INTENTION

From the Zentai Series "Beyond the 12 Steps"
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INTENTION


You always get what you intend. Intention is a phenomenon that happens outside of ordinary awareness, the purpose of which is to determine the course of your life events. One always gets what one intends, regardless of what the mind says about it. Intention is formulated at a level of awareness that transcends the mind. If you are out of touch with that level of awareness, the events that happen to you in life may come as a surprise. You may or may not like what happens to you in life, but either way you will experience it as a victim, and have no sense that you caused it, unless you are aware. If you are aware, on the other hand, you know that you cause the experience of everything that happens in your life. You have the choice to be satisfied and nurtured by the events in your life or victimized and embittered by them. Either way you got the experience you intended to get.

If you have a sense of what I am talking about here and yet you are not aware enough to know that you cause your own experience, you probably are interested in knowing how to "tune in." I am going to tell you outright so that you will know. You tune in by having a willingness to experience that you are, in fact, the source of your experience in life, even when it appears that someone else is doing it to you and you don't want what you are getting.

I want you to do an exercise, the purpose of which is to allow you to experience the fact that you are the source of your experience in life. Place an object before you. It doesn't matter what object. Any object, including a book. Now, answer the following questions: What shape is this object? Is it pleasant for you to look at? How much is its worth? Would it make a good gift for someone? Now you have an experience of the object. Who created the experience? Did your mother do it? How about your father? Or perhaps your best friend? Maybe the object created an experience of itself and thrust it on you? Seems silly, doesn't it? Obviously you created the experience of the object. And yet, most of us troop through life not being responsible for our experience of it.

Notice that person you don't like. You know the one, the one you don't want to see or speak to anymore. Now, just who do you suppose created your experience of that person? Your mother? Your father? Your best friend? Most likely you think that the person you don't like created an experience of himself or herself and forced that experience on you. Seems silly, doesn't it? Of course you are the creator of those negative judgments. No one made you have them. No one could possibly make you have them. The question is not whether or not you are responsible for the creation of your experience in life. You are and that's it. The question is whether or not you will own and acknowledge your responsibility.

You see, you have all the information you need to have your life turn out well, even in the judgments of your mind. All of the facts are available to you. If you are ignoring the facts in life, you are responsible for having it turn out the way it does. The method you use to have it happen the way it does is that you choose to ignore and be unconscious of the facts. of course, you haven't wanted to ignore reality and "you have" intended it.

This brings up the issue of what you want in life, which you may have noticed is not the same as what you get, that is, intend, on every occasion. Wants come out of the mind, and the mind's primary concern is to survive and be right. So, what you want is designed by the mind to place you in a superior righteous position and enable you to survive better. Actually, you are going to survive. To the extent that you are willing to experience that, that you don't "need" a particular person or thing to make it, to that extent you can align your intention with what you want. I call this condition "satisfaction."

In the event that it is not possible, that is you are not willing, to experience survival as an accomplished feat, what you "intend" and what you "want" will definitely not be the same. In that case there is only one way for you to find out what you intend: wait and see. Whatever you get in the experience of your life, that is what you intended. This is a view of your intention by retrospection and tells you what your intention "was," not what it "is".

Don't become concerned about your unconscious. Your unconscious is not the source of your intention, and if you believe it is you can waste a lot of time playing a lot of worthless mind games. However, your unconsciousness is the obstacle between you and you’re seeing clearly what your intentions are. The unconscious dwells in the mind and is made up of all that information which contradicts the lies that your mind has told over the years. It is not easily available to you, that is, what is conscious. If you start telling the truth about that consistently, and being responsible for your experience of life, the unconscious will take care of itself by dissipating.

Notice that I am telling you to be responsible for your "experience" of life. I know that things happen in life, the actuality of which you do not cause. What you cause is your "experience" of what happens. You are responsible for what you make out of it. If you are in the midst of a difficult life situation, your job is to get value out of it, not another "reason" life didn't turn out for you. On the other hand, I want you to know that you don't have to get value from it. You can choose to get no value instead. The choice is yours. Simply be responsible for the choice you make. You will get what you intend.