page 1 of 100

The Course

1993-2011 by the Field Center. All rights reserved. No part of this document
may be reproduced or distributed in any form without the prior written consent of
the Field Center.


TITLE
week one

MUSIC

TITLE
how field training began: summer storms

MUSIC

TEXT
It was June of 1993, summer in Central Florida, with its daily thunderstorms that
follow a predictable pattern. The clouds build quickly, often within half an hour or
so, sometimes literally out of the blue, then they turn slate-gray and gather
overhead until theyve covered the sky. Within minutes, the rumbling becomes a
downpour with shattering thundercracks and frequent air bursts of electricity that
slam into Florida each year, making the Sunshine State the lightning capital of the
world.

Dennis Hays, a lifelong friend, and I were sitting on my porch watching one of
these summer blockbusters roll in and take over the sky. We began playing the
page 2 of 100
trick that most of us probably learned as kidscounting the seconds after the
lightning flash to determine how far away the bolt had struckone second
equaling a fifth of a mileand by doing this with successive flashes, whether the
storm was coming closer or moving away. This one was definitely closing in, but
we stayed put, feeling secure on the porch despite our knowing that porch safety
is wide open to lightnings carom shots. Wed even heard of a person whod been
done in while taking a shower; apparently, the strike had followed the plumbing
right into his house. And of course, there was the classic tale of a fireball shooting
out of somebody-or-others TV set and sizzling around the living room,
ricocheting off furniture and scorching the carpet. And the one about lightning
coming out of the phone. So we never talked on the phone during a bad storm, or
put on the TV, even for an advisory, but in this moment, caught up in the power
of the weather, I suppose we felt something of the sublime transcendence of
personal risk that, as the philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer writes, captains of
great ships may feel standing at the bow in a turbulent sea, and so we sat there,
reveling in the power, counting seconds, and waiting for the next flash.

Our fascination really was more mythic than meteorological. In the storms, we
witnessed a mysterious process through which invisible forces gather, build, and
manifest suddenly and dramatically. This gave us an irresistible metaphor for the
much popularized idea that human consciousness somehow erupts as concrete
experience, an idea that stretches from microphysics (culminating in Heisenberg's
Uncertainty Principle) to the so-called magical theories found in various New Age
books. Some of the writers of these books, such as the late Jane Roberts, are
irreproachable in the thoroughness, fairness, and intellectual rigor with which they
present and develop this ideain fact, Janes book, The Nature of Personal
Reality, remains probably the best example of thiswhile other writers come
across as summary, simplistic, at times even banal. The idea spread to become a
cultural countermovement in the best-sellers of Louise Hay, Shakti Gawain, and
others, winning a perhaps more serious hearing when Bernie Seigel, Larry Dossey,
page 3 of 100
Andrew Weil, Naomi Remen, and Deepak Chopra legitimized the mind/body/soul
connection on the medical front. Here we had credible, even impressive authority
figures telling us that, to an extent previously unsuspected, we create our health or
illness, the environment of the body through our consciousness. Furthermore,
the new physics had demonstrated that, as the whole of manifest creation is
ultimately a unified field of energy, the lines between body and world are a
sensory sleight-of-hand trick, and so the idea that we generate not only our health,
but also the larger environmentthe storms of conditions and circumstance and
facts that gather around us dailysuddenly seemed more plausible than it ever
could have from a strictly Newtonian angle. Id been fascinated for some thirty
years with this notion, fascinated and frustrated, and after all the reading and
experimenting and talking and writing about it, I still felt the need for something
conclusive.

As we sat on the porch, another sort of storm was brewing in Dennis; here he
was in the middle of midlife, 45 years old, a freelance technical writer and
computer consultant with a new wife, Allison; a year-old son, Zachary; and no
income. Now, I also was freelancing, a position Id come to think of from time to
time as self-unemployment, and Dennis and I took turns cursing the local
market. But his problem went beyond this. There was a growing rift between him
and Allison. Dennis hated working for companies. Hes one of those free spirits
for whom a meeting in a board room is a near-death experience. So, for the past
couple of years, hed been going after contract work, aggressively but with no
luck. Allison wasnt sympathetic, nor could she have been expected to be. With an
infant son to care for, she felt that the family needed a regular paycheck, and that
Denniss stubborn insistence on working for himself, as he put it, in the face of
there being no work, was inflicting hardship on all of them. Dennis stepped up his
efforts to land a contract, sending out resumes to companiesat one point as
many as fifty a week, to find a contract job. Uncannily, even after interviews that
page 4 of 100
seemed like deal closers, he came in second or third, and this had been going on
non-stop for two years.

Summer gave way to fall. One evening, in October, I went over to Denniss
house, and we sat down in his office. On his desk was his old Compaq computer,
case open, ribbons and drives hanging out all over as usual. Dennis had had this
relic for over ten years, and somehow kept it running, although it had become
senile in its old age, and among other quirks, turned itself off at will. Just then,
Zach began fretting in the other room, and Allison said shed see to him, so
Dennis and I went outside for some fresh air and a long walk.

Wed been walking for half an hour when Dennis started venting his frustration
about work and Allisons attitude toward his freelancing. He talked about how
hard he'd tried to bring in a contract, how she was pressuring him to get a "real
job," and all this. I just listened. After a while, we fell to silence. For some reason,
I began thinking about his old Compaq computer, which, like the storms, suddenly
seemed less significant as a fact than as a kind of living metaphor. Over the years,
Id indulged in the latest computer upgrade again and again, sometimes pulling off
leasing deals when I no cash, and the idea of putting up with such an old machine
seemed absurd to me, especially because it barely worked at all, and here was
Dennis, a technical writer and computer whizreally, a lover of the technology.
Suddenly, this whole arrangement seemed out of whack, and by no means
accidental.

You know, I said, somebody who knows as much as you do about computers,
and loves them as much as you do, would have to work real hard to NOT have a
new computer for ten years. So, what I want to know is, what BAD thing
happens if you get a computer?

Dennis looked at me like I'd just asked him to raise the dead.
page 5 of 100

Nothing, it would be great, he said.

I repeated the question, asking him to listen this time, which startled him, since he
thought he had. Then, his eyes widened and he suddenly stopped walking and
turned to face me.

Getting a new computer would cost money," he said. "That would put me in
mortal combat with Allison. You know how much she hates the freelance thing.

Something was unraveling. What else? I asked. Suddenly, he looked deeply sad.

Its always been like this. I never got the computer or the job or the money or
the recognition. Ever since I was sixteen, Ive been holed up in the safe,
inconspicuous world of not-having.

The safe, inconspicuous world of not having. We stayed with this line of thought,
which Dennis later described as a string of beads stretching back through his life
to a moment on a park bench when he was sixteen and came to the conclusion
that having things was dangerous. It was a life theme, this tacit commitment to
lack. And it left me wondering how much he had let himself have even the things
he had. But that was over now. Dennis had found the payoff. And the idea of a
payoff meant that not having had been a choice, even if, oddly, an unwitting one.
Identifying the payoff as such implied taking responsibility, which is always the
first act of power. In that moment, the victim was gone.

Thats it, he said, no more, then added, Now I can have.

You mean now you can have a computer? I asked.

page 6 of 100
No, he said. No I can have.

Ironically, there was no new choice to make. The willingness to see that he had
been assuming a stance for a payoff rather than suffering a condition that the
world had foisted upon on him already was its own new direction, and to that
extent, a new identity. In this, we both realized that self-victimhood only works as
long as we dont know were doing it; in the moment of seeing that the hands
around our throat are our own, the game is up. It was crucial to realize that
Dennis's unwitting choice was not the result of some perverse motive or
dysfunction; to the contrary, the belief functioned efficiently, as all beliefs do. The
world of not-having had been the only safe world. So, the payoff was real and
understandable. It sounded like a payoff rather than some sort of psychological
reduction or overlay. The safety of staying inconspicuous. Nothing ventured,
nothing lost. It all added up.

We ended up back at Denniss place, and I went home, but I knew that the friend
Id just left wasnt the same person of even an hour earlier. Something decisive,
something defining, had shifted.

The next morning, Dennis called, practically in shock.

Youre not going to believe this, he said. We agreed to meet at a local caf; I got
there early, wondering what could possibly have happened overnight. Soon,
Dennis walked in and we got a table.

Allison, he said, looking a little dazed.

What? I asked.

page 7 of 100
She came to me this morning and said, Ive been thinking about it, and we
should get you a new computer. I mean, if you really want to be a freelancer,
well, I feel I should support you.

I listened in amazement.

And I hadn't said a word to her about our conversation last night, he said. She
came to me with this.

Lightning had struck. And it was just the beginning. The next day, Dennis got a
call from an executive to whom hed given his resume two and a half years
earlier. There was contract work. Three months of it. The assignment would
bring in about $10,000. The fellow didnt even ask Dennis to submit an estimate;
they just hired him on the spot. By the end of the week, Dennis had a state-of-the-
art computer sitting on his desk, bought through a credit application that Allison
had cheerfully submitted to get things going. Literally overnight, the foundation for
a new life had been laid, and that life had burst into manifestation.

We couldnt shake our shared conviction that the walk around the block and
conversation about payoffs and unwitting intentions were tied to these recent,
astonishing events. There was no way to map a causal sequence between them.
Something hidden had picked up intractable circumstances like dice, shaken them,
and rolled them out in a new arrangement. With a single act of taking
responsibility for what had seemed, so convincingly, to be happening to him from
out there, with the unmasking of the payoff, Dennis somehow had set his foot
on the path of an altered reality. In that world, the woman he was married to
supported him as a freelancer. New equipment showed up, allowing him to lay the
Compaq, finally, to rest, and with it all the other symbols of the old payoff that
had been taking up space on his desk and in his life. And work came, just like that,
like a summer storm, out of nowhere, to create a seamless justification of the new
page 8 of 100
order that it would have taken a deeply irrational mind to dismiss as coincidence.
We were in a downpour of synchronicity, with no way either to doubt it or
explain it. Dennis had reincarnated, stepped through an old, painful intention into a
parallel world, and all the relevant variables of his life had shifted accordingly.

We spent the next three years trying to grasp what had happened, lay hold of it,
learn how it works, set up conditions that would lead to predictable outcomes.
And we came to see that, in the end, the storms want none of this. We couldnt
ride the twister, as Pecos Bill did in a short story I remember reading as a kid. We
couldnt tame what wed experienced. It was too big. One could approach it, but
it couldnt be tamed.

All we could do was keep taking walks, keep talking, keep uncovering the hidden
assumptions, intentions, and beliefs that, we were now convinced, somehow
reach out through human consciousness and pull the levers of worldly events,
slipping us through invisible doorways, seamlessly, into alternative worlds without
so much as a hiccough. Most of the time, we dont catch this process in the act
because its too much a part of us. Einstein showed that clocks and rulers slow
down and elongate as the observed system accelerates toward light-speed, and
this had remained hidden from the eyes of physics because we, the observers,
also slow down and elongatethe entire closed, relative system does. Its a great
magic trick. In much the same way, for the most part we have no clue about the
reality alterations that are going on all the time because the sort of shift Dennis
experienced alters the whole system, the whole frame of reference. And its so
easy to write it off as coincidence. Only the most dramatic shift, triggered by
what I later dubbed the Decisive QuestionWhat bad thing happens if you get
a computer?could begin to tug at the threads that hold these metaphysical
seams together. If the willingness to jump realities isnt there, the question
comes too early and sounds absurd. But when the moment is right, such a
question turns the lock, and a new reality flashes into view, fully manifested. In
page 9 of 100
that moment, and only for a moment, the two reality-systems are phasing. One
can feel the charge the way one feels the electricity mounting in the air when a
storm is coming, and catch a glimpse of whats just ahead. Then, suddenly, the
new order is established in perfect continuity with both the history and the
prospects of the shifted consciousness. Its a somersault that lands one back at
exactly the same spot, except that during the flip, the whole life, the whole reality,
changed direction. Blink, and you could miss it. I suspect we miss it all the time.
So, we cant say whether Denniss shift caused Allisons, or Allison, already
shifting, caused Denniss, or that each caused the other in a baffling moment of
simultaneity, or were in turn caused by other events that belonged to the matrix of
this profound and rapid redirection. It was as though a parallel reality had been
infused into the one we experience here, without missing a beat, and in this reality,
a different Dennis was married to a different Allison, in a world where equipment
and work suddenly were readily available. A new pattern had been engaged, and
conditions raced to live up to it. We were baffled by what wed seen. All we felt
we could say with confidence was that some great force had gathered, and
lightning had struck. As Dennis put it, First nothing, then something. Even as
we acknowledged the element of mystery, we wanted to understand this nothing-
into-something in any way we could, tap its ingenuity and raw creativity, learn to
manifest the events of our lives in cooperation with it, skillfully and consciously.
We wanted our choices to be deliberate rather than unwitting, our payoffs to be
better than consolation prizes driven by blind allegiance to choices wed long ago
outgrown. We would willingly rummage through our inner closets, find the old
stuff that didnt serve anymore, and throw it out to make room for the new. Like
kids watching a magic trick, we wanted to see again what wed seen, and if
possible, learn the secret so we could do magic ourselves. But first, we knew,
wed have to learn a new language. Wed have to learn the language of storms.

MUSIC SEGUE

page 10 of 100
MUSIC

TITLE
who creates? a matter of life and death

MUSIC

TEXT
There was a reason I was so fascinated with the metaphor of storms and what
they reveal about conscious creating. For years, I'd been concerned about the
confusions and oversimplifications that pervade the New Age material on the
subject of personal-consciousness-as-causeconfusions and oversimplifications
that actually had cost people their lives. In the 70s and 80s, when the idea grew
into a popular cultural movement in the West, many New Age enthusiasts had
tried to cure life-threatening diseases, such as cancer, through visualization and
affirmation techniques instead of getting medical treatment. Theyd knew of the
mind/body connection. Theyd seen miracles and how prayer could work, and
trusting what theyd read, they believed that somehow theyd brought illness upon
themselves through some error in consciousness, and that they should be able to
cure it by correcting that error. Many of them died trying. So, clearly something
wasnt working. These people certainly desired health. They were sincere. They
believed in the power of consciousness to affect, even determine physical
conditions. They followed the instructions, visualized faithfully, wrote down and
declared their affirmations, meditated, prayed, and believed. Nevertheless, many of
them, perhaps the ones most committed to the idea of consciousness-as-cause,
worsened and finally succumbed to the reality of the disease. What had gone
wrong?

MUSIC

page 11 of 100
TITLE
a lesson from the new physics

MUSIC

TEXT
To answer this question, we turned to physicsthe branch of science dedicated
to understanding the nature of reality, and not just to physics, but to the new
physics, to quantum mechanics. In the 1920s, Einstein was conducting his now
famous experiments in photoelectric effect, and made an amazing discovery:
Light, which had been understood to be a wave, also could show up as a
particlethe photon. This was baffling, because in classical terms, waves and
particles are mutually exclusive. Particles, like minute marbles, behave more or
less the same way that physical objects do in our everyday experience in the
world. Because theyre local, you can calculate their exact position, and if
theyre moving, their velocity, all precisely. Waves, on the other hand, arent
local; they propagate through space and dont sit still in one place at one time
the way particles do. They have properties of their own, such as frequency and
amplitude, but theyre more an activity than an object, a verb rather than a noun.
What Einstein discovered was that light could show up not just as a wave, but
also as discrete packets, and even more amazingly, that whether light showed
up in a given experiment as a particle or a wave depended entirely on the intention
of the experimenter! If he set up the experiment one way, expecting light to show
up as a stream of particles, it would; if he set it up as though light were a wave,
then light would oblige and exhibit wave properties. Here was a dramatic
demonstration of how a factual event depended on the consciousness of the
observer!

Some years later, another physicist, Louis de Broglie, expanded Einsteins findings
by showing that this duality of particle/wave wasnt limited to light. Every
electron, every quantum had the same split personality. The universe, at its most
page 12 of 100
minute levels, is local and nonlocal at the same time. Impossible, in classical
terms, but true nevertheless.

Now, Field training explains that we see this duality everywhere because the
observing consciousness itself has the same dual nature. Awareness has both
discrete, localor Particleand holistic, nonlocalor Fieldaspects. As
Particles, we experience ourselves as finite and separate. As the Field, on the other
hand, were all the same, single Consciousness taking infinitely varied formsa
ground of Being that discovers Itself in the self-awareness of Particle identity,
where It expresses Itself in the declaration I-AM! Of this, Emerson said, We lie
in the lap of immense intelligence. Within the horizon of this immense, Self-
aware, nonlocal intelligence, all things are created and take form. Our sense that
we exist, then, is, an expression of Field consciousness; how we existthe
various ways that we conceive of the self, the things with which we identify
expresses our Particle nature. Ultimately, Particle self-awareness is borrowed
from the Field. At the center of each of us is the indubitable sense, I AM, which
is the Field declaring itself. Identifying this I-AM with the physical body, we focus
exclusively on the Particle aspect of identity. Now, Field training has no interest in
transcending this separate sense of self. It doesnt regard the ego, as an illusion,
the way Buddhism does. To the contrary, Field training honors, even celebrates
the miracle of Particle identity. It does let us know, however, that were not just
Particles. Without a living awareness of our relationship to the nonlocal self, to the
Field, living secretly at the very heart of who we are, were living only half a life.

