Spiritual Entropy

When we set out to manifest, it’s not always completely clear what we’re actually trying to do. Yes, we may have an actionable to-do list — “I’m going to practice SATS twice per day, I’m going to repeat these affirmations, etc.” — but that doesn’t help us understand what’s happening mechanistically. Meaning, we don’t know why manifestation works at its most fundamental level.

People will repeat vague platitudes like, “You create your own reality” or “Imagination is God,” and those statements are great, but they don’t really tell us any serious information. Most explanations of the metaphysics of manifestation read like a politician trying very hard to give the right answer to a question without actually answering it at all.

Now, even with all this said, it probably doesn’t matter why manifestation works if you can get it to work. We don’t need concrete answers to make progress. But, for most of us, I think it helps build faith/belief in our own personal process when we have a clear sense of what we’re trying to do when we work toward a manifestation goal. And, by reframing how you view your own process, you can end up making a lot of progress quickly.

Colloquially, entropy can be defined as “lack of order or predictability; gradual decline into disorder.” Or, even more simply, we can say that entropy is the process by which things progressively lose structure and become disorganized.

One of the best ways to conceptualize this is to ask why corded headphones always end up so tangled when you stick them in your pocket for any significant length of time. The answer to that question is that there’s only one “structured” state where the headphones are not tangled, but there are an infinite number of “unstructured” states where the headphones might tangle in all different ways. It’s simply “easier” for the headphones to end up knotted and mangled than for them to maintain their structured form.

Alternatively, you can think about spraying some perfume in the air and noticing how the scent gradually diminishes. Putting aside the fact that your nose acclimates to the smell, we can recognize the fact that at first spritz, all the perfume molecules are concentrated in a small space, but over time, those molecules spread out in the air until they aren’t very concentrated at all. They ceased to be “organized” in a concentrated area.

We all understand this concept pretty intuitively, which is why it can be so helpful when you apply it to your spiritual practice.

Entropy is the root cause of all unpleasantness as we experience it. When the cells of the body become “disordered” (when they stop functioning in the singular structured way they’re meant to function), we say we’re sick or injured. When the thinking process becomes disorganized or disordered, we say we’re mentally unwell. An anxious mind is chaotic; it lacks structure, and annoying thoughts race in and out of mind without our being able to stop or control them. An uncomfortable life is disordered; we can’t rely on things to go our way and are victims of seemingly “random chance.”

If we want to make our lives more comfortable, then our intention should always be to create some structure out of chaos.

Think of whatever state you’d like to enter to manifest your desire as the headphones from the earlier example. There’s only one “correct” structure to the thoughts/feelings/beliefs that constitute that state. In comparison, there are an infinite number of combinations of thoughts/feelings/beliefs that equal some state other than the one you’re trying to achieve. So, when thoughts/feelings/beliefs are balled up and jammed in your pants pocket, it’s inevitable that they’ll end up in some random configuration that is different from the one you intended.

It’s worth noting here that this kind of “spiritual entropy” isn’t a good or a bad thing. It’s just a thing. The random combination of thoughts/feelings/beliefs that arises (and that isn’t the combination you were aiming for) isn’t a “bad” version of your desired state — it’s just a different state. If you intend to cook your eggs sunny-side-up, but a tornado rips through your house in the middle of cooking and scrambles the contents of the pan, we can’t say that the end result is “bad fried eggs.” The end result is scrambled eggs. These are still made out of eggs, but eggs organized in a way that’s different from how you wanted them.

All we’re ever trying to do is combat this spiritual entropy. We’re trying to structure our thoughts, feelings, and beliefs in a way that is intentional rather than random.

Another way to put this is that we’re trying to “bring consciousness” to our thoughts/feelings/beliefs. Instead of letting randomness dictate what state you’re in, you sit down and do SATS so that you can become conscious of a very specific set of mentations that you’d like to experience in your physical reality.

This brings us to the importance of identifying limiting thoughts/feelings/beliefs that are active in the subconscious mind.

You cannot structure what you cannot see. The more content you relegate to your subconscious mind, the less agency you have to organize your states of consciousness.

This is the problem with using manifestation techniques without carefully analyzing your current state of consciousness. If you never take a good long look at what thoughts/feelings/beliefs you’re holding but don’t want to face or acknowledge, you’ll always be at the mercy of spiritual entropy.

Employing techniques without introspection is like spreading out an inch of high-quality soil over a mile-deep of radioactive waste. Any seeds you plant there will grow into Frankenstein plants. It doesn’t matter that the soil you can see looks viable; the problem is what you can’t see: the radioactive soil underneath.

The first step toward successful manifestation is to take stock of where you’re at currently. Get as deep into the soil of your mind as you can and figure out what it consists of. If it’s radioactive, dig it up and get rid of it. Dig all the way down to bedrock if you’re able to — once you’ve cleared all the pre-existing soil out, you know for certain that there’s nothing hidden to get in the way of your seeds’s growth. From there, you can be very intentional in laying down healthy soil so that what you reap is exactly what you intended to reap. You’ll have brought immense consciousness to your current state of being.

Personally, I find this idea of order vs. disorder to be very useful. It allows you to see your life with true clarity. When you encounter a situation you don’t like, you can recognize that your thoughts/feelings/beliefs have ended up in some construction that you didn’t intend and you can get to work on reorganizing them. You’ll never have to beat yourself up when things don’t go your way — you’ll just see that your state of consciousness needs to be better organized if you want it structured in a way that’ll manifest your desires.

As always, good luck.