myself. A few months ago I decided I'd had enough of the DreamViews BS and I withdrew in my mind, but then I felt myself regressing. One way or another I have to keep at it, even if I don't do that here. Aside from the interpersonal interaction, I also need some metaphor food for thought, since I don't watch movies, and I get some of that here.

Your question seems to me to be a little bit of a straw man. I've claimed that supernatural phenomena are real, never that I can beckon the tides with a flip of my finger. Or are you wondering why supernatural seems to be so weak? I have some intuitions about that, how true they are I don't know. One is that the universe is mostly frozen, almost like how a person survives in shock after a grave injury. Our instincts and perceptions are seriously fucked up, and we've already got all the power we can handle. That second part is not an intuition, I can see that fairly objectively. Look at the biography of a Franklin Jones and what they do with their power. They use it in a way that undermines it and takes them out of the picture. Its self-pruning. Give any person strong psychic power and they will turn into a monster. They can't help themselves. I've got enough trouble just with my tiny apportionment. As I gain the independent confidence and ease that a little perspective brings, my reflex is to treat other people like crap because I don't need them. Maybe I'm damned to spend an eternity posting on the internet until I learn not to treat other posters like punching bags, and start approaching them with a little bit of compassion and understanding, as fellow human beings. Then after I do that I can graduate to talking to people face to face. There is a real person, but mostly I just speak to the mask. Need to try harder to see the real person. To allow myself to feel them. Or to understand why I should not.

If I am who I am in part because I have everyone else in me, maybe I can't completely transform myself fundamentally because I can't change everyone else. Maybe I can't let myself feel other people totally, because I can't afford to get drawn into other people's addictions. Or maybe there is a way, another way of thinking. I think I'm stronger than I was. If our universe has fallen into some kind of catastrophe, as I feel it has, can it ever heal itself? I think there's a fallacy in the question. In some sense there's no way out, we're just fucked, forever. In some other sense I think recovery is possible. I will keep trying until I understand. This is why I need to learn about who I am and what my relationship is with everyone else, because I can't answer the question without understanding that. As my understanding of identity changes, the intuitions I'm capable of getting about fate and the problem of evil change. As long as my thought of identity is somewhat wrong or incomplete, the intuitions are false also. I think I've been making some headway. If the headway seems small, consider the audacity of the project.

The unity of identity makes the problem harder in the sense that individuals can't pull themselves out of the collective trainwreck. But without that unity, it would be impossible to ever resurrect the whole system. It would be like trying to pick up a gigantic wet sail that was lying on the ground.

Another angle on this....Maybe your question is something to the effect of "I wanted a life of finding answers to these big questions, transforming our experience, striding with humanity towards the promised land, but what I got was a tiny caricature of that life. What the hell happened?" I think this is the same question that I just tried to answer in another form. We've been playing this 'teacher/aspirant/sage' game for ages. Its a farce because everything is a farce. We fail as sages for the same reason that husbands fail as husbands and angels act like demons. In some other life we had 10 times the wisdom we do now, but we still act out the same drama, even though the knowledge and power content is mostly missing. The idea that the world is the problem and The Way as any of us conceive of it is the solution is a mistake. Our thought of the solution is as messed up as anything. When that's fixed, everything else will be fixed also.

Another way to answer that is to say is that pride and power lust is what happened. We're too busy stroking ourselves and not actually doing the work we pretend to care about. But part of that answer is that its just hard, we're starting off from a hard place, it just takes time to get off the ground.

We have help though. I think the heavens are as messed up as the earth, at least what the heavens have become to we who are like ourselves. But even in that realm there's an effort to wake up, to communicate, to care for. My struggle is to a very large extent not driven by 'me'. Yes I own it, and there is a greater, semi-collective 'me' involved, but its shared with a lot of other spirits, so to speak. And in some real sense it must be like that for you also I think, and for everyone, even if you don't experience that in quite the same way.

Gotta go. I hope that hits the mark in some way.

^^ You've hit the mark on many levels, Shadowofwind, nicely said!

