The Principle of Manifestation

The reality is we are manifesting our life in every moment. Intentional manifestation means we are making conscious the thoughts that we want to influence our reality. Without awareness, our life is emerging from the undercurrent of thought, the unconscious, habituated, potentially negative or sabotaging thoughts. To be deliberate about our longings, to spend time with the energy and essence of what the heart yearns for, is to have agency in influencing our life.

The mechanism of manifestation is not innately spiritual or divine. The mechanism is operating on the power of reflective emergence. Our reality is bound to reflect our inner world. If our motivations in life are to gain power, build a "self", become "important", "win", then our inner world will be occupied with thoughts to that effect. From a spiritual perspective, the role of manifestation is to allow the purest form of our heart's longings to flow through us in service of our own and other's awakening.

Ultimately, as our evolution deepens, our need to create or manifest anything deliberately, lessens. There is a complete trust in the natural unfolding of life and existence, and presence-awareness is the only longing. One reason to manifest our heart's desire purposefully is to see that nothing on the outside provides ultimate freedom. Until the heart and mind is convinced of this, it's useful to manifest clearly and specifically so as to learn that truth more quickly.

For manifestation to serve our spiritual evolution and not our egoic growth, the core motivation must be clear. It may be the motivation to free the heart, or our longing to live in alignment with the deepest truths, or to uncover the freedom and happiness that is unrelated to external circumstances. With that we are saying that we want our actions to be a reflection of this developing freedom in ourselves. Whatever your motivation, it is just as important as the specifics of what you want to create.

Transitions are ripe with opportunity for realigning our intentions and turning toward manifestation. Transition is the phase between what was and what is to be.

The first thing to keep in mind is that transition means something which was clearly in place, providing perceived stability, and giving us perceived certainty, has ended. Whether this happened suddenly or gradually, this new reality is often disorienting, uncomfortable, confusing, even scary or terrifying. It's important to know that this feeling is inevitable. Any change is loss. So we are contending with the experience of change, loss, and often some level of grief.

This means that transition has its own time frame. There is no rushing transition. One thing that happens when we allow our heart to speak its inspiration is that we immediately get impatient. We're funny beings that way. It can be hard to find what our heart truly wants, but once we identify it, we often can only see that it is not present. So the second thing to keep in mind is patience.

Your only job during transitions is to allow your heart to speak, imagine, day-dream, then to connect with the essence of those inspirations, and then to let go. The letting go is just the same as in meditation practice. We remind ourselves that the ego cannot "be", cannot free us, that thinking (as in ruminating, doubting, worrying) is a hindrance, not a support, that what we are re-learning is to surrender the ego's effort. We turn over our attempts to control the outcome because we recognize that our small mind is limited in its capacity to create. We recognize that there are innumerable causes and conditions that are interacting to respond to the heart's request. We also let go with the understanding that we don't know what is in our best interest. We might think we do. But, all we can really know is what our deepest intention is - freedom. Then we have to let the mystery of existence paint the picture.

Just as with loving-kindness meditation, when we turn toward what we genuinely long for with conscious awareness, often what gets revealed is all the ways in which we are not supporting those longings. We witness the obstacles that the ego throws up: I don't deserve this, this will never happen, that's asking too much, I'm not good enough, etc.... This is good - you are bringing the thought patterns to light and facing them with the gentle, open heart of awareness, just to be witnessed, noticed and allowed. Because you have turned toward it in that moment, its powerful current has stopped and there is a sliver of time where you have the power to insert untainted longings.

During transition, whenever the mind becomes preoccupied with worry, the unknown, or wants to force action in order to get beyond the waiting, simply ask the heart to articulate what it wants. Write, draw, imagine, walk, be still, whatever helps you give voice to the next phase. Let your being feel the nature of the next phase. Stay away from specifics like specific people, places, things, and instead expand the different aspects or essences (like openness, joy, community, laughter, generosity, light, service, kindness, etc...) of what's to come. Bask in that. And then let go. Be patient. Do regular daily things. Forget it really. And repeat.