Manifesto: How To Get What You Want Without Trying

Imagine yourself standing by a river and throwing each thought, as it arises, into the current to be swept away.

Simply watch each thought arise from the nothingness and disperse again, making sure you catch the dispersal in case you lose yourself in the thought and get carried away.

Count your in and out breaths from one to nine and start again, or one to one thousand and eighty if you like, starting again at the beginning every time you get lost in a thought, visualize an extremely deep, dark hole, repeat, silently or aloud a mantra (sacred sound), such as:

Om (approximately, the sound of the Universal Dinner Lady’s belly rumbling)

imagine yourself standing by a river and throwing each thought, as it arises, into the current to be swept away.

Om mane padme hum (approximately, I surrender to the thunderbolt in the void)

Om shanti (approximately, peace)

Nam yoho renge kyo (approximately, I surrender to the law of cause and effect)

Gaté, gaté, paragaté, parasamgaté, bodhisvaha (approximately, go, go, go beyond, go beyond the beyond – to you (inside) who goes, I bow down)

Fortuna, Fortuna, give me my sweetcorn and tuna (approximately, goddess of good fortune, give me sustenance), or whatever you like really, as long as when you repeat it over and over, it cancels out the thoughts in your forebrain.

Or you can simply say to your mind with utmost authority, compassion and firmness, ‘Shut the f*** up!’ (which is approximately how I do it).

Whichever way you choose, and it really doesn’t matter which, as long as you achieve even brief moments of emptiness, start practising immediately and continue till you die, if you really want to …

form a clear picture now in order to get what you want

Come on, let’s do it. But let’s do it methodically, using the (carefully considered) aforementioned template. Let’s conjure up a complete internal experience of what you want to manifest now, in full Technicolor, sensaround, 7.1 Dolby surroundsound, complete with smell, feel and taste, starting with:

clean air

Picture yourself always breathing clean air now – feel it thrill your lungs and oxygenate your brain – and picture it following you wherever you go. We have to start here with the basics and nothing is quite as basic, not only to your surviving but to your thriving, than breathing clean (or relatively clean) air, at least while you’re on the planet. Moreover, by visualizing yourself breathing clean air, it’s more likely you’ll manifest realtime locations at which you’ll be able so to breathe.

pure water

Picture yourself always drinking and having easy, uninhibited access to pure, or relatively pure, drinking water now – feel it caress your oesophagus as it slides down. While this may have not yet been something you actively craved, there is every likelihood, without wishing to alarm you, that before very long, relatively pure water for drinking and cooking will become more and more scarce on the planet, so visualize well, my friend, and you may even manifest a pure water spring in your own backyard.

uncontaminated food

Picture yourself always eating the finest (uncontaminated) food, your table laid with a feast fit for a queen or king. See the vividness of the greens, the depth of the browns, golds and yellows, the lushness of the reds and oranges; imagine the smell of it wafting sensuously up your nostrils, the taste of it bringing pleasure to your palate and tickling your tongue. Visualize well, for as with water, clean, wholesome food will become harder and harder to come by as time goes on and a steady supply will be extremely beneficial to your ongoing wellbeing.

shelter

While it’s true that the essential purpose of shelter is to give you adequate protection from the elements as well as privacy, your home (or homes) also affords you the space to play out the theatre of your being, complete with props, sound effects and lighting. So don’t hold back as you visualize this, your perfect home or homes, located, aspected, designed, furnished, equipped and externally landscaped exactly as you’d like. Go into as much detail as you can muster, all the way down to the finish on the plug sockets, the feel of the bed linen, the width of the TV screen, the colour of the walls and floors, the shape of the swimming pool, the heat of the steam room and the green of the foliage as the breeze blows through it. See yourself with key in hand, opening the door and stepping in – smell it, run your fingertips along the worktop surfaces in the kitchen, gaze at your reflection in the bathroom mirror and tiptoe proudly through the tulips in the yard.

clothing

(including, for the sake of convenience, shoes, accessories and all hair, skin and bath products, perfumes, tweezers, nail clippers, razors and all the gubbins you need to make you feel presentable)

While the essential purpose of clothing is to protect you, both from the elements and from being arrested (other than in your own home or equivalent, or designated nudist areas), we wouldn’t have such a huge global fashion industry had we not the compulsive proclivity for dressing up for the purposes of impressing each other; and while it’s possible you’re so enlightened you don’t do that too, it’s unlikely, so visualize your wardrobe now, full of the most beautiful clothes and footwear you can possibly imagine and your bathroom shelves stocked with all the products you could ever want to pamper your beautiful body. See yourself stepping out in all your manicured finery (or neo-hippie throwaway chic, or however you fancy yourself looking), feel the fabric against your moisturized skin, the leather around your pedicured feet.

visualize your wardrobe now, full of the most beautiful clothes and footwear you can possibly imagine.

physical warmth

See log fires, underfloor heating, double glazing and roof insulation for the winter and warm sun on your shoulder for the summer, or however you like to take your physical warmth. See yourself now never having to shiver in discomfort – except, of course, on the rare occasion the boiler breaks down and you get ripped off by the plumber, for which occasional, inevitable eventuality, even the power of wu wei is no match.