MUSIC

page 13 of 100
TITLE
where are you?

MUSIC

TEXT
One of the oldest philosophical questions is, What is the self? Every day,
throughout the day, we say this little word I, but do we know what we mean by
it? Do we know whats saying this I? Look for the self; it cant be found. Never
itself an object, the self hides as pure point of view. Looking for it, all we find is
its property, revealed through our use of the possessive form: my name, my
mind, my body, my thoughts, my feelings, my past, my experience, even my
identity. The only way we seem to be able to talk about the I is in terms of all
the things it owns. But exactly what is it thats doing all this owning?

Now, this question of questions has been debated for millennia, and modern
philosophers at the highest university levels continue to disagree about the nature
of the self. This left us thinking that it might be more useful to ask a different
questionnot what is the self, but where is the self? Where are you? Invariably,
when we asked this question, the person answering made a physical gesture
toward his or her body. Whatever the self is, clearly it was experienced in a
fundamental way as being in here, in the body. As we explored this further,
working from the principle that the whole of manifest reality demonstrates both
local and nonlocal characteristics, more and more came to light about our dual
identity as Particle and Field.

In summary, we experience the Particle self:

as being in the body
as separate from others
as bound by space and time
page 14 of 100
as the effect of factual conditions, and largely at the mercy of causes in
the world
as extremely limited in vision, knowledge, resources, and efficiency
as identified with various states, so I am a man," "I am a woman," "I am
happy," "I am depressed," and so on.
and as trying to MAKE things happen through applying willthat is,
through willfulness

Conversely, we experience the Field Self:

as a horizon within which all things resideso, the body is in It
as an underlying unity or oneness
as a presence beyond or prior to space and time
as the cause of factual conditions
as unlimited in vision, knowledge, resources, and efficiency
as distinct from various identification states and so, as pure I-AM
and as letting things happen through disengaging willthat is, through
willingness

The Field may be thought of as a horizon of nonlocal awareness that can be
experienced in deep stillness. Remaining in Itself unidentified with Its endless
forms, It says only I AM, rather than "I am this or that." Though this Field
cannot be rightly regarded as a thing Itself, It may be thought of as a holistic,
pervasive Intelligence that gives rise to and sustains all that is, that provides the
pattern each moment for every manifestation. The Field, called in physics the
"zero-point field" pervades the universe. It is the omnipresent ground of all that
exists. Out of it, all things arise into local form, and into it, all things return.

The duality of Particle/Field allowed us to understand what might have happened
to those who had unsuccessfully tried to use consciousness to banish a grave
page 15 of 100
illness. Sadly, they had approached it from the wrong direction by trying to will
themselves back to health, not realizing that the Particle has no power to create
through willfulness, but only through aligning with Field willingness. That was
only part of the problem. Beyond this, those who fell under the sway of this
mistaken identity made another perhaps fatal error: Again following the lead of
most of the New Age material, they believed that desire is creative. It isnt. We
may presume that those who died were not short on the desire to recover. Indeed,
we may want something with all our heart and never see it come to pass. But if
desire isnt the generative structure of the psyche, then what is? And if the
creating isnt fulfilled through an act of will, then how?

MUSIC

TITLE
intention and correspondence

MUSIC

TEXT
Rooted more deeply in the psyche than desire is another structure that we call
intention, and it is this structure that becomes translated exquisitely and
mysteriously into conditions of every sort. Now, several other consciousness
models use this word intention, but they do not use it the way we use it in Field
training. For our purposes, intention comprises two things:

what were willing to take to be real, and
what were willing to identify with.

Note that willingness is central. Its also important to be aware that identity is a
more fundamental structure than reality, which means that every reality, every
factual condition has its roots in a corresponding identity. So, for example, I
page 16 of 100
dont have enough money, a reality statement, is rooted in the identity-intention,
I am lacking money, or I am poor. Intentions exercise a nonlocal effect,
ingeniously fulfilling payoffs that may show up as synchronicities, so-called
coincidences, miracles, and serendipitous moments when destiny seems to reach
out and lay its hand on us with little or no regard for logic, history, or desire. Or
these fulfillments may appear as the normal course of events, taking place
seemingly independently of the intentions that bring them to life. Now, behind
every intention is a payoff that makes sense. Whatever we believe, we believe for
a good and readily understandable reason. We may suffer at the hands of a certain
belief; we may have outgrown the benefit it confers, but the benefit is there,
serving us, as long as we require it. For this reason, Field training regards purely
psychological explanations as reductions, overlays of theory that have little or
nothing to do with the choices we make about who we are and whats real, and
therefore, as having no causal power. Examples of psychological reductions or
overlays include having low self-esteem, fearing success, coming from a so-called
dysfunctional family, having been abused as a child, and so on. None of these
things sounds like a payoff, so none would be accepted as a real answer in Field
training. The payoffs underlying unwitting intentions invariably have to do with
beliefs about safety and survival.

MUSIC

TITLE
radical responsibility and unwitting choice

MUSIC

TEXT
Field training states that were radically responsible for what we intend, even
when our experience in the world appears to be the result of the will of others,
page 17 of 100
and even when our intention-choices are unwitting. The term unwitting choice
is the way Field training describes beliefs that we dont realize we hold about who
we are and whats real. They're not unconscious or subconsciouswe
simply dont look at them as beliefs, because having identified with them, we see
them as "the way things are," as reality. Usually, we make these choices and later
forget we made them, sometimes in order to protect their underlying payoffs. And
there is no time off from this responsibility. Were always mobilizing the Field
through the nonlocal effect of our prevailing beliefs about whats real and who we
are. We say that the Field has unlimited knowledge, unlimited presence, unlimited
resources, unlimited efficiency, and an extremely limited vocabulary. It only says
Yes.

You can see from all this that its futile to try to change conditions willfully, with
no corresponding willingness to change oneself, because we dont get what we
want or will, we get what we are. The I that creates reality doesnt stand apart
from the reality it creates. Which means that the attempt to change reality through
personal will confers the status of reality on the very thing it seeks to change. In
other words, as long as the will tries to make real something that it regards as not
real, it casts its vote wrongly, and secures the exact outcome it wanted to
overcome. When we try to create conditions through force of will, the results are
likely to backfire or otherwise lead to disappointment. On the other hand, when
we recast our consciousness with no agenda to change outer conditions,
conditions change correspondingly, spontaneously, effortlessly, and with an
efficiency that goes far beyond the local resources of Particle identity. So, our
work is always on ourselves rather than events, conditions, or other people. Its
important to note here that it isnt necessary to know what an unwitting intention
is to clear it and embody a better choice. We clear unwitting intentions
spontaneously by aligning with the chosen version of self and remaining true to it
in practice. How we do this is addressed in next weeks lesson.

page 18 of 100
MUSIC

TITLE
the four noble truths of field training

MUSIC

TEXT
In the beginning, an experimental faith is requiredan open mind, the willingness
to see something new, even something that contradicts the old way of being. As
this willingness gives rise to new kinds of experience, faith and confidence gain
momentum. To that end, here are the Four Noble Truths of Field training,
adapted from Buddhism:

Anything can happen.
You cant make it happen.
You can let it happen.
If you let it happen to make it happen, it wont happen.

The last of these truths is the one where a lot of students get tripped up. One
young man, for example, came into the Course with a keen interest in using
consciousness techniques to create the return of a girlfriend who had walked out
on him. We got to Week TwoI was going over the process of deliberate
intendingand he was on the edge of his seat. When I had presented Step Three,
which has to do with the need for releasing intentions, he said, So, if I really let
her go, then she has to come back, right? Wrong. He got snagged on the fourth
noble truth of Field training. Its something to keep in mind. We cant use Field
training to make anything happen in the world. But we can use it to embody a
more aligned version of self. When we do that, things do happen outwardly as
well as inwardly.

page 19 of 100

MUSIC

TITLE
experiencing an expansion of consciousness

MUSIC

TEXT
This is a great, preliminary exercise that will allow you to experience Field identity,
and also prepare you for next weeks lesson on deliberate intending. Sit still in a
comfortable position where you won't be disturbed for five or ten minutes. Take
some slow, deep breaths, and let your awareness settle down the deep inner well.
Youre aware of yourself as being in your body. And yet, this same self that
youre aware of as being in the body is aware of the body, as though from the
outside. Now, ask yourself, whats doing the observing? You can sense that this
purely observing awareness is intimately yourself, the Witness-Self, which simply
watches everything through the medium of awareness. Emerson called It the
invisible Eye, seeing all, being nothing. This I-AM, in its Particle expression, is
housed in the body in which It finds Itself, so the body is a good starting place.
While the I-AM is not limited to the body, the body does hold It in a particular,
physicalized point of view.

Once you experience this I-AM deep in the stillness of the body, let this sense of
self expand through the inner space of imagination until it encompasses the body,
the room, the city, the planet, the galaxylet it take you as far as you like. You
dont have to will this to happen. It happens by itself. Just intend it and it takes
place instantly in the realm of imagination. Go with it. Let it happen. Accept it,
enjoy it, witness it. Your consciousness is alive, fluid, elastic, and instantly
responsive to you. In the world of your imagining, youre free of the usual
page 20 of 100
constraints of time, space, and will. In this expanded inner place, you can
experience anything you wish.

Now, let this expanded horizon of your awareness begin to contract, back from
the outer regions of the universe, to our solar system, to planet Earth, to your
continent and country and city, to the room. Now, stop at the point where you
become aware that your body is sitting in your awareness. Everything you
experience, you experience from the center of this living, elastic amphitheater of
awareness. So, your body, too, is in your awareness. Its as though you're
watching your body from the outside. Before, when you began this exercise,
you were aware of your awareness as being in your body; now youre aware of
your body as being in your awareness, the way it is when you have a night dream
in which you see yourself. You exist both as the little self that you see in the
dream, and as the expanded self who's watching you, the dreamer, the Witness.
Usually, the little self in the dream is not aware of the point of view of the
dreamer. Now, in this moment, it's the same. You exist in this body, but also the
body exists in you, in your awareness of it, and this You in which your body
exists isn't local. It exists, but nowhere in particular. This You is the Field-You.
Enjoy the expanded sense of self. Then, when youre ready, open your eyes.

MUSIC
end of week one


page 21 of 100
TITLE
week two

MUSIC

TITLE
intending consciously

MUSIC

TEXT
Conscious intending is the art of deliberate reincarnation. In other words, we
dont change anything but ourselves, and we do this by changing our belief about
who we are, then taking up residence in the new self. Outer conditions are
irrelevant to practice. Strictly speaking, theres really nothing to create, not even a
different self, since as well see in Week Five, all versions of the self already exist.
With this in mind, we can talk informally about creating, but we should keep in
mind that were really talking only about a different version the self that already
exists and simply needs to be experienced a certain way to be quickened into
expression.

Now, deliberate intending involves three steps:

First, be still.
Then, receive and embody the new identity.
Finally, rest lovingly and consistently in the feeling of fulfillment.

Now, lets look at each of these.

page 22 of 100
The first step is to be still. Sit quietly where you wont be disturbed for five or
ten minutes. Close your eyes. Let the body relax; let the mind relax. Take a few
slow, deep breaths, and just let everything settle. Return to the stillness at the
center of yourself, as though you're floating down a deep well to rest at the
bottom. For now, withdraw your attention from problems and any evidence,
thought, or belief that contradicts the situation you want to see expressed.
Shedding all concern, be deeply still. Now, take a slow, deep breath, and relax
even more deeply. This is a meditative state, effortless and restful. Become aware
of yourself as the pure observer, the Witness. Become aware of the one whos
doing the witnessing. In the deep silence, you can feel the self expand beyond the
body. You may even feel this expansion physically. Youre expanding to become
available, to open yourself to other versions of self and reality, all of which exist in
the Field in a pre-incarnate or pre-manifest state as far as we're concerned. Dont
think of this as opening to possibility but rather as opening to other real versions
of yourself and your life. Things are real before they come into expression. A
baby exists before its born. With birth, it simply comes into expression in the
world outside the womb. The reality you want to see incarnated in your
experience exists, too, in the womb of the Field. First, the corresponding version
of you has to be born.

The second step is to receive and embody the new identity. As youre sitting
in the stillness, let something come that represents the desired fulfillment. Youll
recognize it. This is the first form of the manifestation. It comes by itself from the
Field. Again, and most importantly, theres no will involved, no effort. This
something that comes implies the version of you for whom the desire already has
been fulfilled. What comes may include details that you didnt anticipate. They
may even surprise you. Your aim here is to recognize and accept in your
imagination a version of you thats already experiencing the desire fulfilled in
whatever form comes to you spontaneously within. Once this comes, and you
recognize it, transfer your point of view from your present reality to the imagined
page 23 of 100
one, so youre not just looking at the fulfilled reality, but from it. Slip into the
imagined reality. Lose yourself in it, even for a moment, the way you might lose
yourself in a book or music, so youre experiencing it just as you would be if it
were happening physically right now. Youll know youve done this when you feel
some emotion that you associate with fulfillment, such as relief, excitement, or a
deep sense of satisfaction. You may become aware that youre smiling. If
something comes that does not represent the desired version of self, it should be
witnessed and noted, and nothing more.

The third step is to rest lovingly and consistently in the feeling of
fulfillment. Open your eyes, returning from the inner world to the outer, and be
sure you bring the smile with you. Theres nothing to do to make anything
happen, inwardly or outwardly. In this final step, we release the intention by living
in the living present and doing whats before us to doand note here that whats
before us to do may have nothing to do with what weve deliberately intended.
Doing whats before us may mean raking the yard, visiting a friend, folding the
laundry, or repairing a broken faucet. The whole point of this step is to rest in the
new identity, to wear it in a natural, easy way that leaves all self-consciousness
about it behind. This resting-in is the true meaning of keeping the Sabbath. It
requires letting go of all management of the intention so the Field can assume
nonlocal jurisdiction, while we remain faithfully identified with the new version of
self. Consistency is the cornerstone of practice. Wavering in our resolve is
counterintention, because when we waver, we contradict what weve claimed
deliberately. Since the Field has no choice but to correspond to our intentions, our
wavering redirects the Field to fulfill what we dont want, effectively neutralizing
the earlier claim. Remembertheres nothing to do to make anything happen, and
nothing we can do other than claim and rest in the desired version of self, which
involves refusing to counterintend. This resolve to stay true to the new version of
self is the only place in Field practice where we use our will.

page 24 of 100
Many students find it helpful, once the intention is complete, to end the third step
with an inner declaration that marks the act of release. Some use the statement,
This, the equivalent, or whatever would be better. Note that something better
means something youll recognize as better, not something you have to talk
yourself into believing is better just because it happened. This point certainly is not
meant to turn your attention to outer or factual manifestation, but we know that,
through the Law of Correspondence, factual manifestation comes, and the inner
declaration reminds us to take and keep our minds hands off it. Were giving the
Field right-of-way, deferring to the spectacular efficiency of the nonlocal, which
is responsible for all fulfillment, inner and outer. The timing, the ways and means,
even the exact form of the corresponding factual manifestation have to be
delegated to the Field, period. So this little statement may help free us from local
management and reminds us not to let our newfound alignment be taken hostage
by Particle will.

Again, if anything should show up representing the old belief, the old version of
self, the old reality, we simply witness it. Thats all. We dont engage it. We dont
try to push it away or reason with it or get interested in it. We notice it the way
we might notice clouds passing overhead. Theyre there, but they have nothing to
do with us. Our will is involved only in that we're resolved to rest in the new
identity and refuse to counterintend. At the point that we can really rest in the new
version of self, were not even thinking about it. The new identity has become
second nature. Its assumed. If we remain true to this version of self, refusing to
contradict it, then outer expression, following the inner one, is mobilized by the
Field to demonstrate the new union of desire and belief. Resting lovingly in the
feeling of fulfillment means resting in the new and better identity, taking the
minds hands off the project entirely, and simply enjoying the natural feeling of the
wish fulfilled exactly as we would if the fulfillment were factual rather than
imaginal. The best practice is to forget the intention entirely. One cant do this
directly through an act of will, since setting out to forget anything presupposes
page 25 of 100
remembering it, but we can simply turn our attention to other matters, and this is
where doing whatevers before us to do becomes essential. Living in the living
present, in natural agreement with our newly claimed identity leaves us feeling
poised and grateful for already having received, no matter what the facts may or
may not be presenting at the moment. The authority of this inwardness eventually
overtakes the authority of so-called evidence, and our reality can no longer be
dictated by the changing winds of the world. The more we prove consciousness-
as-cause for ourselves, the more we understand the origins of our world. Radical
responsibility deepens, and along with it, an abiding joy and gratitude in being alive
that surpasses the fulfillment of every desire.