My question was directed more at Omnis Dei than you, because, though I've actually only been here a year, I indeed do know from our past exchanges that you would find that question flawed, or weak at best. Not a straw man, though, I assure you; your perspective, especially as outlined above, is much different I think that that of others posting here -- I have a feeling that they truly believe that harnessing this LOA will manifest a better life for them without commensurate exchange of effort (and I'm not just speaking of material gain, here, I hope you understand that). I don't think you feel that way, and I never did. As a matter of fact, your post tends to compliment my thought that real success is the result of hard work, sacrifice, and some suffering -- it cannot "just come to you," no matter how great your joy. As usual you lay out a slightly darker version of why it won't "just come to you" than I might, but I think, as usual, we're in general agreement.

So, though your response answers my question well, it does so to me, because you are basically stating what I've been (poorly) hinting at throughout my posts: You cannot simply manifest good fortune, no matter how much joy you generate, because there are far too many complications in the real world that conspire to interfere with that manifestation. One of the major complications, I think, is that LAO, if it exists, is a law shared by 7 billion souls, so results would necessarily be diluted, with "pure," focused fortune coming directly to you perhaps a statistical impossibility. Weakness indeed.

I think asking about why you'd be on the internet said more about you not being where you wish to be (with your kids, in your case) than it did about desiring to type on the internet. My point was that if LOA or manifestation works, the desires fulfilled would very likely transcend this need we have to blather on on these forums, and "typing"would quickly fade into memory as we find ourselves living the way we always wished we could. Yes, I suppose that there are those whose deepest desires include chat forums, but I really believe the folks here exceed that caliber.

By raising the question (same question, of course, as ones like "if you can tell the future, why are you here telling us that, and not living in the lap of luxury or power thanks to your abilities?" -- just cut and paste for ESP, shared-dreaming, telekinesis, etc; it's all drawn from the same well, and is never answered), I was speaking more to the potentials of LOA, its underlying power as illustrated on this thread, than I was its practical utilization by individuals. If such a law exists, or manifestation can be done with just joy, then the force that drive it must be enormous and would add whole new chapters to the physics books. To be able to tap such a force at will -- even without ever once understanding how specifically it works -- would be to alter your very existence, I think... unless of course this LOA is an incredibly weak or already over-tapped force, as you imply, and we're all talking about nothing! Threads like this almost always jump right to the "what can I do to get something out of this right now" mode, completely overstepping the thing that's actually being talked about. That, I believe, is why I persist on asking these questions, and why I get so frustrated when they consistently go ignored.

I also tried to point out that countless versions of these methods for manifestation have been around probably as long as harnessed fire has, and they pretty much never work ... if they did, we would be learning them from birth, and "manifesting" by rote at this point. But -- as you sort of implied above -- that doesn't mean the Law, doesn't exist, just that we can't tap it. Indeed, all these methods might be with us still because it is in our nature to sense them (I think you said that, too, but I'm running out of time and can't look up).

I think I'm talking in circles now, especially when all I had to say was "agreed, and thank you," so I'll put on the brakes.

Bottom line, I think, is that I was not presenting a straw man question at all, given that the promise of this "Law" is transcendent, so being able to harness it and still being on this site seem to me to be in juxtaposition. You outline well why they might not be, but I think your thoughts might not be share by everyone here. It would be nice I think, if others chose to dive as deeply as you just did.

A point of possible clarification....

I meant to indicate that there are limitations that make the 'law of attraction' not behave in the manner that is often claimed. I didn't mean that those limitations weakened it to the point of unimportance.

Physics analogy: two jugs of water a meter apart exert a very small electrostatic force on each other (see wikipedia page on 'fundamental interaction'). Yet the electrons in one bucket would repel those in the other with a net force of about 100000000000000000000000000 lbs, if not counteracted by the protons. Gravity, in contrast, is extremely weak in comparison, but has large effects because it acts cumulatively. Spontaneous joy is to a significant extent not a zero-sum thing, it is not counter-balanced by other people's happiness. Likewise for courage, sincerity, etc. So even if the force of it is small, it can have a very important impact on destiny. I generally perceive self-deception to be a bigger negative than gloom, but I think a person could make a reasonable argument that they're equally significant. Though I have criticisms of practiced cheerfulness, I don't want to denigrate emotion as if it doesn't matter or doesn't do anything psychically.

