Manifesting Your Dreams

You know about The Secret, right? The promise that the world is your oyster as long as you have the faith that it is. I am a scientist by training so my response would be, just try it and see what happens. It is possible to be entirely synchronized in your internal state with your external environment. I remember one time I was flying business class on a flight from Frankfurt to Boston and I was checking in, a thought hit me, "You are flying first class today". Indeed, when I sat down on my assigned seat, a woman came up to me and said, "Oh, you have 13D as well." A moment later a stewardess invited me to join the first class.

If you say that you would like to manifest your dreams, I would first ask you how do you know that your dream is what you really want deep inside. Life's struggles - the frustrations of bumping into constraints - is about finding what you really want. Fact of the matter is that if you exhausted by life's ups and downs, chances are that you are more receptive to your inner voice than if you only experiences ups followed by more ups. Nothing gets your ego more nutrition than success.

When you mentally manifests things, try to aim for stuff that in the end you are indifferent about. On that first class flight the only added convenience I really cared for was a rose for my wife and a sweater for myself with a cool logo on it. It turned out that I had to fight hard to get the rose through customs and the sweater didn't survive the next laundry - I guess it should have been dry-cleaned instead - so the point is that most of the time we don't really need the upgrade we aspire to have. If the ego is rooting for something you can be sure that interferences will be along the way. Manifestations require faith and the ego - the voice that wants to get things - will make sure you have none. The ego is a capricious force as you probably have already found out for yourself. Let the Tao manifest your dreams and you will be sure to find out that what you truly desire you already have.

Mental Manifestations

The other day I had to pick up family from the airport and I left early since I knew that finding a parking spot over there is such a hassle. Indeed, when I arrived I couldn't find anything and I was just circling on end. It started raining heavily and I was preparing myself mentally for a long night ahead. It was then when I heard U2's Beautiful Day on the radio and I thought to myself 'That's odd, after all, it is raining cats and dogs, so why would they play this song right now?' But as I had this positive mental association with this song, I suddenly wondered whether this could mean that I would find a parking spot soon. Indeed, when the last note of the song finished, I had one!


What do you make of 'The Secret', the promise that the world would be your oyster if only you believe that it is? I can't say that I live by it, the path of the Tao is a different one, but stories like my parking lot experience should make us aware that mental attitudes matter a lot in your day-to-day interactions. How easy is it to start on the wrong foot and then have your mind race from one negative outcome to the next until you can't see the sunshine anymore. I think it is possible to accept every situation life presents to you as is, accept the feeling that it causes in you and then ask yourself the question 'So where is the upside from here?' The Power of Positive Thinking is to understand that every cloud has a silver lining. Visualize the next open door no matter what happens and chances are you will find it.

Tao Masters

Let's say you are expressing 'Who You Think You Are',  as God puts it so well in Neale Walsch's 'Conversations with God'. Can you put your magic staff into the ground and scream 'I want it thus!'. Sure you can, after all, that is the promise of 'The Secret'. You have the power to do it, if you have the faith, or as we put it in more fashionable terms, if you have the power to overwrite your subconscious. But is that truly what you want?

You are God my friend, you can do whatever you want. The only question is, who do you want to be? The spiritual path travelers want liberation, they want this movie to end, or, they want to experience what it means to step out of the movie plot for a while. If this is your final goal, you are a Tao Master who uses her creative powers freely in interaction with the demands of the moment. This way you are bound by nothing. The Tao does what It needs to do in order to free you from the last invisible strings. Every moment is a new opportunity to choose love and to remove a little more of your personality skin in the process. As a Tao Master you are already a free being and soon enough liberation will be yours forever.

The Tao of Snow

Life is a symbol and it is in our power to choose how we want to interpret the stuff the Tao throws at us. So I thought I could give a timely snow example. Those of you who read my posts know that I rarely manifest things mentally (on a conscious basis that is), but from time to time I cannot help myself having a little fun with the mental magic. Boston has been buried with snow this winter and, just armed with a few shovels, I have been woefully unprepared for it. Still, early in the morning I faced the elements with my humble shovel, but set myself a mental target when I wanted to be done. Amazingly, my track-record in this little experiment has been three out of three, despite the apparently insurmountable odds (as well as piles of snow).

