Thoughts are things
Manifesting is a superpower. It is the ability to turn ideas into real things. We all possess it, but because we are untrained in the superhero arts, we often have the misconception that life is happening to us, outside of us, external to our thoughts and feelings. We do not see that what we believe is inside, and that we are the cause of our reality. Its not our fault, nor anyone else’s. We have forgotten. No one is to blame. This forgetting is part of being human.
Rules for being human
- You will receive a body. You may like it or hate it, but it will be yours for the entire period.
- You will learn lessons. You are enrolled in a full-time informal school called life. Each day in this school you will have the opportunity to learn lessons. You may like the lessons or think them irrelevant and stupid.
- There are no mistakes, only lessons. Growth is a process of trial and error, experimentation. The “failed” experiments are as much a part of the process as the experiment that ultimately “works.”
- A lesson is repeated until it is learned. A lesson will be presented to you in various forms until you have learned it. When you have learned, you can then go on to the next lesson,
- Learning lessons does not end. There is no part of life that does not contain its lessons. If you are alive, there are lesson to be learned.
- “There” is no better than “here.” When your “there” has become “here,” you will simply obtain another “there” that will, again, look better than “here.”
- Others are merely mirrors of you. You cannot love or hate something about another person unless it reflects to you something you love or hate about yourself.
- What you make of life is up to you. You have all the tools and resources you need. What you do with them is up to you. The choice is yours.
- Your answers lie inside you. The answers to life’s questions lie inside you. All you need to do is look, listen, and trust.
- You will forget all of this.
So, now that we know the rules, lets play with our reality, or jump into the vortex as Abraham would say. I wrote in the post Creativity about how simple awareness creates our reality. This is Sutra 1 of the Pratyabhijñã-hṛdayam:
Consciousness in her freedom, brings about the attainment of the Universe
The light of awareness is a gift of the sacral chakra, and the conscious choice and will to focus the attention on a particular path of vibration, thought, or idea from the imagination, or the spiritual nucleus as Thomas Troward calls it (see Will), is the interplay of intelligent thought with physical sensation, and ignites the fire that is the navel chakra.
All thought is samsāra; there is no bondage except thought. Let’s say that you imagine something. The stronger your intention and the longer time you hold onto that thought, the more likely are its chances of manifesting in the physical realm. This is one way we shape our reality through our emotional reactions.
To concentrate means to bring to a center, and in Mental Science it means focusing the mental attention on Some definite and desired thought, image, idea or thing. Of course we are dealing with the idea as though throughts were things. The spirit of the thing is in the thought. This is its essence, law and cause.
To intentionally activate our superpower of manifestation, aligning with the Law of Growth, Law of Mind and Law of Attraction, we use thoughts, words and deeds. While exciting as this may seem, there is also catch in this power, because the laws are active all the time, whether we are conscious of them or not. That means that they make no distinction between good or bad words or thoughts. They give to us what we believe. All the time.
One realizes with complete consciousness that feelings and thoughts are veritable realities, just as much as are tables and chairs in the world of the physical senses. Feelings and thoughts act upon each other in the astral-world and in the physical world. As long as anyone is not truly permeated with this realization, he will not believe that an evil thought projected from his mind may have as devastating an effect upon other thought forms as that wrought upon physical objects by a bullet shot at random.
Children, because they are still immersed in the fabric of their spiritual selves, readily recognize and accept that they possess superpowers. It is part of their daily play. They understand, embrace and embody the images and stories of heroes and superheroes. They know of their extraordinary senses, not yet mundane, and their powers of invisibility and flight. They know that the world revolves around them, their ideas and their imagination. After their 7th year, they may resonate with Elsa in Frozen in that power is out of their control. They probably have experienced conditional love and acceptance and because of this, may even feel not understood by those around them. There outer experience sometimes does not match with the Amazing Being they know themselves to be. They have begun what Dr. Carter-Scott calls the informal school of Life. They have begun their heroes journey. Just as in the story tales of old, we can help them on their journey by gifting them magical talismans, the Buddhist 8, of thought (right understanding, intention, concentration, mindfulness), word (right speech) and deed (right action, livelihood, effort) that activate and release their Divine power.