Sorry you didn't think that I dove deep enough. But dont make the assumption that the LOA just ignores these issues you've brought up. A lot of these concerns are even covered in The Secret, and that movie is a basic outlook on the LOA. There are so many great books out there that have discussed every concern you brought up. Including what the LOA means about our reality and our place in the universe. The most ancient source that I can think of is Dream Yoga, that teaches our reality is just a giant shared dream!

I'm sorry if I wasnt upfront and answered your question why come to dreamviews when I have the LOA. But dont you think thats a rather judgemental question? I mean, do you go to monks and ask "Are you enlightened yet? Well why not?". Why not ask the same question of yourself first.

The steps in this thread reiterate the importance of experiencing joy free from attachments and coming from within yourself. Do you know someone who can do this at command, because if you do they're my teacher. I just wait for spontaneous moments.

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Originally Posted by juroara

Sorry you didn't think that I dove deep enough. But dont make the assumption that the LOA just ignores these issues you've brought up. A lot of these concerns are even covered in The Secret, and that movie is a basic outlook on the LOA. There are so many great books out there that have discussed every concern you brought up. Including what the LOA means about our reality and our place in the universe. The most ancient source that I can think of is Dream Yoga, that teaches our reality is just a giant shared dream!

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I understand that, and had a feeling that you and the other contributors to this thread had, finally, the chops to dig a bit deeper into LOA, and that's why I pushed a bit. But no worries; Shadowofwind straightened me out, and I'll not ask stupid questions anymore ... but if I think of a smart one I'll chime in! ;)

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I'm sorry if I wasnt upfront and answered your question why come to dreamviews when I have the LOA. But dont you think thats a rather judgemental question?

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I suppose it would be a judgmental question, if I assumed ahead of time that the people I asked didn't have an answer. I did not. I am always in search of an answer, and not a victory. You don't gain knowledge by "besting" folks with clever wit, you do so by listening ... and I was ready to listen. I still am.

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I mean, do you go to monks and ask "Are you enlightened yet? Well why not?". Why not ask the same question of yourself first.

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In all honesty, I would go to the monks, especially the higher lamas, and ask that very question. Indeed, I would not hesitate to ask this same question to spiritual leaders, self-proclaimed mystics, and anyone else who claims to have simple solutions to very difficult questions, or easy methods to do what on paper is impossible, like manifestation ... and I would always listen attentively for an answer.

For what it's worth, I ask myself that question almost every day. Funny, over the years, that question to myself has gotten many different answers -- or should I call them excuses? So no, I don't claim to be better than any of you, or any more successful in my search for more. I just sensed a bucket of excellent knowledge to dip into and went for it. Sorry you didn't like the route I chose very much.

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The steps in this thread reiterate the importance of experiencing joy free from attachments and coming from within yourself. Do you know someone who can do this at command, because if you do they're my teacher. I just wait for spontaneous moments.

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Yes, I think I've encountered many people in life who could experience innate joy free from attachments. In fact, it troubles me that you find this such an alien thing. Maybe you should move in different circles? Calling up joy "on command" seems a curious thing, and I doubt any of those people chose specific moments for their joy. Does that matter? Isn't the joy enough unto itself without needing to be ready made?

Once more, all apologies for interfering so miserably. I actually have a lot of respect for and interest in the possible foundations of LOA and manifestation, and hope that you haven't chosen to judge me as just another poo-pooing skeptic. I may be a bit jaundiced, and by nature reflexively cynical of the latest Easy Way Out strategy because I've found and tried so very many that were nothing more than pretty words and empty promises. But I am about as Interested in this stuff as a person can be.

