Some folks do well with this; other people never seem to succeed.

What do you want from such a system?

You want (a) success; (b) rapid success; (c) reliable success. Just like your Ford automobile, you want it to always start and carry you down the chosen road, to start quickly, and to operate reliably as expected.

In these various systems, different factors are touted as helping to attain success, rapidity, and reliability. These include –

• Practicing to attain clear images
• Adding additional senses as you visualize
• Having faith, believing
• Practicing to build history of success (creates trust)
• Adding emotions you’ll experience upon success
• Picturing as already happened
• Being *in* the picture
• Repetition
• Spending time, more time, every-day time on the same visualization
• Create ardent desire
• Create gratitude (can only feel gratitude on a basis of success)
• Turning it over to God, to the Universe, to your Higher Self, to your Subconscious

The common denominator of all of these … is that they make the visualization more *real*.

Reality – A Consensual Illusion?

For most of us, the first time we hear the concept that the world around us, what we think is reality itself, could be a consensual illusion … it seems absurd. For it directly contradicts our “experience” of the world.

But think. As infants we have no ability to choose a direction, and then create a focused visualization. We must rely upon some incoming sensory input, and what people tell us. Even the words we learn, their meanings, and the way they are strung together create a view of the world … and *inside* of that world-view we operate. Like fish that don’t see the water, we don’t see the world-view we’ve created around us. Everything we see is *inside* the world view.

In Spanish, a person cannot miss the bus. Because when the young grow up inside the Spanish language, the way they consider the missed bus is (as we’d say in English) … “The bus, she left me.” This is now the world view of how busses behave.

As growing children, sometimes we see things that others do not see. However, in order to communicate with others, to attain our goals (food, water, acceptance, grades, friendship) we are attempting to see the commonly-agreed-upon view that we hear from others. Frequently, the imaginary friend fades away from our view of the world, and we cannot see the friend any longer. The golden glow glistening around the leaves as they pulsate with light fades, leaving the flat green leaves shown in pictures and as (we come to believe) seen by others.

We accept the consensual reality as told and demonstrated to us by our family and our culture.

Is My Red Your Blue?

We don’t actually *know* that others see things as we do, even after we’ve agreed.

We can see a shirt or a dress, and we agree that it is red. But perhaps what my eyes are handing to my brain, and what I call by the word “red” would be what you would call “blue” if you could see through my eyes. Perhaps from your viewpoint, you see red and I’m really seeing what you’d call blue, but since we both call it “red” we assume we’re *seeing* the same thing. But we have no way to really check and see if that’s true.

We call it by the same name, we describe it using the same words, but maybe our experience is completely different.

Three Kinds of Entrapment

1. As in the sad movie, you could get your foot caught in the railroad tracks, and you are stuck, entrapped in the physical universe, and the train could eat you up right quick. A fleeing rabbit could be outsmarted in the quick twists and turns by the faster fox, and the rabbit is stuck, entrapped, and it’s curtains.
2. We can get stuck in the structures and blind spots of the mind we’ve constructed by our decisions, from the beliefs adopted from our parents, and from accidental conditioning (automatic reactions) caused by the accidents of our life experience. An example might be an adopted child. While one person might go on to great success and happiness, another might focus on the core belief that the parents didn’t want him, and spend a lifetime seeing rejection from friends, bosses, and lovers even when none existed. All of life could then have targets and strategies designed to deal with and avoid rejection. It’s like running down a football field, dodging invisible barriers, and often failing to see the real opponents closing in.
3. The entire world itself is a consensual reality, which some systems have called the “Veil of Illusion.”

Attaining Freedom from Entrapment

Physical skills and learned skills of the mind avoid physical entrapment, and help us to entrap/ensnare the things that we want.

Self-help and therapies and practices like Rolfing and Meditation help to fix non-optimum mental structures and blind spots in the mind.

So-called spiritual means can achieve freedom from the consensual illusion that *is* the entire world … sometimes.

