You're Not Planting Seeds. You're Boiling Water

When we use "manifest" as a verb we run the risk of misinterpreting its meaning. "I want to manifest x,y,z" implies some kind of magical process occurring -- using the power of my mind, I conjure up an object of desire. It's a bit Harry Potter-esque: I wave my wand and the object appears. I cast a spell and he/she falls in love with me.

I don't think that's exact what Neville meant by "manifest"

To make something manifest is allow it to express itself at a new level of existence. When we talk about manifesting our desires, what we're really saying is we want to take the subtle form of the desire (as it exists in thoughts and feeling) and make it manifest in physical form.

I use the term "make manifest" as opposed to "manifest" very intentionally. We're not "manifesting" or conjuring something up -- we're taking our desire and making it manifest, making it exist in physical form.

The manifested object/experience is just how our desire "looks" in physical form. But in essence, it's not a separate thing to our desire -- just the physical version of it.

I get that this could be seen as splitting hairs, or needlessly overcomplicating things. But here's why it's an important distinction.

Very often, we think of manifestation as a process similar to growing a garden. I plant my seeds, I water them, I make sure they're getting sun, I repeat this process over and over again, then as time passes the seeds slowly sprout and eventually bloom into flowers.

I don't think this is the best way to look at it.

Manifestation is more like boiling water. Water is understood to exist in three forms: solid (ice), liquid (water), and gas (vapor). In all three cases, we're still talking about H2O -- the makeup of the water never changes, but the state of the it does.

If I want to boil liquid water, I need to get it up to 212 degrees Fahrenheit. That's the necessary condition for it to change from a liquid state to a gaseous state. But once it reaches the proper temperature, it has no choice but to change states. Vapor is how H2O expresses itself at temperatures above 212.

In this way, manifestation isn't really a process. Sure, if I raise the temperature of my water one degree per day, there'll appear to be a process taking place. But how it appears isn't how it actually is. There's no reason I have to boil my water that slowly. If I exposed my water to a 10,000 degree heat source, it'd boil instantly -- because the conditions for changing its state would have been met.

Here's the point of all this: when Neville says "All creation is finished" what he's really saying is the boiling of your water is already complete the second you set the temperature high enough.

We live in time and space, so a process appears to be taking place when we "manifest" our desires. But from a higher vantage point, the second the desire arises as a feeling, it also exists in physical form (as our desire expressed in our physical experience). It's just a consequence of our living in a temporal world that it seems to take time for it to pass through these states.

More clearly stated: The second you are in the state or "knowing" of your desire, that desire exists in physical form somewhere in the future. Again, it might seem like a process needs to occur in order for your desire to express itself, but that's just a consequence of our living in time. Basically, your manifested desire already exists, and you just have relax for the rest of the ride until you arrive at it.

Once again using the boiling water metaphor, your state of feeling or knowing can be thought of as your temperature. If you're in the right state of knowing, your desire has no choice but to manifest physically. At 212 degrees, the water has no choice but to boil -- it might take a second for the heat to transfer to all the molecules, but if the heat is high enough it's a guarantee the water is going to boil.

If your desire is not manifesting, it's because you're not in the right state for it to manifest. Your "temperature" is too low.

A lot of us try to boil water with a single match. We have limiting beliefs about what has to be done to manifest properly, or how long something should take to manifest, and we make little, incremental changes to our state of knowing or feeling. This ensures that while we might get to the right state (temperature) eventually, it's going to take a hell of a long time.

Even worse, some of us bash our heads against the wall for months or years and still end up unsuccessful in manifesting our desire. All this means is that despite all your effort, you're not actually getting to the right state of knowing or feeling. I can heat water to 190 degrees for the rest of eternity, and it's never going to boil -- because I haven't met the necessary condition for it to do so.

My other posts explain how to change your state of feeling/knowing, so if you're wondering "well how do I set my temperature higher," then check those out. The point of this write up is more so to clarify the larger mechanism at work, as understanding it in this way gave me a lot of personal reassurance.

Everything I've explained here is most useful as a system of analysis: Been trying to manifest something for years and it's not happening? Water isn't hot enough. Been trying to manifest something for years and not only is it not happening, but you're actually getting further away from it? You're trying to boil water by setting it on a block of ice -- quite literally, if the water is getting colder, you must be in a state that's making it colder, no matter how much you've convinced yourself you're heating it up. Signs are showing up related to the thing you're trying to manifest, but it never seems to actualize? You're right there -- you're simmering the water, and a few molecules are getting hot enough to turn to vapor, but you need a little more heat to make the whole pot boil.

Final Thoughts: Set your burner to high heat. Get in the state of knowing of having your desire. If things are moving super slowly, that's just evidence your flame is too small. Don't get frustrated or upset, just keep turning up the heat (keep moving towards the right state of knowing, even if you can't access it immediately). If you're doing tons of visualization exercises every day with no success, look at why. Either you're not in the right state of knowing (you're freezing the water you want to boil) or you're not applying a steady enough heat source (for the duration of your visualization you're cranking the heat up to 300 degrees, but the second you stop you take your pot off the heat and the water cools down again).

Our goal is always to change the state of knowing we live in all of the time. If you are in the state of having your desire, and you live in that state completely, your desire will manifest. It's a guarantee.

As always, if this is nonsensical, obtuse, or just doesn't sit right with you -- forget you ever read it. Just trying to reframe things in a way that might help someone have a big breakthrough. Thanks.