Remember that the third stepresting in the feeling of fulfillmentis essential to
the process. This is something that students often overlook. If theres any chasing
after the factual manifestation, any effort, any waiting or watching for it, then
intention becomes counterintention, and weve at least for the time being, undone
the inner work. This is why we say again and againits one of the most
important statements in Field trainingthat the aim of practice is alignment, not
manifestation. The world has nothing to give us. It can only show us what were
giving ourselves.

It may seem difficult at first to change a belief that weve been with for a long
time, but its actually a lot easier to be aligned than to be carrying contradictions
around all day. In fact, alignment is effortless. The whole process can be summed
up this way: Close your eyes, fall in love, stay there. Also, trust the process.
Sometimes, a counterintention can be released fully in an instant, but we may need
to let the old self-definition go a little bit at a time.

When we shift, especially in some core belief, one of three things follows:

Either the intended version of self manifests in the world with its
page 26 of 100
corresponding reality, or

page 27 of 100
something recognizably better than what we intended manifests in the
world, or

if theres a counterintention operating, were presented with a test.

Theres no way to fail or pass a test in this sense. Tests are gifts, opportunities to
live up to the chosen version of self or live up to it more deeply. A test situation
always embodies both the new intention and the residual counterintention in a
situation that presents us with the opportunity to choose between them. One
choice always represents the old order; the other, the new. By witnessing the
choice we make in the moment, we get to see what were really intending; we see
where we stand. Becoming more aware places us in a better position to move
forward with new resolve.

We urge students not to get caught up trying to figure out unwitting
counterintentions. When we try to figure out anything we want to know, were
believing we dont know, and thus, counterintending. The most powerful, most
efficient, and best practice is simply to intend the desired version of self, then rest
in that newly claimed identity and refuse to counterintend.

Keep in mind that witnessing and intending are opposites. When we witness, we
remain aloof, apart from whatever were observing. We withhold the self. When
we intend, we allow the self to become one with what its beholding. We lose
ourselves in it. It's this giving and losing of self in the ideal that transforms the
inner representation into an intention and quickens it. This is why we say that
attention is the venue of intention. What we merely notice, without much
intention, has no anchor in our consciousness, and so, no place in our experience.
What we give ourselves to, on the other hand, we draw into expression.
Remember that SEEING what we want isnt enough. We have to BE it to imbue it
with the living quality that brings it to life. Furthermore, we have to do this it for
page 28 of 100
its own sake, out of love for the ideal rather than as a strategy to make something
happen in the world.

MUSIC
TITLE
I am that I am

MUSIC

TEXT
When Moses asks the burning bush, Who shall I say sent me? hes asking God
to reveal His identity. Its a momentous event in the story of the Bible, one that
can only be fully understood and appreciated as a self-questionthe remarkable
moment when a person turns from the world, inspired by the longing to know the
Self within, the source of life and all creation. The answer God gives has been
translated as I am that I am by some scholars, and I am what I will be by
others. Either translation captures the essence of deliberate creating with a
remarkable efficiency and elegance in a kind of metaphysical shorthand. First,
theres the I AMthe primal Particle declaration of self-awareness: I AMI am
here, now, in this moment, in this form or state. I exist. I am this version of
myself. The next word, that, posits a relationship to something else, and the
second I AM identifies that to which the first I AM is placing itself in
relationthe new or desired version of self. The statement is a statement of
claiming a new I AM as the I AM that I am nowin other words, I am no
longer this I am; I am now that I am. This claiming of a new I AM is the key
that unlocks the hidden power of creative consciousness.

MUSIC

page 29 of 100
TITLE
intentions as seeds

MUSIC

TEXT
The seed that we sow in the garden becomes a plant or tree through the simple
and mysterious power of self-unfolding. Each seed knows to become the
fulfillment of itself; so we may say that in a rudimentary way, the seed knows
itselfnot in the sense that its self-aware, perhaps, but in that its in-formed, and
ready to manifest what it already contains in secret, given the conditions of
fulfillmentsoil, sun, and water.

The seed embodies the complete idea of the plant or tree that it will bring forth.
Because this idea is fully embodied in the seed, it can spring into manifestation or
expression. In just this way, an intention is a seed. It contains, by virtue of
conviction and presence brought by identification, the complete idea of a particular
unfolding. As the acorn holds the oak, so does every intention hold its
manifestation, which it brings forth out of itself, fulfilling outwardly what lay
hidden within. This activity of fulfillment from inner to outer is the Field's job
not ours.

In order to produce its corresponding manifestation, and remember that were
talking here only about the inner manifestationan imagined reality has to become
seed-like. This means that what comes in imagination isnt an intention until its
quickened through a deeply felt identification with it, which happens when we
step into the point of view of the new, inner self. We know that weve entered
this seed-consciousness when we feel the substance of the desired reality from
inside its corresponding point of view, and the same happiness or relief we know
we would feel if the idea were fulfilled in fact, now. We know that the required
quickening is done when, while intending, we spontaneously smile the smile of
page 30 of 100
having become one with the imaginal version of self. When this happens, the
intended reality has shifted from something wished for to something granted, even
though we recognize that, for now, its granted inwardly, in consciousness, and
not yet necessarily as an outer condition, but our practice makes this irrelevant,
since our aim is alignment and not manifestation. The seed of incarnation has been
planted, and our work is done.

The great, spanning oak is in the acorn. We might say that the acorn contains a
sense of the fully formed tree. It becomes itself. Given the right conditions, it must
become the oak tree. In the same way, we come to see that as were able to allow
thoughts to be transformed by identification and conviction into intentions, were
planting seeds in consciousness. As we embody these intentions unwaveringly
meaning that we dont counterintend themthey become seeds planted in the
body of the world, which brings them forth into expression as efficiently.
beautifully, and naturally as it does flowers in the garden.

The crucial point of practice is to give ourselves to the intention until were not
just seeing it, but being it, not looking at it but from it, until it feels fully present
from the transferred point of view. With this, the intention is formed and
complete. As long as nothing contradicts this sense that I AM the one I claimed
inwardly, and willfulness is kept out of the picture, the outer expression of the
intention, its manifestation in fact, comes in its own time and manner. Aligned
within, we have no concern over the factual expression, its timing, the exact
form, or the ways and means of further fulfillment.

One simply considers the thing done. This isnt hard to understand. Think of
buying something over the Internet or by phone from a catalog. You place your
order, give a credit card number, and the transaction is complete. Whether the
item is shipped today or tomorrow, via FedEx or UPS or the U.S. Postal
Serviceit really doesnt matter. The details have no bearing on the conviction
page 31 of 100
that the item is already yours, bought and paid for. You might even call a friend,
and say, Guess what I just got? You see, you didn't get it yet. You don't have it
in your handbuy you have it in consciousness. It's yours, as far as you're
concerned.

MUSIC

TITLE
we are all creative

MUSIC

TEXT
Reality follows from our intentions. In this sense, we can say that we create our
reality, which means that ultimately, we can't be victims except of our own
choices. Remember ere that it isn't desire that makes these choices, but
willingness, which is the true creative force underlying intention. There was one
Field training student who was suffering terribly in a relationship with a man who
she said was physically abusive to her. She didn't want to stay in that situation,
but she was willing to stay, willing to be the version of her for whom that was
acceptable. Remember, the Field creates through our willingness, and does so
with unstoppable efficiency. As we become increasingly aware and take charge of
who we're willing to be, and who we're not, we can make new choices that
radically transform our reality, and this transformation can take place in the no-
time that we associate with Field events. We can't, however, choose not to
choose. Choice, whether witting or unwitting, is a defining feature of Particle
consciousness. We're constantly informingliterally lending form toour
experience through who were willing to be.

MUSIC
page 32 of 100

page 33 of 100
TITLE
counterintending

MUSIC

TEXT
In Homers epic poem, The Odyssey, the hero, Odysseus, is lost at sea for many
years. Greedy suitors have taken over his household and are trying to force
Odysseuss wife, the faithful Penelope, to marry one of them. Penelope stalls the
suitors by telling them that shell remarry when shes finished weaving a burial
shroud for Odysseuss elderly father, Laertes. All day, she sits at her loom
weaving, but at night, in secret and by torch light, she undoes the work of the
day, so the garment is never completed. In this way, she foils the suitors for three
years, until shes discovered and forced to finish the shroud. Just in time,
Odysseus returns and sets things right in his household, with lots of bloody
whacks and thwacks, and they all live happily ever after.

Sometimes we're like Penelope, weaving something by day and unweaving it at
night, vacillating between contradictory intentions; and our dreams cant manifest
inwardly or outwardly. This is why consistency in the intentionresting in the
transferred point of view and the sense of fulfillmentis so important. It keeps us
from unweaving the intention, and this is no small thing. Its vital for us to
grasp and appreciate that theres no time off from our consciousness. What
comes to us comes through us. Our experience, within and in the world, is always
showing us the contracts weve signed in consciousness. Our dearest dreams can
spring into expression easily, once we step clear of contradiction, and bring our
desires and intentions into agreement without wavering.

MUSIC

page 34 of 100
TITLE
beginning at the end and staying there

MUSIC

TEXT
Conscious creating requires that we learn to look through outer evidence while
remaining faithful to the chosen version of self, the one embodied in the deliberate
intention. We begin, then, at the end, which is the envisioned fulfillment, occupy
the point of view of the version of self enjoying the fulfillment after the fact, and
then simply refuse to contradict it. Beginning at the end and staying there is
successful practice in the proverbial nutshell.

Intending deliberately is how we establish our consciousness at the end, which is,
of course, the desired end, or fulfilled point of view. Since our work is done with
the release of the intention, we really begin and end at the end. This has to be
unconditional. Going 99% of the way will draw us into a test situation every time,
and that last one percent may be staged so dramatically, it can leave us wondering
whether or not the 99% counts for anything. Test situations really should be
thought of as allies, because they allow us to see whether or not our resting in the
desired end is wholehearted, which gives us the opportunity to renew or deepen
our solidarity with the fulfilled point of view. Experiences that come along as tests
reveal whether or not we're believing what we think we're believing, whether
we're resting at the end of the intention in the body-sense of the fulfilled identity;
are still at the beginning, with desire in the usual sense of the word; or are
somewhere between these two states. Beginning and staying at the end also frees
us from any concern over ways and means, timing, or other details of further
fulfillment. This ensures that our intention is being lived for its own sake, and not
as a covert method to make something happen in the world. By eliminating the
page 35 of 100
middle man, we can release our inner fulfillment to the Field, and adopt a stance of
relief, gratitude, and joy simply in being who we are.

MUSIC

TITLE
level-2 intentions

MUSIC

TEXT
Theres a special case of intentions that we have about the creative process itself.
We call these Level-2 intentions, and there are two types. The first involves
ontological laws. These operate whether or not we take them to be real. Here are
some examples:

Reality corresponds to intention.
No one can create reality for another.
Willfulness interferes with the experience of nonlocal efficiency.

Now, the first of these, Reality corresponds to our intentions, states the
ontological Law of Correspondence, sometimes called the Law of Assumption,
because the Field takes forms consistent with whatever we assume to be true
about ourselves. This law implies anotherthe law of radical responsibility, which
tells us that we're responsible for what we intend even when the corresponding
experience appears to be the result of the will of others, and even when our
intention-choices are unwitting. We cant adopt any belief that exempts us from
the workings of this or any other ontological law. It operates whether or not we
believe it does. If we disbelieve it, it operates by corresponding to our disbelief;
page 36 of 100
that is, it will appear not to work. Disbelief is simply another kind of belief. There
is no way to intend that places one outside the jurisdiction of an ontological law.

The second statement, No one can create reality for another, expresses the
ontological law of Particle sovereignty, which follows from the very nature of
Particle identity. No one can force another to adopt an intention; even under the
worst circumstances, were free to look upon the world as we will, and remain in
charge of the yes and no of our willingness: Two men looked through prison
barsone saw mud, the other, stars. While we cant create for others, we are
free to intend for them. Such intentions become an influence commensurate with
their receptivity. Note that intending for another also opens us to experiencing
what were intending for him or her, since we cant intend something for
someone else without believing in the reality of what were intending.

Statement number three, Willfulness interferes with nonlocal efficiency, puts us
on notice that willfulness always hinders our experience of Field efficiency, even
if we believe that it doesnt. Here is the idea that, No man can serve two
masters. The Field will never make us a victim of Its grace. To experience the
Fields power and efficiency in fulfilling our desires, we have relinquish local
jurisdiction, period, even if we believe otherwise.

Now, the second type of Level-2 intention is called a structural intention.
Structural intentions, too, are beliefs we have about how the creative process
works, but changing a structural intention will affect manifestation. Structural
intentions are options, not laws. One can stand outside them. Heres are two
examples:

My deliberate intentions take a long time to manifest in the world.
My deliberate intentions manifest at the perfect time.

page 37 of 100
You can see that the first of these would be a Level-2 counterintention in any case
where the person who believed it didnt want his or her deliberate intentions to
take a long time to manifest in the world. In a more subtle way, both of these
structural intentions would operate as counterintentions to the extent that the
person subscribing to either of them is concerned with worldly manifestation.
Even so, the second example"My deliberate intentions manifest at the perfect
time"one seems to be far more released and almost certainly more aligned than
the first.

Structural intentions are a rich area for deliberate creating. As you deepen your
practice, youll likely become increasingly aware of these subtle beliefs, and can
begin to shift into greater alignment at Level-2.

MUSIC
end of week two
page 38 of 100
TITLE
week three

MUSIC

TITLE
beyond it is done.

MUSIC

TEXT
Many New Age sources, as well as the Bible, tell us to declare of a thing, It is
done, and it will be done. The word "amen," translated as so be it, supposedly
carries the creative power of such a declaration. Were told that the facts will
follow our decree, that form follows consciousness, and that this is the key to our
dominion over the earth," or manifestation.

The problem is that it we may say It is done, or amen with a mind to making
the thing be donein other words, as a way of forcing it to happen through an
act of will. In Field training, this is pure counterintention. If we're saying or doing
anything to make a desired condition be, then we must be believing in its non-
being. Field training tells us that what we want to experience must already be, in
consciousness, to the point that its factual absence falls away as irrelevant in our
immediate, inner experience. This is why the attempt to use consciousness
strategically is always self-defeating.

We avoid this pitfall in Field practice by going beyond It is done, to It was
done, and most importantly, not as a strategy, but as a report from the claimed
consciousness. It helps many students to think of intending, in these terms, as
subjective time travel. Through imagining, one is taking a future selfthe one for
page 39 of 100
whom the desire already has been fulfilledand rendering that as the past self.
The sense is that of turning an expectation into a memory. Instead of anticipating
the fulfillment, then, we have the experience of recalling it, and thus can simply
enjoy living the role of the one for whom the desired thing was already realized.

This is exactly why we avoid the construction, Im intending for (such and
such) to happen, in favor of Im intending that (such and such) happened. We
can only rest in the feeling of fulfillment to the extent that we remain in agreement
that fulfillment is behind us, not ahead of us, in time.

The language itself is not the point, but the simple change in language we use to
talk about these things often brings home the crucial difference between simply
visualizing something and entering the point of view of an imaginal reality. The
intention must be experienced in the first person (I AM) and imply fulfillment
after the fact. This is why we say in Field training, We can have anything we
want as long as we already have it. More precisely, We can have anything we
want as long as we have become it"that is, as long as weve entered and are
resting consistently in the point of view of the corresponding version of self that
came to us in imagination to express the desired fulfillment. Also, remember that
we want to shift from anticipating the event to recalling it, as though it already
had taken place, and our remembering must include the predominant feelings that
would naturally belong to the fulfillment of the thing in fact. Finally, we have to
leave it alone, and remain true to it in consciousness. We don't watch the pot. We
don't dig up the seed to see how it's doing.

You can easily experiment with switching the sense of anticipation to the sense of
remembering, as though something you were wishing for was already granted,
and see how convinced you can become that youre now enjoying having received
it. Once you catch this feeling of already having received, rest in it until it fits,
page 40 of 100
until it becomes second nature, and you'll see that the true "amen" isn't spoken
with the tongue, but with one's whole being.

MUSIC

TITLE
simplicity and ease of practice

MUSIC

TEXT
While the central premise of Field trainingthat consciousness creates reality
is simple, it isnt necessarily easy to put into practice at first. Instead of working
at the level of the effectthe world, conditions, and facts, we work at the level of
causeconsciousness, intention, and faith. This shift represents an enormous
turnaround in Particle thinking. It would be willful for us to demand to master this
process overnight, or even in a week or month. Some seem naturally inclined to it
and get results right away; others have to be more patient and persevering. It all
seems to come down to a matter of openness versus resistance, and how fully
one can enter the vividness and living presence of the intention, and how
thoroughly one can then let it go.

