Suggestion for Implementing This Mind-set
• Make a list of those self-perceived limits that you have convinced yourself are true for you. Then examine each one in light of how others have transcended them. Once you realize you have the inner power to go beyond those self-definitions, you will be on your way to creating the real magic I write about throughout this book.
4. Develop a new mind-set toward the concept of intuition. You must become comfortable with the idea that strong “inner pleadings” and “sudden hunches” are truly inner voices offering you guidance. As I said in chapter 2, think of your intuitive self as God talking privately to you, just as you talk privately to God and call it prayer. A return call is not that farfetched, particularly if you believe that there is some universal intelligence out there that you are addressing. Remember, it is not what you call this universal intelligence that matters. I’ll use God here, but if you want to use something else, do. It is not the label that matters. What’s important is knowing that the intelligence is there and that it is a part of you and all life.
Become comfortable with your intuitive voices and hear them as loving guides from the nonphysical, spiritual world. My own personal formula is this: If I feel it, it is real; because it is real I refuse to ignore it. Here are two examples.
On a vacation trip to Panama City, Florida, my wife was driving the car while my daughter Tracy and her cousin were asleep in the back seat. I was napping after six hours of driving. Suddenly an overwhelming insistence made me sit up and I could see that the car in front of us was about to have a head-on collision with the car in front of it. My wife could not see over the car ahead of us and was unaware of what we were heading for when the car in front of ours swerved toward the gravel alongside the road to avoid the collision. At the same instant that that car swerved, I grabbed the wheel of our car and moved us onto the gravel and the errant driver suddenly became alert. Another horrible head-on crash was avoided.
What was that intuitive feeling that righted me at that instant? You call it what you want; I know it as God speaking to me. I am convinced that God, in some incomprehensible way, nudged me awake that summer day in the 1970s. Why? I am inclined to believe that I still had much to accomplish here—my yet-to-be-born children, my writing, and all of my life activities since that time were my reason for continuing. How can we argue with the perfection of the universe? Close calls are just that. And when it is our turn, nothing will stop that either.
Our friend Larry, who helped decorate our home several years back, told us how he was once approaching a green light at forty-five miles per hour when suddenly a strong inner voice implored him to slam on his brakes for no apparent reason. As he obeyed his intuition, his car stopped inches short of a car speeding through a red light.
I am absolutely certain that you too have numerous stories of times that an inner voice prompted you to behave in what seemed an irrational way and turned out instead to be life-saving. It happens to everyone. Anything that happens to everyone cannot be attributed only to coincidence or simple luck. There must be more to it than that. Most of us get these intuitive signals on a regular basis.
Know in your invisible mind that hunches are not accidents. Respond in ways that allow you to benefit from the guidance. You are being guided. As you learn to trust these guides you will begin to recognize the lessons offered, even if they are not immediately discernible.
Miracle making and real magic are unavailable to many of us in the Western world largely because we are taught by those who have no faith in their own intuition. We are presented a life curriculum that places almost all of the emphasis on logical, rational thinking and problem solving. Our schools focus on the acquisition of knowledge, while virtually ignoring the feeling aspects of students’ lives. Intuition, the how-I-feel part of life, is treated as infantile and inferior and unworthy of attention. In fact, your intuition, that fuzzy inner voice that you hear so often, is really as much a part of your life as is your ability to solve quadratic equations, read a poem or eliminate your bodily wastes. It is there, it is real. Pay attention! For only when you transcend the belief that cognitive knowledge is superior to intuition and feelings will real magic become a way of life for you.
Suggestion for Implementing This Mind-set:
• Practice listening to and following your intuition once a day. Have conversations with yourself affirming the power of your invisible hunches. Try following one of those hunches in a new way just once today. Forget about the outcome and remind yourself that by listening to those intuitive proddings, you overcome an inner mental inclination to ignore them. Beginning to be attentive is a big step toward understanding the vocabulary of those intuitive thoughts. All of your thoughts originate in that loving intuitive guidance that you are always receiving. Begin to fine-tune your intuitive antennae so that you know when to pay attention. You can only get good at receiving those intuitive signals when you tune in consciously.
5. Discover the secret that sits in the center and knows. Become familiar and comfortable with the notion that nothingness has something to offer you on your path to real magic. Ponder Robert Frost’s tantalizing words that inspired this idea: “We dance round in a ring and suppose,/But the secret sits in the middle, and knows.”
What does Robert Frost mean by this secret in the center? When you have the answer to this question you will have unlatched the most difficult door blocking your entrance to real magic.
Consider that it’s the space between the notes that makes the music. Music (sound in form) is not a note or even a series of notes. What is required in order to have music is silent empty space between the notes. A note without space is one long sound. Music comes from the silence between the notes. Nothingness? Yes, but also absolutely necessary in order to create sound in the world of form. No nothingness, no music.
