The Power of the Force
August 22nd, 2005 by Steve Pavlina
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The recipient of The Strangest Secret CD (see this post for details) was Anthony Salter, who shared his inspiring story The Power of the Force.
Anthony explains that when he confronted his fears and moved towards his goals with resolve and action, the universe helped make his dream a reality.
I’ve seen this same pattern countless times in my own life. It’s as if you first have to prove to the universe that you’re serious. When you reach the point of knowing that no matter how many times you get knocked down, you won’t give up, it’s as if the universe acquiesces and says to you, “Well, OK… if you’re serious about it, I won’t stand in your way. And here’s a little something to help you get started.” But if you want for the universe to make the first move, you’ll be waiting a long time.
My absolute favorite expression of the Power of the Force comes from the German philosopher Goethe (1749-1832) well… it’s complicated. (thanks to Tyrion for the correction):
Until one is committed,
there is hesitancy.
the chance to draw back,
always ineffectiveness
concerning all acts of initiative (and creation).There is one elemental truth,
the ignorance of which kills countless ideas
and splendid plans –
that the moment one definitely commits oneself,
then Providence moves all.All sorts of things occur to help one
that would never otherwise have occurred.A whole stream of events
issue from the decision,
raising in one’s favor
all manner of incidents
and meetings and material assistance
which no one could have dreamed
would come his or her way.Whatever you can do or dream you can,
begin it.
Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.
Begin it now.
August 22nd, 2005 at 2:38 am
That quotation isn’t really from Goethe.
August 22nd, 2005 at 3:30 am
Thanks for writing this Steve, and thanks for sharing your experience Anthony. That really resonated with me. And that poem is gold. I have had the experience where I committed absolutely to a result (and I am still working on it). Most of the progress came from my own effort, but there seem to have been a few lucky breaks where I seemingly randomly ran into a tool that made a dramatic difference. I felt like someone or something had made sure I ran into that tool, and I felt very lucky.
August 22nd, 2005 at 4:16 am
@Tyrion: Wow…. and all this time I’ve seen countless references to this poem as being from Goethe. Thanks for the correction. Isn’t the internet great? I’ll fix the original entry to add your link.
Now what am I supposed to do with the copy of this poem posted in my office???
August 22nd, 2005 at 5:31 am
Wow, this is really surprising. When I wrote that article back in March, I a) never really expected anyone else to read it (I think my mom is the only person who regularly reads my website) and b) I certainly never expected it to win me a prize from Steve! Thanks, Steve, and I’m really looking forward to listening to the CD.
August 22nd, 2005 at 5:39 am
Congrats Anthony!
August 22nd, 2005 at 8:30 am
@Viridian: You’ll find that when you move resolutely in the direction of your goals, it has the positive side effect of mobilizing like-minded individuals to want to help you even more. People who can help you will be more motivated to do so because they’ll perceive your commitment, so they’ll see that assisting you will not likely be a waste of time.
August 22nd, 2005 at 3:12 pm
(From Veridian’s blog)
“And when I did, the universe dutifully rearranged itself so that the job I really wanted fell right into my lap. I didn’t even have to look – it came to me.”
Interesting way of lookint at it. I remember Steve sort of saying this as well earlier this year (thoughts / beliefs shaping reality).
Previously I would have just said ‘Luck is where Preparation meets Opportunity’, and part of me has now started wondering about this comment.
If I move my water bottle I’ve physically altered the state of the Universe. If I have a thought my brain has (probably) physically changed. Maybe we’re all part of the same Universal Equation where what you think does have some effect on our the other variables (outside world, etc). Maybe some star just brightened up a bit as a result of the thought you just had. Careful what you think now…
Some of the floatier books I’ve read (you know, the ones that won’t stay on your bookshelf) all seem to point to something bigger than ourselves, e.g. God, God Force, Universal Mind, Collective, Deceased Spirits, Telepathy, Parallel Universes (one where I would now be at work), etc.
We know that are mind fills in the gaps for whatever believe we choose (perception on reality), so how can I ever know for sure that these things hold up. Or does it simply not matter as long as they make my life ‘better’ (one of those lies of success )? Or are they actually closer to the Universal Truth which is why they work?
So my question is (to everyone) what do you guys make of this? Is there a Universal Truth, or are we simply making it up in order to have a more exciting life? How do I measure this ‘objectively’? Where’s the manual for re-arranging the Universe? If I choose to believe I don’t exist will I disappear?
Please respond freely !!!
August 22nd, 2005 at 3:54 pm
Hey Steve, did you get many private entries for this competition?