Some saints and religious figures have done things that seem to be above the entire world, impossible things, miracles. One Indian holy man can create precious jewelry from thin air. Another heals with a hug. Some monks have created enlightenment and freedom in a student with a riddle, pointing a finger, or a whack with a stick. The Jesus is said to have arisen from the dead, awakened the dead by calling his name, and walked upon water.

Most of us have seen miracles, done miracles, or heard about miracles.

We tend to erase these from our minds immediately as we see them. Even when seen, they do not fit into “what is true” or “what is real” or “what is possible.” We can actually make them disappear from our memory even if we just saw it, because immediately it is easier to create the belief that we mis-perceived.

I have seen miracles: The bones in a woman’s face change shape completely in less than an hour, a woman’s vision change from 20/200 to 20/20 in five minutes, a wart be requested to fall off the body and it does, choosing one bus from over 30 from which to retrieve a book belonging to my wife, a fly requested to fly across the room to light on my finger and it does so, visualizing a lost object in a friend’s house and immediately retrieving it (twice), objects appearing where they didn’t exist before.

Miracle = it happened, in contravention to “reality,” contradicting the consensual agreement we call the world.

Magic, when it happens, nearly always happens just outside of your vision. Seldom is there a puff of smoke or sound effects. It just flows in what seems the normal way, except that it’s impossible, and is often re-interpreted immediately by the mind which is caught and can see and remember only *inside* the consensual veil of illusion that we have adopted.

Do You Believe Your Own Eyes?

If you own some blue plates, and you go to the cupboard and open the cupboard, you are very, very certain that the plates you see there will be blue, just like they were yesterday and the day before.

This kind of “reality” is very, very persuasive.

Picturing what “isn’t” against the constant automatic repeated internal creation of what “is” is pitting a weak force against a strong one.

Only repetition, strength and enhancing the weak can prevail.

And it can be done.

Some people become so practiced that they can simply feel good, think about what they want and it shows up quickly.

Others of us must start out more slowly.

But, just as you will probably have to practice if you want to play basketball, then you probably have to practice if you want to manifest a reality different than what you see around you today.

The good news is that, according to the reports of many, over thousands of years … it can be done.

The good news is that if you’ll spend time just to learn it a little, magic and manifestation and freedom will become more and more visible in your life.

Alas, for most of us, you must actually try it a bit before you’ll see results. You can’t just say, “show me,” and have your life instantly revamped. There is no force in the Universe that can take the place of *you* in this game. Nobody can shoot the basket *for* you; you’ll need to take your shots yourself.

Tips for Success

• Tip #1 — Picture what is *near* the consensual reality.
• Tip #2 — Remove counter-intentions. If you’re trying to walk north and south at the same time, little progress is possible. So in addition to creating the new reality, be sure to remove your participation in the old reality that is no longer your heart’s desire. (One example is chatting with a friend who mocks and reinforces the old views or who continually creates negative scenarios which you “should” accept. Another example is making your actions in the physical are compatible with your vision, like getting a bed large enough when you are seeking a lover.)
• Tip #3 — Practice, and you gain skill.
• Tip #4 — Connect with other people who share the view that changing the world is possible.
• Tip #5 — Choose one thing on which to focus, and then focus as if your head were on fire. Avoid choosing a long laundry list, because watering down your focus over many list items weakens each one.
• Tip #6 — Choose a target about which you can feel passionate. For example, if you think you *ought* to want a million dollars, but you have much stronger feelings about getting a new rug, a new boyfriend, or losing some weight, then the million dollars can wait.
• Tip #7 — Use a gradient. Success is cumulative, and so starting with simple things builds your “strength” or belief.

You can Use the Physical Universe, too

In some cases, a person encountering this magical/spiritual approach can completely overlook using the physical universe. That can be a big mistake. In some cases, using the physical universe may be the quicker road, and please realize you are *still* using the principles of visualization in order to bring about the manifestation of your heart’s desire.

Here’s an example:

At the age 26, I was still completely backward about how to meet and flirt and attract a girlfriend. But one day I had an epiphany, and saw a different way to look at it, and created a kind of system for myself. It worked fabulously. I turned this into an instructional manual some years later, and it appears to have worked very well for pretty much everyone who has tried it.