Activity 1: Tell an Impossible Story
The story of Cinderella is very old. There are more than 1500 known versions. The first to be written down was the Chinese tale of Yeh-shen, from an ancient manuscript dating to the T’ang dynasty (618-907 A.D.). How did it become so widespread? Could it be that it traveled with humans from our origin? What is the true meaning of this tale? Could it be a roadmap, a magical talisman? For interpretation of this or any fairytale consider the resolution of marriage or “happily every after” to represent Divine union, duality to non-duality, yin-yang, or Shiva/Shakti, and perhaps the powerful nuances of the storyline will unfold before you.
Cinderella follows the 8-fold path and while the listener may put personal judgments on her situation, her thoughts are not always known to us, only her words and deeds, which only convey goodness. She is miraculously rewarded with all the richness and goodness she perceives the world to be.
Listen together to the popular European version (originally The Little Glass Slipper by Charles Perrault and also Aschenputtel collected by Grimms) Cinderella here on Storynory.
Two other of my favorite Cinderella stories are The Invisible Being from the Algonquin, possibly first published in 1884 Charles G. Leland’s The Algonquin Legends of New England (see here for full discourse) and The Talking Eggs from American Creole, first collected by Alcée Fortier and was published in Memoirs of the American Folklore Society in 1895.
Find The Invisible Being as the Rough-faced Girl in print by Rafe Martin, illustrated by David Shannon.
Find the full version of The Talking Eggs on Stories to Grow by or in print from Robert D. San Souci beautifully illustrated by Jerry Pinkey.
Activity 2: Self Portrait
Draw a self portrait of affirmative thoughts. Make a head or body shape. You may draw this shape for your child, find a template online, or have them draw it themselves. Then fill up this empty head and body with drawings of wonderful thoughts. These can be desires or dreams or qualities. Older children can fill it with words and specific things they like about themselves.
- template on paper or poster stock
- watercolors, markers, crayons
- optional variation- magazine images for collaging and glue. Note about collaging– I always pre-cut my images and let them go through these; otherwise, the creation process can get bogged do
Activity 3: Choose a Daily Verse, or several
We use verses in the morning, at meals, at school and in the evening. These can be like a touchstone, to center one back into the moment and rhythm of the day, and also to realign with Truth. There are many to choose from. It is good to pick a verse and stick with it for a year or more before adding another one. Children have an amazing capacity to memorize, so don’t feel you have to edit them in length. Also, feel free to modify and update verse to fit your family and beliefs. I always edit them a bit to make them gender neutral.
Here is the daily Waldorf verse I say with my older child every day:
Or try one of The Aspiration Prayers from Buddhism. I like this one from the Orgyen Chowang Rinpoche and Maura Ginty of the Pristine Mind Foundation:
Activity 4: Nurture the thought as a spiritual nucleus
Deepak Chopra, writes in The Seven Spiritual Laws for Parents,
Every time you make a wish or want, you plant a seed.
So go ahead, write down a list of your wishes and wants, or draw a picture or many pictures. Just as a seed does the growing itself, let your wish grow on its own. Keep watering it with your faith, but also trust it to know how to grow by itself.
The Word of God, spoken within Himself, sets the Law (which is also in Himself) in motion. The result is Creation. The Word is the mold, which acting through Law produces form. As there are many words so there are many forms, each distinct and each and individualized idea of God. Since the Word of God is permanent, when He speaks that Word is equipped to perpetuate Itself, even as the seed contains within itself all that is necessary for the reproduction of its kind. The Word of God means the power of God to declare Itself into manifestation, into form. The Word of God means the Self-Contemplation of Spirit. The manifest universe, as we see it, as well as the Invisible Universe, which must also exist, is the result of the Self-Contemplation of God. “He spake and it was done.” “The Word was with God, and the Word was God. All things were made by Him and without him was not anything made that was made.” The starting point of all creation is the Word of Spirit. The Word is the Concept, Idea, Image, or Thought of God. It is the Self-Knowing Mind, speaking Itself into manifestation. The Word back of everything is its Initial Cause.
Activity 5: Beat the drum to the vibrational power of words
For this activity you will need a drum, or you can make a drum with any resonant object in your house and some sticks. I like using 5-gallon plastic buckets as my drum set. Words are like these drums, sending powerful vibrations into the field of creation. Baba Muktananda, Guru in the Siddha Yoga lineage, wrote that each letter of the Sanskrit alphabet is a mother.