The first time, a city truck driver helped me out, the second time around a neighbor with a snow-blower showed up. Unfortunately, today nobody came to my rescue. The city truck driver apparently had other priorities and while my neighbor tried helping again, his machine died when he tried penetrating the ice.  Just when I thought that my magic powers had left me, I realized that I managed to clean up everything this time around myself and got the job finished in the allotted time.

You see, the endless snowstorms have become a symbol of perseverance for me. The Tao takes care of us no matter what the circumstances as long as you are willing to put your best foot forward. However, while I will have fond memories of the blizzards of 2010/2011, I will definitely get myself a snow-blower for the upcoming season. As life moves on, so should our symbols. I am sure that as I am better equipped to deal with the snow next year, the Tao will find new exciting ways to shower me with care and affection.

Whenever One Door Closes ...

I have a lot of respect for our "manifestation crowd", who show us that we live in a matrix and everything that we see and experience is a product of your own mind. Still, I cannot say that I have had much experience with this concept; if so then only in an indirect way: my path is one where I believe that everything that gets attracted into my life does have a spiritual learning experience for me and allows me to learn what unanticipated consequences my actions have, as well as displaying my hidden agenda and subconscious motives.

Lord Krishna states in the Gita, 'The right is to work only, but never the fruits of your labor. Be thou not the producer of the fruits; neither let thy attachment be towards inaction.' Boy, isn't the Secret all about the fruits? Unfortunately, I have no answer to this inherent contradiction. In the end I always come back to the same conclusion, live your life like a leaf in the wind. Always put your best foot forward in realizing what you want to achieve, but be entirely flexible towards the outcome. I happen to work with financial markets and have discovered that the path of non-resistance works for me best there as well. Put your best foot forward, observe what happens, and then put your best foot forward again. That's all you can do and never mind if you happen to walk in the opposite direction than before.

I understand that this approach is not very confidence inspiring, since I am really saying that I do not have any control over anything - much in contrast to the keeper of the secret. But I do have confidence in one thing, if the spiritual path exist, I will always be allowed and encouraged to express myself creatively: The right is to work only ... So bring on whatever has to happen, but trust that whenever one door closes another one opens.

The Story of the Manifesting Mushrooms

A keeper of the Secret told some friends at a picnic in the forest the art of manifestations. Two mushrooms overheard the conversation and wondered whether they too have the power to mentally change reality.

The first thought to himself, I could have so much water and he visualized how a big branch would fall on the ground and divert more rainwater into his direction. The second mushroom at a nearby colony thought that he was actually doing OK, but that his brothers and sisters always looked a little dry, so he visualized how a big stone that had diverted rainwater would just disappear. Hardly had they uttered these thoughts, a branch fell down and diverted rainwater to the first mushroom, while a big bear kicked the stone for the second mushroom away.

When the rainfall came the first mushroom could finally drink as much as he wanted, while the second mushroom was happy to see that his brothers and sisters could drink ample amounts. The big surprise came next day when the first mushroom dried out faster than he had ever before, while the second enjoyed the moisture for many days. What neither mushroom knew, mushrooms only look separate on the surface, below each colony forms one unit. What you give you brother, you give yourself, and what you take away from your sister you steal from yourself.

The Job Interview

An elegant looking 25 year old is interviewing with a prestigious company. The young woman has the best credentials, university education, work experience, but most importantly generates the impression of being incredibly creative. She has one last interview with her upcoming boss just to iron out the last items of their employment contract. You know, she says, I need a good compensation because I live in an expensive city and I like to impress our clients with designer suits. You certainly will get that the benign looking boss replies. Also, I need a state of the art lap-top because I am most creative when I work at outside locations. Certainly, was the response. A window office with view over the ocean would be good, because I am really creative when I see water. Actually, we have already reserved this office for you was the response. Lastly, I think I am so creative that I would like to request the right to patent now and then some of my inventions under my own name. Well, the boss says, that is the one request I cannot give to you since we invest all our resources in you because we as a company want to profit from your ideas all the time.

This conversation came to my mind when I thought about manifestations the other day. You might have guessed it already, the boss is God and the young woman is God's co-creator. I myself haven't really experimented much with conscious manifestations, but I would think many of you have. My conjecture would be that all requests work out magically if they are required inputs for your chosen spiritual destiny. After all, God's co-creator has every right to live a prosperous, peaceful and harmonious life. But if you mistake ego-driven desires with your spiritual destiny, your True Self will start undermining the process sooner or later.

Any insights on this conjecture would be greatly appreciated!