We can get out of any experience neither more nor less than we bring to it in
consciousness. We have to be willing to take a leap of faith, and stake everything
on something greater than our Particle will. Usually, were willing to do this when
life brings us a situation we cant resolve through all our efforts, intellect, and
trying. Fortunate is the student who can view such a situation, usually a crisis, as
a blessing in disguiseas an opportunity to come into greater alignment.
Eventually, we see that practice isnt only simple, its also easy compared to living
in contradiction! Alignment is effortless; living in contradiction, on the other hand,
page 41 of 100
is exhausting. Shifting from contradiction to alignment should be the easiest thing
we ever do, and of course, is the whole aim of Field practice.

MUSIC

TITLE
the decisive question

MUSIC

TEXT
The night Dennis and I walked around the block gave birth to the Decisive
Question, one of the many powerful tools we have in Field training. Its a tool you
can use to shift into alignment with any desire youve been counterintending, but
as with anything powerful, there are certain things to know before you start using
it. What bad thing happens if?this is always the exact wording of the
question, in the present tensenot What bad thing would happen, but What
bad thing happens if, followed by a clause that states the desired condition of
fulfillment. So, youre asking yourself what bad thing happens if the good thing
happens. The paradox implicit in the form of the question stops the mind for a
moment, and gives the heart a chance to answer. You can see that the Decisive
Question presumes that we have a good reason for disallowing whatever good
thing we want, for keeping it out of our experience, which we do, nonlocally,
through our intention about it.

Now, one caveat: Please use the Decisive Question only as a self-question. Using
it rightly and skillfully with others requires extensive Field Center Facilitator
training that includes many hours of instruction and supervised practice. Also,
even when asking yourself, take care not to get caught up in going on a witch
hunt for the counterintention. The answer to the Decisive Question has to come
page 42 of 100
from the heart, not the head; in fact, the peculiar form of the question is designed
expressly to get beyond the rational faculty, which is good at justifying whatever
we believe and denying anything that calls it into question. Finally, the Decisive
Question is only used in situations in which we're experiencing some kind of
problem, and feeling something we dont want to be feeling. Sometimes, were
not having a problem, but are just ready for something more, something better, a
state we call ontological restlessness in Field training. Being ready for more
doesnt presuppose that were harboring a counterintention, and again, the
Decisive Question is only used in cases where we are, which is always indicated
by something being experienced as a problem, and by attendant unwanted
emotions.

MUSIC

TITLE
dreamwalking and themewalking

MUSIC

TEXT
When we dream at night, and were a character in the dream, other people and
things and conditions appear separate from us, from the I point of view we
occupy as a character in the dream. Yet we realize, when we awaken, that all of
the things in the dream really were made of nothing but our psyche. They seemed
separate from us during the dream, but they really were within us, constructs of
our creative and expressive consciousness. Once were awake, we can look at
these dream-events as symbols to discern their meaning, and learn what we, in
secret, said to ourselves during the night. Now, if the little dream-I is really
immersed in the action, there may be little or no awareness of the larger I, the
one who is observing the dream as it happens from some disembodied vantage.
page 43 of 100
But you can see that both are present, so in every dream we have in which we
show up as a character moving around the dream world, there are two selves
one whos local to the action of the dream and immersed in it, and a nonlocal
observer or Witness with a disembodied awareness observing the dream as it
takes place.

In the same way, when were awake, we have a local and immersed point of
viewthis is Particle consciousness, the I thats identified with the physical
body. In this embodied point of view, we move through a world of other people
and things and conditions that appear to be separate from us. But just as we wake
up from a night dream, we can wake up from our immersed state and begin to
regard the people, things, and conditions of our waking experience the way we
regard dream objects: as symbols representing the structures of a subtler and less
conspicuous consciousness. In this way, any emotionally charged experience
which means any experience that grabs our attention during the daycan be a
tool of nonlocal guidance, greater alignment, and the unfolding of the intended
fulfillment.

After we intend and release a deliberate intention to the Field, some particularly
charged event during the day may grab our attention. Using Dreamwalking, we
can regard this charged event as having symbolic significance, and in stillness,
open ourselves to hearing intuitively what it means. This requires us to step back
from immersion and assume the point of view of the Witness. The dream of our
waking life flows from our intentions as surely as do our night dreams. By
intending deliberately and staying true to our intention, resting lovingly and
consistently in the feeling of the desired fulfillment as already done, we impress
the Field, and the Field, by Its nature, then expresses the thing we have impressed.
But this isnt a one-way street. Through intending, we talk to the Field. In a
dreamwalk, the Field talks to us, giving us nonlocal information, intuitive
guidance, hunches, and inner prompting that, if followed, will lead us to further
page 44 of 100
expressions of the fulfillment we have claimed within. Practice makes all of this
real, and soon teaches us that its wisdom to follow these nonlocal directions, and
folly to trivialize or ignore them. But even beyond the idea of the fulfillment of our
desires, Dreamwalking shows us that Field practice is not a matter of simply
sending a wish list into the Field, but of entering a conversationa lifelong
conversation of endlessly evolving fulfillment and creative self-expression.

Dreamwalking allows us to surface momentarily from Particle immersion in
events to the underlying current of meaning. This subtext reveals important
nonlocal information: a deeper truth about what were intending, guidance from a
version of self in a revised past or alternative future of ours, a timely direction,
instruction to act or refrain from acting, and so on. Of course, this tool, like the
others Field training provides, is effective only to the extent that we give the Field
right of way. Intuition, in this sense, depends on a profound honesty, listening,
and willingness to trust and follow that become objectified as the fulfillment of
whatever ideal weve claimed inwardly.

MUSIC SEGUE

Like Dreamwalking, Themewalking opens us to nonlocal information to help us
both in clearing counterintentions and in taking next-steps. As well see later in the
Course, creating is really co-creating, which is why practice consists not so much
in giving the Field orders as in entering a conversation that takes place at the level
of intention and intuition. Now, whereas Dreamwalking is based on the idea that
waking reality, like the dreams we have at night, is a construct of consciousness,
Themewalking is based on the idea that consciousness and its corresponding
reality are holographic. In a hologram, the whole image is present in every part of
the image. So, for example, if you cut a holographic cell in half, you dont get half
the image the way you would if you cut a photo in half. The divided hologram will
be smaller than the original, but it will contain all of the information contained in
page 45 of 100
the original, and the entire image is still visible. In a holographic system, the part is
in the whole, but the whole also is in the part.

Why is this important for Field practice? Well, sometimes, a counterintention is so
charged and produces such strong unwanted emotions that we may have trouble
approaching it. Or it may be so fortified by the old payoff that we don't see any
way to approach it. Or we may find an old reality so convincing, we cant reach a
state of radical responsibility for the underlying belief as a belief, and so cant get
into the imagined version of the reality we want when we try to deliberately
intend something better. In such cases, Field training suggests that we look to
other, lesser charged areas of our experience where we have the same sort of
feeling we have in the situation in which we feel stuck. Often, unwitting intentions
are core intentions, and manifest concurrently in more than one of the four staging
areas: love, health, wealth, and life direction. If one staging area feels too charged
to approach, we can approach the lesser charged one where the same feeling is
showing up, and clear the old intention there, whereupon it clears spontaneously in
all related staging areas.

For example, we may find that we feel stuck in our job; promotions always go to
others, our ideas arent fully appreciated by our associates, and in general we feel
like a second-class citizen in the workplace. Through Themewalking, we may
realize that some of the same sort of feeling has been showing up in our marriage.
Lets say the workplace is the less charged of the two. By deliberately intending
what we want in the workplace, we would either directly or indirectly clear the
counterintention thats manifesting in both staging areas. The situation at work
and at home would then both be released to spontaneously improve, and
demonstrate their respective versions of the new, deliberate intention. Even if a
staging area or situation feels too charged to approach, we may find we can easily
intend what we want in an area that involves the same feeling with far less charge.
Working in that less charged area, we can claim and rest in the next better version
page 46 of 100
of self, thus leaving even a core counterintention behind. Through the Law of
Correspondence, the results then show up in all related staging areas,
spontaneously and without effort.

Both Dreamwalking and Themewalking reveal deeper truths about what were
intending. They support us in clearing intentions weve outgrown and in taking
next-steps, and they allow us to gain access to useful nonlocal information. Please
remember that neither Dreamwalking nor Themewalkingnor any Field training
technique, for that matterinvolves trying to figure out how one might be
unwittingly counterintending or what such a counterintention might be, since the
belief that one has an unwitting counterintention is invariably a Level-2
counterintention itself! Used simply and honesty, with the willingness to awaken
to something new in the living dream of waking life, or take creative responsibility
in an area where we feel ready to take it, theyre wonderful and amazing tools we
can use to become more aware of how the Field supports us at every turn,
converse with the Field more intimately, and discern the miracle of
correspondence hiding in events that we once dreamed were ordinary.

MUSIC
end of week three
page 47 of 100
TITLE
week four

MUSIC

TITLE
persistence of vision

MUSIC

TEXT
Conditions may seem to persist in our lives, inviting us to believe that they have
inherent continuity and durability, but this is an illusion similar to the illusion of
motion pictures. On the big screen, the figures appear to be moving with their
own continuity, because the human eye cant discern the separate frames that
make up the film. The peculiar structure of our neurology produces this
persistence of vision, as its called. Film, projector, screenthe whole
apparatus is designed to tease the human eye into seeing something as continuous
that isnt continuous, except in the perceiving. So, in this sense, the process is an
illusion, a kind of sleight-of-mind that works because the film is quicker than the
eye.

Now, we have to be careful not to take the word illusion the wrong way here.
The movie is not an illusion in the sense that its a real movie, of course. But it is
an illusion when viewed in terms of structures that appear behind the scenes, and
compared with the real-world movement they simulate.

Heres another example: A printed image on a billboard or page in a magazine
comprises many thousands of halftone dots too small for the eye to make out.
From a normal viewing distance, these dots merge into and create a smooth,
continuous-tone image. In the case of a full-color printed image, the effect is even
more remarkable, because even though the individual dots making up the image
page 48 of 100
are printed using only the colors cyan, magenta, yellow, and black, perception
organizes them into wavelengths equivalent to millions of colors, depending on
how the dots are arranged. We could rightly say that the image created in this
printing process is an illusion; like the motion picture, it tricks the eye into seeing
something that isnt there, we might say, objectively, but only as a construct of
the observers consciousness. But if every normal eye looking at the picture will
see millions of colors, in what sense are they not there? Certainly, theyre not
there in the same way that they would be if they were printed in pure (spot color)
inks, such as purple, turquoise, and so on. But is the process-color equivalent of
pure purple therefore less real? Yes, the process-color reality will deconstruct
under close examination, revealing a structurally deeper reality with different
characteristics, but doesnt every reality do this?

Lets carry this deconstruction further to really make the point. Suppose we zoom
in and look at the real dots that make up the process-color image. Under
magnification, we see clearly the rosette patterns of cyan, magenta, yellow, and
black that are really there. Havent we just begged the reality question? If we
zoom in again, and then again, and then yet again, until weve reached the
quantum level, well see (and relatively early in the deconstruction) that the dots
are themselves halftones of a sort, and strange ones at that, because theyre made
up of nothing definite at all! At the subquantum level, there are no particlesin
this sense, no dotsbut only wave functions, a shimmering matrix that, at the
proper distance, somehow produces the very real illusion of particles that produce
the very real illusion of dots that produce the very real illusion of an image on the
very real illusion of a printed page.

As with the motion picture or the process-color image, the structures of human
consciousness collaborate with the ultimate mystery of subquantum reality in a
way that creates an illusion we all find real enough: the world of time, space,
objects, and events. Some Eastern philosophies suggest that the phenomenal world
page 49 of 100
is indeed an illusionthey call it samsara, or mayain a way that goes beyond the
general meaning of impermanent. They claim that its immediately evanescent,
unreal the way shapes of water in a fountain are unreal, seemingly enduring but
perpetually falling away and being replaced; unreal the way the characters on a
movie screen or a printed image are unrealthat is, when viewed from the
perspective of a deeper order or structure. But we can see now that real and
unreal apply more to orders of structure than to any metaphysical absolute. The
moving image is real on the screen; that is, both the image and the movement are
real, if taken at the immediate experiential level. If we look beyond this order to the
order of the mechanical apparatus in the booththe film running through the
projector, and so onthen we may say that the movement on the screen is an
illusion, and all thats really moving is the film through the projector. But we
know that at a still deeper level of ordering, the film moving through the projector
is itself made up of subtler components, all of which thin into gossamer structures
and finally vanish in the subquantum matrix.

This means that, strictly speaking, the projector and film are a seeming, exactly as
are the figures on the screen. Both are somehow informing the field of
consciousness with the required conditions for the perception of something as
real. In the same way, the dots that make up the color halftone arent more real
than the image that they produce, except at a certain, arbitrary level of experience,
especially since the dots themselves are made up of smaller dots, and these in
turn comprise smaller ones still, until were led inexorably into a world of
shadows, firefly-like eddies flashing in and out of existence, and indeterminacy,
out of which all pictures, including those printed on the living pages of time and
space and world, are continuously being rendered.

Like a great motion picture, the physical world is a projection; objects and
conditions may seem enduring when were immersed in themconvincing, hard
to budge, and most important, independent of the consciousness-stream out of
page 50 of 100
which theyre constituted. In the darkened theater, still images are projected in
rapid succession by a beam of light onto a screen, creating a virtual world of
movement, mood, dramatic action, and so on. In the physical world, images are
projected by beams of intention onto the screen of time and space. We dont
catch on to this, for the most part, because what we mean by we is part of the
movie, and so the miracle of Being is hidden by its very conspicuousness.

In practical terms, the metaphor of the motion picture or halftone gives us a model
for exploring the idea that the conditions and circumstances around us are far less
enduring than they may seeman important shift if were to return to
consciousness as the cause rather than the effect of conditions. In reacting to
events, we ascribe qualities of independence, endurance, and continuity to them
that they then seem to possess inherently only because we keep ascribing these
qualities, moment by moment. Put another way, our belief in the power of events
to cause our states of consciousnessour so-called reactionsis an intention that
the physical world must fulfill, just as the movie screen must reflect whatever
images are thrown onto it from the projectionists booth. As we come to realize
that the world, events, situations, conditions, and problems are far more malleable
and fluid than we took them to be, we can see them reflecting this intention with
the same fidelity.

Any situation, however intractable it may appear, is being continuously fed by
perpetually flowing still-frames of intention. Under the spell of the persistence of
vision inherent in being-in-the-world, we take this intractability to be a feature of
the situation itself. From a deeper structural perspective, however, any situation is
changeable; one simply has to shift the moment-by-moment intention projecting it.
This is equivalent to reincarnating the self having the experiencejust as we
have to change the film moving through the projector to change the image on the
screen. Changing the screen simply wont work, yet this is what we do when we
attempt to solve problems by working on the world directly. We would do well
page 51 of 100
here to keep in mind that intentions are not always obvious; Field training
maintains, however, that they are never unavailable to us, though they may be
hidden in unwittingness or habit.

Belief in the authority of space, time, and the independence of events in the
phenomenal world is a structural intention that is, for the most part, utterly
convincing. In imagination, however, this authority holds no sway, and can be
easily deconstructed for the sake of a deeper realization and alignment. This is
what happens naturally as one slows the thought process enough to discern the
frames of realitythe still points, places, and expanses between the ever-
moving thought-pictures of the mind. Its not an overstatement to say that some
regular practice of meditation that allows one to experience this open and fertile
Awareness is a prerequisite to those shifts in consciousness that reveal to the
Particle its identity with the Field, and make possible demonstrations of the
remarkable efficiency of this identity and the capacity it has to incarnate and
reincarnate on a dime.

One word here about intention as it relates to radical responsibility: Deliberate
creating always involves a shift from what seems a convincing observation about
how things are to the recognition of this as a belief and a choice. Weve all
experienced moments in which we realized that how we thought things were was
just how we thought they were, havent we?moments in which we woke up
and saw that things werent the way we thought after all, and had never beenit
was just the way we were looking at them. We see in such moments the power of
a belief to show up as the very evidence that then seems to corroborate and
confirm it. The projection is convincing! We observe this or thatsee?its so;
the facts are plain enough. But in Field terms, what we observe as a fact
actually comes after the activity of intention, and never the other way around.
Particle sense says, Ill believe it when I see it. Field sense says, Ill see it
when I believe it, or even better, I see it because I believe it.
page 52 of 100

This holds true at all levels. If we believe that the world is cause and
consciousness the effect, then this will be borne out in our experiencenot
because its inherently the way things are, but because we believe it. Clearly, an
open mind is the price of admission to this show! Whereas the world holds that
truth is a function of evidence, Field training teaches us that evidence is a function
of intention. Ultimately, we observe ourselves intending, projecting the intention
into the world as fact, immersion in the projection (which now seems to be
causal), waking up and retrieving the projected intention in the recognition of
consciousness as cause, shifting, allowing and dwelling in a new and better
intention, and so on. The great movie of creative consciousness goes on and on,
and so do we.