It consists in asking many people to go out. And in this case, for certain reasons of theory, you do not much discriminate much about who you ask out in the very beginning. (That is, you adopt a mental viewpoint which stops ruling out everybody.) Since your purpose here is not to immediately find the love of your life, but rather to experience the process of inviting and going out, and to learn how to enjoy this process, this whole thing becomes rather easy.

You stay out of bed and avoid entanglement, while you learn how to have a good time, how to share a good time, and how to operate in this world of asking women out. And what happens?

It’s the Ultimate Visualization

Your physical eyes *see* you going out with women. Your nose *smells* the perfume the women are wearing. Your sense of touch *feels* the women going out with you. Your ears *hear* the women saying yes to your invitation to go out. You see and hear and feel and experience that you are going out with women.

How much chance do pre-existing “mental” limitations and visions have of standing up against this evidence of your senses? Precious little. Because you are now pitting the strong (automatic repeating creating of your reality) against the weak (mental fears and blind spots). You are using the Universe to reprogram your reality, in the direction you have chosen.

It changes you. It changes you fast. It changes you reliably. It changes you in the direction of success. It changes you on a self-regulating gradient. It changes you “near” to the existing physical universe. And it changes you more and more as you continue.

You then discover, whether you started this way or not, that attractive women somehow start falling out of the sky, appearing in your world, manifesting. And, better still, one or more start manifesting in your dates.

Keep this up, and it’s darn difficult to avoid meeting the love of your life.

(How do you know when to say “yes” and accept the love of your life? My rule is simple. When I realize I’d be a *fool* to let *this one* escape, then it’s time to say yes.)

A Learned Manifestation Skill Remains

More good news — If you start out fairly clumsy with women, as I was, then the first time you try this, it takes a while, and it may take time before you really flip over somebody.

However, this process is teaching you a skill. And if, some time later, you need to reactivate your “dating mode,” you’ll happily discover that things go faster and easier … because you have (a) learned a new skill, and (b) this new “possibility” is now a part of your psyche, easy to accept, and now a part of you and who you are.

This is using the physical universe. Alter your actions so that your eyes and ears and nose and body create your desired reality, more and more.

And you are still visualizing, and manifesting.

You are using judo on the consensus reality you call your life to find true love and happiness.

What Visualization System is Best to Use?

Though some are probably better than others — for you in particular — it probably doesn’t matter a lot whether you engage in prayer, magic, meditation, manifestation, and such things.

You may have to sort out some of your skills in the physical universe, and in your mental universe, before you start creating thunderstorms over your town, or speedboats appearing in your driveway.

But the good news is … you can do this.

Mobius Megatar ToneWeaver Guitar.

I make and sell guitars. Unusual guitars that you can play without strumming or picking, and this lets you play strings with both hands, so you can play bass strings and guitar strings at the same time. The name of this instrument is the Mobius Megatar.

Recently, a college student had inquired because he wanted to get one of our instruments. We wrote back and forth, and he was all set to go, but then he sent me this email –

“I’m sorry but the Megatar is not in the picture any more. I was coerced into buying a 2700 dollar classical guitar from a company that gives referral bonuses to the teacher who I was coerced by, so I’m left broke and on crappy terms with my main teacher for the next 3 years.

“I really wish I had the cash and time to delve into a tapstyle instrument right now, and if I could, it’d be a Mobius with Bartolini pickups, but it seems like that won’t be available for a while. With student loans and a no emergency funds (thanks to the aforementioned jerk of a teacher) I’ll be lucky if my car makes it without scheduled servicing for the next 6 months.”

What is really odd is that I got another email from another college student, in a similar situation who told me something of a similar story, that he’d been required (or perhaps urged) to get a nylon-string guitar for some upcoming course work. However, the second student seemed much less bitter.

And it got me to thinking. I can understand the disappointment he must feel.

And actually, it does sound kind of crappy behavior for the college music instructor, to push the student toward an instrument that pays the instructor a commission.

