Hello and welcome to the GuruMojo Podcast #9! I’m your host, Kenny Jenkins, and I am committed to bringing you the wisdom, teachings, and practices that I have found to be helpful on my path to becoming a happier, healthier, and more compassionate person. GuruMojo is designed to help you find your own path, and take responsibility for your own spiritual life.
Today I’d like to talk about the power of imagination and intention, and the realization of your own reality. This is something that I first heard about back when the documentary, “The Secret” came out back around 2006. It was my introduction to the Law of Attraction, and basically it tells you that you can have anything you want in the world, just by imagining it. You want a new house, imagine your new house and somehow, the universe gives you a house. Now, it’s a little more involved than that, but not much. And if you are completely new to the idea of the Law of Attraction, it is a great place to start. Its great if you want to show it to someone who has no experience with metaphysical concepts or New Age ideas. I was watching it with my mom recently and was just thinking, “man, this is great! This is perfect!” It’s on Netflix now, so check it out. The production is a little cheesy, ok, it’s a lot cheesy, but it’s a great into to these concepts.
That being said, there are a few lacking details to The Secret. So as I was unable to manifest my perfect life using the techniques there, they fell to the wayside over the years, and I kept with me a general sense of how we create our own reality with our thoughts, and have tried to be mindful of the words I use and the thoughts I think. Having an abundance mindset as opposed to a scarcity mindset. Like instead of worrying about not having enough money, saying to myself that “money comes frequently and easily”. I heard that from Allyson Grey around the same time. Knowing that if you focus your mind on the negative, the negative tends to manifest or continue.
So just in the last four months or so, I’ve been turned onto a couple of great resources that fill in some of the holes in the Law of Attraction concept put forth by The Secret. One of them is the Synchronicity Podcast with Noah Lampert. Amazing. Go check out Noah. He has been distilling the teachings of the other great resource I’ve just come across, Neville Goddard. Neville Goddard taught imaginal practices and that we create our world through our imagination. He died in 1972, and started teaching back in the 30’s. I’m really amazed that I haven’t heard his name until just recently. But on the other hand, they say that you only receive this type of information when you are ready for it. Which in and of itself is mind blowing. And by the way, that means that if you are listening to this podcast, that you are ready for this information as well! See what I mean? I mean, strap yourself in! This is life-changing information.
The concept that we create our world through our imagination is right in line with the Buddhist idea that everything we perceive is a projection of our own consciousness. It relates to magic in that the word abracadabra literally translates to “I create as I speak”. There’s Terrence McKenna’s idea that the world is created by language, literally, springs into being from our words. I think, therefore I am.
What was missing from The Secret, is the fact that we are already doing this, all the time. We are constantly creating our reality from our imagination. Goddard said that there is nothing anyone has ever experienced that we have not imagined for ourselves. The reason most of us are working jobs we don’t like or experience trouble and stress throughout the day is because we have imagined it that way. We don’t have a reason to imaging that today will be much different from yesterday. And the reason we got into this jam in the first pace is because we inherited the idea from our parents, form our culture, as did they, and so on. Call it consensus reality. We have all known ever since we were kids, that we would eventually have to leave school and enter the “real world”. That picture was never painted very pretty for us. Grown ups would say things like, well you have it easy now, so enjoy your childhood, you don’t have a care in the world, but that will change once you have bills to pay and a family to support. And they didn’t know any better, they were handed the same vision for themselves down from their parents. My dad would always say, “If was any fun, they wouldn’t call it work!” What?! What?! That is so wrong. Everything should be play, even work, especially work! Jesus said, “unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”
So you have imagined yourself into this very life, every day of it. And while I’m still trying to wrap my head around the full implications of this concept, it’s enough for me to accept it without being able to fully understand it. Did I imaging breaking my arm last year skateboarding with my son? Maybe, but damn, that’s hard to take. There’s the whole realm of deep tragedy that surrounds our lives with the suffering of others, deaths of loved ones, illness, and all those things, and I’m not here to say that everyone imagined those things for themselves, but maybe they did. I feel like I’m constantly picturing the worst case scenarios for my family and snapping myself out of some sick daydream of people close to me getting sick or hurt in the worst way. And as a parent, its my job to picture the worst things happening or else how will I ever know to tell my kids, don’t put that in your mouth! Don’t stand on that wobbly thing! I digress…. My point is that for our purposes here, we don’t need to delve all the way into how we have imagined the horror shows that pop up for us. I want to talk about imagining all the good stuff! Abundance. Happiness. Dreams that come true.
