Examining the power of intention the mystical poet Mary Oliver concludes her poem The Summer Day with the following question, “Tell me, what do you intend to do with your one wild and precious life?”
Whatever the answer to that question (Quest-I-On) is the starting point will be intention. As actor Jim Carey declares in his YouTube presentation The Power of Intention “Nothing happens without intention.”
The magic is that when you learn the HOW TO of the Power of Intention, you discover the secret that EVERYTHING happens through you from the Field of Intention. This field is referred to by R. S. Thomas as The Bright Field.
Poems of Spiritual Awakening –
The Bright Field – R.S. Thomas
I have seen the sun break through
to illuminate a small field
for a while, and gone my way
and forgotten it. But that was the pearl
of great price, the one field that had
treasure in it. I realize now
that I must give all that I have
to possess it. Life is not hurryingon to a receding future, nor hankering after
an imagined past. It is the turning
aside like Moses to the miracle
of the lit bush, to a brightness
that seemed as transitory as your youth
once, but is the eternity that awaits you.
Poems of Spiritual Awakening –
The Summer Day – Mary Oliver
Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?—Mary Oliver
You will live your one wild and precious life when you learn the HOW TO of tune into and feel in alignment with that Bright Field. I invite you to explore this spiritual essential that is The Power of Intention as follows:
The Power of Intention
Part I
- Who is the Power of Intention For?
- What is the Power of Intention?
- Why is Intention Important?
- Does the Power of Intention Really Work?
Part II
Part III
- Resources of the Power of Intention
Power of Intention – Who is this For?
The Universe has Your Back
Photo by Julia Caesar on Unsplash
This Power of Intention practice is for anyone who wishes to live their lives in alignment with the primary purpose of Life. The primary purpose of Life is Love. (St. Theresa of Avila – Christian Mystic)
When I write about the Power of Intention I am writing about the conscious power of intention. Essentially this is the practice of aligning your personal will with the Will of the Divine. It is the alignment of your soul with Spirit.
This is what I call Primary Intention.
One of the best books written on The Power of Intention is the book of that title by Dr. Wayne W. Dyer. However, I have an issue with the subtitle of this book. The subtitle is.
Learning to Co-Create Your World Your Way.
The issue I have with this subtitle is that like a lot of similar books on this subject, it focuses your intention on creating the world in your own image.
Sorry to tell you but Co-Creation is not about YOU getting your needs met. It is you focusing on Co-creating what you will have Creation express through you.
A focus on getting your needs met is understandable if you are in the kindergarten of the awakening process but awakening is not about you dictating to the Universe. As the modern mystic Caroline Myss says, “It’s not about getting more stuff.”
You will find true fulfilment through learning HOW TO ALLOW the universe to create THROUGH YOU the world it intended to create through you.
Learning how you are to facilitate this purpose, which is Love’s Purpose being fulfilled through you, is the focus of this extensive article on The Power of Intention.
What is the Power of Intention
Photo by Ben Blennerhassett on Unsplash
To better understand intention, let me share my understanding in this way:-
- The Field of Intention
- Personal Power of Intention
The Field of Intention
Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
there is a field. I’ll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase “each other”
doesn’t make any sense.
The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.
Don’t go back to sleep.
You must ask for what you really want.
Don’t go back to sleep.
People are going back and forth across the doorsill
where the two worlds touch.
The door is round and open.
Don’t go back to sleep.Rumi.
The field that is out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing is the Field of Intention.
This field of intention is not something. It is the NO-THING out of which all existence arises. Paradoxically speaking this Field of Intention is everywhere and nowhere at the same time. It has always been and ever will be.
This field is pure potential. This is the potential of Infinite Love. It is who you are and who you are created to express. In that sense you are made in the image of God—God is Love.
Your logical mind cannot comprehend this. However, it can be KNOWN, but that is the journey of learning how to be available to Creation rather than make your life a focus of personal co-creation.
