Hi Openhanders!

What's happening to your New Year Resolutions?
Many people have been asking about how New Year's Resolutions fits in with Openhand's approach of living entirely in the moment. How can we be spontaneous and authentic if we have an over-riding intention to do something? Its a great question so I thought I'd explore this briefly below...

Its a well known truth that New Year’s resolutions mostly do not work. Why not? I was pondering on this very subject during my early morning walk around the Glastonbury Tor today and as I was doing my favourite singing meditation in St Michael’s Tower, the words "purpose not intention" popped in from the higher "Team". So what exactly does this mean?

"Intention" is a word often used in spiritual circles. There are many teachings and practices seeking to help us harness the power of intention to do things. Whilst I can see the value in bringing attention and focusing to what may naturally be arising, it seems to me intention is a loaded and much misunderstood word. Why so?

Well it has everything to do with where the intention arose from. We are all enlightened except when we choose not to be. In other words, we are all the non-identified pure presence of the one being - the Seer - that is, was and always will be, whole and complete and in need of nothing. However when the Seer arises into action through us, the small “I” - the ego - tends to want to own the show.

So we may feel benevolence arising within and then the ego might want to always be benevolent. In other words we are continually becoming what is arising rather than being the source from which all arises.

What normally happens is that a feeling of benevolence (say) will arise naturally within as the soul but then flows through distorted and conditioned pathways in the brain; it flows through closed loops of behaviour formed from fixed neural pathways - what you might call ‘personality’.

It is also a personality that holds an intention to do something. However in my experience holding such an intention will ultimately not succeed. Why not? Because there is only one purpose in the Universe and that is for us to realise ourselves as the infinite, unconstrained limitless power that is the One Life. Each soul is an incarnation of that, its purpose is to express that through action - that is our destiny here; what we lined up for ourselves before we came.

So whenever we make a statement like "I am this" or "I am that" or "I am not going to do this or that" it is an identity that is forming such a choice and making such an intention and the Universe (the big You) does not want you to be so constrained. So the whole power of the Universe with gather to test you on such intentions - such as a New Year’s resolution. That’s why its likely to fail. Unless that is, the New Year’s resolutions just happens to be aligned with authentic purpose.

What do I mean by this? Well, when we get the small "I" out of the way for a moment and settle back into surrendered openness - the Seer - then something will arise naturally from within, it is an expression of authentic beingness for example to express truth or higher love. If we align and centre with this experience on the inside, then it will naturally shape an experience on the outside - we will see ourselves in the mirror of the external drama.

What will we see? If rather than trying to shape the external drama we are instead looking for ourselves in it (in every person, animal, natural scene, interaction, event, circumstance), then we will see both our lightness and our density being reflected back to us. What our attention is most drawn to is that which we are now being invited to address.

If we do this we will notice aspects of our own behaviour which do and don’t serve us. How can we deal with this? If we notice that the behaviour being reflected does not serve us - such as judgmentalism for example - then if we accept that we are the cause of this and contemplate it deeply, we will find that it is our own intolerance to the world that is creating it. It comes from an inherent need for the drama to be a certain way. If we can recognise this and let go of that need, then we now have the opportunity to change that pattern by instead aligning to the naturally arising state of being - non-judgmental discernment for example.

If we keep doing this, over time the fixed neural pathway that forms the closed loop of behaviour will dissolve and instead when ever a similar circumstance arises in our lives we will always behave authentically from the soul and instead see a beautiful reflection of ourselves in the external mirror.

Over time the experience of the soul arises more and more. Life becomes truly harmonious because we discover all we really need is the beauty of this authentic inner purpose - that is our one and only reason for being here (at least in my truth!).

So in summary, an alternative approach to intention might be...

• watch the reflection of yourself in the external drama
• notice what your attention is drawn to - how does this make you feel inside?
• if it makes you feel tight and uncomfortable, realise that you are seeing your own distortion
• contemplate deeply what attachment you are expressing - what specific outcome in the external drama are you falsely needing?
• seek to let go of the attachment
• look for and identify an alternative higher truth - a gift of divine beingness
• express the higher truth instead

The approach offered above may at first seem a little cumbersome but I have noticed both in myself and in others that the more we disassociate ourselves from the drama by seeing where we are attached, the easier it becomes to spot our true gifts and align with them. What may seem initially like a fairly complex process becomes seamless and automatic - because our purpose IS to express this higher beingness.

So as the New Year really kicks into gear, my encouragement would be to let go of intention and find naturally arising purpose.

I hope you find this of value.

Best wishes to all!

Chris
Openhand Foundation
unfolding into light
http://www.openhandweb.org