Power of Mind Consciousness

We all know the term “mind-over-matter,” but have you applied this theory in efforts to change the world?
I have recently been involved in a World Wide Intention Experiment offered by author of her latest book, The Intention Experiment, Lynne McTaggart. She is an internationally recognized spokesperson on the science of spirituality. 
These experiments enable you to experience a unique global sense of unity with thousands of others of sending intention at the exact same moment as thousands from over all the globe.

The power of the mind is mighty, but the power of many unified minds, can change the world.

What are your thoughts?
Have you tried any intention experiments lately?

Re: Power of Mind Consciousness

Greetings and Welcome :)

I've heard Lynne McTaggart on several radio interviews, and although I do agree with good intention, focused intention, in fact, I think it is the lazy way to simply put out the intention for peace and unity without doing anything beyond wishing/desiring/focusing it so.

I would have to say that her philosophy is vastly incomplete in this regard.

This would be my perspective on the question you have asked.

Blessings~

Re: Power of Mind Consciousness

Welcome burnsrunner!!

I have read of McTaggart's efforts in the past. I feel that collective intending has a much better chance of 'manifesting' something than the intention theories claiming that individuals can attract reality (“The Secret”).

The individual ego-self is a mass composite of confusing intentions and this is why, collectively, we have the reality we currently experience, a complex disorganized jumble of confusion. The individual 'self' is all over the place (as Ken Wilber has claimed).

Yet, there does seem credence to minds engaging together to alter the landscape of consciousness. However, I believe it would have to be much more involved and deep, than simply conjuring up concepts of say…'peace.' The mass of intentions would most likely need to believe that perfect peace actually was present, for it to actually be present.

I hope others in this pod comment on this, since it does seem apparent that we have yet to plumb the depths of consciousness and truly learn its power.

Thanks,
mikeS

Re: Power of Mind Consciousness

I think it has to go beyond intention alone.  This is why I feel Lynne's idea incomplete.  It is much like the story of the guy who never misses mass, and then you find out he is abusing his family and his neighbors, yet you still go golfing with him and say what a shame, he's such a hypocrite.  Or, finding out that an elderly person down the street has been eating cat food and her children are affluent restaurant owners or that you are and you thought the old person was just a recluse when the neighbors got together for a barbecue.  

Or, do you think it is just possible to hold a greater intention and things will change?  I think there is deep possibility in sending out intention to change, but at the same moment, is there not some call to action?  I read Lynne's blog on mob rule and there is merit in her position, no doubt.  She does talk about individual responsibility, but I think she doesn't necessarily bring that to the core discussion as much as she could.  If the individuals within the collective are all over the map, then where is the commonality of focused intent? 

Even here, within this limited group, there are differing perspectives on how to reach a common goal of living within the peaceable kingdom in one's own mind, much less the world at large.  So, wouldn't the conflict between the individual and the collective need to be bridged at the same moment a common intention is facilitated?  If peace is a goal that is good to contemplate and send intention toward manifesting, wouldn't the collective have to define and agree on what that peace is?  The Berlin Wall might be an example of the people saying that despite the fear we have lived in, we are just going to tear apart this wall in one collective moment of action and demand unity with the rest of the world.  So, the intention equaled action in that instant. 

A little over a year ago, I signed up for Lynne's email updates because I was impressed with the interviews I had heard, but it was all promotional.  I had thought the updates would be more focused on ideas and so ended up opting out of the email thing altogether.  I don't disagree with her basic premise, though.

Respectfully~

Re: Power of Mind Consciousness

Nahhni,

I think it has to go beyond intention alone.  This is why I feel Lynne's idea incomplete.  It is much like the story of the guy who never misses mass, and then you find out he is abusing his family and his neighbors, yet you still go golfing with him and say what a shame, he's such a hypocrite.  Or, finding out that an elderly person down the street has been eating cat food and her children are affluent restaurant owners or that you are and you thought the old person was just a recluse when the neighbors got together for a barbecue. 

Excellent examples of misaligned “intention”!

Or, do you think it is just possible to hold a greater intention and things will change?

No, not individually, since the ego-self is a bundle of confusing intentions primarily because it does not know itself nor its originating source.

I think there is deep possibility in sending out intention to change, but at the same moment, is there not some call to action?

Yes, It seems there must be. Obviously if the actions, lifestyle, etc, are not aligned with any 'sending out' of intention, then one will have chaotic and confusing responses (which, incidentally, is what we all seem to 'manifest')

If the individuals within the collective are all over the map, then where is the commonality of focused intent?

True and there is no denying that for the most part, individually, we are “all over the map.” Therefore, such chaos becomes expected by the collective and, viola! the world is experienced as it now is….collective, surreal, contradictory nonsensical chaos. Although the ego compromises with what it makes and tries desperately to make sense of nonsense (which is why I posted that Catholic church article).

