http://tinyurl.com/2v2jdm (Institute of Noetic Sciences)
JH: Intention is, I would say, a localized beam of consciousness. Consciousness in its nature is unbounded, all pervasive, universal, pure being, pure subjectivity, pure self aware consciousness without an object. And that intention free, or even, object free consciousness is the simplest most fundamental state of human awareness, now considered to be a fourth major state of human consciousness, the meditative state, very distinct from normal waking attentive consciousness. As distinct from sleeping, dreaming, hypnosis, anything else that's ever been studied, it even has its own brainwave signature. So consciousness is by nature a vast unbounded reality, but when we focus the intention through our senses, for example, to a particular object or a particular thought or a particular intention, that's a localization of this non-local field of consciousness, a localized beam of consciousness, another analogy would be like a wave rising up on an unbounded ocean. So that's an intention, intention is directed consciousness, I think you could say, and that's how we pretty much all understand it anyway. BB: Yes. So given that definition of intention, it would seem that, and also based on the conversation with some of your colleagues that was published in Shift magazine, in a way as the Assembly is practicing it, is not specifically focused in this way on a particular intention, but rather opening up to the all pervading consciousness, so in a sense there isn't a specific intention, is there? JH: That's exactly right. It's good to think of intention sort of a localized beam of consciousness can be very weak or very strong, just like you can have a flashlight with very weak on batteries and the lens, even though it's a focused beam it's a very dim beam, and what we're really doing in the meditative state, we're turning off the beam, if you wish, letting consciousness expand to become global, universal and in the process of expanding consciousness it's like you've got new batteries now, if the intensity of the light is increased, now whatever you put your attention on afterwards is going to be more effective, more fruitful. Another way of understanding this is that intention can be very strong, the bible says, for example, through faith we can move mountains. It can also be extremely feeble and frankly often is. You can put some heavyweights together at a breakfast table, let's take your favorite consciousness relative heavyweights that you find running around the country today and you can ask this small group to move a speck of toast across the table and they typically can't do it. But why is that? These are not weak people, it's just that they're going about it wrong, in the sense that the deeper levels of mind, the more powerful intention becomes, and it's exactly for the very same reason, it's the quantum uncertainty principle. The quantum uncertainty principle is the principle of increasing power at deeper levels, at fundamental scales. The reason that nuclear power is a million times more powerful than burning an object, chemical energy, because chemical energy involves molecular manipulation and nuclear power involves manipulation of the nuclear structure, which is a million times smaller than the molecule, a million times more fundamental, and therefore, according to the uncertainty principle, a million times more powerful. Literally the power of thought varies by factors of millions, between people and even for a given subject, depending on whether that subject is using the mind at a stressed and agitated state of consciousness, superficial level of consciousness, or whether they're using the mind at a very expanded, very deep level of consciousness, that's where, that's the nuclear level of thought, almost the Unified Field level of thought, which is pure, unbounded being, and on the course the reason we're spending time in meditation, not necessarily thinking about peace, is because it's taking the mind deep down into there, the maximally expanded state of comprehension, universal comprehension, field of being, that's where thought is much more powerful. So it is really, in a sense, an exercise in intention, but it is intention that is entertained at the deepest, most expanded, most powerful level of consciousness, and that's why a couple thousand people, which is what we've got, can literally change the trends in an entire country, as big as the United States. BB: John if you could summarize that, let's kind of go back to the top, if the conventional notion of the power of intention is that if we focus on a particular image, or idea, of something that one wants or something that one is praying for or visualizing to come into being is not going to be all that powerful because it's at a superficial level of consciousness, right, I think you'd say JH: It is right, it's a question of skill and desiring. There's a technique in desiring, to desire at a very deep level. In the sense of prayer, you can go to a church where, you know, basically everyone is jumping around in the aisles, screaming out the name of God, that will provide a very excited level of mind, that'll provide some emotional upliftment for sure, or you can settle quietly and feel God's presence, and that will provide a practically more pervasive, subtle, but more powerful influence within the whole body, a healing influence in the whole body. Or you can identify with God, on the level of being on the level of cosmic awareness, His awareness or Her awareness, if you wish, where the separation is zero, and where thoughts are cosmically powerful, so intention can accomplish, it's just a skill in desiring, that's all, and the meditative training that we're involved with here is learning how to desire at a deep enough level such that the fulfillment of desire comes quickly, and where relatively few people can produce a really global effect. ...