physical comfort

While you’d think this would be covered by a combination of the above, comfort within your skin also depends on how flexible, supple and hence pain-free your body is, so visualize yourself being as loose as a long-legged goose without an ache or pain anywhere on your person – not just in an abstract way – actually visualize each limb and sector relaxed, supple, flexible and pain-free, and don’t just visualize it but feel it from within as well.

strength

No need to explain why you need to include strength in your list of things to manifest. If you’re not strong, you’re weak, and if you’re weak you won’t stand up to the force of the world, which grows stronger the more you manifest, and life will simply knock you over. Strength here applies equally to mental strength and physical, though generally, mental strength comes from physical strength (and to some extent vice versa). So visualize those back muscles strong as an ox, those rippling biceps and quadriceps, those flabless abdominal muscles and proud pectorals, and don’t just visualize them but feel them from within, rolling the concept out to include every sinew, nerve, bone, organ, blood vessel, sense organ, skin surface and all other constituent parts of your body. Be strong, comrade, sister or brother – the revolution needs you.

if you’re not strong, you’re weak, and if you’re weak you won’t stand up to the force of the world.

stamina

Wu wei or not, you’ll need stamina to do everything you’ll need to to manifest what you want – even to get through the day in a straight line you need stamina, so visualize yourself now tireless, indefatigable and with boundless stamina – enough to move ten mountains, not just one. And don’t just visualize it but feel it collecting and storing itself in your bones and tissues, especially your thighs, which provide the perfect repository.

energy

Well, obviously you have to have access to limitless energy or you’d flake out before anything good happens; as well as which, you need energy to support your visualization, specifically in connection with utilizing the micro-cosmic loop for manifesting purposes, a process to be explained shortly. So visualize yourself imbued now with infinite energy – see it filling, supporting and surrounding you, perhaps as light, perhaps as an invisible vapour – that’s up to you – and don’t just see it but feel it too, for as you see and feel, so will it be (you create your own reality), and see yourself thus imbued, supported and surrounded until your dying day as there’s no point programming yourself to flag when you get old or you won’t be able to enjoy whatever it is you’re manifesting.

visualize yourself imbued now with infinite energy.

health

Without preamble, visualize a rich golden fluid – the golden elixir of life – entering through the crown of your head, pouring down through your brain into your neck and through your throat into your body; through your heart, lungs, liver, spleen, kidneys, bowels, sex organs and all the other bits and pieces; through your arms, hands, hips, thighs, lower legs and feet; bathing every cell as it goes, renewing each one and making you well. See yourself enjoying robust health as you wander about your perfect home, energized, strong, full of stamina, wearing fine kit and smelling sweet.

longevity

While you may find it presumptuous to consider the possibility of extending your lifespan by choice, and while you may well be right, you might as well throw it into the mix anyway as there’s nothing to lose in doing so and possibly many years of extra life to gain. I do it all the time and am still going strong at 153 – and and feeling damn chipper too, I might add. So without further ado, visualize your cells reprogramming themselves for an extra lifespan now. See, if you’d care to be so bold, yourself dying hale, hearty and ready at the ripest of old ages with a broad smile of utter fulfilment on your face – why not?

see yourself enjoying robust health as you wander about your perfect home, energized, strong, full of stamina, wearing fine kit, and smelling sweet.

physical beauty

While you may think there’s something beautiful about being ugly, there obviously isn’t or we wouldn’t call it ugly. But before going any further, I must insist here that physical beauty, while obviously enhanced by such conventional considerations as symmetry of feature and buffness of muscle, is not solely dependent on them. On the contrary, physical beauty – the effect that makes people love to rest their eyes on you – comes from projecting your innate spiritual beauty through your features and body. So even if you’ve not been blessed (or possibly cursed) with perfect form, you can still enjoy projecting beauty exactly as you are to increase your lovability levels, which after all is why people want to be beautiful – so they can be more lovable and hence more loved. To which end, visualize yourself now radiating so much beauty as you wander in health about your perfect home and abroad, that all who lay eyes upon you feel instantly blessed, as if having just seen an angel from heaven. And don’t just visualize it, feel it spread across your face and body as a discernible glow now.

confidence

Without confidence, the Dinner Lady will pass you over in the queue. Confidence is perhaps the main part of your side of the bargain. It means literally holding the faith with or in yourself, and if you don’t have faith in yourself, no one else will either, and opportunities, which after all come to you through the agency of other people, will pass you by. If, on the other hand, you maintain the faith with yourself more or less consistently, others will too, and opportunities will befall you at every step along the Great Thoroughfare. So, without hesitation now, visualize yourself imbued with supreme confidence, see how it sits on your features and how it animates your body language – not with arrogance, but with dignified humility. See how it shines through your eyes – hear how it gives timbre to your voice.

freedom of movement

(including viable transportation methods)

While you may take freedom of movement for granted, the wisdom of historical perspective says you shouldn’t. Freedom is a relatively new experience for humans who tend to default to restricting themselves and others at every bend in the road. So visualize yourself now with immunity from all restrictions to your free passage wherever you may wish to travel – no road block, border, traffic jam, river, mountain or ocean can impede your progress, as if you have the power to make yourself invisible and thus slide easily past any obstruction – and don’t just see it, but feel the thrill of it in your body now too.