Now, to hear more about imaginal practices, be sure to check out Noah’s Synchronicity Podcast. I’m going to give you a few of his techniques here, but not all of them. He is a treasure trove of information!
These techniques are so easy. I’ve started to see results with even just a little practice.
The main techniques a visualization you do when you are in a drowsy state. It can usually be that sleepy time when your going to bed and are about to fall asleep. This state of consciousness is like a bridge between the dreaming world and your conscious state.
- You pick you desire, a wish, it could be anything you want. Money, relationships, a job, a car, literally anything you want to have in the world
- You enter that drowsy state, and in your mind, you imagine a short scene, with lots of detail, of having the thing you desire, you already have it. See it as real, if it is a house, what does the furniture look like, what kind of art is on the walls, is it on the waterfront, in the mountains. Details. The imagine how you would feel once the desire is fulfilled, look around and feel the feeling of having it. Wow, this is it, and include the thought, it’s just like I imagined it! Then go to sleep, carry on with your life, don’t give it much thought after that. And watch it unfold in your world. You can start small or go big! It’s fun to test it on small stuff. The trick is believing that it has already come true. If you imagine that it will happen, “someday” then that day will never come, it will always be “someday” Like this bar here in Jacksonville that always had a sign out front that said, “Free Beer Tomorrow” The sign was always up so the joke was that whenever you came in for the free beer, it was always, “nope, that’s tomorrow! So what can I get ya today?” You have to imagine that you already have it. Because you do!
- Also, don’t concern yourself with how the thing will come to you. That’s nunya. Nun ya damn business! Just focus on having it already and how does that feel, and watch out! A small thing to practice on is a parking space. I picture the car backing out of the space exactly where I want to park and imagine the feeling of just pulling right in, so happy, so grateful, and it’s just like I imagined it! It’s almost scary how well it works.
- The more you do this, the more confidence you get in the technique. Noah also talks about “pressure testing” where the thing you want doesn’t come fast enough, or doesn’t happen just the way you wanted it to. That’s just you testing your own faith in the process. You have to double-down and believe that this is true. You’ll see!
- Another technique is the audio version of the previous exercise.
- Do the same thing, find your desire, a wish, go into that sleepy state.
- But this time construct a scene where you hear the voice of a friend or someone you love saying “Congratulations, you did it” or “Wow its really amazing that you have this great job that you wanted, good for you” keep it vivid in sensory and the feelings you feel. Hearing these words of congratulations and admiration from a friend or loved one reinforces the effect. It cements the reality for you so that you can more easily believe that it is true.
There’s several more techniques that Noah talks about, check him out for sure, he gives a lot of credit to Goddard, but he definitely has a lot more going on himself than just that! Also, there’s a lot to be said for the fact that really, everyone in your life is you reflected back at yourself. We all come from the same source of pure consciousness, and therefore we are not separate from each other, but the same one being, pretending to be separate. So really you are just reminding yourself of these things. As Ken Wilber has said, didn’t you write all of these books just to remind yourself of who you really are? The world is a mirror, and if you don’t like what you see, you can change it. You really can. You just have to believe that it is possible.
So try it out and let me know what you think. Keep in mind that it is a life practice. It does take practice to get there. I’ve had some really amazing things happen as a result. For example, I recently led a group in guided meditation at an event here in Jacksonville. It is something I’ve wanted to do for a long time, but only recently had I started to imagine it with these techniques. Then, sure enough, there I was sitting in front of a group talking about meditation, just like I imagined it! So cool!!! That was at The Murray Hillbilly, the vegan restaurant I talked about a few episodes back. They’re doing a Mindful Mic Night on the third Friday of every month now. They just celebrated their first anniversary and they’ve won a ton of awards! Definitely check them our if you’re in Jax, especially on the third Friday of every month for Mindful Mic night!
So yeah, that’s this episode. Coming up I’m going to be doing more interviews. Talking about herbalism and visionary art. Definitely more to come…
Don’t forget to follow me on Instagram as gurumojome, and gurumojo on FB. Also I’m relaunching the Patreon with more cool stuff. Some binaural beats, guided meditations, trippy music and whatnot, keep an eye out for that at patreon.com/gurumojo.
Thank you so much for listening!
I appreciate your attention…..
Namaste