So, wouldn't the conflict between the individual and the collective need to be bridged at the same moment a common intention is facilitated?

Yes, i think so. This is why I focus a great deal on relationships as having the potential to construct those “bridges” between minds. It seems to me that if even two individuals can bridge the psychological estrangement common to current existence, then there might be proof of change. If two can be completely aligned with intention, I wonder…..

A little over a year ago, I signed up for Lynne's email updates because I was impressed with the interviews I had heard, but it was all promotional.

Eventually self-promotion is what it all devolves into, which seems rather unaligned with any collective change.

Great Points, Nahnni!
mikeS

Re: Power of Mind Consciousness

Nahnni, I think this is a very good critique. Like you, I was excited and signed up for Lynne's updates. I even participated in the Sri Lankan experiments. But over time I have become discouraged with the self-promotion and wonder if there is anything in it. I don't know, but I don't find myself engaged with it enough anymore to really pursue it to find out.

Love,

Nicole

Re: Power of Mind Consciousness

I agree that it takes more than just intention and thought to make a difference. My circumstance do not allow me to travel away from home much. I am a mom, who tries to lead my children by example, and work with what I've got. I think Lynne offers a great opportunity for those of us who want use the power and science of the mind, in addition to anything else we can do.

Re: Power of Mind Consciousness

The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

The steps seem to be in the right basic direction at least. The problem I have with the disassembling of the project and it's leader, is the same problem we've had since this great golden age of science of ours started. Every person deifies their individuality, and yet can not reconcile that with the reality that to achieve powerful common objectives, certain uniquenesses must be given up.

This comes down to deciding as individuals what it is we truely  value, and focusing on common shared plans for an outcome we all want. This plan, seems tatamount to trying to herd cats though. The problem being, no one has the imagination, nor the vision  to expess an outcome that is little more than a vague notion, of an emotional state we all long for. Peace and happiness is all well and good as a goal, but what does a world that has peace and happiness LOOK like? Act like?

I had flirted with the idea of starting a thread that would ask people to post their ideas of a 'perfect' socieity. To envision the world they WISH they lived in, how would it be different than this one? How would people act? How would they govern themselves? Relate to each other? I think a lot of people would be stumped first off. I think most people know what they DO NOT want, but to be responsable for deciding the way things should be is way outside the scope of most people's comfort, yet that is what we ask of our leaders every day.  Those who DO have an idea of what that place should be like, I think would soon find it was radically different that most other people's visions. I had hoped to illistrate the point that it's hard to build towards a common good, if we as a people can't decide what that good should be.

The problem, I think, rests in the fact that we have come to treasure and prize uniqueness, even if it means doing things contrary to a greater good. The idea that your individuality will make you stand out, and in standing out will gain you some attention and recognition, is very common. People crave attention, they crave recognition and acceptance, possibly because they lack those things on a personal level. Individuality requires seperation. Doing something like working together for a common goal, like  it or not, requires a more group mentality, as has been pointed out. People working together doing the same things.

Focusing all of our attention with others upon a common goal is hard, when no one can decide what that goal should be.  We can not decide what that goal should be because to come up with common goals would be to give up our sense of uniqueness, and do what everyone else is doing. We can not give up our uniqueness because we feel it would remove from us our chance at noterity. Loosing our noterity and public attention means we would loose our acceptance and love, and feelings of self worth we all desperately and unconciously crave. Loosing other's attention, leaves us to value ourselves as worthy, which most seem incapable of doing, and we fall deeper into dispair and loose hope.

I wonder which is more lazy? Staying a home and working on a common goal, mentally concentrating on it, with groups of others, something real ever person can do and sacrafice, or sitting around shooting down every idea because it is imperfect, and doing nothing at all? Humans are bound by reality, and nothing any of us do  will ever be viewed by others as perfect, simply because there are so many dissimilar views of reality and how it should be lived.

Each of us comes here speaking our reality. I see many talking their truths, but very rarely is anyone listening, more we wait for others to “see our truth as right and come to it”. Infact, my mother asked me just yesterday, why it is I still bother to come here and talk to people that seem not so intrested in listening as much as telling. She herself has read just about every self help, spiritual and new age book that's been published over the years, she's full of all of it's teachings, and yet frustred with people who just want to talk rather than listen.

