Wayne Dyer has the wonderful gift of insight and wisdom gained through experience. Coupled with this is an ability to communicate the learnings from his spiritual journey with warmth and literate imagery. In that regard, your life will certainly be illuminated by reading his 2004 book – The Power of Intention. In the opening chapter, the former St. Johns University Education Professor and Psychologist, shares that the book is a sort of demarcation line in his professional and personal life. Up until that time he was focused more on traditional self-help psychology and personal development but in researching and writing The Power of Intention, a different perspective more strongly emerged within him:
My research reveals a fairly common definition of intention as a strong purpose or aim, accompanied by a determination to produce a desired result. People driven by intention are described as having a strong will that won’t permit anything to interfere with achieving their inner desire. I imagine a sort of pit-bull kind of resolve or determination. If you’re one of those people with a never-give-up attitude combined with an internal picture that propels you toward fulfilling your dreams, you fit this description of someone with intention. You, are most likely, a super-achiever and probably proud of your ability to recognize and take advantage of opportunities that arise. For many years, I’ve held a similar belief about intention…Over the past quarter of a century, however, I’ve felt a shift in my thinking from a purely psychological or personal-growth emphasis, toward a spiritual orientation where healing, creating miracles, manifesting, and making a connection to divine intelligence are genuine possibilities.
Dyer goes on to say that it was his battle with his Ego that lead him into his more introspective and spiritual approach:
My writing now emphasizes a belief that we can find spiritual solutions to problems by living at higher levels and calling upon faster energies. In my mind, intention is something much greater than a determined ego or individual will. It’s something almost totally opposite. Perhaps this comes from shedding many levels of ego in my own life, but I also feel the strong influence of two sentences I read in a book by Carlos Castaneda…The Active Side of Infinity…while I was waiting to have a cardiac procedure to open one clogged artery leading into my heart that had caused a mild heart attack. Castaneda’s words were: “Intent is a force that exists in the universe. When sorcerers (those who live of the Source) beckon intent, it comes to them and sets up the path for attainment, which means that sorcerers always accomplish what they set out to do.” When I read those two sentences, I was stunned by the insight and clarity it gave me about the power of intention. Imagine that intention is not something you do, but rather a force that exists in the universe as an invisible field of energy! I had never considered intention in this way before reading Castaneda’s words…I had experienced Satori, or instant awakening, and was intent on offering this insight to others. It had become clear to me that accessing the power of intention relieved so much of the seemingly impossible work of striving to fulfill desires by sheer force of will.
This book holds a very special place in my heart – both literally and figuratively. My father gave me a copy of this book in 2008 in the hospital when I came out of the Operating Room after having a cardiac stent procedure following a mild heart-attack – the same health scenario Wayne Dyer experienced a number of years earlier. He achieved his ‘awakening’ during his “cardiac wake-up call” and that similar event put me on my path to spiritual awakening as well. My father didn’t know the details of the Dyer book, something just lead him to pick it up in the hospital gift shop and bring it up to my room. The universe clearly works in mysterious ways…
In the beginning of the book, Wayne Dyer presents his view of the seven key factors of living an intentional life – I have provided a condensed version of the key nuggets that are included in his much more expansive and eloquent writing. Each short sentence should be contemplated with care in order to fully absorb the timeless wisdom it holds. If you find yourself asking “what did he mean by that” in various places, that’s good. Go find the answers – read broadly, meditate, keep an open mind, and most importantly, keep an open heart. One avenue to explore in particular is to go within yourself – get very quiet and still, then ask questions and listen attentively. The answers will come. Don’t give up, keep questioning and listening over a period of days and months, keep learning to quiet the mind, keep meditating and breathing, master mindfulness, and let love, compassion, gratitude, and kindness be your guides … the answers will definitely come…
Seven Faces of Intention – Wayne Dyer
Be Creative
- Give form to your personal intentions
Wayne Dyer’s own examples:
- My intention is for all my activities to be directed by Spirit
- My intention is to love and radiate my love to my writing and any who might read these words
- My intention is to trust in what comes through me and to be a vehicle of Spirit, judging none of it
- My intention is to recognize the Spirit as my Source and to detach from my Ego
- My intention is to do all that I can to elevate the collective consciousness to be more closely in rapport with the Spirit of the originating supreme power of intention
Be Kind
- Kindness given is Kindness returned
Be Love
- Being in a state of Love is absolutely necessary to reconnect to Intention – the Source
- Love is the force behind the Will of God
Be Beauty
- Beauty is not caused, it IS
- To come back into conscious contact with your Source, look for and experience beauty in all your undertakings
Be Ever Expansive
- By growing intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually, you are identifying with the Universal Mind.
Be Abundant
- There’s no scarcity in the universal invisible world of Spirit
- The ancestor to every action is a thought
Be Receptive
- The universal mind is ready to respond to anyone who recognizes their true relationship to it
- It will reproduce whatever conception of itself you impress upon it
-Jay Kshatri
www.ThinkSmarterWorld.com
