A
Word on Manifestation:
There
are many different sources, from The Secret to different Spiritual Living
Centers (i.e. churches, temples, synagogues), that are coming to realize the
power that the human mind has over its surroundings. There are many different
types or manifestation from the gross forms to the subtle, seemingly magical
forms, and then there are mass forms, which are by far the most dangerous. We
will briefly look into each:
Gross
Manifestation:
We
see the gross forms of this every day in our interactions with others; and for
the skeptical, scientific types this is the most quantifiable form of
manifestation:
You
take an instant dislike to a person or have a dream in which they are abusing
you – say this person has done nothing to you or has formed no opinion of you –
upon seeing them it is guaranteed that you will act differently around them
such that most anyone, whether they are sensitive or not, will pick up on your
attitude. They will react to your treatment and most likely begin treating you
in the way that you expect them to in your thoughts. We can start to understand
that any notion of yours has followed a simple path – from our unconscious mind
in a dream or first impression to the conscious mind in a thought and then into
the gross world by an action and then reaction from another person.
All
uncontrolled energy flows in this manner – from your unconscious to your
conscious to an action and then the subsequent reactions that bounce between
people. In other words, thought
precedes all action and there are very few people who have trained themselves
to stop the chain of events at any point. Perhaps we would like to think that
we keep our thoughts to ourselves – but rarely can a person discipline
themselves to completely drop any thought that comes to their mind;
particularly when we are surrounded by constant stimulation urging the ego to
present itself as the strong, self-determined ‘individual’ – there truly is no
hope for self-restraint. Therefore, as a result we have forms of gross
manifestation presenting themselves constantly around us and with every effort
that is not taken to simply observe the mind instead of letting thoughts sprint
around the hamster wheel we see the world around us slowly become the chaotic
product of our gross mind.
Subtle
Manifestation:
Subtle Manifestation is what I refer to as something that
appears almost magical or miraculous in nature and gives people the knowledge
that prayers can be answered and small pushes towards the belief that random
events don’t just chaotically collide into coincidence. Here are a few examples
from the small helping hands to the clearly powerful phenomenon:
A
convenient convergence: A number of years ago I had moved to the New York area
and was living in Edgewater, NJ. I was working in northern New Jersey and had
started taking night classes in the Woolworth building in downtown Manhattan. I
would get home from work around 5:00 and I needed to be a number of miles down
the road at the ferry to catch the 5:45 ferry downtown. In order to take the ferry
and park down the road I needed to either pay $8 dollars a night to park and
$20 round trip for a ferry ticket or wait for the bus to get there and then get
back.
After
having repeated this draining (money and energy) exercise that often involved
running and holding up ferries trying to cross the Hudson when the bus was
late. After only a short time, I was considering that there had to be another
way to do this, I could not keep up this triumvirate (bus, ferry, subway, or
taxi depending on how late) of public transit everyday and still have any
savings intact.
One day I was standing on the pier when the ferry was very
late. Normally I was the only person waiting for this particular ferry, which
was going against the exodus out of Manhattan during the evening rush
hour. This particular time there
happened to be someone else waiting on the pier looking equally as distraught
that the ferry was late. Being in a particularly good mood despite the late
ferry, one or the other or us happened to strike up a conversation regarding
the late ferry. It took us only a couple of minutes to realize that we were
both in the same program at NYU and were in fact heading for the same building.
We quickly befriended one another. It turned out that not only did he become a
dear friend, but he also often drove me back from the ferry at night to my flat
which was half a mile from his on the other side of Edgewater. Convenient? Yes.
Synchronicity? Maybe. Prayer answered(or manifested)? Certainly.
Handy and Miraculous Car Troubles
Here is a more specific version of
manifestation:
When
I was in college I chose to study abroad in Italy between my sophomore and
junior years. On the day and I was to go to the airport my sister was held up
and could not get over to my parents’ house in time to say goodbye to me, so I
had to leave without getting the opportunity to say goodbye to her. We spoke
briefly by cell phone but both of us were upset and awkward because we couldn’t
say goodbye. I hung up the phone and not two minutes down the road the car goes
kaput, the alternator stops, the fan, just about everything, so we have to pull
over. Upon inspection the serpentine belt is completely shredded and has
snapped. As a result we call my sister and she comes to pick us up so that we
can continue on our way to the airport and we can say goodbye in person.
Mass
Manifestation:
This
is a basic concept in which the subtle manifestation is multiplied a million
times over. So imagine the evil or good thought of one person and what it is
capable of; now imagine if millions of people had a similar thought and
everything was directed in the same way. That would be an immense amount of
very powerful energy being harnessed. A lot of alternative thinkers attribute
many of the qualms and disasters that are happening in our current time to this
idea of mass manifestation. In this respect, both gross and subtle
manifestation can be seen. An easy example of gross manifestation is the mild
economic depression that is currently affecting our lives. When it started,
those who would never have had any idea or follow any of the trends of the
Market (i.e. the average consumer) would never have had any idea that there was
a lag in the market until everyone started telling them it existed. Once they
were told, they stopped buying and became fearful of losing their jobs. Their
lack of ‘consumer confidence’ then resulted in theirs fears being realized when
they lost their jobs. So, due to the uninsightful instillation of fear in the
consumer by those in the media and those running the market, a lot of
unnecessary suffering has resulted.
A
controversial, yet very good example of mass subtle manifestation is global
warming. Some people will point out that the only real trend that indicates a
global change in temperature was after 1986 when the term ‘Global Warming’ was
first coined. It wasn’t until the public became aware of climate change as a
concept that it really manifested. Not only that but now that no one can truly
argue its existence, perhaps the increasing awareness and fear of it could be
accelerating it at an alarming rate.
http://learnshareact.com/weareone/2009/01/18/the-golden-rule/