August 22nd, 2005 at 7:42 pm
Koektrommel said:
”
“So my question is (to everyone) what do you guys make of this? Is there a Universal Truth, or are we simply making it up in order to have a more exciting life? How do I measure this ‘objectively’? Where’s the manual for re-arranging the Universe? If I choose to believe I don’t exist will I disappear?
I think that the current design of our brain is too limited to fully understand the universe at a high enough level. We’re highly evolved primates, but we’re still pretty limited. We don’t even have faster than light space travel yet (hell, we don’t even have much sublight space travel yet) or colonies on planets within our own solar system (though that’s probably going to change in this century).
Anyway, back to what you were saying. If you’re into sci-fi and have watched Stargate SG1, that show has “ascended beings” in it, which are aliens that have evolved to a point where they have turned into pure energy and now live in a diffrent plane of existence (or something to that effect). Babylon 5 also had something similar where the aliens Vorlons (who in the scope of the show were a species of the “first ones,” or in other words beings who were the first to be created by the universe billions of years ago) existed as pure energy as well. What I’m getting at is that in our current form, I doubt we will ever fully understand the universe. It’s possible though that we may encounter an alien species that’s been around for billions of years longer than us, and they might be able to enlighten us a bit or help us evolve and “ascend.” Or they could tell us that they’re gods and enslave us and make us worship them.
If you remember one of Steve’s earlier posts, he said that the lens we look through determines what we can see and what we can’t see (or something like that). He made the example that if a person can only see things in 2D, then if you show them a 3D object they’ll only see the 2D projection of it (so a cube would be a square, and a sphere would be a circle). This I think is a perfect analogy to our limitation in understanding the universe. The universe might be 4D, 5D, or 1000D but our eyes can only see in 3D. Anything we come up with will only be a projection of the universe onto a 3D world.
Now everyone will probably think that Steve’s not the only one who’s crazy around here.
August 23rd, 2005 at 9:16 am
Now I wonder if Dale Wimbrow actually wrote “The Guy in the Glass” B-)
August 23rd, 2005 at 11:11 am
Ilya said:
“If you remember one of Steve’s earlier posts, he said that the lens we look through determines what we can see and what we can’t see (or something like that) …. ”
Thanks for reminding me of that. That makes a lot more sense to me now.
“Now everyone will probably think that Steve’s not the only one who’s crazy around here.
”
I find going ‘crazy’ quite liberating at the moment actually.
GBGames wrote:
“Now I wonder if Dale Wimbrow actually wrote “The Guy in the Glass” B-)”
Never mind him, what’s up with that guy in the mirror who’s always staring at me. It’s just … weird!
Enjoy your day!
August 23rd, 2005 at 11:47 am
I have experienced this phenomenon often enough to know that it is real. However, I do not believe in unmeasurable forces, universal minds, parallel universes or guardian angels. My life experience tells me that when you have to choose between weird esoteric causes and plain old everyday simple causes, the simple ones are almost always the true ones.
So what causes this? Have you ever noticed that when you hear that your friend has bought an XYZ motor car you think to yourself “Why would he buy an XYZ – nobody drives them!” But over the next three days you see dozens of these cars where ever you drive.
It is simply that you are now attuned to looking for XYZ cars. Similarly, once you have truly committed to a course of action you will be aware of things, circumstances and people that can assist you. You would have come across these same things if you had not been on the mission you have selected, but they would have simply passed you by unnoticed because you were not receptive to their potential.
August 23rd, 2005 at 2:59 pm
I just came accross this quote on bible.org:
“But what is assurance? Basically, assurance is freedom from doubt; a sense of certainty that something is true, will occur, or that all is okay. Synonyms for assurance consist of words like certainty, certitude, conviction. All these nouns ultimately mean freedom from doubt.”
I think that’s a very crucial distinction – freedom from doubt.
It should definitely be a key factor in choosing your core beliefs, e.g. I could strongly choose to believe I could defy gravity, but standing on top off a building obviously will rais a lot of doubt about whether it’s going to hold up or not.
Steve, do you have some sort of God principle you use in your life, even though you’ve turned away from that originally? Have you redefined it in anyway from Christianity, or do you believe something else all together? Are you free of doubt in that area?
September 9th, 2005 at 9:24 am
Nice quotation below.
It is very true that in life, there will always be resistance or some force that make you feel bad about thing (e.g. enter a relationship, change your hair color or any physical change, do anything that people somehow make you think is bad from the childhood) and I also concluded that those can be considered like a kind-of test. If you go beyond those barrier, those people, those don’t-do… that means that you really wanted to do what you did. (e.g. sleep with the lapdance girl, go in art, be a singer, whetever
)