So I'll stop now; please feel free to ignore me, but I hope you don't, and do dare to dip into the water a bit; I think you guys are definitely up to the task.

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Originally Posted by Sageous

Sure. It's just an opinion about which I could be of course be wrong (though it is based on personally testing disciplines like this for decades -- which I know also means nothing in the real world).

But think about it. If you had a method for manifestation that truly worked, would you really be spending your days on this site, or on your computer at all, given that all your desires would be met with relative ease through a very pleasant process. Surely your deepest desires don't include typing shit on a web forum! ;)

I must note as well that once again only the throwaway bit of my post was acknowledged or questioned. Perhaps I should not have bothered?

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For right now, yes. I don't go to DV because I'm unhappy with my life and fuck it there's nothing else to do. I'm living the fucking dream, and DV rocks.

Besides manifestation doesn't have to work, I don't really give a shit. Granted it's easier to live in abundance when you believe that attitude will get you abundance, but it's not necessary. At the end of the day all I could do was answer a simple question for myself. Why live in the lack?

For instance I met a beautiful girl last week and she's a total tease who's been flirting with me for days but ended up hooking up with someone else last night. I'm not offended, flirtation doesn't mean she's mine. I do have feelings for her, and I could just say fuck that bitch, it's not worth the trouble. But I don't know what the future will hold. I don't enjoy my feelings for her in order to magically make her mine. Fuck she'd probably just drive me insane. I just have feelings for her because it feels so good to let that desire have some space.

Why live in the lack?

^^ I hear you. I think.

If you mean that it makes more sense to be positive, and not assume things can't work, I agree completely. I also agree that there is no sense dwelling on unfulfilled desire. But if you spend years doing nothing but wait for good things to come, and they never do, then what?

I have an old Spanish proverb tacked to my wall that I think might apply here: "Pray to God. But hammer away."

You stop waiting for them. Understand that when you desire something, you're really enjoying the feeling you can imagine having if the desire comes into fruition. The actual manifestation of the desire is not necessary in order to enjoy the feeling of desire. But we typically invest our happiness in the manifestation rather than enjoy it now because we doubt that it can come. We kill ourselves with expectations and waiting, especially because nothing ever matches up 100% like you expect it to. In defense, we then numb ourselves to high expectations. But it's because we don't really realize the basic fact that only our doubt in our ability to manifest our desires causes us to expect things. Without doubt, there is no problem. You don't actually need to manifest your desires at all as long as you do not doubt them.

Sageous,

I'll like to respond to your question of how manifestation works as I see it and share a personal experience.

During my recent move to Austin, I was looking for an apartment for my girlfriend and I. Due to a credit problem of mine, our selection was very limited. I spent a months constantly researching. We finally found a place that seemed would work out, only to be turned down. For a moment I felt depressed, maybe the move wouldn't work out at all. Then I decided to just trust the universe that a better opportunity was in store. At this point, all while believing this opportunity would manifest, I tried out new ways of searching for an apartment. I talked my girlfriend into being open to the idea of roommates. Within a week or two, we had found a new place that was less expensive than the one we got turned down for, nicer, more centrally located, and since we would be moving in with roommates, already impeccably furnished. A similar experience also happened when looking for a new job.

Hermann Hesse described manifesting desires as focusing your will on an outcome. It is not that there is a supernatural force out there magically manifesting your desires - it is your own will. When you focus everything on achieving a certain outcome or desire, then your will is ready to grab that opportunity as soon as it presents itself - an opportunity you may have otherwise missed.

I agree with your criticisms of the LOA and that there is no free lunch. In my experience that I described, I certainly wouldn't have found a great apartment without hard work and research, but I also wouldn't have found it if I had given up hope after the first rejection. Believing that everything would work out kept me positive and open to novel opportunities.

