(6)     25 Mar 94  01:58:00     Sent: Sat 26 Mar  0:27
By: Adam Sterling
To: Glenda Stocks
Re: Francesca
St: Rcvd  Sent  In transit
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 11:13 pm  Tue Mar 1, 1994        Number : 28 of 41
From: Francesca Thoman                 Base   : Dreams,Pastlives & Reincar
To  : All                              Refer #: None
Subj: Manifestation                    Replies: None
Stat: Sent                             Origin : 03-01-94 21:07


OBEHON IN "SPIRIT SPEAKS" MAGAZINE
(c) 1993 FRANCESCA THOMAN
FOR ELECTRONIC DISTRIBUTION ONLY
ALL OTHER RIGHTS RESERVED


                 HOW TO MANIFEST WHAT YOU WANT:

         OVERCOMING THE BARRIERS TO CHOOSING TO RECEIVE

     Not getting what you want in life, however uncomfortable, is
often a time when you have the most leverage to gain, or regain,
your spiritual perspective. Your longing for something can be
used as fuel, as motivation to correct the situation. The feeling
of lack or emptiness can be used like a compass, pointing out
where you might make better choices. The "Gee, I wish!"es and
"Why can't I?"s can be used to skillfully carve away what you are
from what you think you are.

     The first hint is that the greatest inner barrier to
manifesting what you want is not the lack of wanting it. It is
not the old tapes you have about money or wealth or greed. It
probably isn't lack of techniques or methodologies. It isn't your
fate or karma or some other ancient Cosmic Bank withdrawal of
"brownie points" you're still paying back. It isn't even lack of
vision.

     It's the fear of receiving.

     When you are receiving from someone or something, you are
not in control. The ones who are giving are exercising their
choice; you have to respond to whatever they present you, not
something you already know you have chosen. Receiving demands a
surrender. If you are insecure, especially if you are insecure
about your deservability, this can seem chancy at best. If you
frightened off before by the challenge and costs of receiving
hidden freight with ostensible gifts, receiving freely can seem
impossible.

     Often, you have to re-learn how to receive. There are
practical solutions for this that won't involve lengthy therapy.
One is to remember that only you can really give yourself the
full power of choice. This means not only to allow yourself the
right to refuse, the right to protect yourself, but to choose how
you react.

     This power of choice is very useful in this Western culture
especially, because when too many of you are given gifts you feel
automatically obligated, whether to return in kind, to receive
the gift in the spirit in which it is given (even if it is
something meant to hurt you), or to act towards the gift and the
giver in a certain, expected manner.

     When we're talking about expectations, we're not talking
about receiving with gratitude. It was not until mercantilistic
attitudes formed in your culture and others that gratitude became
a kind of repayment to the giver, to be demanded for services
rendered as money must be. Natural, meaning spontaneous,
gratitude should not spring from obligation. Especially now that
the spiritual aspects of your beings are coming in to play in
your lives much more than has been in the recent past, gratitude
is a way of acknowledging and honoring your own part in the
greater interplay of your life. It is a way to become aware of
your wholeness by keeping the natural cyclic flow of influx and
efflux.

     In short, gratitude keeps you from stagnating.

     But both your experiences in this culture and your past-life
memories make you aware how entangled the act of receiving can
be. Many of you see the motives behind some kinds of giving all
too clearly. Many of you, when you were growing up, had very
little experience with "unfreighted" giving. You were given gifts
to "make" you do something. You were given gifts and expected to
flatter others with your thanks (instead of freely expressing
your delight in the enjoyment of what you were given). You were
given gifts to buy your love.

     Growing up, you were given love with needs in it. You were
given love in order to make you love back, to fill some unmet
need of the giver. No wonder you've shied away from receiving! No
wonder you, the child, and you, the spiritual being, who both
remember what unconditional love and free receiving mean, drew
back from these distortions and confusions.

     But none of you could draw back from the distortions
completely. So some of you learned that the way to overcome them
was simply not to receive. But this has many consequences of its
own, often carried through several lifetimes. Some of you learned
this kind of unreceptive independence with such a vengeance that
you later went out of your way to find difficult environments
that were empty of love, where your needs weren't met, or at the
very least your desires were not.

     Why? Because it seemed better that you have no love at all
than a love which meant to extract from you what you could not
give: someone else's self-love or self esteem. Not to receive at
all is a way of controlling the receiving process, though a very
painful one.

     Some of you solved the conorundrum of your culture's beliefs
and distortions about receiving by learning how to do nothing but
give. This is another method of control, which works rather
better, as it is so lauded by your culture. It's harder for
someone else to give you something you don't want if you're
busying your hands (and hers) with your gifts to her!

