I have always thought if I want good things to happen to just know good things will happen, no more effort after that point. It’s not even a real concentrated thought on what I want to happen. I just know. It’s hard to explain as I feel it. I don’t set goals, I just know but not consciously know all the time, but let it manifest when it will.

I’d love to hear some of your experiences with this way of living.

More importantly, once upon a time the masters would say “Want what you have, not what you have not.”

Despite some remarkable insights elsewhere, this I-M stuff is just another form of desire and materialism: dukkha.

Sweetwater,
Kenton

I know this is an older post, but I’m having a little trouble with this one.

To ‘intend’ is to apply effort, but non-dual is ‘no effort.’ Plus, to manifest an intention implies a future expectation keeping us in ‘time.’ Also you state that the opposite of effort is NOT ‘no effort,’ but is “actually a subtle brand of effort” ???

You further define this no effort type of effort as when “you cease trying to force what comes naturally.” Yet if I’m “intending” am I not forcing or even subtly pressing reality (not real) to give me what I desire?

My dualistic mind is struggling with this.

In your previous IM article, you state that IM and nondual are separate models, yet I sense they are intricately connected (somehow). Maybe IM simply serves to prove that we are more then we think we are.
but still, how can we be free to play with other models when non-dual is the only model simply because it is not a ‘model’ at all? It is what we are.

So lets say I get what I ‘intend’, aren’t I conceptualizing additional conflict since with non-dual it doesn’t matter. Yet my desiring ’stuff’ made it matter for me. And lets say that I begin manifesting incredible abundance and prosperity in my life which makes me a believer and pushes me to manifest more and more and… when does it end.

So we place an order with ‘universal consciousness’ (some even say God) and the ‘universe’ provides - but in the non dual the universe is us and we are it. So essentially, we are providing from ourself to ourself? Egads! could we be that powerful. I toy with the idea that we are…

I like your concept of “background assumptions” (or the thought behind the thought behind the thought…) and that’s the dualistic mindset - so many thoughts all opposing one another.

I suppose I’m stuck on how ‘intending’ can be effortless. Maybe you can direct me to another one of your articles that better explains this type of ‘effort’ (although I think I’ve read them all).

First, let me say that no-effort is one of the most confusing and oft-questioned aspects of what I write, and I’m in the process of writing an article which I hope will clarify the matter further.

Now, onward:

You’ve read them all! You will probably have noticed, then, a fair amount of contradiction throughout the posts. Why is this here? Because these writings are not describing truth, nor are they describing correct methods. Indeed, theses writings aren’t trying to tell us anything factual at all.

Our dual minds cannot seem to escape the assumption that words must be describing some reality. Thus it can become confusing when we’re talking about ‘intention’ and ‘no-effort’ in the same writings.

When we’re striving toward non-dualism, or attempting to discover ‘what it is’, it is important for us to hear these contrary things. But none of them describe non-dualism! This is very important to remember, or this will all be very confusing (as you point out above). We hear the contrary things to get our minds to ‘unfocus’ enough to see something which is right in front of us all the while. But as dualists, we’ll probably refuse to do this.

We want to ask – What does non-dualism look like? How can I recognize it? For instance, how can it be ‘effortless’ if it is also ‘intention’?

Let me be more confusing and ask – Does non-dualism have time? Of course! Does it have effort? Of course! Does it have multiplicity? Movement? Birth and Death? Cause and Effect? Of course!

Usually it does not benefit us to hear this, because we already are strongly convinced of these things. Hearing these words does not spur us forward toward awakening to our dream. But in a case such as yours, where you have observed much of the dualistic process, but are still ‘captured’ by the nuances of its inner workings, it is perhaps time to hear these things. The same thing could be accomplished if you could intake this sentence—

No words describe awakening.

Any time you are trying to describe non-dualism to yourself in any way, you’re sure to be off the mark. We could say anything about non-dualism and be equally correct and wrong.

So does non-dualism have ‘intention’? Absolutely yes. And absolutely not.

Here is a rather poor analogy: Does the color yellow have happiness? Absolutely yes. And Absolutely not. The key here is that when you’re trying to point someone toward ‘yellow’, some people might find happiness as a good pointer to pick it out of a line-up of colors. Others might have bad memories about yellow, and ‘happiness’ might be detrimental to their discovery of which color is yellow. But the important part is that ‘happiness’ in no way describes yellow itself – it only acts as a pointer to urge a certain type of mind-set in yellow’s direction. (Don’t take this analogy to far, as it is dealing with an object in our minds, and non-dualism is quite different than this.)

When we are in our dual minds, everything you say in your comment is true, and this article serves mostly as an urge for people to explore their current model and replace it with (you guessed it) a new version of the same old dualistic model. The reasoning is that playing model-switch can give people awareness of how they are modeling the world, and thus ‘weaken’ their grasping to the current mind-set.

As we develop more awareness, this article will read differently. In your case, you are seeing the inner workings of the dualistic model enough so that you question the contrast of model vs. non-dualism which is laid out in this writing. How do they interact? Right now, if you are feeling tangled in the workings of the model, it’s time to look even deeper, and to observe the model at its root. Don’t ponder on figuring out whether I know what I’m talking about or not – I’m only a fool tossing words on digital paper and arranging them in crazy patterns with my fingers.

Attend to yourself, to your tangles. If it doesn’t seem that there can be intention and non-dualism in the same existence, go sit in the woods, look around you, and see what you see. Do the trees have intention? The squirrels? Your awareness? Your mind? What is this thing called intention? Look carefully at your definition, and see what must exist in order to have that definition. Then see what must exist in order to have those things. Then watch the whole dualistic model unfold, created by you, right there, as you sit in the woods. See how genius it is, how remarkable, and how marvelously silly.

Backtrack. Ask if you have any evidence whatsoever for the things which must exist in order to support intention. See how much we must imagine in order tosupport even one single idea in this world. And if you’re going to imagine something, ask why you might not simply imagine something completely different! What makes one imagination or belief (if all have no evidence) more ‘correct’ than another?

This is all just seeing what is going on in our minds – a process to which we usually blindly adhere (thus the analogy of dreaming). And when we see it, we might just find ourselves discovering what is going on when we’re not busying ourselves with this dreaming.

Sweetwater,
Kenton

I believe that on one level I do ‘understand’ that as you say “no words describe awakening.” But I continue to DEMAND that this NOT be true and that I can come to ‘it’ through the intellect. (Dammit, Kenton, if you could just give me a category of thought to file ‘it’ in!!! ) LOL!
Thanks very much for your comprehensive response (though my intellect is again dissatisfied…sigh…oh well).
I look forward to your future posts as of all the nondual teachers on the web, you are the most descriptive (of course, keeping in mind the non-descriptive nature of the topic).

Mike S