I've applied manifestation in other ways on small scales that has seemed to work for me. I also agree with Shadowofwind's criticisms in that attempting to manifest your desire can cause harm to others inadvertently. This is why I hesitate to truly attempt LOA for anything other than my highest goals. If thought energy is in fact real, it would seem a waste to me I was to focus my thought energy on manifesting a car, success, or even happiness, when I could be directing that energy to achieving a true understanding of existence or an end to suffering for all beings.

Nicely said, Hermine, and I feel that we are very much in agreement on all your points -- especially the major one stating that manifestation is a result of your own focus, actions, and work -- aka, your will (please correct me if I misunderstood; I do that a lot!). Very true. I was always a fan of Hesse, BTW.

One thing I am concerned about your reaction to me that I forgot to mention before when others noted it: I don't know how I projected the idea (probably my ugly cynical writing form), but I am also a very big fan of hope. It's one of the things that makes us human, after all, and hope is often the one virtue, when held tight, that not only provides the strength and patience needed during the long (oft eternal) wait for "manifestation," but also it is the strongest rope we can grasp when we need to pull ourselves out of really bad times. No, I don't lack hope, or dismiss it. I especially don't abandon it, as that would be a hellish choice indeed! I guess I just don't like seeing it presented as a tool for getting something for nothing, though. That's simply wrong, on many levels.

This all reminds me of a sermon I once heard, that I think has relevance here:

A woman, a very poor yet pious woman, prayed every day to win the lottery. She prayed very hard, lived her life as well as she could, raised a good and happy family, loved them all, but still she never won the lottery. Oh, the things she could do for her family and friends, she told God, if only she could win the lottery and no longer be poor. So she prayed every night, without fail. And never won.

Finally, after a very long life filled with all the happiness she could expect, pain she could endure, and loving friends and family she could imagine, she quietly died. She immediately found herself before God. After thanking him for all her life's blessings, she couldn't help but ask him: "Why, God, did I never win the lottery?"

"You have to buy a ticket," He replied.

Attitude is the first priority over action. When you have the right attitude, actions that would otherwise wear you down actually make you feel empowered. I was taught that if you're attitudes right, the facts don't matter. You can tell yourself action is required to make anything work, or you can tell yourself it's not necessary. Either way you're setting unjustified parameters and limiting the LOA's ability.

The most important action is to set your attitude to the correct resonance.

^^ Agreed.

But mustn't some action accompany an attitude in order for anything to happen?

Yes but the attitude is the biggest battle to fight and the most important victory. In fact it's 99% of the battle because actions come easily from a space of joy.

In other words actions is required but the only work that is required is work on your attitude.

But to agree with you, there are actions necessary for certain manifestations. If you want to be rich, you need to start somewhere and figure out a means to earn the money, which typically means investing or working at some sort of profession. While you can use LOA to open all the doorways and ensure your success, you still have to invest the actual money or apply for the job. LOA does circumvent all other laws, but it works around them it cannot just change them. It's like the law of lift vs the law of gravity. You cannot change the law of gravity, but you can build an airplane to circumvent it.

I've heard that if your burning obsession is strong enough and you feel absolutely no doubt, then nearly no pro-activity is required at all. It sounds like you're mainly attacking this idea, and that you believe having a good attitude is important but one must be pro-active. For most people this is true, but only because they can't make their obsession broadcast strongly enough or often enough, or because they are secretly holding onto doubt.

See, we have extremely limited radar, but we tend to assume it covers the whole map. So we think, "You cannot get a job without applying for it." or worse, yet more likely, you cannot get a certain job even if you applied because you have no experience. These are the thoughts that come to mind when we consider our dream job, and we believe that we need to figure out a plan to accomplish that goal, given the parameters of our extremely limited radar.

The biggest cause of doubt is us thinking what we know is fact, and if we can't figure out precisely how to accomplish something, we can't accomplish it.

So yes, action is required, but you don't know what those actions are. How you're going to accomplish something is nearly insignificant compared to knowing what you want. The work is in figuring out what you want, what captures your heart bad enough that the desire for it spills out of you like a flood. When you find that, and you overcome your doubt that it can happen, the universe will bend over backwards for you. I've seen it happen.