     However, the quote, "It is more blessed to give than
receive," should more likely read, "The one who has abundance can
bless by giving." The one who has more, has more to give. You
cannot give out of an empty cup without tainting the gift yet
again with the same ulterior motives and needs you yourselves
were presented with. When you give from emptiness you have to be
saying, "Receive this and give me back what I cannot give
myself."

     Another way of not receiving is though the feeling of
entitlement. The attitude of entitlement -- the demand to be
served, to be slaved to, to be fulfilled in every ego's whim, to
take things for granted -- is another way of controlling, not
receiving. Often those who act the most entitled, who act as
though the Universe owed them, are at depth the most empty, the
most unhappy. Demanding to be served, to have your whims
fulfilled, is a way of abdicating the process of giving and
receiving to your egos. (As mentioned elsewhere, egos are
ill-equipped for the task of living your life for you, despite
their loudest protestations to the contrary.) But at least you're
not the ones who are having to deal with receiving. Better even
the most screwed-up life than that particular terror!

     You have every right to be cautious in giving or receiving
-- BUT ONLY AS LONG AS YOUR POWER OF CHOICE IS COMPROMISED BY THE
LIMITS OF YOUR BELIEFS. The notion of being a victim is the same
as saying "I am powerless to choose." The notion of powerlessness
demeans and cripples your strength, keeping you mesmerized in the
surface illusions of life rather than working from your own
Divine center of power. Your leftover sense of childhood
dependence keeps you from acting with your natural human sense of
authority, which means to live in the states of excellence and
knowing, and to act in truth.

     All these distortions are based on a misperception: the
misunderstanding of the meaning of "gift." To learn to freely
receive can take every particle of courage you have. But it may
help to know that most of these agonies can be let go when you
learn to respect and own your power of choice, of your own human
free will.

     Taking back your power of choice will be fraught with
confusion, though, as long as you confuse "responsibility" with
"blame." As long as the question "Who's responsible for this?"
means "Who can I dump my frustrations on?" neither you nor the
injured party are being responsible. When you begin to ask the
question, "Who can respond to this need?" you can put the whole
matter back into the realm of choice where whatever it is can be
dealt with effectively.

     If you pay attention to the times when you are being
responsive, you will probably find that you are acting from the
perceptions of your heart. Notice those times. Cultivate them in
your mind and memory. Use them to free yourself up from the fear
you've believed in, that if you have chosen something you are
going to be blamed and punished. Watch yourself choose from your
responsiveness. That is your real power.

     When you want to manifest riches or comfort or love or other
abundances in your lives, you sometimes also need to remind
yourselves that it is not less spiritual to desire. It is not
less spiritual to receive. It is not less spiritual to have. It
is not less spiritual to create a comfortable life. But sometimes
when one is spiritual, it is harder. Not because the desires of
the spirit and the desires of the earth are so at odds
(especially not now, when the Piscean dichotomies are giving way
to Aquarian unities). It is harder to desire and to receive for
some of you because your new spiritual perceptions give you such
a fine sense of the consequences.

     You have all been given tremendous gifts already. You have
been given something irreplaceably valuable: your very existence,
as a free gift from the Divine. You have been given your bodies
from your parents, your life and health and other pleasures from
your planet, care and succor and solace from your guides, light
and warmth and love from the sun. You cannot possibly return any
of it in kind. Indeed, the notion that you must is nothing but a
horrible delusion, for which you can forgive yourself right now.

     The surest and most perfect gift you can give the Divine is
the free expression of yourself. The very best gift you can give
your parents, whether they themselves are conflicted in their own
giving and receiving or not, is your own autonomy. Not just your
independence, particularly not in the sense that you beggar
yourself from their or anyone else's love in order not to receive
poisoned giving. But your autonomy: the strength to receive even
that poison, and overcome it.

     When you realize that you can control receiving, not by
giving until you're empty, not by refusing to receive, not by
feeling entitled, but by becoming strong in yourself, by taking
back your power and awareness of choice, you are free to manifest
what you desire. Paradoxically, you become strong by receiving
your self from yourself.

     Especially in this time of the changing Ages, you have to
relearn how to receive, and you must start with yourself. You
cannot manifest what you want until there is a place for it to
exist, a place for it to be received. When you've distorted
yourself for tens of years, tens of lifetimes, you can become
afraid of kindness. Afraid of love. Afraid especially of Divine
love, unconditional love, from whatever apparent source. Why?
Because that is the one love you cannot possibly return. You are
by your very nature, even in your most refined and splendid
state, a conditional creature. You are limited. How can you
possibly return unconditional, unlimited love?

     The paradox is that you can. This is what it means to be
human. But the way, the only way, to return this unconditional
love to the Divine Being which does not involve guilt or fear or
excess freight, is to give this love first to yourself.

     You cannot manifest what you want until you know what you
desire. You cannot know what you desire until you know who is
desiring it. You cannot allow the self who is desiring to receive
it until you love who you are.

