Exert Less Effort!

You assume that you have to work to make your dreams come true, when in fact most of the work you run around doing is preventing your dreams from coming true.

The less effort expended, the better. To think in a more orderly, conscious, efficient manner you first have to eliminate habits of thinking that obstruct the universe’s ability to carry out your desires.

Imagine that your mind is a radio transmitter, bombarding the field with messages. If you sit quietly and observe your mind, you will see that it is full of mixed signals. The things we want to accomplish we also have doubts about; the person we want to turn into is also someone we aren’t quite sure about.

The mind is similarly full of pointless repetition. It has been estimated that 90 percent of the thoughts anyone thinks on any given day are the same as those of the day before. This is because we are all creatures of habit, worry, and obsession.

Finally, the mind is full of unconscious static, tracking back to the very depths of infant memory. You may not be paying attention only to your conscious, willed thoughts, but in the background your unconscious mind is churning with its unfulfilled hopes, its old fears and wishes – in short, all the things that didn’t seem to come true in the past.

Intentions are simply desires, and desires are linked to what you need. Therefore all this activity of the mind that isn’t being fulfilled consists of old needs that didn’t get fulfilled.

The first step towards change is recognition. Recognize that you have had at least a few hopes and wishes come true. When you have an intention and send it into the universal awareness, you are actually talking to yourself in another form. As the sender of the message, you are an individual living here in time and space.

But you are also the receiver of the message, in your guise as a higher self presiding over your space-time identity. And even more than this, you are the medium of the message, pure awareness itself.

Adapted from Twenty Spiritual Lessons for Creating the Life You Want, by Deepak Chopra (Harmony Books, 1995).

Read more: Spirit, Deepak Chopra's Tips, intention, mind, thinking

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Rosi C.

12:44PM PST on Jan 27, 2011

All we actually need do, is set our sights in the direction, and upon the reality we wish to create, and allow the journey to happen, going with the ebb and flow of life. It is very simplistic in essence, though not always easy to implement! In Love and Peace Rosi Caswell Animal Whisperer, Animal/Human Therapist, Metaphysical Counsellor

send a green star

Sean K.

11:14AM PST on Jan 27, 2011

I believe that if you actually work at trying to do something, you are in essence telling yourself that you cannot already do it. Maybe the notion here would be to advise yourself of your intent to manifest said dream, then open yourself up to the idea that nothing is impossible, unless you think so, then the transmission gets lost in doubt.

Loo S.

1:14AM PST on Jan 27, 2011

thanks for sharing.

heather g.

11:27PM PST on Jan 26, 2011

I think we are fortunate to have so many evolved people to guide us. They certainly have helped me

Rita C.

8:36PM PST on Jan 26, 2011

Faith, the most necessary ingredient. If I have faith I can make it happen, whatever it may be. I have actualized many things in my life with faith. Meditation is a key to finding faith within yourself. Giving is another. Giving without any thought of return. It can be amazing what happens. One inward, one outward....

KayL N.

8:22PM PST on Jan 26, 2011

This just boils down to advocate "wish-ful thinking" as a true method of achieving your goals... Come on, really?

Kim W.

5:20PM PST on Jan 26, 2011

Being human, we all question, or should everything. Meditation is wonderful, and just like many parts of life, if you have to have the perfect setting to achive it you probably never will. Part of it is using your brain to block out outside forces, and noise is one of them. our world and lives are busy places, and I don't agree about not being so busy. You do have to work for what you want, or you won't have anything

Rose N.

8:40AM PST on Jan 26, 2011

Thank you for posting.

Bob C.

7:55AM PST on Jan 26, 2011

@Sue H: Although I've never lived directly below "neighbors from Hell," there have been some times when I had to use places other than 'home' for meditation. To my surprise meditation turned-out to be considerably more portable than I had thought it would. I often used my car, parked in a quiet place like a park.

You might consider a set of isolating, noise-cancelling headphones. Although the most effective ones are a bit pricey (ca $300 for Bose QuietComfort 15), you tend to get what you pay for. Playing meditation-friendly music or natural environmental sounds through them can help.

These devices do NOT work like earplugs, merely blocking noise. They have little microphones on them that actually listen to the noise around you, invert the noise signal, and mix the inverted signal into the music. The inverted noise signal cancels-out the actual noise sounds coming through from the outside, making the noise disappear almost completely. I don't own a pair of these but have tried them in electronics stores. They actually do work, and a set of good ones is cheaper than sound-proofing your house or apartment or buying a quieter car. They can take you miles away, and they get great gas mileage.

7:26AM PST on Jan 26, 2011

Thank you, Deepak, for re-posting this article, and thanks to all fellow students for your comments, observations, additions.

@Brenda: "So many people do not have the luxury of time..."

Am sure you are feeling pressed for time as most of us are these days, but please let me ask: Where did you find the time to read Deepak's article? Where did you find the time to leave a comment, or to come back later and read this one?

Have discovered that meditation does not necessarily take some particular set amount of time. There's no requirement that you must meditate for X minutes per day, or at all for that matter. It is not an ingredient that you can measure-out in minutes. Meditation is a mental state that is essentially beyond time itself.

Getting one's physical self (body/brain/ego) quiet enough to facilitate meditation WILL require some commitment of time initially. But once you've managed it a few times you may find that the time requirement eases as you become more adept. Like many other things, meditation tends to get easier with practice.

If you find "getting there" frustrating, please try to keep in mind that meditation is NEVER required. You can drop it for now and take it up later, whenever a fresh new opportunity comes your way. Trust that eventually that will happen, and try not to worry about it. Worry has been -- for me at least -- the greatest enemy of success.