The Next Big Thing is You
Progress
Everyday, something new.
New technology, new music, new tv shows, new cars, new video games.
Everything is being improved daily, who knows what the future holds for us. We're seeing things manifesting that were science fiction 100, 50, even 10 years ago. People are working to increase longevity, engineer food and crop, understand physics, create personal flying vehicles, create the next _________. Elon Musk is trying to colonize mars!
We are literally trying to improve everything we can think of, advance in every direction, but we're forgetting one little thing:
Us
I'm not talking about medical advancements or augmenting the body or taking the next new nootropic. I'm talking about consciousness.
Underneath all the razzle dazzle of cool new tech and reality tv there is a subtle spiritual awakening happening. Consciousness appears to be waking up.
Now on the surface that might seem boring, especially to those of you who haven't really experienced anything truly mystical or spiritual. Even if you have, you might not think it could change the world as drastically as technology is. Sure, the way you perceive the world might change, you might be viewing life in a way that is beautiful and magical, but what about affecting change in others?
Could consciousness play a bigger role?
Dreaming the World
Perhaps we are all creating the world, maybe the physical world is derived from spirit. Maybe we're all our here creating the world with consciousness, but we're out of control because we're in the dream state, we haven't awakened or become enlightened yet, we don't know how to consciously create, only how to unconsciously create.
My girlfriend got me this wall quote from Guatama Buddha:
Let's dig into these words a little bit...
What you think, you become
Our thoughts are objects in this world, though they are far more subtle than physical objects. They are also quite powerful...
Thought has tremendous power. Thought can heal diseases. Thought can transform the mentality of persons. Thought can do anything. It can work wonders. The velocity of thought is unimaginable.
Thought is a dynamic force. It is caused by the vibrations of psychic Prana or Sukshma Prana on the mental substance.
-Sri Swami Sivananda Saraswati
So why can't we perform miracles through thought? Why can't we use our thoughts to affect change in our world? Could it be that we don't know how to direct or properly use thought? I know for most my life I never really observed my thoughts, I just took them for granted. I'm pretty sure most people in our society don't, our thoughts run rampant.
But what if every thought we sent out had an effect, would we watch them more closely? Would we start to learn to use and guide thought to help the world?
What you feel, you attract
In this world, like attracts like. Whatever we feel ourselves to be will draw the corresponding environment and opportunities to us. At least that's what Neville Goddard wrote about:
Every feeling makes a subconscious impression, and, unless counteracted by a more powerful feeling of an opposite nature, must be expressed.
What you feel you are always dominates what you would feel you would like to be.
Feeling the reality of the state sought and living and acting on that conviction is the way of all seeming miracles.
Most of Goddard's teaching revolves around feeling yourself into the state you wish to be in, and I tend to believe it to be possible. If we truly are Consciousness, the Consciousness that is creating the world, that is everything, the One, then what wouldn't we be capable of? Maybe what we feel has the capability to shape the world around us, not the other way around.
What you imagine, you create
The world, and all within it, is man's conditioned consciousness objectified. Consciousness is the cause as well as the substance of the entire world. So it is to consciousness that we must turn if we would discover the secret of creation.
-Neville Goddard
Finally we get to creation.
We can already see imagination's role in creating. Ideas are what we turn into new creations. Every physical item we've created was an idea first, someone imagined it before they set out to build it. Every single one, and not only physical items, but mental objects too. Ideas, stories, music, all of these are created using imagination. The imaginative faculty is the only place where new things come from.
Goddard has some potentially controversial ideas about imagination:
Your human imagination is God and is that which sustains the Universe.
The thing about this statement is that it kind of makes sense. If God created the world, and whatever we imagine we create, then potentially imagination is that same creative force, the creative power of God. I realize this goes against most everything I've been told, but what about what other people have told us about God can be proven?
If this is so, are we paying enough attention to our imaginations? Have you ever let your imagination run wild? I know I have, sometimes I end up imagining things I wouldn't want to happen.
I was just using my imagination
-Conor Mcgregor
Image Source
Sometimes I use imagination in selfish ways, daydreaming. Really I'd guess most people have poor control over their imagination, we just take it for granted as some plaything to generate ideas, create worlds in our minds, and run through potential happenings. Do we ever think those things might come true? Rarely, and maybe that's a good thing in the case of bad imaginings.
Other times we might be making dreams come true...
Maybe it's time we started using these faculties in a conscious way. What if we all started sending out kind thoughts. What if we all started to feel the way we wanted to feel, overcoming whatever situation we find ourselves in and feeling however we want to feel. What if we all started imagining great things for eachother, and ourselves. Imagining success, love, and health for our friends and family.