On the other hand …

On the other hand, that’s the past, and I’m guessing that it’s a pretty good guitar, and I expect that the young man will get quite a bit of good out of it. So I suggested that he might as well see if he could let some of the bitterness go.

If somebody makes you angry, it’s as if they have given you a heavy rock to carry around. You can go into the other room, but you’re still carrying the rock. Over time, it seems like the rock grows heavier and heavier and heavier.

The person who triggered the unhappiness, perhaps they are good perhaps they are bad, but in any event most of the time these other humans are doing about the best that they can with the training and insight that they possess; most people are like you and me. Sometimes we are good people. Sometimes we are bad people, but generally we are doing the best that we can. Because, if you knew how to do better, you would do better, wouldn’t you?

Even the fools and jerks are about the same.

Generally speaking, you cannot do too much about the ignorance or wrong choices of other people, but you do make your own choices.

At this point, might you be able to consider this idea? … Throw down the rock. Let it roll away. Someone else can pick it up, if  they want to. Might that make your passage through the days … lighter?

You’re young or you’re old. Either way, there are lots of adventures ahead.

Time enough for things that are important.

For example, if you think you want a Megatar, start picturing it, allow yourself to think of it as something you *already possess*. Something you already have, in the fullness of time. Perhaps you don’t see the way right this minute, but that’s the way of all life. You don’t see all life right now. And the first step is to see it, decided that it’s on the way, picture it, enjoy that you have it … and generally it will show up, often sooner than you’d have thought, just because that’s the future you are creating.

You create your life as you go, moment by moment, with your thoughts and with your perceptions.

Perceive tragedy and all around you tragedy abounds, and with your thoughts, future tragedies begin to take form.

Perceive what you want, and the good things you enjoy, and all round you, good things exist, and you create more good things a-coming.

Your Megatar is just one of the good things coming to you. You have a wonderful life unfolding.

People in my parents generation used the word “beggers” to describe people who beg on the street. Or sometimes “moochers,” “panhandlers,” or “bums.” Of course, in tiny Henrietta, Texas, where I grew up, the town was too small to have an official panhandler, so the town drunk filled in part time.

Friends of mine as I grew up didn’t seem to like the word “Begger,” though it would seem to be accurate. And I guess the phrase, “Buddy, can you spare a dime?” from that older time had mutated into “Spare change?” by the hippie period in the 1960’s.

THE SPARE-CHANGER

The writer in “Evolving Times” was describing what we’ve all felt in that situation. You’re walking along and you are suddenly asked, “Spare change?” Which as we all know, means “Do you have any spare change, that you could give to me?” (I guess those beggers are either very lazy, or they are astonishingly efficient.)

And then what happened?

Well, as you know, the common reaction is that you say “No, sorry,” and you hurry a bit more to get past the place where you just told a lie.

The writer of that blog is someone who follows the “Law of Attraction,” which states that what you think and imagine in your mind tends to manifest in your life. And the key thing there is that it doesn’t matter whether you think about something you do want or something you don’t want. In either case, you’re picturing something, and you tend to attract more of what you are “picturizing,” and so more of that is likely to show up.

So if you’re following the Law of Attraction, it greatly behooves you to pay attention to what you’re thinking and picturing. And the writer suddenly realized that, telling that lie to the spare-changer, because the writer didn’t want to stop and give away money, was in fact a statement to the Universe that “No, I do not have any money at all that I could spare.”

Which, according to the Law of Attraction, would tend to bring you that very thing. A shortage of money so acute that you couldn’t possibly spare even a quarter!

Bummer.

And even if a person didn’t try to follow the Law of Attraction, even so, you’d be programming your own habitual thought that you don’t have any money whatsoever to spare. And this kind of thought, repeated and made habitual, would cause you to experience the emotions that would be reasonable for a person who had no money whatsoever beyond the strictly necessary. And those particular feelings aren’t much fun.

So whether you follow the teachings of the Law of Attraction, or whether you follow the Law of NFL Football, either way, letting yourself get in the habit of telling this particular lie to the spare-changers is a losing proposition for your own prosperity and enjoyment of life.