Each of these śaktis is a mātrkā, a term translated as “mother,” because out of the womb of mātrkā springs the created universe.
Feel the spoken words with the drums. Use them to speak the verses in Activity 2, or the seeds in Activity 3, or create new forms with sound. For more on vibration creates form, see my post First There was The Word.
Activity 6: Do Nothing
Bury your list in the dirt. Forget about it. Take no action to fulfilling your wishes. Finish by saying “I have spoken.”
Build a fire together. Bring the wood, place the kindling, strike the match and light it. Put your list inside. Now watch it, enjoy it, delight in it, be warmed by it.
Maharishi’s Statement about Fulfilling Desire
Keep your desires turning back within and be patient. Allow the fulfillment to come to you, gently resisting the temptation to chase your dreams into the world. Foresee them into your heart until they disappear into the Self and leave them there. It may take a little self-discipline, but be simple, be kind. Attend to you r inner health and happiness. Happiness radiates like the fragrance from a flower and draws all good things towards you. Allow your love to nourish yourself as well as others. Do not strain after the needs of life; it is sufficient to be quietly alert and aware of things. In this way life, proceeds more naturally and effortlessly. Lie is here to enjoy it.
Running into doubt? Raise your vibrations. Have fun and laugh. Try dancing, singing, hiking, swimming, creating a story, or playing a game. Try reading a book together, like Sara, Book 1: Sara Learns the Secret about the Law of Attraction by Ester and Jerry Hicks. For parents, learn what to “do” to “do nothing,” in this Q&A with Abraham Hicks on YouTube:
Activity 7: Make an idea a reality, give form to imagination through art
Put imagination into form through art. There are so many media to choose from and you may notice that the inspiration to create something with your hands arises from a passion that gives you tremendous amount of energy, focus and purpose. Moreover, this energy is self-generating and undepleting. The more you “work” the more energy you have. That seems counter intuitive, right? What is happening?
God moves upon God. This is the starting point of creation. Every time one conceives an idea, it is God expressing Himself.
Draw it, paint it, sculpt it, build it, write it, dance it, act it out. In whatever form it takes, give it expression and experience joy of moving in alignment with your purpose.
Activity 8: What you are looking for you will find so go find it
There is a saying in science, “what you are looking for you will find.” I learned this when getting my master’s degree in science and it was the first of many proofs that called into question everything I’d been taught to believe about objectivity. I like the way Cristina Marreo puts it:
“The Scientific Method is a wonderful tool as long as you don’t care which way the outcome turns; however, this process fails the second one’s perception interferes with the interpretation of data. This is why I don’t take anything in life as an absolute…even if someone can “prove” it “scientifically.”
That’s the Law in action. For more in depth study on this and the falsehood of objectivity for adults, I recommend Deepak Chopra’s You Are the Universe.
Scavenger Hunt In Search of Love
Play with this wonderful universal toy by going on a scavenger hunt. You can pick any object to find. I like to look for love, by finding all the hearts in nature. See this short video of my kids program at the Center for Spiritual Awakening of one of our love hikes.
Activity 9: Affirmative Prayer for Manifestation for Kids
Activity 10: Intentionally choose music with high vibration and meaningful lyrics
My husband grew up in another country. In his family, they listened to music all the time, but only one kind of music, music of the highest vibration, music that came direct from God through Muhammad, Peace be upon Him: the Koran. By the time he was 10 he could recite the entire Koran. He can still sing it to this day, as a 55 year-old-father-of-two. Know that when you choose music to listen to, your child will remember it, and likely sing it for the rest of their life. Music have hooks, and lay down permanent tracks in the brain. I grew up in American culture, so the music from my childhood are a mix. In my brain, I replay lots of tv commercials mixed with movie soundtracks and Christian church songs.
So choose music with intention. Choose music with words that manifest. Choose music that vibrates the soul.
When you wish upon a star
The Sun Shines on Everyone
(Ram is the Supreme Lord Krishna, one who can give pleasure to our hearts)
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| The Law of Mind for Kids |
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Dedications
To my dear friend and constant teacher, Janie Lundy. Also deep gratitude to my teachers Dr. Bill Little and Rev. Sandy Leader, with whom I just completed a most enlivened course on The Splendor of Recognition.
Image credits:
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