What if we started dreaming big dreams, and doing everything in our power to actively make them happen. Surely this line of thinking would require great faith. Absolute faith. And courage too, to even try, to even give it a real shot. The problem with testing this type of thing is that there is absolutely no room for doubt. The great part is there is no harm that can come from thinking good thoughts, feeling like you already are the person you want to be, or imagining great things for yourself and others.
Try it out, the best time is before you go to bed. If you're going to give this a shot, give it a real shot, do your homework. Check out Neville Goddard and other similar thinkers. I never see anyone talking about Goddard or mentioning him and I feel he has a really unique approach to the bible and to human psychology. A lot of his books are free online as pdf's, otherwise they're dirt cheap on kindle.
If Goddard's ideas prove true they could provide empowerment to every individual, no matter class, rank, education, or whatever. Every person has the ability to think, feel, and imagine.
I hope you guys enjoyed the write-up, I know this content isn't as standard as other spiritual writings, but I thought that it would be something cool to share and experiment with. It definitely pushes the envelope and kind of reminds me of "The Secret" and other new agey stuff. But if it's true, it can change the world.
Hit me with your comments below, and if you want to support me, upvote, resteem, and follow along, @jakeybrown :)
-Unlabeled photos sourced from Pixabay, Unsplash
Loved this, Alan Watts is so easy to listen to, the guy was a great speaker and his thoughts are really clear. Thanks for the share!
I like the different subheadings! Neat and concise! But also well-written of course☺
I agree with the "give it a shot". No matter how wacky our dreams appear to be, my experiences have been that when we say "No" (= external conditioning) we get exactly that reflection. Yet when we say "Yes" (= internal Trust and Faith) we also get a reflection back sooner or later. Knowing and experiencing this even once is enough to constantly remind ourselves that it is possible.
And yes, I also wrote this in one of my first articles, our imagination is our connection to the infinite Universe. We as we have the Human experience now on Earth cannot ever think of anything that doesn't exist already in the Universe. Our entire ideas, interests and thoughts are a product of our Soul's travel through the Universe.
Thanks!
Really there's no harm in trying, and like you said, saying yes is trust and faith, our doubting criticizing minds are part of what holds us back. I think we have a lot to learn in understanding, it just seems to go deeper and deeper.
Great write up. So do you think that when people pray they essentially using their thoughts to change things and does it work? If they pray for someone to get better from some illness was it the power of prayer that made it happen or the miracle of modern medicine? And if god created the world who created god and did he create other worlds to try out other ideas?
The line of thought is that imagination could play a role in affecting life. The closest I could come to comparing to what some other people think prayer is: rather than praying to someone or something, God, this type of praying would be more like imagining in your mind that the person was getting healthier or succeeding in a venture, and having faith that it will happen. As far as does it work, I haven't had success with it lately, but I honestly haven't really been doing it, keeping the faith is hard, I feel like negativity can pop up sometimes. I just am rereading Goddard after focusing on other authors, so kind of taking second look at these other writings. I'll be testing the ideas out this year though, I don't see much harm in imagining good things.
I'm not sure, but this could explain the placebo effect, I'm not saying it does, but maybe.
I guess I'm still trying to figure out who or what God is, so I'm not really sure. I think the idea might be that there is infinite potential.
Just throwing some rhetorical questions at you, but the concept of the power of prayer really might be something
Gave you my best answers haha.
Ya, I think so, gonna be testing it out
Well, not yet, but perhaps one day we will. With advanced nanotech, integrating in our brain, we could be able to manipulate objects just like magic. Eventually doing things similar to miracles.
So, those teachings you are sharing I believe they are truth, they just take some time to manifest themselves, but eventually, they become absolute true.
Maybe the rate at which we manifest things is slow because we think time is real... I honestly don't know yet if this kind of stuff could happen quickly without technology, but some of these authors and yogis seem to think so. I guess the whole premise is that we have the power of creation where if we can gain understanding of the laws of the universe we can perform miracles disregarding time. All these spiritual teachers reference the Now, that there is no actual past or future, just Now, and the Now is timeless meaning there is no future or past, just memories and imagination.
Nanotech could get crazy though, I've thought about it a lot while brainstorming sci-fi stories to myself haha
The whole post was good, but man that intro... If you ever find yourself doubting your ability as a writer, re-read those first two sections. You totally drew me in and had me excited to see what comes next.
Loved everything else you said as well, especially those Goddard quotes. My plate is a little full right now, otherwise I'd totally dive in and read one of his books. I've listened to hundreds of hours of Abraham-Hicks so I feel like I have a solid basis for understanding most of what he's saying just from the quotes, but I should probably do my due diligence and read him in depth. Next time I get some down time.