Consider that it’s the space within the vase that allows a vase to be a vase. The vase is not simply clay or crystal, or whatever material is used. What you must have in order to have a vase is silent empty invisible space surrounded by material. Take a hammer to the vase and you still have all of the material, but no vase. You absolutely must have the nothingness of silent empty invisible space in order to have a vase. No nothingness, no vase.
Consider that a room is not a room without silent empty space within, surrounded by the shape of material form. The room is not the mortar, wood, or beams that make up the material part of the room. Put it all in a heap and you have no room. You must have the silent empty invisible space surrounded by all that form in order to have a room. No nothingness, no room.
This silent empty invisible space that is within all form is called the Tao. It is written that the Tao that can be described is not the Tao. It is beyond description, beyond language, beyond symbols. Paradoxically, it is a part of everything. Shen-hsui said it this way: “Seeing into nothingness—that is the true seeing, the eternal seeing.” The vase, the room, the music, all make sense to us as we attempt to understand nothingness with our rational mind. Without the empty space they simply cannot exist. And so is this true for all things made of matter. They must have the silent nothingness in order to exist. “Therefore just as we take advantage of what is, we should recognize the usefulness of what is not,” said Lao-tzu.
You too are material form (skin, bones, blood, gristle) surrounding the invisible silent emptiness that is also you. Without that nothingness inside, there can be no you. No nothingness, no you. Every cell of your body is composed of particles circling a void of nothingness. Every molecule is similarly fashioned of particles circling nothingness. It is the very story of life. When life leaves your body it will not weigh any less. Therefore your very life, your very existence, is weightless and invisible. Nothingness!
The secret that sits in the center and knows, is the emptiness that is externally silent yet always there. And it is also out of that secret in the center that you will be able to create miracles for yourself.
As so often is tr
ue, the poets are in touch with these nonmaterial concepts. Here is Wordsworth on this subject.
And I have felt … a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man;
A motion and a spirit, that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things.
Suggestion for Implementing This Mind-set:
• Remind yourself that the world of form surrounds invisible emptiness. Remind yourself you are form surrounding the invisible life energy. Keep this in mind and make every effort to discover “the secret that sits in the center and knows.” Since it is invisible, you need to go there mentally. Ask yourself, “Why am I here? Who am I?” Your deeply sought answers will astound you.
Spend time in that inner space befriending the invisible director that guides your life. Trust it today. Allow it to function in the loving way that it wants to. Go with what it directs you to do, trusting and surrendering, and you will discover you can rely on the secret that sits in the center and knows. Make contact with that inner director often, and don’t be embarrassed about it. The more you trust that your life is on purpose and that you will not be misguided, the more you will commune in the peaceful, harmonious world of real magic.
6. Learn to learn through knowing and trusting rather than doubting and fearing. There are two primary ways of acquiring new understanding. You can choose either the path of fear and doubt or the path of trusting and knowing. When you choose the latter path, you truly open yourself to your magical potential. Much of your learning has likely involved questioning your ability to gain a particular skill. At one time you were full of doubt about most of the things that you know to be true today.
For me, at one time in my life I was doubtful about my ability to speak to an audience extemporaneously for several minutes, let alone several hours. My doubt led to fear and all sorts of behaviors dedicated to overcoming the fear. Learning through the process of fear and doubt was a long, painful experience. Whether it was for a school group or business meeting, I would literally make myself sick whenever I had to get up in front of an audience.
Learning to speak to an audience through the path of knowing and trusting was a much more rewarding experience. I began to see myself as capable of delivering a speech, knowing within that I could do it, and trusting that I would be taken care of if I abandoned my doubts. I learned that an audience would not mind if I made a few errors or got temporarily lost, provided I was speaking from my heart and conveyed a sense of excitement about my topic. The day I received the Golden Gavel Award from Toastmasters International for outstanding speaker of the year, I knew that the shift from fear and doubt to knowing and trusting had led to a true miracle for me.
You can look at much of your own experiences in a similar way. You have been taught to doubt in a culture that stresses: you can’t, it’s wrong, you’re too little, too big, too young, too old, a girl, a boy, you don’t have the right background, credentials, training, experience. Out of doubt came a fear of your greatness, a fear of disapproval, failure, intimacy, and even success.
Doubt and fear do provide you with learning experiences, but the negative payoffs are obvious. It is easy to see that this is not the path to becoming a happy, fulfilled, fully functioning person. If you want to become acquainted with real magic, fear and doubt as your primary method for learning must be replaced with trust and a strong reliance on internal knowing.
In order to shift from fear and doubt to trust and knowing, you must develop a different mind-set. Your new thinking might go something like this:
I am going to learn what I have to learn regardless. So instead of taking the limiting path of fear and doubt, I am going to work at learning my life lessons by trusting and knowing. I’ll trust in my own unique ability to create in my mind anything that I choose. It is my mind and these are my thoughts and I can choose doubt or I can choose trust. I am selecting trust. I can either doubt that I am capable of performing miracles or I can trust in my ability to do so. I will act upon whichever I choose. I believe that the saying, “As you think, so shall you be,” is an accurate description of the human condition.