MUSIC

TITLE
the problem and the solution are the same thing

MUSIC

TEXT
Problems and solutions correspond to the resistance or nonresistance we bring to
a situation. Resist the situation and a problem manifests. Accept it, and the
problem transforms into its solution. Both outcomes are inherent. The difference
is consciousness: blaming, rehashing, and worrying bind one to the problem in
consciousness and so perpetuate the situation; taking responsibility, letting go, and
trusting release one and transform the problem into a solution. This means that as
long as we resist a problem, we're resisting its solution.

page 53 of 100
Field practice begins with knowing what we want and accepting things as they
are. Accepting a situation as it is doesnt mean we want it to continue; it just
means that were willing to approach it without resistance. This is important,
because resisting something holds us in a state of counterintention about it.

How do we practice acceptance? Well, consider any situation in your life that you
feel is a problemespecially a chronic problem. Now, imagine suspending all
judgments, criticisms, and conclusions about it for now and sitting down with it
to have a conversation. Its no longer the enemy, something to get rid of as
quickly as possible. Acceptance means that we disengage our will and pay a
different, deeper sort of attention to whats going on. Instead of will, we bring
willingnessto listen, to hear, to learn, to change, to let go. From this released
place, we may find that the problem actually is solving something else for us. We
can use the Decisive Question to see how the so-called problem is serving usor
Dreamwalking or Themewalking to gain a deeper insight into something that our
life has been trying to tell us that we were refusing to hear. Then, from a place of
acceptance, we can deliberately intend whatever we want in the situation. Then,
the problem is no longer a problem. It's just the way things are for now, but no
longer the way YOU are. Unresisted, a problem is a call to deeper alignment.
Follow the call, and the solution appears, often in a surprising way.


MUSIC

TITLE
staying poised

MUSIC

TEXT
page 54 of 100
Some students have noticed that Field efficiency shows up right away in so-called
small matters, like intending parking spaces. With important things, though, they
find it harder to step into the point of view of having received. They come to
believe that they cant release big things, and this becomes a Level-2
counterintention that is, of course, proven again and again in their experience.
Then they conclude that the process works only when they dont care much
about the outcome, and they despair that the universe, life, the Field, isnt really on
their side except when it doesnt matter, and too bad, it all looked so promising.

Some students who were struggling with the idea of release have asked, Does it
only work when you dont care? You see, its not only fine to care, its essential.
Field practice begins with knowing what you want, and of course we care about
what we want. If we dont care about some fulfillment, if we dont love it, then
we wont be able to give ourselves to it in the crucial moment when something
comes within representing it and the point of view is transferred through a
deliberate act of willingness. Our passion summons the imaginal fulfillment,
transforming it from desire to intention, quickening it into the seed of
incarnation. So, caring is anything but an obstacle in itself. But if we care too
much, meaning we become urgent, impatient, worried, or controlling, we fall into
counterintending. This is why the so-called small things work out so beautifully.
Not because we don't care, but because we don't interfere. So, its essential that
we stay poised, and this is easy as long as were remaining true to the intention,
whatever it is. More experienced Field training students come to place a premium
on this poise, and wont allow their consciousness to be drawn into concerns
about the timing, the ways and means, or even the exact form of further
fulfillment. Rather, having intended the new version of self, they rest lovingly in
the feeling of "it is done," as Step Three of the method directs them to do, and
when the factual manifestation comes, it comes as a wonderful surprise.

page 55 of 100
My ship comes in over a calm sea, states Florence Scovel Shinn, pointing out
that when our wanting is too intense, we are, as she puts it, demagnetized. In
Field terms, we would say that this surplus of intensity indicates a
counterintention, an acute awareness of lack that incarnates in corresponding
events of its own. In the heat of desire in the usual Particle sense of lacking
something we want, or counterintending of any sort, we can return to poise either
by adopting the stance of the Witness, or by retrieving uncertainty, which means
releasing unwanted conclusions.

Adopting the stance of the Witness means meditatively watching or noting without
judgment any inner or outer state that may ariseincluding one in which were
jumping to a conclusion we dont want. Inwardly we take a step back, and
immediately feel our poise returning.

Retrieving uncertainty means that, in the face of an unwanted conclusion thats
throwing us off balance, we remember we dont know as much as we think we
know. We do this by remembering to ask ourselves, in the heat of the moment,
Do I really know this? When the conclusion involves a counterintention, the
honest answer invariably will be No. So, we tell the truth, and it sets us free
from the knowing that was working against us. Questioning any unwanted
conclusion and coming back to the underlying truth of uncertainty returns us to
our beginners mind. It allows us to return to our native innocencea word that
means literally not knowing. Innocence is poise. It wipes the slate clean of any
counter-intentions, and clears the way for deliberate intending.

MUSIC

TITLE
everything happens backwards

MUSIC
page 56 of 100

TEXT
Of all the strange statements we find in Field training, this one has to be about the
strangest. Everything happens backwards. What can this mean? Well, weve
said that the Particle believes the world to be cause and the self to be the effect. In
other words, the Particle self lives in continual reaction to the world, believing or
disbelieving as dictated by facts and so-called evidence. In all of this, the Particle
self never dreams that, hiding within its reactions, is the cause of the very facts to
which it's so busy reacting.

We want to make this point clear, because it really sheds light on the whole
process through which consciousness becomes reality. Lets think of a simplistic
example to start with. Suppose a man is walking around angry. He has a short
fuse. Now, something is going to come alongit doesnt matter what it isto
make him angry. Guaranteed. Lets say he spills some coffee on his shirt, and
the war starts. In this example, its easy to see that, while he may believe that
spilling the coffee made him angry, the truth is that he made spilling the coffee
angrythat is, he made it something to be angry about. The reaction was there
before the fact, and it made the fact what it was. The reaction came first.
Another, more subtle example. Imagine a woman who believes that men, as a rule,
look down upon her, dont take her seriously, and never value what she has to
say. This is her intention. We know that theres a good reason for it, a payoff that
makes sense, and it doesnt matter in this example what that might be. Now, she
will screen out anything thats inconsistent with this intention, and zero in on
anything that supports, corroborates, or justifies it. She may be talking to a man
who is momentarily distracted, and his distraction will immediately register with all
the significance of how men are, while a man who appreciates her and even tells
her so may not be someone she can take seriously, precisely because he doesnt
fit the requirements of her intention. The conclusion that her experience keeps
proving, it turns out, is a foregone conclusion, as all conclusions are. Were all
page 57 of 100
constantly shooting arrows into a fence and painting bulls-eyes around them. We
search out, agree with, defend, and require whatever version of events supports
and proves our beliefs, and ignore, dismiss, trivialize, and deny any version of
events that doesnt. Our intentions screen in and screen out according to their
lights.

Now, most importantly: We are not just talking about perception here. The
nonlocal efficiency is always operating, such that the Field serves up whatever
version of events we require. A man convinced that hes unlucky in love really is.
He may think that this is something about his luck, never guessing that his luck
follows from his belief, and not the other way around. It doesnt do, in Field
training terms, for him to point to his chain of failed relationships as evidence and
insist, No, look, it really is this way, because Field training doesnt deny the
experience; it explains why thats the experience he keeps having.

We see then that it isnt just beauty thats in the eye of the beholder. all seeing is
creative. Interestingly, the origin of the word eye is closely related to the word
fountain. Seeing is a flowing-out that lends form to the thing seen. The
persistence of intentions bestows what we call reality moment by moment, as
we discussed earlier. So, what we call the event may be viewed as a gateway to
different versions of that event, an infinite number of which actually all exist in the
Field, equally available, and requiring only the corresponding intention to spring
into expression. In every case, the event will match and be caused and sustained
by the intention-stance toward it. The intention comes first; the thing happens
backwards. This is retro-causality from the Particle point of viewa central
concept in Field training. An event seems immovable only when our stance has
become immovable. The intractability we may feel and ascribe to the event is
really nothing more than our rigidity, resistance to change, unwillingness to
relinquish the old payoff, and so on. The event will not, cannot change as long as
we continue reacting to it in the old way, because the event, as we experience it,
page 58 of 100
has issued from the intention that then shows up, seemingly, as our reaction to the
event. If we choose to enter the gateway differently, we meet a different version
of the event. The world, seemingly objective and separate from us, follows the
lead of our intentions. It cant do otherwise, no matter how much we blame it.

Especially in a crisis, its useful to allow a fluid, accepting, unresisting stance long
enough to pass through the gateway of the event into an alternate version of self
and reality. Just staying unresisting may be all thats needed. No version of any
event can persist without a corresponding consciousness evoking and sustaining
it. The event in itself may be regarded as an opportunity, nothing more, for
consciousness to come home to itself as the creative source and make a better
choice than its made so far. If we want to see a situation changed, we mustnt
allow ourselves to be distracted by its details. Any situation is highly fluid as long
as theres no intention locking it in place. We can move through the gateway of an
event any number of ways, spontaneously calling forth new situations. However
convincing the facts may seem, theres nothing inherent in any situation that
compels us to accept it as conclusive. Instead, we can regard the situation as
unfolding, and remain faithful to our deliberately chosen intention for no other
reason than it pleases us to do so.

Nothing is impossible. All realities can incarnate, and any fulfillment can take
form. Change the consciousness in relation to an event, and the event itself
changesthe event, mind you, and not just the perception. Pay attention to
reactions; they betray the underlying intention that required the very event that
seemed to cause them. Hardness is mirrored as hardness, softness as softness.
Willingness is an irresistible force. Alignment and nonresistance manifest as the
best outcome for all concerned, without fail.

MUSIC
end of week four
page 59 of 100
TITLE
week five

MUSIC

TITLE
the many-worlds model

MUSIC

TEXT
In 1957, Hugh Everett III proposed the Many-Worlds model to explain certain
anomalies in quantum mechanics. The idea of multiple realities had already been
set forth by the Copenhagen School, suggesting that with each observed event,
the world splits, or decoheres, into non-intersecting, or orthogonal, realities,
but that the observer remains a special case. After Everett, whose work is now
accepted by the great majority of the worlds leading physicists, we understand
that the observer is not a special casethat is, the observer splits, too.

Something crucial happens at the moment that an event is observed, i.e., the
moment it becomes an event as such. The act of observation triggers a split, or
decoherence, of the universal wave function into the manifest (observed) reality
and all of the other versions within the local wave-function set. These other
versions collapse as far as were concerned, but they dont cease to exist;
rather, they are released into their respective, orthogonal realities along with a
corresponding version of the observer.

Those versions of the observed event that did not manifest here, manifested
somewhere, and are every bit as real in their respective space/time frameworks to
their observer as the version that manifested here is real to us. In a way that defies
mapping, all of these split-off versions of the observer are oneself.
page 60 of 100

The implications are as wonderful as they are staggering. First, Many Worlds
gives us the conceptual distinction between real and manifest crucial for Field
practice, since the belief that a desired thing is not real just because it isnt
manifest is a counterintention. Indeed, a thing can manifest only if it is already real
(in some orthogonal world), just as a television broadcast can be made manifest
on a TV screen only because it is already present in the airwaves. Second, it
suggests that desire for anything may be a nonlocal event; that is, when we want
something, we are experiencing a nonlocal bleedthrough of the fulfillment being
experienced by that version of self that has it. This means that we cant want
anything that is not already ours; all we need do is correspond. (This principle
operates under the jurisdiction of the Field, which does not admit of contradiction,
though it appears to in Particle counterintention. Speaking structurally, the Field is
One, and cannot be set against itself.) Finally, Many Worlds can fill us with a
great appreciation for the boundlessly prolific creativity of the Field, as each split-
off reality arises with its own complete time line of histories and futures, and
presumably those realities also split with each act of observation there, and so
on, ad infinitum, in all directions. For all its richness and wild diversity, the
physical universe we see is a drop in an endless ocean of all we do not see.

Physics holds that the Many Worlds are indeed orthogonal (they dont intersect).
Field training maintains that they do intersect, each time our intentions shift.
Intending deliberately allows a different version of self to phase into this reality.
Then, of course, our part is to live without contradiction in the resolve that It is
done, which in practical terms means that we refuse to counterintend, even if the
evidence seems to demand it.

In Jane Robertss brilliant book, The Nature of Personal Reality, Seth asks,
Which self? Which world? Studies of multiple personality disorder have
established clearly that dramatic, even shocking changes (such as the
page 61 of 100
disappearance of scars) can occur when the subject shifts identities. In Field
training, we know that it isnt just the physical body that shifts when there is a
shift in identity; it is also the body of our experience, the world. We live always at
the intersection of many selves, many worlds. Which direction we take is up to
us. The next better version of who we are is already real and available. It only
needs our permission to manifest. To this end, we distinguish in Field training
between fact and truth, just as we distinguish between real and manifest.
Something can be (and must be) real before it can manifest, and something can be
(and must be) true before it can show up in fact. Truth for us is the truth of
identity, an inside job, rather than empirical or scientific truth. The facts,
therefore, may not be in line right now with the truth weve deliberately claimed,
but this is not something that we allow to derail our practice. No fact has the
power to compel us to accept it as a conclusion rather than as part of an unfolding
of further fulfillment. In time, the facts always fall into line with whatever truth
were allowing to be convincing. Truth establishes fact, and not the other way
around.

We can think of a TV set as a metaphor for Many-Worlds. Although the TV is
tuned in to one channel at a time, the other stations co-exist in the same time and
space. We watch a specific channel by tuning into it, which we can do because
the TV is a receiver. In the same way, which Particle reality shows up in our
experience depends on our receptivity. It already exists; we simply need to tune in.
We tune in by changing the channel of identity through deliberate intending.

Every intention broadcasts its own I AM sense, a body-sense complete with
attendant emotions, which gets translated into events on the TV screen of time
and space. Its this I AM sense that gets fulfilled. We have to be aware of this
whenever we intend something, because if that essential element is missing, were
just desiring and visualizing, and neither is creative. If, for example, the I AM
sense is one of urgency about a certain outcome, the mood of urgency implies the
page 62 of 100
underlying belief that the desired thing isnt happening, or wont happen, or wont
happen soon enough, and so on. In the reality where the intended thing already is,
there would be no sense of urgency around its coming into being. You wouldnt
feel urgent about getting something you already have! This sense of urgency
belongs, then, to an unwanted version of self, which makes it a counterintention.
We could say simply that the urgent-self corresponds to incarnations of lack. In
tuning in to or aligning with our deliberately chosen intention, we would find a
mood of joy and gratitude will attend spontaneously manifesting as we enter the
desired point of view. So, we havent intended in alignment until we feel happy,
fulfilled, and grateful in the imaginal experience of the new order.

In accepting that there are an infinite number of realities, each demonstrating a
different version of a given event, we must acknowledge that there also must be
an infinite number of corresponding versions of self experiencing these realities.
This is the key. All versions of oneself are real and available. So, for example, in
this world, lets say were sitting in a caf having coffee, but in another reality
(from our standpoint, unmanifest), we did something elsein fact we did an
infinite number of other things in an infinite number of other realities. In
consciously incarnating a desired version of self and its corresponding reality,
nothing new needs to be created. Its only a matter of receptivity to what already
is.

The Many-Worlds model is useful in that it gives us a way to accept the reality of
something that isnt yet manifest. As were open to the reality of the factually
unmanifest, were no longer held back by the Level-2 counterintention that the
reality we desire needs to be created. This gives us a way of accepting without
contradiction that the intended reality is no less real just because it isnt part of our
space/time frame of reference at this moment. When we deliberately intend such a
reality, it does manifest, immediately and effortlessly, in that inner realm where all
realities are available to us, commensurate with our receptivity or willingness.
page 63 of 100

We can play with this idea that there are many versions of reality, many versions
of self, many versions of others, and many outcomes for any situation, all of them
available for deliberate intending and expression regardless of how it appears from
the present standpoint. Reality and the self are not limited to any particular
incarnate version. Our convictions are often constrictions. By being willing to
move beyond them, we arent just changing psychological states, like attitude or
even perception. Were changing ontological channels, tuning in to a different
version of self and world.

MUSIC

TITLE
the magic eye

MUSIC

TEXT
We dont create reality, then, strictly speaking; we simply allow ourselves to be
the desired version of self, period. Anything that can come into expression already
exists, Many Worlds tells us, in a pre-incarnate state that can incarnate
immediately and effortlessly in our convinced imagination. What we create
through deliberately intending is a different version of self than we've been, one
that already belongs to the reality we desire. This idea gives us one of the most
important principles in Field practice: Intending isnt a way to make something
happen. Its a way of being the version of self for whom its already happened.