Resteemed to hopefully get some more eyeballs in this hidden gem.
Thank you man! I just realized I wasn't following you today, I thought you just hadn't posted in a while. I gotta check out your vids tomorrow, any tips btw? I just got a stand for my phone, gonna give it a shot when I have time!
If you ever find yourself doubting your ability as a writer,
Haha I read through and had two typos... (Edits quickly)
Ya check it out when you can, I haven't really applied it well yet, but going to be giving it an extra effort this year.
Thanks for the resteem, I really appreciate it, I'll hit you up in discord when I get on there
Biggest tip right now is just to focus on living an inspired life / looking at life in inspired ways. If I just try to write or shoot, it will come out dry and lifeless. But if I think about what's exciting me about life, or ideas that I'm really passionate, all of a sudden I have a strong drive to create.
Specifically for vids: lower your expectations. There are a billion things you can perfect when it comes to videos. It's just orders of magnitude more expressive than the written word. But just keep it simple, and trust that just being yourself is enough for now. You will improve as a person over time, so your videos will improve both because you're getting better at making them, and because your self improvement shines through. Content is really just a means of documenting and expressing the things you are creating/contemplating in your own life, and video is one of the purest ways to capture that journey.
One of the things I noticed in creating my latest vid "A History of Stupid" is that the absolute terrible video quality didn't even matter that much. It was almost like an 8bit video game, where the lack of quality actually added a desirable feel to things. So quality of the product pales in comparison to quality of content.
Always great connecting with you!
Haha nice! I better watch that one ;)
Thanks for the tips man, I really appreciate them. I've been time crunched so haven't got to them yet, but that's probably just an excuse because I'm a bit scared to start haha
Knowing that is half the battle. Maybe you could even make your first video about being afraid to make a video. Lots of people experience that and can relate (including me). So your courage would stretch far beyond just yourself.
Thanks for the encouragement @joshbillings, it's appreciated!
Its funny Jake, we have travelled similar road and I have bumped into many of the folk you speak of. Neville Goddard being one of the,. But I think it was only a few youtubes of his. I kinda got into the manifesting thing and positive thought, but always felt something was just a bit 'off'. Not that there is ever any harm in cultivating loving and kind thoughts. More that I wanted to discover what was at the root, who was seeking improvement ... and why (AHHH!) well, no, forget the why.
But it emains an interesting exploration. Enjoyed your post as ever.
I was right there with you, got into Goddard for about a month with minor success, but
"Seek ye first thing kingdom of heaven, then all things shall be given."
I still hadn't found the who either, and I felt in order to use Goddard's teachings in the right way I had to find out... The concepts have been with me, but my aspiration has been truth, so they've taken a back seat. ALways good to remind myself though, I think the concepts he lays out can play a role in realization, really I think realizating the I am is the first thing he points out in his book The Power(which doesn't appear to be available anymore.) so I think once we discover the "who" is where our beginning really starts. That's just my thoughts though, I'm really not 100%
Great post and I love that wall quote!
It is amazing that concepts like this that have been expressed by thinkers for thousands of years are now being proven to be scientifically true by quantum physicists - if you've ever read or seen "what the bleep do we know anyway?!" (link below) it blows your mind with concepts about how the mind creates everything that we see around us, collapsing into form, to match our consciousness:
Ah man, vid is blocked in my country ahha, I'll have to check it out though, sounds really cool. To me, consciousness is the driver
Consciousness>Mind>Physical, each is derived from the previous... But I still need more understanding before you should consider me an authority!
We should keep exploring :)
Awh, no - the book is probably better (in fact I think I listened to it via Audible).
Keep exploring, for sure!
Great write up. I have never read Goddard, but have been exploring really similar ideas from other authors and I have been apart of a group that practices inner healing prayer. I just wrote a post sharing some of my experience in that. The basic idea is that our imagination can be more than simply our thoughts given shape, but that we can communicate with God in that space. Receiving and giving in imagination. What is fascinating to me has been learning that this is not even a new idea in Christianity (which is what I practice). St. Ignatius developed a rich set of prayers around this idea. The Dessert Fathers as well as other Christian Mystics practiced this. And many scholars read the Old Testament prophets as doing this exact thing.
Personally, I think there is a delineation between our imagination and God, but the two can meet and interact.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
Really cool, I checked out your post and put your vote there ;)
Interesting about communicating with God through imagination, imagination is such an unknown faculty, like where are the imaginings coming from? It's hard to see or notice
I personally believe that imagination is one of the faculties of God, ad since we are created in his image it is our faculty as well. I will be testing out the waters here using imagination to try to create as God creates. I think once we reach realization or awaken this become exponentially easier, so that is my overriding aspiration.
🙌💓