When my daughter Serena was five years old we encouraged her to utilize this type of thinking when she wanted to learn how to ride a two-wheeler bicycle. For eight months she had avoided having the training wheels removed, saying that she just wasn’t ready. Now she was ready, and she practiced trusting and knowing for three days before she even got on the two-wheeler. She practiced out loud her personal affirmations: “I see myself riding a bicycle. I can ride a two-wheeler. I have the ability to balance myself. I trust myself as a person who can learn anything, including how to ride a bike.”
When it was time to get on the bike, she was so pumped up to do it that fear was impossible. I’ve rarely seen such confidence and determination in anyone undertaking a new task. Her mind-set created her miracle. She was literally riding by herself within a matter of minutes. A few falls, some shaky beginnings, but off she went down the sidewalk all by herself proudly exclaiming aloud, “I can ride a two-wheeler, I can ride a two-wheeler!”
After hitting a sprinkler head and tumbling onto the grass, she changed her mind for a split second, lying on the ground muttering, “I can’t ride a two-wheeler.” But her positive affirmations and her inner trust and knowing immediately won over her temporary doubt, and she jumped up, balanced herself, asked me for another fast push, and was soon shouting, “I can do it!”
Serena’s mind-set created her miracle. And don’t doubt for a second that this wasn’t a miracle for her. When her time came and she felt ready, it was what she worked out in her mind in the way of trust and inner knowing that allowed her to go out into the material world and bring about her miracle. The miracle started in her formless, dimensionless mind, and was played out in the physical world as a result of her inner trust and knowing.
Whatever it is that constitutes your miracles, a shift to an attitude of trusting and knowing is mandatory. Keep in mind as you shift to this new consciousness that behind fear is powerlessness. That which you fear, you are fighting, and fighting always weakens you. Fear makes you impotent and makes higher levels inaccessible. But behind trust is empowerment and love. No judgment, no anger, no hatred, no fear and no need to fight. Love empowers you to higher levels. It is your choice always, and the choice begins in that amorphous inner world of the mind.
Suggestions for Implementing This Mind-set:
• For a few moments, in your encounters with strangers today, shift to knowing and trusting as your way of interacting. Let go of doubt and treat that clerk or telephone contact with trust and confidence. Just try it. Say to yourself, “I trust this person. I will not doubt him, and I know that things will work out in a positive way.” This business of learning through knowing and trusting serves you in millions of ways! Suspend your doubt and fear and trust that things will work out.
7. Affirm that your intention creates your reality. Memorize and continually remind yourself, “My intention creates my reality.” Experience with intention as a way of creating miracles is probably an unfamiliar concept to you. Most of us have been raised to think of our desires, wishes, hopes and fantasies as the seeds to our personal fulfillment. However, desires are stagnant, they do not set energy into motion, they do not create for you. Intention is the energy of your soul coming into contact with your physical reality. What you see around you, whom you associate with, how you function daily, what your relationships are like, how much money you make, how you get along with others, the shape of your physical body, and virtually everything about the physical you, is a result of your intention, or how your thoughts become energized into action.
Becoming aware of your intentions will lead you to an awareness of your spiritual nature. Your intentio
n may be synchronized with what you know to be your purpose, or it may be otherwise aligned. If you know your purpose is about giving, loving and serving, whether in the field of education, parenting, law or cab driving, then your intention will indeed follow. You very likely often find yourself surrounded by others with similar values. Your values and higher spiritual self reflect your intentions. You view the world as a giving place; you are probably optimistic about man’s abilities to become less militant; you probably see the goodness in others; and you likely see a lot of people who want to be giving back to you. You experience much gratitude and are teaching others to be loving.
The reverse is also true. If your intention is to get all that you can, you most likely encounter lots of greedy, power-hungry people. Your associates have a similar mind-set, and you repeatedly convince yourself of the greed and shallowness of the world. Can you see how your own invisible intentions can create your reality?
The secret to changing your life is in your intentions. Wishing, hoping and goal setting cannot accomplish change without intention. What is needed is a shift from the inert energy of wanting to the active energy of doing and intention. Realize that all of your accomplishments, even those of which you are not so proud, have come about as a result of your intentions. Your relationships are a reflection of what you have created with your intentions. Your financial picture is the result of your intentions. When you know that you are in charge of your intentions, that they originate with you, then you will also come to know that you are in charge of your entire world and always have been.
As you work toward a mind-set of real magic, please keep this notion uppermost in your mind. Creating miracles in your life comes from your intention to do so, not from your wish or desire or goal. You must move from an inert to an active mode within your mind to establish an inner environment of real magic potential. Then, and only then, you will turn that same potential into your reality in the material world.
Real Magic Page 9