     To repair this fundamental difficulty in normal times (i.e.,
not at the great cusp of a New Age), you would generally start
with what hurt the least to change. That is, you would start
loving yourself again where it was easiest. But now is an
accelerated time of inner shifts. It is a time of light-beings
falling into the earth-plane in a tumble of delight, a time of
old ways cracking apart and things never seen before springing
out from the remnants. Time itself is being compressed. It is not
so much that you do not have as much time as you used to, but
that you have more leverage with the time you do have. The energy
within your actions is greater. The effects will be greater as
well.

     Consequently, you should not necessarily begin by loving
what is easiest to love in yourself. Begin instead with what is
truest. In order to know who you are, to know what you want, and
thus to be able to manifest it, you must center your life around
what is realest in yourself.

     One of the best ways you can discover what is truest in
yourself is to defocus your ego. Meditate. Go into your garden
and attentively contemplate your roses. Do something that you
enjoy which demands your full attention. Then ask yourself,
"Where do I feel whole? What makes my heart leap with light,
reach out with joy?" Give yourself time to discover this. (Part
of you will likely be so astonished that you're asking the
question that it'll stand there with its metaphysical mouth open,
and won't be able to tell you anything until it gets over the
shock. Several milliseconds, at least!)

     When you have learned what that feeling is, then you can
look for the secret it holds. Is it some memory, of when you were
a child, of when you just WERE? Is it a feeling of your own
competence? Your own freedom of being? Your delight in a skill?
Find the secret within that precious feeling of whole joy.

     Then the next time you meditate, or sit in your garden, feel
that feeling again. Every time you let yourself feel this joy,
every time you re-discover this secret, you are giving it to
yourself. Review that memory, working on sound, color, tactile
sense, smells, even tastes. Make it a Big Production! Wrap it up
in all the good feelings you have, and give it to yourself.

     Don't worry, you won't have any of the old consequences,
because there is no obligation! You are the only one who can
truly give yourself unconditional, unfreighted love, because you
are the only one who has complete control over the giving and the
receiving. It is another paradox. When you try to control things
outside of yourself, you usually become very unhappy. When you
learn to control your own interactions with yourself, you feel as
though you were made out of happiness itself.

     This is your true nature: happiness.

     Another method to discover what is true within yourself, one
that does not ask that you be in touch with your emotions (which
is another problem, needing another solution), is to start with
what you want. New house, new car, a vacation? Money, prestige,
revenge? Start with the thing you want most. See it clearly.
Engage as many senses as you can: sight, hearing, taste, touch.
Then ask yourself why you want this. Be absolutely honest with
yourself, without judgment, or this will not work.

     "I want a new car." Why? "'Cause it'll look good." Why?
"It's new!" Why? "Because I bought it!" Why? "'Cause I wanted
it!" Why? (Don't let yourself wriggle off the hook!) "'Cause I
want to show that so-and-so down at the office that he's not so
smart." Why? "'Cause he's stupid!" Why? "'Cause he doesn't see
what's good in front of him (like for instance myself)!" Why
else? (Look for your own answers inside yourself. Don't give
someone else's shortcomings, real or imagined, as the reason for
your own unhappiness.) "I don't like him. He makes me feel
uncomfortable." Why? "When I get near him, I'm afraid." Why?
"He's judging me!" Why else? "Because I don't feel adequate."
(Ah. Now we're on to something.)

     And so on, as long as you can bear it. Yes, it'll hurt! Why
knows better than your own ego how to use pain against you?
That's what you're doing, confronting your ego's obfuscations,
the deceptions it uses to keep you from knowing it's running the
show. But with this method you will learn your own motives for
your wants. Once you learn your own motives for your wants, you
will begin to discover your desires. You will have a very
different handle on things, a very different set of problems, and
probably very different solutions. Rather than figuring out how
to impress someone else, you will discover where you need to give
to yourself. And the deeper you dig, the closer you get to your
real motives, the more likely your solutions will be effective.

     Yet another method to discover your truth is to use your
imagination. Imagine what you want. Think about everything you
want. Then imagine you have a magic genie in front of you. make
it real. Make it REALLY REAL. There really is a magic genie right
there in front of you. He or she can give you three wishes. Only
three. Whatever they are, no problem, but only three.

     You'll have to choose. You'll have to pick those three
wishes you want most. And you've got to do it carefully, because
it'll really happen. You can ask the genie for advice, if you
like. He's had thousands of years of experience with this kind of
thing! You can ask this genie what the consequences of your
wishes will be. You may be in for some surprising answers!
However it is, whatever you've chosen, when you've decided at
last, you can take your final three wishes, and live them out in
your imagination.

