Use intention to alter your reality

Iam still answering a young teenage friend who seems depressed and wants more than nice sounding words to make him feel better.

Now I know that for teenagers life sucks most of the time, is okay some of the time, and is great only a tiny fraction of the time — and you all wish things were always better. So I ask again: Who or what shapes your reality? You know there is a role for you and for your efforts, but you are also aware that there are huge random forces that are completely beyond your knowledge or control. You attend a job interview for example. It’s a fine day, you are in command of yourself, dish out the right answers, exude the right attitude, but how are you to know who else was competing with you and what answer or attitude influenced the mood of the jury? If you got selected, how much of the credit did you deserve, or if you got rejected, how much of the blame was yours?

You meet an awesome girl and claw your way amidst competition to win her heart. How much of the credit for that should be given to your efforts, and how much to the Universe? If she liked you above others, was it because of what you said and did, or was it because of her personal preferences, her past experiences or just that you had a nice looking nose (your mom’s) which made all the difference?

It’s easy to say we’ll never know the answer because that seems obviously true. Sure. We’ll never know the correct answer. In fact it is theoretically impossible to determine the correct answer, implying that all our lives we remain in the dark about why or how any event really happens in our lives.

But there is another hidden fac- tor in this complex equation. We know about our personal effort and we know about random forces, which help or hurt us. We generally do not realise there is a hidden third force. It’s called Intention.

Intention is a force that uses the power of your mind to alter reality around you. I know I am taking you into a dark territory — you might think occult, magic or your star sign — but intention is none of that. It’s far more scientific and powerful than the stuff you read in your weekly horoscope. Intention can be turned to an awesome force that alters the balance in your favour.

There is a way to learn how to harness it and a way to learn how to unleash it when you need it most. Over the centuries, great masters from across the world have expounded their own theories of how to make intention work for you.

Miyamoto Musashi, the 15th century Japanese swordsman, summarises it when he says that it’s all about capturing the essence of rhythms that flow in your life. There is a rhythm, he says, where an archer ‘knows’ a split second before he releases the arrow that he is going to hit the target, and also a rhythm where he knows he is not going to hit the target at all. The first rhythm harnesses the power of his intention, while the second wastes it.

So, if you wish things were better, couldn’t you try and learn how to use your mind to alter your reality? Seems like a good idea right? There, I can see some of you smiling, sense the dark mood lifting. Hold on to what I just said. We’ll catch up on this next week.