I told my mother that it's not so much about getting through to people, instantly, as simply sharing your truth, and if it's validity proves itself, maybe even fifteen years down the road, than I've done what I came to do. As well I enjoy the challenge of putting my ideas in the harsh fires of other's judgements, it helps me to find chinks and cracks in my own realities and truths, and find more questions to search for the answers too. I enjoy the process and don't really care so much anymore about the outcome.
I have found, through different sources and teachings, my own self worth, and the ablity to make myself happy with out requiring a physical person to constantly be with me and assure me of my self worth, which, quite franky, is what love is. I have found, that a person who can not do this, could not possibly know how to give love to others in a correct fashion.

 Just as Nahnni had noted in her examples, how can a person help others to find and reach love, if they can not even do so with in themselves first? I also wonder why you think the idea of sitting and radiating peace for a few minutes out of yoru day is mutually exclusive to also, going out and helping people physically as well? Not to be mean but this seems a very flimsy excuse to shoot the study down. Just as, while it might be true, that people who donate money might not feel it then nessicary to donate time and effort to charities, that is assumtion and generalization, and has no grounding in truth. I find it hard to believe that Lynne is saying if you focus your conciousness towards doing something a few times a week, that then you are doing all the good work that needs to be done and don't need to do any more good deeds that day.

Re: Power of Mind Consciousness

Padric,

I also wonder why you think the idea of sitting and radiating peace for a few minutes out of yoru day is mutually exclusive to also, going out and helping people physically as well?

I think the issue was more directed toward “intention.” One can easily take a few minutes to consciously intend 'peace' in the world. Yet, if that same person beats his wife, then the “intention” was not real in the first place, because 'peace' was not even inherent to the overall individual belief system and violence was an accepted mode of relating to the world.
This type of misaligned “intending” has given us what we have now and is the clay from which our confusing, surreal and often absurd, world has been sculpted.

Just saying…
mikeS

Re: Power of Mind Consciousness

Our motives and intentions will never be pure. Does that, then, make them futile? Should we all despair and fold our hands and prepare to die?

Or do we just do our best, in action and prayer and intention?

Is our best good enough, Mike?

Love,

Nicole

Re: Power of Mind Consciousness

Our motives and intentions will never be pure.

Be careful. If that is the belief than it will determine our intentions.

Is our best good enough, Mike?

The “best” is never good enough, because the moment you evaluate that you've done your “best” why would you seek to do more? We strive for perfection and only claim to have done our “best” when we fail. Yet, when we evaluate a success this only presses us to become “better.”

It seems there is no end to this game. But we believe it has a finite outcome we call “best” when, in fact, it never ends.
mikeS

Re: Power of Mind Consciousness

Isn't it possible that there is a reason for the diversity of approach to what we call “common problems”?

Imagine a world where everything was peace and harmony.  Nobody lacked anything, every country was flowing with milk and honey as the bible puts it, every need met, no difference of opinion because we were all 'enlightened' and knew everything anyway.

I don't think I'm designed to live in such a world.

The goal of this incarnation seems to be in meeting challenges and problem solving.

Take away the challenges and problems and what do you have left?

Heaven?  For how long before you become bored out of your skull?

I think there is far more purpose in the obstacles we face than simply agreeing together for a 'perfect' world.

Re: Power of Mind Consciousness

I think you are right Andrew, in many ways.  The only concern I see is that with the world under an unprecedented global focus, the narrowing of once territorial boundaries, instant access to information (real or designed), the underlying power of threat, et al, the paradigm of how we once looked at the world versus how we now see it has to be updated, because the old world view is, to all intent and purpose, out of touch with the reality of how things are and this brings often needless conflict.  While the Nature of Things has not really changed, it has expanded, some things tossed, some things having to be reevaluated.

We understand, scientifically, sociologically, psychologically, the things we once either feared or did not understand so much we devised myths around them historically and now that come to see things differently, our methods of problem-solving has to shift as well.

We could probably assist in a reality of feeding the world food, but we don't.  We do know how to inoculate from previous and deadly disease, and we do.  We live longer, but with more separation from community, even on a smaller scale.  In the end, the whole awareness of things as they are or might be or will not be has changed.  Old solutions do not work anymore on a global scale and great change  seems to have happened while most were sleeping. 

I don't think there will ever be a world without problem-solving, but perhaps only the best that can be achieved under any given circumstance.  As a human race, we tend to be centric, thinking our solution, lifetstyle, and so forth is the best solution, but in such a world as this, that tends to simply breed more conflict.

I don't have an answer only an observation.  The law of Nature is not perfect or fair, but it appears to be exacting, or just, as it were.  Mystery will always be with us.

Blessings~

Re: Power of Mind Consciousness

I don't think I'm designed to live in such a world.

No egos are designed to live in such a world and that's why such a world does not exist for an ego. The ego-self is a construct of conflict and dualistic contrasts so that judgments such as right/wrong, bad/good, guilty/innocent, can determine the content of consciousness or the design of the world.

The ego-self is the designer.
mikeS