     Live them honestly and completely. Drive that new car in
your mind. Start on Monday, go on to Tuesday, Wednesday,
Thursday. After the first few weeks, do you still feel empty, as
though something were missing? Live in that new house. After the
first several mortgage payments, the broken water main, the
termites, do you feel trapped? Or say you want a ton of money.
See yourself spending it, hoarding it, using it, giving it away.
Have as much fun as you can. Do you still want something more?

     The degree of your dissatisfaction with these "fulfilled"
wishes is the distance between your real desires and your wants.
Desires are those things which would feed and heal your soul,
those things which represent your unconditional love for
yourself. Many wants are veils, covers, over what is real. They
take energy away from you. Your desires give you energy, delight
you, enchant you, make actions towards their fulfillment easy and
possible.

     There is no judgment against desires. There is none against
wants, either, though fulfilling them instead of your true
desires can be inefficient. When you have found what is true in
yourself, what feeds and heals your soul, then you are in accord
with your own intentions. Then you can see, clearly, what steps
to take, or if not you can lead yourself to the methods you need.

     As we said before, this unveiling of yourself can take every
bit of courage you have. You'll have to deal with a lot of stuff
you'd really rather not. You'll have to take your own power in
your hands, sufficient to go against some of your culture's most
dearly held myths.

     One of these myths is that it is wrong, selfish, to give
love to yourself. That you are capable of giving -- indeed you
are obligated to give! -- someone else their love of self, their
self-esteem. That what you want is what you desire. In other
words, the thing that would feed your ego will feed your soul.
That you cannot want your own splendor, your own excellence,
because there is no splendor, there is no excellence. That no one
can act as he desires because it is too costly.

     It is costly, true enough. But only to those ego-driven
belief systems that demand obligation, that want to usurp your
native power. When you have given someone or something else the
power to make you happy, you have given up your power. When
others have your self-esteem under their control, both you and
they are burdened. It is not costly to the world at large for you
to fulfill that which you have uncovered through your work as
that which truly feeds your soul.

     When you have uncovered your motives, you can start to work
with your self and your own energies, and not against them. When
you have discovered your truest desires, you will be able to
stand clear of the ego. When you are face to face with your soul,
then you can begin to understand the true meaning of the word
"gift." The more clarity you can uncover, the deeper the
understanding you can use, the more you will be able to receive.

     To receive your happiness from yourself is to give your own
being back to yourself, which you gave away because of
misunderstanding.

Love and blessings,

Obehon

PLAYTIME -- MANIFESTING WHAT YOU WANT

1: Choose something useful that you already
have that you enjoy or use a lot -- your desk, your favorite
chair, your shoes. If you can, lie down somewhere so that you can
view the object or objects upside-down. (Don't strain.) Consider
what went into this object, whether wood, or leather, or cloth,
whatever. Consider how each part is made, how the wood was found
as a tree, cut down, seasoned, trimmed, shaped, sanded,
assembled. How the leather was made by the animal and then given
as a gift, to be cured, processed, stained perhaps, cut, shaped,
put together. Or how the cotton for your favorite shirt was
grown, picked, cleaned, dyed, spun, sewn together. Now think:
"All these things have come together in the right place at the
right time for me to love and enjoy. The universe must be on my
side: it works with my desires in hundreds of ways. Thank you,
favorite thing, for coming together for me and being in my life
right now when I need you."

2: Choose another of your favorite things,
and pretend you live there. Pretend it is your whole universe,
the Universe of Desk, the Universe of Shoe. Feel mighty fine as
you play in your universe (as well you should). Make it as big
and as vast as forever. Then think: "I am not inside this
universe. This universe is inside of me. I am larger than all my
universe." Then bring your consciousness back to its usual self.

3: Imagine you can create anything you want,
like a magician, with a wave or two of your hand. Choose
something to create, and do it meticulously, with great care. Pay
attention to details as you weave your magic incantations. Play
with this thing, enjoy it. Then think: "This, too, is mine if I
want it. If it is not in my life now, still it is a part of me.
If it is not in my life now, I have not chosen it, or it has not
chosen me." Then if you can, let it tell you how to make it real.
If you cannot "hear" it, tell it to show you. Even if you don't
see or hear anything right away, you will get an answer.

4: Pick the most beautiful thing you know,
and look at it or imagine it. Say to yourself, "If this were not
within me, I would not see it outside of me. It is all right to
own my own beauty." Pick the strongest thing you know, the tides
of the sea, the light of the sun, the gravity of Mother Earth.
Say to yourself, "If this were not within me, I would not feel it
outside of me. It is all right to own my own strength." Do this
with as many qualities as occur to you. You don't have to have
any expectations with this exercise: your heart will feel better
anyway. And when your heart feels better, you will give yourself
more.

Obehon

... From "Spirit Speaks" magazine -- Obehon and Francesca
___ Blue Wave/QWK v2.12
--- GEcho 1.02+
 * Origin: AWARENET INTERNATIONAL 1-303-377-1963 Denver,Co (111:111/0)

