In this article, I will lay out some important principles of manifesting. The aim is to give you a clear idea of what it is that has to change within you for a manifestation to appear and help you focus your efforts on what really matters.
We often get caught up in confusion and over-complication, so this is an attempt to highlight the most important principles and bring them to the forefront.
Why Does Manifestation Work?
First, I want to explain the general reasoning behind how and why manifestation works.
Consciousness is the fundamental reality, and the physical world, space, time, objects, circumstances, your mind, and everything else are manifestations of pure consciousness. No matter the particular manifestation, consciousness always exists in its undivided and undifferentiated state at the bottom layer of reality. This may be hard to believe at first, but I want you to at least be open-minded towards this idea.
This means that your life is sort of like a video game. The “cause” of the video game is the computer, and likewise, the cause of external reality is consciousness. In the same manner that the graphics card, for example, cannot be found within the three-dimensional world of the video game, consciousness also acts completely independently of the manifested world.
The second thing is that, from your individual viewpoint, consciousness is an infinite intelligence and power, always ready to create or manifest whatever intention you may have. It is responsive to “suggestion,” as it’s often called.
The thing you want to be manifested could be something within yourself, like happiness or physical strength, or it could be something external, like money or a better social life.
If consciousness accepts your suggestion, it will begin the manifestation of it in external form. In your world, things will begin to happen, and you will find yourself led into particular actions until the realization of your desire has been accomplished. Consciousness has taken your desire and manifested it in your reality.
Manifestation is all about impressing your desire on consciousness, and letting it do the heavy lifting. The only external “work” you have to do is follow the path that is put in front of you.
While all this sounds extremely easy on paper, it’s actually quite hard to do it practically — it was so for me at least.
In truth, just because you learn how to manifest doesn’t mean that you will manifest a billion dollars overnight. While this may be possible, don’t think of manifestation as a magic trick. Instead, think of it as working with the laws of your innermost being.
Everything in Your Life Is Already a Manifestation
When you’re trying to manifest a particular desire, it’s easy to forget that everything else in your life is already a manifestation. Manifestation is something you do all the time!
Your present reality, whether good or bad, is the result of your state of consciousness. The only new thing you are doing when intentionally manifesting is learning how to consciously work with your subconscious instead of unintentionally impressing bad ideas upon it.
This is important to understand because it means that you don’t have to do something completely alien to you. You are already manifesting — you just have to learn to point this power in the right direction.
The Conscious and the Subconscious Mind
The subconscious mind (also called subjective mind) is consciousness itself, and the “conscious mind” is the lens through which you look, observing your mental and physical world.
To manifest something, you need to impress the intended idea on the subconscious part of you — This is where the power resides.
The practical importance of understanding this is due to the fact the subconscious is almost like a separate mind within you. For me, when I go into meditation to manifest something, it feels like I am in touch with a power that, in some sense, is beyond me and my mental faculties.
When you manifest, you are not trying to will things into existence. This is why it’s important to understand this twofold aspect of the conscious and the subconscious. If you try to use willpower, you are using the conscious mind and not the subconscious.
Instead of willpower, communicate your desire (more on this later) to the subconscious, and let it do its work. You are already controlled by the ideas held by the subconscious, and the only way to change things is by impressing new ideas.
In truth, your true self is the subconscious or the infinite consciousness within you. It is the “observer” or your awareness. But for the purpose of this article, we’ll speak of the subconscious as if a separate power. This is because the subconscious acts beyond the aid of the individual mind.
Trying to Do the Work of the Subconscious
As said, the subconscious is the hidden power within you. A big mistake I personally made a lot in the beginning was using too much willpower, either to bring the intended desire about or to force the desire upon the subconscious mind.
Think of it in this way: when the conscious mind is active, the tide of the subconscious is low. When the conscious mind is at rest, the subconscious rises to the surface.
Willpower is counterproductive because it activates the conscious mind, making the tide of the subconscious fall.
Likewise, overcomplicating it all does the same thing. While manifestation may be very complicated, doing it is simple. You don’t have to know everything about the mechanisms of your car in order to drive it. When manifesting, you are working with the intelligence inherent in the subconscious. It is not your individual mind that does the heavy lifting.
So, when you are in meditation and trying to impress your desire on the subconscious, do it with a sense of ease and restfulness, and let it be simple. That way, the subconscious is “at the surface,” ready to receive your suggestion.
Your Subconscious State
Why do we manifest one thing and not another? How do you manifest stuff that you actually want? The answer is that it’s your state of consciousness. More specifically, it’s your SUBCONSCIOUS state of consciousness that determines your results. As we looked at before, you can think one thing on the surface level of the mind, but if your subconscious disagrees, then nothing will change.
So, let’s say you want to be “confident.” It doesn’t matter how much you think “I am confident” in the conscious mind; if this is not translated into a subconscious state, then no result will be obtained. If, however, the subconscious holds the idea that “I am confident,” then it will direct your mind and your behavior in such a way that confidence will be obtained. Not only that, the external world will also be altered, mirroring this new state.
Consciousness is the first cause. No matter what your goal is, the cause is the state of consciousness, and the effect is the projection or manifestation of the particular intention or desire.
Impressing Ideas on the Subconscious (Changing Your State of Consciousness)
So, whatever it is you want to manifest requires you to make a shift in your state of consciousness. This is done by giving suggestions to the subconscious, which in this context is the infinite consciousness within you.