Personal Power of Intention
Before the power of intention is manifested in your life, you have to awaken to the reality of who and why you are. However, you won’t be the one doing it. You will be the one allowing it to happen through you and as you.
Rumi says, “You must ask for what you really want.”
Most people have no idea what they really want other than what advertising and the collective mindset of family, tribe, culture, education and religion tell them they should want.
When you are the KNOWING of who you are you absolutely KNOW what you want. You will wish to be in service to all that is truly good.
It will align you with the creative field of Infinite Potential and the Force of Love. When you allow yourself to co-create from that focus (attention) then you are headed in the right direction beyond right doing and wrongdoing.
To KNOW what you really want is to allow your life’s energy to be expressed from your soul and not your personality.
Why is Intention Important
Photo by Wyron A on Unsplash
What sets you apart from all other sentient life forms on this planet is your ability to intend. When I write about intention, I am writing about “conscious intention.”
Personal intention as distinct from the field of intention is your ability to focus your personal will. You have the choice as regards how you intend to focus your energy.
How you do this radically impacts how you live your life.
Dr. Wayne Dyer shares how we view intention in The Power of Intention:-
My research reveals a fairly common definition of intention as a strong purpose or aim, accompanied by a determination to produce a desired result. People driven by intention are described as having a strong will that won’t permit anything to interfere with achieving their inner desire. I imagine a sort of pit-bull kind of resolve or determination.
This is what I call the 1st Stage of Life attitude towards the Power of Intention. It is all about the will to power. It is about achievement and success in personal terms.
If you are fortunate, you will experience what we term a mid-life crisis.
A mid-life crisis will ask you to explore what it is to be a human being on this planet. If you are more fortunate still, you might experience a quarter life crisis in your mid-twenties as happened in my life.
This crisis will probably will feel like anything but good fortune.
If you successfully transition the mid-life or quarter-life crisis, your relationship to the power of your personal will radically change. You will move from a focus on the will to power to a focus on the Will to Love. It is through this focus on the Will to Love that your will is aligned with the Will of the Divine.
Your life will begin to flow.
Don’t push the river it flows by itself—Chinese Proverb
You stop pushing the river to achieve results. You learn tune into how Love’s Message wishes to express through you. The Master Jesus says it this way:
Thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven.
You pay attention to the wisdom of feeling in energetic alignment (Y-E-S) with the Universe that gifted you this one wild and precious life (Mary Oliver)
This requires that you practice a complimentary spiritual awakening practice that is The Power of Trust. (more on this to come).
If your intention remains focused from the power of your personal, will, then you will miss your birth right in learning how to be available to Cosmic Intent which is the very reason you are here.
Your purpose is to follow Love’s Purpose—Guy Finley—Spiritual Teacher
Does the Power of Intention Really Work?
Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash
This is like asking, “Does prayer really work?” The answer is both “Yes” and “No” depending on how you approach the practice.
When people pray, they begin with the intention to pray. The problem is this, and it is a major problem. They frame most prayers and most intentions within the dynamic of the personal mind.
The personal mind is the mind that thinks it is separate from the Field of Intention. It is the mind that has as its core belief the idea of separation.
Prayer and intention work when you learn to recognize this feeling of separation keeps you from manifesting what is to be expressed through you.
Notice how I have phrased the last sentence. I didn’t say “keeps you from manifesting what you desire.” The major reason you do not manifest what you desire is because you get in the way.
When you learn to get out of the way as an individual whose focus is on dictating to the Cosmos then the Cosmos gives you what you are created to receive. This is really magical. This is the practice that I call authentic faith rather than faith allied to belief.
Again, I quote from the Master Jesus.
But thou, when thou prayest, (act of intention) enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly. – Matthew 6
This is a premier instruction for anyone who wishes to use the Power of Intention in the correct way.
This involves allowing, receiving and expressing. Notice that two of these three dynamics are feminine in nature. There is no will power other than the will to be in alignment with the Will to Love.
PART II
Part II of The Power of Intention includes:-
