O My Servant! Obey Me and
I shall make thee like unto Myself. I say 'Be,' and it is, and thou shalt say
'Be,' and it shall be.
(Baha'u'llah, The Four Valleys: 63)
I have
said that there are two main kinds or methods of intentionality, by reason and
by faith. Till now I have mostly
concentrated upon intentionality by reason, collectively through science and
art, and individually via the use of the powers of human invention. Individual intentionality may, perhaps, be
considered a kind of third sort of intentionality, one between reason and faith. There is a strong element of imagination or
the power of visualization in the individual kind of intentionality, a creative
process closely akin to what I have called formal causality. Formal causality is a direct mode of creation
by imprint of character. The greatest
wielders of this power are the Manifestations Who say, “Be and it is”. Other causes are the interplay of efficient
causes as mediate modes, one of which is human persistent intention. This is the power to change captured in the
phrase, “Be and it shall be."
All intentionality is to effect some change
that is the realization or manifestation of desire. This is possible because indeterminism is
inherent in systems at all levels of complexity. Nonetheless, it is also true to say that as
one moves from the purely spiritual toward the physical, which is the realm of
being, indeterminacy crystallizes into greater determinacy, so there is less
possibility of change because things are already completely formed. Intentionality works at the levels or
interstices of indeterminacy, i.e unmanifested possibility. So before we swing over to the other pole and
look more deeply at intentionality by faith, let us examine this power of
visualization.
Revelation, according to the Bahá’í
Teachings, is the supreme creative power in the cosmos. It holds within it all possibilities of
creation. Revelation is also
progressive. Hence it not only
continually creates new phenomena, but also unveils new laws for this. That means, if revelation is progressive, and
not fixed, and if it effects even the natural world, (Baha’u’llah, for example,
wrote: “The breeze of the bounty of the King of creation hath caused even the
physical earth to be changed, were ye to ponder in your hearts the mysteries of
divine Revelation.” Kitab-i-Iqan:
47), then the laws of nature are, too, not eternally fixed. They may be evolving along with Nature.
Some
scientists are coming to this same conclusion.
Such study comes under the heading “evolutionary cosmology”—the universe
itself as an emergent reality. Biologist
Rupert Sheldrake, for example, writes: “…in the context of evolutionary
cosmology, the Spirit underlies the onward flow of energy and the expansive
impulse of the universe; the Word is in the patterns of activity and meaning
expressed through fields….Thus the energy and fields of the evolutionary cosmos
have a common source, a unity. And not
just a unity but a conscious unity.” (Rupert Sheldrake, The Rebirth of Nature: 198) That
phrase “not just a unity but a conscious unity” is a pretty good description of
Revelation.
Many
who have studied and practiced intentionality say that the best way to obtain
what one wants is through reflection, visualization and fixity of purpose within
a tranquil but highly energized and focused state of mind. This particular strand of intentionality
usually has strong ties with eastern thought.
There is no better summary of the steps of this process from the human
side than this passage from The Great
Learning of Confucian thought: “The way of the Great Learning consists in
the clarification of originally clear perceptions, in the love of mankind, and
in resting in the highest excellence. If
one understands this resting, then only does one have fixity of purpose. If one has fixity of purpose, then only can
one succeed in being tranquil. If one is
tranquil, then only can one succeed in finding peace. If one has peace, then only is one able to
reflect. Only after reflection can one
succeed in obtaining what one wishes.” (Richard Wilhelm, Confucius and Confucianism. 162.)
Also in eastern thought we get the idea of
there being One Mind creating and coordinating the universe through universal
relationships and laws. Hence in Buddhist
thought we can read: “All the Buddhas and all sentient beings are nothing but
One Mind, besides which nothing exists.
This Mind, which is without beginning, is unborn and indestructible…for
it transcends all limits, measures, names, traces, and comparisons. Only awake to the One Mind.” (Zen master
Huang Po, quoted in The Tao of Physics) Human beings can tap into the creative power
of this One Mind, and so the Buddha is reported to have said: ‘We are what we
think. All that we are arises with our
thoughts. With our thoughts we make the
world.” (Dhammapada)
Much of the modern literature on
Intentionality through visualization also uses the idea of Universal Mind, a thought also returning to mainstream science. For example, Deepak Chopra writes: “The
universal Mind choreographs everything that is happening in billions of
galaxies with elegant precision and unfaltering intelligence. Its intelligence is ultimate and supreme, and
it permeastes every fiber of existence; from the smallest to the largest, from
the atom to the cosmos. Everything that
is alive is an expression of this intelligence.” (The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success: 105)
The other line of development of this
tradition of thought also goes back to ancient wisdom, usually to foundations
in the Hermetic tradition, which is the foundation of all the alchemical
traditions over the world. The Hermetic
tradition emphasizes the interaction between the One Mind and the One Thing,
universal thought and primal matter.
Often in modern Intentionality there is a confluence of the two streams
of thought, as researchers and others look to find support for their powerful
intuitions. Of course, the two most prominent
and popular examples of this fusion are What
the Bleep do we Know? and The Secret. In this light we can also read, for example:
Charles Haanel, The Master Key System;
Claude M. Bristol, The Magic of Believing;
Robert Collier, The Secret of the Ages;
James Allen, As a Man Thinketh; Gregg
Braden, Secrets of Lost Mode of Prayer;
Wallace Wattles, The Science of Success;
Lynne McTaggart, The Field and The Intention Experiment; Napoleon Hill,
Think and Grow Rich. Others team up with quantum physicists or at
least use their ideas and experiments.
These
writers say that by cooperating with “the universe” or the universal Mind one
can realize intention, for the primal matter still has infinite possibilities
of manifestation. Too, they often will
conflate the unconscious mind of the individual with the universal mind, or at
least say that the human unconscious has access to, or is in some way connected
with, this Universal Mind. One
cooperates by visualizing a desired outcome and then giving the universal Mind,
or one’s own unconscious, this image to bring about in the manifest world.
Their
message is that thoughts are causes, material effects are outcomes. You can change effects by changing
causes. Robert Collier, for example, says:
“The keynote of successful visualization is this: See things as you would have
them be instead of as they are.” (The Secret
of the Ages: 87) Wallace Wattles, one of the founders of this
movement, stated: “Man can form things in his thought, and, by impressing his
thought upon formless substance, can cause the things he thinks about to be
created.” (The Science of Success:
30) And Napoleon Hill: “From the great
storehouse of the ether, the human mind is constantly attracting vibrations
that harmonize with that which dominates the mind.” (Think and Grow Rich: 51)
The
quotes themselves could fill several posts, but I think the idea is clear. Humans possess powerful creative energies
that can influence, through directed thought and imagination (i.e.
Intentionality) the material world, especially if people use or cooperate with
the unconscious mind, the universe, or the Universal Mind. But there exists, I believe, and even more
powerful means of Intentionality. That
is the subject of the next post.
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