First of all, remember that the subconscious is responsive to your thoughts. You can impress thoughts through “techniques” such as visualization, affirmations, holding an emotion, and so on. Here, it’s important to remember that you cannot use FORCE and WILLPOWER to impress an idea, as those only reactivate the conscious mind.
Secondly, the subconscious is infinite intelligence. You do not have to THINK for it. It “thinks” beyond the individual mind. Once you give it a suggestion, it will use an intelligence beyond yours to assimilate the idea and to manifest it in external form.
Your desire will come in its own way, events will occur, and you will end up going through a series of events that lead to the accomplishment of your desire.
Techniques For Manifesting
So, how do you do this? How do you impress a new idea on the subconscious mind so that you can manifest your desires?
There are a bunch of different methods. The most common ones are affirmations, where you repeat something like “I am rich,” and visualization, where you imagine yourself already in possession of your desire. These are ways to impress the desire.
Additionally, I also do a technique where I go into meditation and then feel the emotion of gratitude, accomplishment, joy, or whatever it may be, which will manifest as results corresponding with the held emotion.
Since going into detail on any method is a bit off-topic for this article, I recommend you either read my article on visualization, affirmations, or my article called “Neville Goddard: How To Manifest.”
Meditation
In my personal experience, meditation is one of the most important things when it comes to manifesting. In my view, when you meditate, you are getting in touch with the deeper unseen layers of reality.
Meditation allows you clear access to the subconscious mind. As mentioned before, when the conscious mind gets lulled to rest, the tide of the subconscious rises. This makes meditation an ideal way to impress your desire through techniques like affirmations or visualization.
You really don’t need to be good at meditation to do this. The most important thing is that you relax and withdraw your attention from the outside world.
Also, I highly recommend you start meditating even when you are not trying to manifest something. This is because you’ll learn to navigate and familiarize yourself with the inner parts of your being. Even then, there is a lot of scientific evidence regarding the benefits of meditation, so there’s really no reason not to do it.
If you’re interested, I have an article on how meditation boosts your manifesting ability, which goes into more detail.
Repetition and Consistency
Repeatedly and consistently impressing your desire on the subconscious will make it grow stronger.
In my personal experience, it has not been uncommon that I have seen results shortly after going into meditation and impressing my desire, and then for it to slip away when I stopped doing these sessions on a regular basis. In truth, I am not really sure why, but it seems that you need to continually reinforce and strengthen the desire in the subconscious for it to truly stick. If it doesn’t, it will gradually be overpowered by contrary and more deeply ingrained ideas taking its place.
I recommend that you do some sort of affirmation or visualization technique (or whatever manifestation technique works for you) in the morning and in the evening. These don’t have to take more than a few minutes. Additionally, I like doing one longer session of 20+ minutes somewhere in the middle of the day, but sometimes I just do very short sessions, especially if I’m busy.
This may feel like it’s too much for you, but I recommend you try it anyway. Remember the seed in your subconscious needs to be watered and nurtured to grow in strength, until it becomes a deeply rooted part of your being.
Tip For Beginners: Focusing On Yourself When Manifesting
If you’re struggling with manifestation, then this tip is for you.
If you are a complete beginner, I also recommend “Complete Guide to Manifestation for Beginners.”
It’s likely that you already have a particular desire in mind, and since you are reading about manifesting, it’s also very likely that this desire is something that requires external conditions to change.
If you’re struggling, I actually recommend you try and focus on impressing some sort of quality within you rather than a specific outcome. For example, instead of manifesting “being rich,” try and impress your subconscious with the idea that “I am productive and work hard.”
It could also be…
- Becoming more cheerful
- Becoming more smiling and opening
- Becoming more confident and comfortable with yourself
- Becoming more motivated
- Becoming stronger and healthier
- Improving your memory
- Being able to stay focused and be productive
In my experience, it’s easier to change things about your own individuality as opposed to your environment, and it’s also easier to develop a quality like confidence rather than an outcome like being a millionaire.
In reality, if you manage to change yourself in this manner, you cannot help but also manifest changes directly in your circumstances, as the external world is a mirror of your state of consciousness.
Once you succeed at this, you will have more faith and confidence to try and manifest something that requires external changes.
Putting It All Together
While all this may seem hard, it’s important to focus on the fact that manifestation is about consciously choosing what ideas to impress on the subconscious. The ideas held by the subconscious control your life. The only way to change your results is to impress new ideas on it, and this should be your focus when manifesting.
It’s important to remember that your subconscious mind is beyond the individual you. You cannot use the individual mind to get results.
When you go “within” or into meditation, the conscious mind is lulled to rest, and the subconscious rises to the surface making it a great way for you to suggestions to it. Even just closing your eyes and relaxing for a moment is far more potent than saying affirmations while the barrier of your conscious mind is active.
You cannot force an idea upon the subconscious through willpower. Willpower is a factuality of the conscious mind and will only serve to reawaken it.
Keep doing these sessions on a consistent basis as it’s the best way to get lasting results. Think of it like a seed that has to grow among the wheat in a garden. The seed needs to be nurtured and watered, or else it will die.
The only way to learn this is through practice. I highly recommend you just try the best you can. Like any other skill, you will magically become better by persistently sticking with it.
While manifestation is no doubt a complicated process, the practical aspects should be simple and easy to do.
I hope you found this article helpful. Thanks for reading!