The popular Magic Eye pictures give us a wonderful metaphor for this. Youve
seen these, perhaps in books or printed on postcardsat first, the Magic Eye
picture looks like a collection of colorful, repeating, abstract patterns. If you look
page 64 of 100
at it a certain way, suddenly you can see a three-dimensional image emerge from
all the wavy lines and static. Some people try hard to see the hidden image and
have no luck at all. They may even doubt that theres an image there. Now, how
does one see the picture? Well, it requires a different kind of seeing. In other
words, one must change oneself to meet the image. We do this by unfocusing
our eyes, which deconstructs our usual way of seeing, and looking through the
two-dimensional pattern. You really cant make this happen. Its more accurate to
say that one unfocuses and simply lets the picture emerge. Theres a collaboration
involved. When the picture shows itself, you can see that it was there all along.
You didnt have to create anything.

Deliberate intending is like this, because whatever we are wanting to manifest
must already exist, fully formed, in some world before it can become a factual
condition in our world. In order to call it forth into manifestation, we need to
unfocus our will, stop trying to make anything happen, stop resistingand simply
occupy, inwardly, the point of view of the version of the self that corresponds to
the desired condition. When what we wish to see is already given, any effort of
the will misses the pointlike looking for glasses that we dont know were
wearing.

When we look at the Magic Eye patterns to experience the 3-D image hiding there,
we learn that we need to deconstruct our vision, so we can look with new eyes
through the two-dimensional image and allow the picture to emerge. This
deconstructing is a lot like the release of personal will that surrenders itself
lovingly to the reality of the inner construct. Then the manifestation comes,
showing itself first inwardly, and then, in whatever way the Field arranges,
outwardly as well. Intending involves an act of loving surrender to the desired
version of self and reality.

page 65 of 100
In practice, this means that we dont look directly at the situation we want to see
changed, but through it, through the factual evidence around us, to a hidden reality
claimed in our imagination that will emerge in fact just as it did inwardly, in
whatever way the Field arranges. We do this by entering the point of view that we
would have if the desired reality were a fact now, and resting in the feeling of
fulfillment. At some point, when we arent looking directly for it, because we
arent looking directly for it, the manifestation comes forward to meet us. We
deconstuct linear time in the same way. Deconstructing time means that we stop
looking for the outer manifestation, stop waiting for it, wondering when it will
come, watching for it, and all of this. When time is deconstructed through letting
go of all watching for and waiting, the unmanifest reality has room to show up. In
Field training we say, Deliberate intending turns time into gratitude, because
gratitude flows naturally from the consciousness of already having received.

MUSIC
end of week five
page 66 of 100
TITLE
week six

MUSIC

TITLE
uncertainty and time

MUSIC

TEXT
As Particles, we seem ever ready to identify with and agree with conclusions we
dont want. This tendency follows from our immersion in linear time. Immersion
is a state of largely unmindful, reactive consciousness in which we're more or less
driven by unwitting intentions, forgetful that the self is cause, and all but asleep to
the Witness and to our power to make new and better choices. One way we can
wake up from immersion is to invite the natural expansion of our awareness by
recognizing that linear time is a Particle construct.

The Particle views time as a winding river, flowing from upstream (the past) to
downstream (the future). Were sitting in a little boat called the present, and
cant see very well what lies ahead. In Field terms, theres no time but now, just
as theres no place but here. At first, this may make little sense to the Particle,
because of the long-held belief in linear time that claims us as soon as weve
forgotten the eternal now that we experience as children. By the time weve
mastered language, time has mastered us. We dont realize its a construct. As
with any intention, it presents itself not as a structure of consciousness but at
how things are. Seeing through time depends on realizing that, while we can and
do imagine the past (through memory) and the future (through anticipation), all we
ever really experience is the present. All we ever really know is now. The past that
page 67 of 100
we regard as independent, as having its own non-negotiable life on some objective
timeline, is being constructed right now, by present intention.

We can think of time then, as a lake instead of a river. The present is like a stone
thrown into the center of the lake. Ripples that go out from this center in one
direction represent past events; their movement in the opposite direction, future
ones. Clearly, from the higher vantage of looking down on the lake, we can see
that all of these times exist simultaneously, and that each pair of ripples implies a
different timeline of past, present, and future, each originating now. We can see
that time isnt a line at all, but an expanse encompassing all that was, is, and will
be, and since all of the action is being generated now, and since we have the
power to choose what we intend, were free to create revised pasts, shifted
presents, and new futures in this rich medium. In practical terms, deconstructing
linear time frees us from counterintentions by returning us to uncertainty. A shift
from counterintention to uncertainty is an improvement, because at the point of
uncertainty, we have a choice. Uncertainty is the perfect place from which to
deliberately intend whatever we desire. So, opening to nonlinear time facilitates
conscious creating.

MUSIC SEGUE

Lets look at how uncertainty is useful. As a rule, the Particle experiences events
on a timeline, which is one dimensional; Field efficiency, on the other hand,
arranges events as synchronicities, a term coined by Carl Jung to explain a subtler,
richer ordering at work in the universe. Synchronicity, brings forth so-called
coincidences that strike us as uncanny, benefit us in some way, and correspond
so precisely to the significances and intentions underlying them that no rational
mind could believe them to be mere accidents.

page 68 of 100
As we trade unwanted judgments and conclusions for uncertainty and open to a
more fulfilled version of self, giving that version life through our creative
imagination, we shift from linear time to synchronicity, opening the way to a
better reality. Questioning the authority of a certain conclusion, asking ourselves if
we really know what were alleging we know in a given situation, suspending
judgmentthese return us to the uncertainty from which we have the room we
need to agree with new realities, allowing them to spring forth unhindered by
contradiction. This is the meaning of Jesuss statement in the Sermon on the
Mount, Blessed are the poor in spirit, for they shall see God. To be poor in
spirit means to have no holdings in consciousness, to be open, like a child.

As an exercise, you can simply become aware during the day of how frequently
you give yourself to unwanted conclusions, especially in the form of judgments of
yourself, others, and the situations in which you find yourself. Note how quickly
and assumptively these conclusions and judgments become convincing. See if you
can catch the shift that occurs as you allow yourself to be drawn into an
unwanted conclusion. This will give you a good map of your intentions. It also
will make clear why uncertainty is preferable to believing with certainty something
you dont want to believe.

We know that we get what we are, and not necessarily what we want. We must
not only see the reality we wish to experience, we must be it, identify with it,
embody it inwardly until we feel just as we would if it were factually present. If
we want to be released from a situation, we have to release it in our beliefs, and
begin embodying, in consciousness, the desired reality as something already done
and real. If we want love, we must choose to be loving; if we want abundance,
we must choose to be grateful for the abundance that is already ours; if its health
we want, we must choose to identify with whatever representations of vitality,
capacity, and strength come to us within, and claim them through dwelling in the
corresponding point of view. In short, intentions have to be embodied. Without
page 69 of 100
this embodying, our imagining never reaches beyond visualizing and wishful
thinking.

We could launch our practice by losing the misconception that intending is a
mental event. It isnt. It has to involve the inner body-sense. Do you know what
this is? Imagine sucking a lemon. You can taste it, cant you. All right. Which
mouth is tasting the lemon, and which lemon? Neither is physical. They exist
inwardly, more or less as counterparts of the physical. Inner experience for this
body-sense is so real, your physical mouth will begin producing saliva as your
imaginal mouth sucks on the imaginal lemon. Feel an imaginal golf ball in your
imaginal left hand. Now feel an imaginal tennis ball in your imaginal right hand.
These arent visualizations or mind-pictures, but embodied experiences. This inner
body-sense is acquired the moment we assume the point of view of the inner self
that is already experiencing what we want.

The self, through imagining this way with conviction and presence, is the gateway
to the desired incarnation. A desired change in any situation depends entirely on
the self changing what it regards as real about itself. To this end, our unwanted
conclusions and judgments, made from within the framework of the old, habitual
intention, contradict our efforts and keep us from something better. Its essential
to catch the mind in the moment it asserts unwanted judgments or conclusions,
and call these into question until the mind is restored to a sense of uncertainty, at
which point were again open to receive. For example, lets say I approach Tom,
a co-worker, and ask him to do something important for me. He flatly refuses and
storms off. Instantly, my mind reacts: What a foolwho does he think he is,
treating me like that? and so on.

Applying Field training to this situation, I would realize that the situation perfectly
embodies my intention, revealed in my snap judgment and its presumed knowledge
and authority, in my readiness to go to war. Is Tom really a fool? If he is, then I
page 70 of 100
must be one, as well, for only a fool would ask a fool to do something important.
But Im not a fool, and neither is he. I approached him because he's always been
helpful when I asked him to do something before. So the minds judgment doesnt
hold up. Clearly, theres something going on that Im not aware of, something that
perhaps would explain Toms behavior. I realize that I dont know whats going
on. Now, resting in uncertainty, free of judgment, I can go to Tom and ask what I
would ask if Id been intending a successful, satisfying exchange with him:
Whats going on? Is everything okay? Most importantly, from this shifted place,
I can ask sincerely. This is important because an intention isnt just our words,
but the consciousness behind our words. Florence Scovel Shinn writes, You can
control any situation if you can first control yourself.

MUSIC

TITLE
who knows whats good or bad? a story

MUSIC

TEXT
The following parable illustrates how a stance thats open beyond judgments and
conclusions has the power to revise facts, often right before our eyes.

In ancient China, there lived an old farmer who worked a small plot of land with
his teenage son. They were poor even by the most modest standards. During this
time, horses were considered great treasures; the richest person in the province
owned no more than a few of them. One day, a wild horse came galloping into the
town, jumped the old farmers fence, and began grazing on his land. According to
local law, this meant that the horse now rightfully belonged to him and his family.
page 71 of 100
The boy could hardly contain his joy, but the father put his hand on his sons
shoulder and said, Who knows whats good or bad?

The next day, the horse made its escape back to the mountains, and the boy was
heartbroken. Who knows whats good or bad? said his father again, with the
same equanimity hed shown the day before. On the third day, the horse returned
with a dozen wild horses following! The boy could hardly believe his good
fortune. Were rich! he cried, to which the father replied, Who knows whats
good or bad? On the fourth day, the boy climbed on one of the wild horses and
was thrown, breaking his leg when he landed. His father ran to get the doctor and
was soon helping him treat the boy, who was crying and complaining about his
miserable fate. The old farmer wiped the boys forehead with a wet cloth, looked
deeply into his eyes, and said directly, My dear son, who knows whats good or
bad? And on the fifth day, the province went to war, and army recruiters came
through the town and conscripted all the young menexcept for the one with a
broken leg.

As with all parables, this story depicts states of consciousness available to all of
us. We all have farmer consciousness, which is open, unresisting, and centered
in its own authority, and this authority is made available by uncertainty, by the
willingness to not-know. We also have the son consciousness, which is quick to
judge, reactive, and tossed about on the changing winds of worldly conditions.
The Field often uses what seems to be failure or misfortune to fulfill our hearts
desire in a surprising way.

MUSIC

page 72 of 100
TITLE
remembering the field

MUSIC

TEXT
Our aim is always to relieve our consciousness of any conviction of lack of the
desired realitylack of health, supply, love, direction, or fulfillment of any kind.
We want to clear this belief and immediately begin to embody the self to which the
fulfilled reality corresponds.

We may need to have a talk with ourselves if doubt or fear comes up. One thing
we can do is recall our identity with the Field, where nothing is lacking. The Field
is All There Isthe timeless, changeless, self-knowing Intelligence expressing
Itself in countless forms, everywhere, all at onceand if the Field is everything, it
must also be you, meaning Particle-you. The Field expresses effortlessly out of
Itself, and as the Field is the very wellspring of Being, everything that we want
corresponds to some Field attribute. So, if we find ourselves counterintending,
which means believing we lack something we want, we can call to mind the Field
attribute that resolves the problem, then remember our identity with the Field,
which implies our identity with that attribute and, ultimately, with the desired
condition. If, for example, lack of supply is the problem, we can align with the
Fields abundance until the evidence of lack is rendered unconvincing. In other
words, if we find ourselves counterintending, we can use a relevant Field attribute
to return to uncertainty. So, in the case of believing in lack of supply, we might
reason something like this:

This seeming lack is a construct inconsistent with the Fields nature. The Field is
endless supply. At every turn we see demonstrations of Its vast power and
willingness to proliferate. Inexhaustibly, It creates out of Itself each moment,
page 73 of 100
everywhere. Is there too little space in the universe? A shortage of atoms or
quanta? Not enough waves in the ocean or leaves on the trees? Are there too few
grains of sand on the beach, or too few species on our planet? The Field is
constant supply; It knows nothing of lack. And, as the Field is myself, my life also
must be an expression of this abundant supply. Therefore this seeming problem
has no basis in reality, and I now recall myself believing otherwise.

If health is the problem, we might call on the Fields unlimited reserves, tireless
energy, effortless self-movement, and power to transcend, evolve, and embody
the ideal; if its loneliness we wish to alleviate, we can remind ourselves that there
can be no pain of separation in the Field because the Field is oneness.

Now the purpose of such reasoning isnt to convince us that what we want is
real, but only to unseat our conviction that what we dont want is real. The point
is to move from counterintention to uncertainty. If we give ourselves to the
relevant Field attribute, if we identify with it, not just saying words but entering
the spirit of it and taking it to heart, it returns us to uncertainty, and uncertainty is
the crossroads of realities, the intersection from which a new self can be received
inwardly and claimed at any moment through deliberate intending. So, we may not
be able to shift instantly from the belief I am poor to I am rich, but after
considering the relevant Field attribute and remembering our oneness with the
Field, we should at least no longer be convinced that I am poor is the whole
truth. This allows us to step clear of any counterintention supported by evidence,
and intend with a clean slate.

Ive seen this work many times. A student is immersed in I am poor, then
considers that, if this is true, given the obviously wild abundance of the universe
at every level and every turn, he must be the great exception. The whole of
Creation is teeming abundance, but somehow there is a drawn around his feet, a
circle of poverty in which he stands and into which the Field cant reach.
page 74 of 100
Suddenly such a belief, convincing a moment earlier, seems silly. Then the student
begins to reckon all the ways he is richrich in friends, rich in experience, rich in
language, rich in artistic creativity, rich in humor, rich in intelligence, rich in
physical beauty. Notice that this doesnt take away I am poor. Field practice
doesnt take away beliefs. It does, however, make I am poor less than entirely
convincing. A germ of uncertainty has been introduced that mitigates the
counterintention. Now I am poor is true and I am rich also is true. So the
student is bilocated. He has moved from immersion in contradiction to bilocation.
He sees he is this one and that one. Good. The next thing is to ask, who is seeing
this? And the student becomes aware that theres a third self: the one seeing the
bilocationthe one we call the Witness, and the Witness is neither this one nor
that one sitting in bilocation. The Witness it the one whos aware of both versions
of self, and so, the one whos free to choose which of the two versions to allow
to be more convincing through inner experience: the poor one or the rich one.
Suddenly what I am is seen as a choice. The rest is natural and effortless.

This sort of ontological reasoning works because of our underlying identity with
the Field, and the inherent gravitational attraction of alignment. As the Field is
myself, whatever is true of the Field must be true of me. This establishes what
we can think of as a triangle of identity, within which the underlying oneness of
the Field overcomes the belief that were separate from whatever it is we want. In
practice, waking from the experience of separation and suffering to the experience
of oneness and fulfillment only requires that we shift our belief in separation from
what we desire to uncertainty, to a belief in oneness with it. I am one with the
Field; the Field is one with the thing I desire; therefore, I am one with what I
desire. Of course, this has to felt and not merely stated or vainly repeated, to
have an effect. The feeling that comes with a shift from identifying with
separation and lack to identifying with oneness and fulfillment is invariably
gratitude, relief, a sense of happy completion.

page 75 of 100
MUSIC

TITLE
something small moves something great

MUSIC

TEXT
Field training incorporates certain elements of chaos theory, which maps unlikely
correlations between elements in seemingly separate systems. The best known
example of this is the so-called Butterfly Effect, which states that small
disturbances can have significant, far-reaching, and unpredictable consequences.
So, a butterfly flapping its wings in China can trigger a series of chaotic weather
reactions that shows up as a thunderstorm over your house! Ripples move out
from any center, gain momentum, multiply, generate larger ripples, and finally
reach the saturation needed for something to manifest. And the relationship here is
inverse: the smaller the initiating influence, the greater the efficiency and the more
dramatic the result. Less is more.

So, in Field practice, perfect inaction gives rise to perfect action. Recognizing this
inverse relation, as Field training students were interested in embodying the least
effort of will, because we understand that the more we release our will, the more
we open ourselves to Field efficiency. This release, as you know, involves both
the timing and the ways and means of fulfillment. Inwardly and outwardly, we let
something come. We can think of it as giving the Field right-of-way.

MUSIC SEGUE

Ultimately, the Field is undivided, a whole or holistic presence of limitless
intelligence, creativity, ingenuity, resourcefulness, and efficiency. From the
page 76 of 100
standpoint of Particle separateness, however, we may regard everything as being
connected to everything elseeven those things that are not manifestthrough a
network of invisible threads. These threads are so fragile, they can be broken by a
doubt, and so strong that even one, deeply and willfully held as an intention, can
keep us in a given identity and reality for a lifetime.