A RAY OF HOPE

Now, having shown you a veritable hell on the sidewalk, it’s only fair that I show you how beautifully we can escape these torments and have a delightful day, and it’s just warm enough.

Here’s how –

Realize that the spare-changer is, in his or her own special way, saying “Hello!” to you. Watch them and you’ll realize that they greet everyone with this same phrase. It’s their greeting to other humans. And that’s OK. They are free to greet the other humans any way they choose.

And you have the same right.

So when they greet you, saying “Spare change?” you can just smile broadly and greet them right back, saying “Hello!” or “How ya’ doin?” or “Nice to see you!”

And what you will discover is that quite often they’ll simply say, “Hello,” or “Fine, thanks.”

Other times they’ll repeat their greeting, “Spare change?” but you’re already past them now. And so if getting past them without stopping, and without giving away money was your goal, then you’ve succeeded.

And other times they’ll just stop, silent. Gave them pause, you did. Probably not many people greet them back.

Or, you could just stop and give them some money.

It’s your call, and you have a perfect right to do it any way you choose.

As you may recall from the movie, that young man started out hating the pirates, and yet, in the course of his adventures, he’s become bolder and he has dared great things, and by golly he has become a pirate. And that’s a good thing.

And so … why is it a good thing to be a pirate?

Here’s an idea to consider –

“Personal growth only takes place outside your comfort zone.”
– Tony Robbins

Think about it. Think about moments when you’ve attained major personal growth. Think about the moments just before you attained this personal growth. Would you say those moments were “comfortable?”

Probably not. We grow the most when we’re challenged. Funerals. Difficult contests. A breakthrough moment. When you go beyond what you know. That’s when it happens.

While it’s not always street-smart to “live on the edge,” it is usually exciting. And while the path of wisdom does not lead us to endanger our lives, our loved ones, or that which we hold dear, it is also a fact that living a life in which there is no challenge, no “danger,” no spice, nothing new, the same every day … well, I suppose it’s good for some folks, but I question whether it’s good for you.

Wouldn’t you rather be a pirate?

There. Didn’t that feel good, just thinking about being a pirate?

Why is that?

DILEMMA OF THE DAY

Mankind, and men (and women) have it in them to both (a) seek safety, and (b) seek novelty. I suppose evolution built that into us. I mean, some folks living way back when who didn’t seek safety left no descendants! And other folks who avoided anything new couldn’t adapt to the first change and they didn’t leave any descendants either!

So you and me, and all the rest of humankind, are the descendants of those humans who did both (a) seek safety, and (b) seek novelty.

So that means it’s a natural fact. We’re built that way. That’s just the way it is.

Go with the flow, and live well. Rebel and become like those way-back folks who left no descendants.

HOW DOES IT PLAY TODAY?

How does it play out? Look around you. One common scenario is a guy who works at a boring job, doing something he finds less than inspiring — it never occurred to him to create something inspiring, because his attention was fixed on renting an apartment and he needed some cash each month — and he’s seeking safety.

He’s a human, so he’s also seeking novelty.

How will he find it?

Television, I reckon.

Synthetic adventures. Stuff that happened to everybody else but him.

When he gets to the end of his life, lying on his deathbed, and maybe he’s thinking back, and he’s saying to himself, “Man, what a great life. I watched me some really good TV!”

So if that’s the obvious outcome of that behavior pattern, then why did he follow that pattern of behavior for 40 years? I can think of only one answer. He just didn’t know any better. He never looked. He never examined the path, and the outcome. He was too busy seeking safety, and finding his novelty cheap and easy.

Personal growth only occurs when you’re outside your comfort zone.

HOW TO HAVE PERSONAL GROWTH

It’s simple: Just operate regularly outside your comfort zone. Make it your habit to do so.

In other words, be a pirate.

You know you want to.

Perhaps you are now asking yourself, “But how?”

Well, you’re a grown person. Figure it out. That’s your first assignment.

There. You’re outside of your comfort zone right now.

Keep it up.