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Focused Intention
Having an intention is enough to accomplish a result. When properly focused – which means easily and without strain – awareness has the ability to carry out quite specific commands.
An intention doesn’t have to be a verbally expressed thought; in fact, our deepest intentions are body-centered. Our most fundamental needs – for love, understanding, encouragement, support – permeate every cell.
The desires that arise in your mind are often clouded by ego motives, which are not true needs; people get caught up in the pursuit of money, career goals, and political ambitions in ways that are disconnected from the fundamental need for comfort and well-being that every healthy organism must fulfill.
Many of us are so alienated from our basic needs, so programmed to run after what the ego wants, that we have to relearn the basic mechanics of how attention and intention actually work.
There are many ways to get fulfillment besides the outward-oriented ones our culture teaches us. The most valuable lesson in this regard is that intentions automatically seek their fulfillment through joy, beauty, love, and appreciation.
This is hard to realize when the mind sets up its own separate agenda for fulfilling other kinds of desires, ones that are loveless, without joy or satisfaction. Yet millions of people have programmed themselves to reach only such goals.
Adapted from Ageless Body, Timeless Mind, by Deepak Chopra (Three Rivers Press, 1998).
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5 comments
add your comment »Really, this a restatement of the Law of Attraction - not that that can ever be insignificant. Policy Rules is another variant - illustrating the necessity of sensible but optimistic objectives. Of course, the objective is to exceed merely that!
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IMHO - Food and housing (livelihood) intentions and attentions should not predominate over the spiritual ones… or they predominate (can become greed), steal the broader, more humane attentions, and become habitual...
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The intention to dominate and get revenge as in unprovoked wars against unarmed and starving nations might be fulfilling if it weren't so futile...we have an instinctive urge for dominance and submission but it could be improved upon if were redirected toward compassion and empathy....
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I agree, Nightcat. It's a lovely theory(Deepak Chopra's words are very soothing) but chasing after money does matter. You've got to eat, after all.
Beyond that, there is spirituality in applying your talents - if you don't find success in that, it can be pretty damaging.
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But isn't the road to perdition paved with good intentions? LOL, just kidding! Lovely article as always.
And yes I agree, mere intention can be enough to get us there, if we follow through. So if I want a vaction, I must be intent on it, and do things to fullfill that intent. Or at the very least, hold tight to that intent and let the universe clear the way.
I don't think intention about jobs or money are bad though. Feed the belly, house the body, then worrry about the spirit. It does no good to tell a homeless man to keep intents up if you don't also home, bathe, and help him.
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