The degree of Field responsiveness to our intentions is inversely proportional to
effort, including the effort of concentrating the will or attention. This is entirely
different from other models that encourage focusing of the will. The only right
use of will in Field practice is the refusal to counterintend. We influence the matrix
by touching the threads lightly. The lighter the touch, the more effectively and
rapidly it weaves reality into the intended fulfillment, or whatever would be better,
and recognized as such.

MUSIC

TITLE
the field is left-handed

MUSIC

TEXT
Field training is paradoxical because it involves self-study. As St. Augustine
writes, The thing I am looking for is the thing I am looking with. Were using
consciousness to understand consciousness. The eye is looking at itself. This
raises important considerations of method immediately. We find quickly that it
does little good to take a direct, head-on approach; the eye really isnt designed to
look at itself, but it can see its reflection in a mirror. Again: Sometimes, we
glimpse a faint star in the sky, but when we turn the center of our vision toward
it, it vanishes. We can only see it by looking off to one side, by catching it in our
page 77 of 100
peripheral vision. Field action is similar. It rarely shows itself when were looking
directly at it. Rather, fulfillment comes when were busy with other things.

Many New Age books dealing with the idea that we create our reality advise us to
expect a miraclethe factual manifestation of some visualized reality.
Expectation is considered a force in the process through which the contents of
consciousness manifest in the world. In Field training, however, we dont
recommend practicing a state of conscious expectation. Why not? Well, consider
anything that you fully expect to happen, and youll see that its not on your mind;
rather, you take it for granted, and it is granted. You rest in the assumption, not
the expectation. For example: You arent in a state of consciously expecting the
next breath. If youre spending your day thinking about that, something is out of
whack! You take the next breath for granted. It isnt that the next breath is no big
deal. Its a very big deal. Its a miracle, and your life depends on it. But you see
the ease and grace with which you simply assume it, and youre not worked up
into a state of expectation about it. You assume the reality of breathing. Its part
of you.

Weve moved from expectation to assumption, and the whole thing becomes
natural and graceful. Were not looking at the thing anymore, so were not looking
for it. Really, were looking from it. In other words, as we come to regard the
matter peripherally, looking away from the world and into the stillness, fulfillment
appearsnot as a reward, or because weve made something happen through
some inner technique, but simply because the Field is agreeable.

MUSIC SEGUE

Please remember that Field training is paradoxical, so it cant be applied head-on.
You cant see the star by looking at it or even for it. You cant live gracefully and
naturally in a state of conscious expectation. Its a variation of the problem of
page 78 of 100
allowing desire to be urgent or desperate, also the problem of trying to create
reality that most of the New Age material overlooks. Especially if you want or
believe you need some factual condition intensely, it can take a little getting used to
the idea that the aim of practice is alignment, not manifestation. All I can tell you
is, make the great experiment of placing self at the center. It won't make you
selfish. To the contrary, it will give you a place to stand from which the Field's
generosity can flow through you into the world. And it will demonstrate the great
paradox that plays between being and having like some inscrutable music. The
world is ours, the moment we stop chasing it.

MUSIC
end of week six
page 79 of 100
TITLE
week seven

MUSIC

TITLE
revising the past and present
MUSIC

TEXT
The philosopher W.F. Hegel developed a principle he called the dialectic, which
gives us a way to understand how consciousness evolves through the events of
history, but also how history changes as consciousness evolves. Hegels famous
model is based on three elements: thesis, antithesis, and synthesis. In plain
English, it states that something happensthats called the thesisthen as a
result of and arising out of this event, something shows up that opposes or
contradicts itthe antithesisand finally, as a result of the conflict between
thesis and antithesis, a third thingthe synthesiscomes into being.

Now, the essential thing to understand about Hegels dialectic, especially in its
application to Field training, is that the synthesis isnt just a melding or
compromise of the thesis and antithesis. Its a transcending awareness, a level
shift to a new point of view from which it can be seen that the conflict never
really was a real conflict at all, but only a seeming one. With this transcending
point of view, the seeming conflict is exposed for what it is and, in this peculiar
way, resolved. You can find a great illustration of how this works in the story of
the Wizard of Oz. Dorothy finds herself tossed by a tornado into a strange world
with no way home. The situation goes from bad to worse. Finally, the Good
Witch appears to tell her that she had the way to go home all along, right under
her feetthe ruby slippers. Feet are associated with standing, where one makes
page 80 of 100
one stand, and the ground under ones feet with ones understanding. Clicking her
heels together and allowing her consciousness to drift into the reality she desires,
she wakes up in bed and resolves the how-to-get home conflict by realizing that
she never left.

Faulkner writes, The past isnt dead. It isnt even past. Since were actually
writing the version of the past right now, through present intention, that we
believe so unquestioningly is the past, were free to rewrite it. Under the sway of
the dialectic, the past is mutable, not fixed at all, the way we usually think it is.
You could, for example, find out tomorrow that you had been adopted, that the
people you'd taken to be your biological parents, in fact were not and never had
been. You can see how this new information would effectively change your past.
It would change it by showing you that the way you thought things actually was
was just the way you thought they were. When we shift the present, the whole
timeline shifts. Its never too late to assume radical responsibility. The present is
the point from which a new past and new future can be summoned into
manifestation. All timelines are creations in the living present.

We can use this tool in any situation where we believe that a past event is
operating as cause nowsuch as a series of unhappy relationships that has made
us fearful about getting involved with someone again; anytime we feel we some
experience in the past is unfinished or unresolvedsuch as a time something was
left unsaid that needed to be said; or simply to revise, inwardly, anything that
happened that we wish had happened differently. By revising the past, we do
much more than change our way of looking at our history. To the extent that we
rest in the point of view of the revised past, we actually alter the timeline, setting
into motion a series of nonlocal retro-causes that then bring about a
corresponding presentwhich means some form of the present we would have
experienced if the past event had happened originally the way weve intended it.
Despite the common Particle's belief in what we might call "objective time," the
page 81 of 100
past isnt over and done. Like the present and future, it arises as a construct of
consciousness now. We can create a better past at any moment.

MUSIC

TITLE
shifting as initiation

MUSIC

TEXT
The most remarkable thing I see in working with Field training students and with
non-students who are being Facilitated, is the moment in which one comes out of
immersion and accepts radical responsibility. This doesnt happen till its ready to
happen. Until we reach this point, we really cant see that were dealing with an
intention rather than with the way things are. Immersion is utterly convincing.
Especially when we talk about revising the past, this often comes up as a question.
How can I change what happened? It really happened that way?

For example, say someone reports having been abused as a child, physically or
sexually, and further, believes that this early trauma has led to certain problems in
adult life nowsay, problems getting close to someone or trusting others. The
abuse happened. Is Field training suggesting that the student can just believe it
away? If the past is over and done, how can changing a belief in the present
change what was? How can the student possibly shift so that he sees he was only
dreaming he was abused, especially when as we say so often, theres no denial in
Field practice, that practice begins with accepting things as they are? Or as they
were?

page 82 of 100
The question is often asked with an undertone of protest fed by immersion. As
long as we haven't accepted radical responsibility for any belief, the belief is fully
vested, and so doesnt appear to us to be a belief, but a feature of reality.
Intentions are meant to be convincing! So, the question becomes, how do we help
someone wake up whos asleep and dreaming that hes already awake? Once the
shift occurs, the stance that seemed incontrovertibly established in solid fact can
be seen for what it was all alonga belief pressed out into the world.

To see how this works, lets use the example of early abuse, because it illustrates
how the past is revised by a present shift, even in situations where the pre-shifted
version of the past is so convincing, one cant imagine how it could be a
construct. I was abused as a child is reported as fact. This is what were going
to work with now as a belief.

Tribal societies universally have rite of passage ceremonies. As part of these
ceremonies, the initiate is stolen away by the elders during the night, and taken off
into the jungle or the mountains. His face and body are painted with symbols of
adulthood. He's even given a new name, and upon his return to the community, no
one will be permitted to use the old name. Finally, a wound is inflicted
sometimes the elders knock out a tooth or cut the initiates thigh deeply enough to
leave what will be an identifying scar. The entire affair is violent and terrifying,
and as no one is allowed to talk about these secret ceremonies, the young initiates
have no idea exactly what's going to happen, or when.

Now, the inflicting of the wound is the pivotal part of the ritual, because there's
never an initiation without a wounding, without a loss of the old selfsomething
the elders of the tribe understand well, and for all we may judge such practices to
be primitive, even barbaric, we would do well to understood and honor it
ourselves, in our modern, more enlightened and civilized societies, where we
constantly inflict wounds without initiations, or mistakenly think that we can have
page 83 of 100
something without having to live up to it. What we want wants something of us,
and having always requires a willingness to be, a change in who we believe we
are. This change gives us a new identity, commensurate with our willingness to
lose the old one. This loss of the old identity is the price of admission to the new
reality. Many of us want the new reality without having to undergo this
transformation of self, and this is a formula for contradiction and suffering. We
dont get what we want; we get what we ARE, and what were willing to be. In
Field training, if we find ourselves stuck in a problem, it means weve resisted the
initiation, and are stuck in the wounding that would, if unresisted, convey us by
our willingness to a new and better version of self and reality. As Joseph Campbell
writes, Where you stumble, there lies your treasure.

MUSIC SEGUE

We can return now to our student who reported, I was abused. He finds it
inconceivable that this could be revised. The past is the past, after all. What can
one do about it? Well, as creators, we can do everything about it. The belief I
was abused is an intention. So, now, we call in the dialectic, and expand the
context of the dream. We invite the student to consider that he was not
necessarily abused, not even in fact, but only wounded, and if he chooses, he can
now recast this wounding as a wounding of initiation. It doesnt matter that those
who initiated him didnt know they were doing so. Life knew. The Field knew. It
can be claimed. What matters is that what one claims now suddenly can be seen
to have been true all along. I was initiated is a profoundly different intention
than I was abused. From the expanded context, the student can see clearly that
abused is a construct of wounding, a way of spinning it, a dream. The student
who is willing to trade seeing himself as a victim of abuse for seeing himself as an
initiate doesnt just take on a new attitude; he rewrites the past. He becomes the
version of self that corresponds with his having received an early wounding of
initiation rather than abuse. In other words, he shifts into alignment with the
page 84 of 100
version of self whose wounding conferred a new and greater identity, who was
initiated into a new and greater reality, and as a result, inherits now, in the living
present, those specific gifts and talents and capacities quickened by every rite of
passagegifts and talents and capacities that he did not have prior to the shift,
and most interestingly, that invariably demonstrate a direct and intimate, almost
poetic relation to the details of the wounding.

Anything can be revised through a corresponding shift now. Even the belief I
was wounded is an intention! It, too, could be deconstructed in favor of
something greater since, from a more expanded awareness, the I AM cannot be
wounded by the world. Our realitypast, present, and futurefollows, in perfect
step, what we take to be real about who we are.

MUSIC

TITLE
release and co-creation: implications for the particle

MUSIC

TEXT
Release of the intention is essential to deliberate creating. It isnt our job to
visualize what comes within, and it isnt our job to dictate the ways and means or
the timing of factual manifestations, or even their exact form. Engaging our will in
these ways only cuts us off from the very efficiency we wish to see expressed.
Demanding a certain form of manifestation is a kind of hubris in which we try to
do the Fields job. And hubris, as the ancient Greeks knew and tried to tell us,
turns out to be a fatal mistake. Only the Source can be the Source. We cant
invoke Field efficiency if we refuse to grant the Field right-of-way.

page 85 of 100
From the Particles point of view, releasing the will and delegating all fulfillment to
the Field, may at first seem like an abdication of responsibility. It can be especially
challenging to let go of our will and release the intention with a heartfelt, this, the
equivalent, or whatever would be better (as a way of releasing the whole
business of further fulfillment in fact) if we dont believe anything could be better.
Opening to the eventuality of something we cant imagine may feel like opening to
chaos, but as weve discussed, chaos holds within itself unexpected forms of
higher ordering and fulfillment. The pioneering physicist David Bohm calls such a
higher level the implicate order, in contrast with the explicate order thats
showing up for the time being. This maps nicely to Hegel's model, too. From the
standpoint of the explicate order (the way things are, or thesis prior to shifting),
the implicate order is hidden, so releasing ones will can feel like letting go into
uncertainty and chaos (which we may experience as antithesis). Were up against
the limits of Particle knowing and Particle will, which are, youll remember from
Week One, seriously limited. There is, then, no way around this leap of faith. If
we want to open ourselves to the efficiency of the Field, we have to open
ourselves to the uncertainty and seeming chaos of letting go. It does help,
however, to remember that were making this leap of faith one way or another
whether we like it or not. If we put our faith in our limited will, its no less a leap.
So, we can trust Particle efficiency, with its limited knowledge and resources, or
we can trust the efficiency thats spinning every electron and every planet and
every solar system everywhere, all at once, and stop giving ourselves to the silly
idea that whats creating the universe each instant cant create a job or a happy
marriage or a few extra bucks. Through this release, we make room for a
surprising fulfillment or resolution to find us, which is, of course, like Hegel's
synthesis.

We can see why factual manifestations often come in the proverbial eleventh hour.
When weve finally surrendered our will, our agenda, our insistence, we free the
Field to release the implicate order, the synthesis, the hidden resolution. In light of
page 86 of 100
this, its helpful for us to view creating as co-creating. Remembering that Particle
will is ultimately not the doerits not the creator in any direct, managerial way,
though it likes to pretend to bewe can remember the Field and avoid hubris. Co-
creation is the inevitable stance of a Particle that knows itself to be utterly
dependent on the Field for the fulfillment of its needs and wants, right down to the
current breath. The Fields ways are past finding out. Our part is to intend
consciously, remain true to what we've intended, and rest in having received.

We know that trying to dictate and control an outcome immediately implicates us
in a counterintention. Involvement of the individual will works against all
manifestations of Field efficiency, inner and outer, and this has led us to the idea
that our intentions need to include release and a granting of right-of-way to the
Field if theyre to be fulfilled. From another perspective, its impossible to impede
Field efficiency, because that efficiency always operating, but this isnt much
comfort if one is counterintending and hard at work unwittingly incarnating
unwanted conditions.

One way we can encourage the needed release is to remember to qualify our
intention with, this, the equivalent, or whatever would be better, keeping in mind
that if something better than weve intended does take form later, well recognize
it as better. With this stipulation, we remain open to a greater fulfillment than we
may have imagined within the limitations of our local, Particle consciousness. This
simple statement of willingness reminds us that our creating is really co-creation, a
collaboration between Particle and Field in which jurisdiction has been turned over
to the Field. Having relinquished all interest in controling the process, we can stay
open intuitively to Field direction, and may further intend (at Level 2) that this
nonlocal guidance is showing itself to us in clear, conspicuous ways. A
remarkable conversation commences between the local self and nonlocal Self.
Having entered the intention as a point of view and having released it, we can
remain receptive to nonlocal information and direction from that corner of the
page 87 of 100
Field in which the corresponding reality is already manifest, a corner we will have
visited and enjoyed and claimed. Release, then, isnt just an affirmation. Its a way
of being.

MUSIC

TITLE
co-creation and the fields will

MUSIC

TEXT
Students have often asked if the Field has intentions for us, perhaps something like
the notion of a divine plan or Gods will, in religious circles. The answer, in
typical Field training fashion, is yes and no. The Field, as far as we can talk about
it, may be thought of as having two aspects: law and love. In its aspect as law,
the Field corresponds to Particle intention and release, period. It has no intention
for us, no plan, no will. Were free to intend our greater or lesser good as were
willing to imagine it, co-creating lives of joy and fulfillment or contradiction and
suffering in the service of whatever payoff has our willingness. The Field has no
opinion and no choice about it, any more than electricity has an opinion or choice
about flowing through wires once the connection is made. One can plug in an
electric blanket or an electric chair. So, in this sense, the Field is neutral. In Its
other aspect, however, as love, the Field is an evolutionary impulse, giving of
Itself continuously for ever greater expressions of everything we regard as
goodgreater life, greater creativity, greater identity, greater health, greater
supply, and so onin short, everything we love.

Clearly this love isnt the specialized love of romance or filial bonds, but the
mystical love described as the yearning for ever greater wholeness and oneness
page 88 of 100
with the ideal, and the giving of self that allows such yearning to be fulfilled. In
this sense, we might say that the Field is on our side. Einstein said the most
important question we can ask is the question, Is the universe a friendly place?
Based on the Field aspect of love reaching toward ever greater expressions of
goodness, Field training answers this with a resounding yes!

