Intentions or Willingness

"Trust not your good intentions. They are not enough. But trust implicitly your willingness, whatever else may enter. Concentrate only on this, and be not disturbed that shadows surround it. That is why you came. If you could come without them you would not need the Holy Instant. The miracle of the Holy Instant lies in your willingness to let it be what it is. And in your willingness for this lies also your acceptance of yourself as you were meant to be." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 18, Section IV, 2:1-6, 8-9

"The Holy Instant is the result of your determination to be Holy. It is the answer." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 18, Section IV, 1:1-2

There is a lot of hype about intentions in contemporary spiritual books. From Wayne Dyer to Lynn McTaggert to Harry Palmer, there is a collective belief (which is not new) that we decide the course of the dream through supposedly conscious intention. Like most persistent lies within the dream, there is a kernel of truth in it, though well-hidden because it's upside down and backwards. All our intentions show us is our ego-agendas. But the one power of decision that we do have as the dreamer of a dream is to align ourselves with what IS, beyond all dreaming. This is the determination and willingness to BE as God created us, without interference from our very human, illusory agendas.

Like everything that is True, this makes no sense to our list-making ego-selves. If we don't do it, who will? If I don't choose to do something, nothing will get done! Right? Well, it's amazing but true that if one ant in the anthill stops or dies, the anthill still goes on. It's the same in all aspects of this dream we call life. Forms of people, places, animals, and things all come, only to pass. Everything and everyone is expendable in the dream. Haven't you ever asked yourselves why we work so hard to be somebody, to be important, to have money, to have security, when all those who have gone before us and achieved supposedly 'great' things have one thing in common: they are all dead, and all their great achievements go the way of all things within the dream. Even if we still tell stories about certain of these people, that is only to justify our own insane search for meaning within the dream. Talk about your no-win situation.

The mystery is that when we let go of planning and intending and goal-setting, and forgive all our illusions, the dream unfolds as if we had done a great deal of planning and intending. It's so funny to see yourself being completely fulfilled and happy in unexpected and blessed ways. Who would have thought? A Course in Miracles tells us that "humility will never ask that you remain content with littleness. But it does require that you be not content with less than greatness that comes not of you." (ACIM; Chapter 18, Section IV, 3:1-2) And Jesus said that "of myself I do nothing." The effortless life is not one in which we do no work and sit gazing at our navels. It's one in which we don't decide from our false ego-perspectives. Instead, we are willing to stop, to listen, and to follow. We are willing to be nothing, so that we can remember we are Everything.

"Do not attempt to give the Holy Spirit what He does not ask, or you will add the ego to Him and confuse the two. He asks but little. It is He Who adds the greatness and the might. He joins with you to make the Holy Instant far greater than you can understand. It is your realization that your need do so little that enables Him to give so much." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 18, Section IV, 1:6-10