MUSIC

TITLE
calling on the future

MUSIC

TEXT
Earlier, we discussed the idea of time as a lake rather than a river, and suggested
that all timepast, present, and futureare simultaneous and accessible. This is
more than a metaphor. Studies conducted by Helmut Schmidt at the Mind Science
Foundation in San Antonio, Texas, demonstrated that individuals, using only their
mind, could affect the distribution of binary numbers on a tape produced by a
machine called a random numbers generator. A random numbers generator is
something like a sophisticated adding machine that spits out a long tape with
zeroes and ones distributed in arbitrary groupings. Schmidt astonished the world
when he further showed that this effect of mind over matter also could be
achieved by a subject exerting an influence on the machine after the tape already
had been produced, as long as no one looked at the data beforehand. This
supremely curious dimension of the experiment could be explained in one of two
ways: Either the numbers on the tape were rearranging themselves to fall in line
with the subjects influence after the fact, or the numbers generator was
responding to an event that hadnt happened yet. Since the first explanation is
utterly counterintuitive, Schmidt and his colleagues concluded that, in these tests,
page 89 of 100
at the time the numbers generator was producing the tape, the subjects
influencea future eventwas reaching back in time to affect the distribution of
numbers.

This phenomenon of influence by an event that hasnt happened yet has also been
demonstrated in another area of psychic research, remote viewing. In these
studies, a subject would remain in the laboratory with a researcher while a second
researcher went into the city to select a random target location, which the subject
would then attempt to describe in detail. In some of these tests, the subject began
describing the target location accurately fifteen minutes before it was selected! If
you want to read more about these fascinating studies, check out Russell Targ and
Jane Katras book, Miracles of Mind.

This sort of research makes it clear that time isnt inherently the linear, inflexible
medium we usually take it to be. The present can change the past; the future can
be summoned into the present. There are no hard temporal lines, then, but
tremendous flexibility and permeability, tremendous latitude for conscious
creating. We can call now on the wisdom we believe well have when were a
hundred years old, just as we can summon the strength and youthful enthusiasm
we remember having at twenty. It isnt time that limits us, but our beliefs about
time. All realities are available to us now. Whatever doors of time we believed
were locked to us, we can open now with the master key of self-definition.


MUSIC
end of week seven
page 90 of 100
TITLE
week eight

MUSIC

TITLE
radical self-trust

MUSIC

TEXT
Its not insignificant that, when a desired factual manifestation occurs, especially
suddenly or dramatically, we conclude that something weird or strange has
happened. Ive heard so many students react this way to the Field arranging some
wonderful surprise for them that I wondered for a while if the That was weird
factor wasnt some sort of ontological law. Of course, were free to name such
happy events as weird, but the assessment invariably involves a Level-2
counterintention. We can release ourselves from this judgment by reminding
ourselves that ALL of Being is a miracle, and that metaphysically, theres nothing
commonplace about even the most ordinary thing or event. When a factual
manifestation takes place, then, as we feel the tug of Particle opinion jumping to
express itself in the alienating belief, That was weird! we can catch ourselves,
and substitute That was wonderful! if this is something wed rather believe. At
some point, we may want to begin to accept and allow the working in our life of a
higher organizing intelligence than we knew was available. This requires a little rite
of passage, a letting go of the consciousness that seeks to remind us that whats
happened isnt how things are normally. Isnt it our aim for demonstrations of
consciously summoned Field efficiency and generosity, inner and outer, to be
normal and natural in our everyday experience, the rule rather than the exception?
If so, we can welcome them when they happen, make room for them in our
page 91 of 100
beliefs and our life, befriend then rather than keep declaring them strangers. As I
like to say of these wonderful Field expressions of further fulfillment, Amazing,
but not surprising.

Radical responsibility entails radical self-trust. Imagine for a moment what your
life would be like if you embraced, in the great roominess of awareness, even your
worries, fears, and doubts? If you trusted every desire, believed in your original
innocence, and lived established in that trust? Every state of consciousness has
its truth, even doubt and fear and moment of anger! Theyve something to say to
us, and may be, as one poet described it, begging for sympathy. We can listen to
them, learn from them, thank them, release them, and move on to something
better rather than staying locked in combat with them. Our worries, fears, and
doubts then could be affirmed as part of the unfolding fulfillment. Without an
enemy within, we would find none waiting for us in the world.

We can stop resisting our feelings no matter what they are, and choose instead to
believe that even sometimes intensely uncomfortable emotional and physical states
are meaningful, even beneficial, and that the Field is moving us through them on
the way to the fulfillment of our hearts desire. How rewarding it is when we
discern their truth, validity, and message to usby using Dreamwalking or
Themewalking, or paying attention intuitively, or just being still. Radical self-trust,
like the Field Itself, is open and accommodating enough to receive anything, even
those states that, before, we may have believed earlier we needed to banish. Life is
very different when theres nothing to get rid of.

Transcending the war of constant point and counterpoint, OF self-doubt, self-
judgment, self-invalidation, self-censoringestablishes us in a deeper awareness
of our oneness with the Field. In this, the stillness becomes more deeply still, and
our intentions can be entered fully and with greater presence and fluency than
ever.
page 92 of 100
MUSIC

TITLE
when it doesnt seem to work

MUSIC

TEXT
There may come a time in your practice when it appears that the process of
deliberate creating just isnt working. Lets assume that youve carried out the
process correctly and deeply. Youve claimed and, since the claiming, rested
consistently in the deliberately chosen identity. Theres no hidden strategy to make
anything happen, and so no counterintention present, in these terms. The relief,
peace, and contentment of alignment are enoughfor a while. At some point,
however, you become aware that the manifestation hasnt taken form in fact, in
the world. Immediately, questions and paradoxes appear as though out of a hidden
fog: Isnt the belief that the chosen reality hasnt taken form in the world a
counter-intention? Should one repeat the process, especially if the seeming lack of
outer fulfillment is in any way distressing? How much time does the Field need to
bring about the factual counterpart of what has been claimed inwardly? How long
do we have to be prepared to wait without waiting?

Faith, like love as Shakespeare describes it, bears it out, even to the edge of
doom, and various spiritual writings tell us that our faith in the substance of
things unseen must be unwavering. Field training also tells us that consistency is
the cornerstone of practice. Yet, there are situations in which the outer fulfillment
seems to take an awfully long time in coming, if indeed its coming at all. Such
times can be more than a little challenging.

page 93 of 100
There are many useful things Field training has to say about this, the first of them
being that merely noticing that an outer fulfillment hasnt taken place does not
constitute a counterintention, as were free to witness what we notice rather than
engaging it through belief. On the other hand, letting the absence of a factual
manifestation count against the belief in the reality of whats been claimed
inwardly DOES constitute a counterintention, and if one finds oneself in this
situation, the only way out is to choose again, perhaps with a deepened resolve.

MUSIC SEGUE

How we respond when the factual fulfillment of our hearts desire and claim
seems to be taking a long time in coming shows us who we are. The choices
before us then are few and clear: Granting that, as far as we can tell, we engaged
the process correctly and fully, we can choose to believe that the process doesnt
work and abandon it. Or, we can choose to believe that the factual fulfillment of
our claim simply hasnt happened yet, but dismiss this as an insignificant
observation, witness it, and return to resting faithfully in the feeling of
fulfillmenta choice that may well lead back to the same questions and paradoxes
if still more time goes by, and our inner claim remains unfulfilled in the world. Or,
we can go a third route. This third route is based on a principle that, while not
explicitly addressed in the Course, serves as the centerpiece of Field Center
Facilitator Training.

This third principle or third aspect of Field theory is the intermediary between
Particle and Field: We call it the Wave. We can think of the Field as nonlocal-
nonlocal; the Particle as local-local; and the Wave as local-nonlocal. The Field,
which is All That Is, localizes into a set of wave forms that belong to a given
context and contain all versions of reality relevant to that context. So Wave is
more local than Field, but less local than Particle, which is equipped to realize only
one of these versions at a time. At the level of Wave localization, we can think of
page 94 of 100
things as being pre-manifest. Particle intention dips into the Wave, as it were, and
selects, through intending, which version of reality is to be lent form. The Wave,
however, already is involved in causality, time, and other laws governing
creaturehood, albeit with far more leeway than is the Particle. When we intend
something, then, we intend it in a context thats already under way, already
flowingor wave-ingand these things are taken into account by the Field in its
creating. So, if you intend to be with, say, someone whos married to someone
else, there are factors that are going to affect whats created that arent operating
if you intend to be with someone whos available. Since the Wave is more local
than the Field, it takes these things into account and works around and with them.
Our deliberate intentions dont just bulldoze existing contexts.

MUSIC SEGUE

This tells us something important and useful: Before the thing weve claimed can
take outer form, the Wave must find a way to flow into agreement with it, to
orchestrate all the relevant factors, which from the Particle point of view can take
time. In some cases, factual expression may not be available or available within a
timeframe that makes sense to us, but in all such cases willfulness is involved. If a
long time has passed without factual fulfillment, we may want to look into our
heart to see if we really are in full agreement with what weve been claiming.
Often were not. We either could have known, through intuition, what it was that
prevented what we claimed from being fulfilled in the way we intended, or in fact
did know, but ignored what we knew.

We have to sincerely release an intention to enlist Field efficiency in its fulfillment,
which is why we dont visualize or otherwise engage the will when we
deliberately intend. We release the intention in a spirit of willingness to receive
this, the equivalent, or whatever would be better, and sometimes, the truth is
that it would be better for us if what weve claimed didnt take form, because
page 95 of 100
there are factors we didnt know about and didnt figure on. This better isnt
dictated from on high, in loco parentis. Its better in a way we would readily
understand if we were still enough to intuitively receive the information that makes
sense of it, and indeed we may already know, but not be willing to face up to
what we know. Sometimes, the time it takes for something to take form finds us
wanting something different. All of these things come into play. While theyre not
and should not be used in Field training as loopholes that would render the
process vague or circular, they are relevant and worthy considerations, because
they soften our practice, lift it out of solipsistic isolation, and give us a real sense
of the beauty, unpredictability, reciprocity, and wisdom of co-creation.

MUSIC

TITLE
closing comments

MUSIC

TEXT
Weve covered a lot of ground over these eight weeks. I want to leave you now
with some practical suggestions that will help you steer clear of counterintention
and enjoy a deeper alignment in your practice.

MUSIC SEGUE

TEXT
Look away from lack. Withdraw your attention from problems, concerns,
worries, or evidence of a lack of the greater good you want. In Field practice, we
often look the other way. This means that, instead of dwelling on problems or
trying to figure them out, we remove our attention from them, disengaging in
page 96 of 100
conscious-ness from anything that contradicts the conviction that our fulfillment
is already real and present and ours.

MUSIC SEGUE

Be willing to live up to what youve deliberately intended. Conscious creating
isnt about what we have or can get, but about who we are. What we want wants
something of us; what we create also creates us, so its always a good idea,
before deliberately intending anything, to take a moment to be still and ask
ourselves, Am I willing to be what this new situation wants of me? Everyone
wants the perfect lover, but few of us stop and ask ourselves if were willing to
be the perfect lover. Remember the discussion about initiation rites? Every
fulfillment presupposes an identity choice, and every such choice involves a self
lost as well as a self gained. Getting married is usually a happy event, but marriage
also marks the end of the single life. Every intention, every reality, has its payoff
and its price. We invoke Field efficiency commensurately with our willingness to
live up to what we want, a claim we secure by our unwillingness to be less. So, as
we go from fulfillment to greater fulfillment, were giving up less for more, and
the loss of less is a real loss, perhaps even one we may need to grieve for a time.
Remember, the Field can express nothing in our lives that we havent earned by
right of identity.

MUSIC SEGUE

Regard outer form as a dream-construct. Waking experience is essentially the
same as dream experience, in the sense that both are constructs of consciousness
that outpicture the identity or I AM of the beholder. The intended reality must
have the right weight for incarnation, inwardly and outwardly: If its too
heavyif we care too much about it, if were are urgent or impatientit falls
through the bottom of the dream and fails to manifest. The deal falls through. If,
page 97 of 100
on the other hand, its too lightif we dont care at all) it floats away from
embodiment and goes up in smoke. Caring is essential; so is poise. In practice,
we place a premium on detachment or metaphysical indifference toward the
timing, the ways and means of fulfillment, and the form that fulfillment takesin
a word, toward outcomes. Row, row, row your boat gently down the stream,
the nursery rhyme tell us, since life is but a dream. If you begin to feel urgent or
anxious about the deliberately intended reality, simply witness this state, then look
away from it as soon as it feels natural. Return to the peace of alignment.

These are refinements of practice. As were able to remember, in the heat of the
moment, to regard outer form as a dream-construct, we become lighting rods of
Field efficiency. You know how fast things can change in a dream? As tough as
an outer situation may seem, the next moment could recast it along new lines. Our
hearts desire may seem a million miles away; then the phone rings, and suddenly,
we see it was at hand all along. Novalis tells us, We are near awakening when we
dream that we dream.

MUSIC SEGUE

Release any belief that the past is cause. In fact, the best direction is to give
up searching for the cause of the problem. The whole world is overrun with
experts figuring out the cause of all sorts of problems, putting forth various
interpretations of what they regard as precipitating events, combing the timeline,
looking everywhere but in consciousness, and whats the result? The problems
get worse. We got rid of the Fascists, and the Communists came in. The Berlin
Wall and the Soviet Union fell; now its the terrorists. The centuries-old feud in
the so-called Holy Land has now been globalized. These lessons dont go away.
Im telling you a truth that cant possibly be understood apart from radical
responsibility. We can point fingers, make someone the bad guy, assign the status
of cause to a certain event on a certain date, but meanwhile, we take our identity
page 98 of 100
with us. As Anais Nin tells us, We dont see things as they are, we see things as
we are. Since the world is the self writ large, the problem is never the problem as
we see it, but the underlying intention that requires the so-called problem to fulfill
its payoff. The cause of any problem is always the counterintention, the antithesis,
the resistance. If you find yourself rummaging through the past for explanations
of some current difficulty, believing that you can find the answers there, that
things will change as soon as you can figure out why things are the way they
are, youre counterintending. Its a failure method. Everything happens
backwards. The past that youre believing caused the current situation actually is
being caused by current intention. Shift the intention and watch the past
spontaneously change to correspond to the new version of you.

MUSIC SEGUE

Let the intended reality find you. In his famous Yogasutras, Patanjali maps the
evolution of the yogi from novitiate to jivan-mukat, to the state of enlightenment
and liberation from the karmic wheel, as these are understood in Hindu spirituality.
At one point, Patanjali discusses the siddhis, or mystical powers, that the yogi
inherits along the path of study. Some of these are fairly common; weve probably
all experienced moments of them. Precognition, the ability to see something at a
distance, also called remote viewing or clairvoyance, and the other more or less
common psychic experiences are in this group. Other siddhis are more dramatic,
such as the ability to levitate, make the body as heavy as a mountain, or manifest
any desired object out of thin air. In a cautionary note, Patanjali instructs the yogi
that its a great error to undertake the path of yoga in order to acquire the siddhis,
as such self-aggrandizement always brings serious and unforeseen consequences.
The true aims of yoga are knowledge and firsthand experience of the self and
reunion with the divine. Now, the contemporary spiritual teacher, Satchitananda,
in a commentary on the Yogasutras, asks an intriguing question: If the siddhis are
not and should not be the aim of yoga, why does Patanjali even mention them? If
page 99 of 100
interest in the siddhis for their own sake is bad, wouldnt it have been more
prudent to simply let the yogi discover them on his own as he matured along the
way, rather than provide a premature knowledge of them that might well tempt the
yogi and adulterate his purpose? In other words, if the siddhis are bad, why even
bring them up?

Satchitanandas answer is that the siddhis arent bad. Theyre beautiful. But, he
adds, theyre beautiful when they come looking for you, not when you go looking
for them. If the yogi stays true to his purpose, the siddhis will come chasing him
at some point, begging, Please, let us do something for you. And really, its like
this with anything we may want. When we go chasing it, even if we catch it, the
satisfaction is short-lived. But when we let what we want come to us, theres a
beautiful quality to it. We didnt take, we received. We didnt try to make anything
happen, but conducted ourselves, as Lao-tze writes in the Tao Teh Ching, like
guests in the house of a gracious host. Its as though the Field gave you a love-
note. You have a little secret with life. By contrast, chasing after the world to
make things happen is like stealing. And it is stealing in every case where what one
is chasing hasnt been earned by right of identity. Anyone who knows about the
irresistible power and authority of identity doesnt chase anything, but lets things
come, and they come.

MUSIC SEGUE

Want what you have. It isnt hard to be grateful when the evidence is friendly.
Its when we feel that our desire is being ignored or thwarted, its fulfillment
postponed or vetoed that we can shine by remembering our resolve to live as
cause rather than effect. Deliberate intending has to be wholehearted. If we
waver, conditions waver. Stay faithful to your chosen version of self, no matter
what, and leave the rest to the Field. Trusting the Field means trusting yourself,
page 100 of 100
including your desires. The Field is on your side, the living present is at hand, and
a better reality is only a choice away.

MUSIC OUT
end of week eight

END OF TRANSCRIPT