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What if you could change your physical reality with just your thoughts? Maybe you could manifest a healthy body, a happy relationship, or a dream job. Well actually…you can! This is called manifestation, and we can learn how it works through quantum physics.
Image Credit: Evgeny Gromov Getty Images
How Our Thoughts Affect the Physical World
Quantum physicists have taken physical matter and then observe it under stronger and stronger microscopes. As they go smaller and smaller, they can see atoms, then protons and neutrons, then quarks, then electrons, and eventually…just waves. In other words, physical matter arises from non-physical wave energy!
Most of us learned that an atom is a nucleus with electrons orbiting around it. Well, that Newtonian model of the atom is actually incorrect. The quantum model explains that electrons exist in an invisible cloud of energy around the nucleus.
The Observer Effect shows that when an observer focuses attention on any one location of that energy cloud, the electron will appear there. If there is no observer, then the electron returns to being non-physical energy spread across the whole energy cloud. The conclusion is that our focused thought causes wave energy to condense there and become matter. This proves a link between thought and matter.
Just like how an atom's nucleus is surrounded by a non-physical electron cloud, all of us are surrounded by an non-physical field of infinite energy. Quantum physics calls it the Quantum Field. And just like how an electron manifests out of that energy cloud, all of our physical universe manifests out of the Quantum Field.
How to Manifest Using Visualization
Our thoughts are electric, our emotions are magnetic, and together they make an electromagnetic field around our body. Our electromagnetic field is always communicating with the Quantum Field. Your thoughts and emotions right now are manifesting your current reality.
The Law of Attraction explains that if we change our electromagnetic field (by changing our thoughts and emotions), then that will attract a new reality from the Quantum Field. The thought must match the feeling, and then we have to hold that state of being long enough for the manifestation to occur.
Therefore, manifestation has four steps:
Be very specific on what you want to manifest
Feel right now what you would feel if you already obtained that manifestation (joy, gratitude, love)
Maintain that state of elevated emotions
Wait for the surprise
Steps 2 and 3 are the hardest. For step 2, we need to feel elevated emotions like joy, gratitude, and love BEFORE our manifestation actually happens. Like attracts like. Your elevated emotions will attract that wonderful event to you. Then you need to hold that elevated state all day every day. If you try to manifest with lower emotions like stress, unhappiness, and lack, then you will manifest more suffering.
How do you know if your manifestation is working? First of all, you should feel great, as if you already got what you imagined. Second, that manifestation will come to us in a way we do not expect. If you make a plan and follow your plan and achieve your results, then you obtained it by working in the physical world; that is not manifestation. Since the Quantum Field has infinite potential, it will give you your manifestation in a way that you cannot predict, and that’s how you know it came through manifestation.
Manifestation Example 1: Dream Job
For example, Dr. Dispenza's son wanted to manifest a dream job.
Step 1: Think Clearly
Dr. Dispenza taught his son to write down all the specific details about that dream job, such as the working hours, the industry, the salary, and so on. This is the thought part (the electric part).
Step 2: Feel Elevated
Then he told his son: Imagine how you would feel if you had that job. You would probably feel elevated emotions like gratitude, joy, wonder, and love. This is the feeling part (the magnetic part). His son wrote down these details and emotions for his dream job.
Image Source: Becoming Supernatural by Dr. Joe Dispenza
You to visualize and meditate on those details and feelings every day. Each meditation session, you cannot get up until it feels real, as if you already have that job right now. That's how you send out the electromagnetic signal to the Quantum Field.
Step 3: Maintain Elevated
Dr. Dispenza warned his son: Throughout your day, you also need to hold that elevated emotional state so that your message to the Quantum Field does not change or break. If you return to lower emotions, the manifestation will stop and you will attract your old reality again.
Step 4: Get Surprised
His son followed his father's instructions. Months later, the son “just happened” to bump into his idol surfer, and they “just happened” to have a great conversation, and his idol “just happened” to be looking for someone to hire, and he “just happened” to be a great fit. It was completely unpredictable. Dr. Dispenza lists lots of manifestation examples like this in his books.
Another Way to Manifest: Daily Self-Improvement
While the manifestation theory is fairly simple to understand, it is actually very difficult to do in real life. It is easy for people to think about what they want. The hard part is to feel and maintain the elevated emotions. When life throws problems at us, it is hard for us to keep up elevated emotions and not fall into lower emotions.
Dr. Dispenza's method is to do visualization meditation every day to cultivate concentration and elevated emotions. I have tried it but after the meditation, I go back to my old habits of stress and worry. To be honest, even during the meditation, my mind is full of wandering thoughts, and I am unable to feel intense elevated emotions. Therefore, my emotional state is still attracting my current reality.
Since ancient spiritual practices also know about how thoughts manifest reality, I looked to Daoism and Buddhist for other methods. They both emphasized the importance of cultivating a virtuous heart and eliminating vices in order to attract a better future (or good karma as they call it).
In The Treatise on Cause and Effect, the Daoist sage Lao Tzu said,
"Misfortune and fortune do not come through gates, they are created by ourselves…Fortunate people speak virtue, observe virtue, and do virtue. If each day you persevere in these three virtues, after three years, the Heavens will surely descend fortune upon you. Misfortunate people speak evil, observe evil, and do evil. If each day you persevere in these three evils, after three years, the Heavens will surely descend calamity upon you."
Speaking virtue, observing virtue, and doing virtue is something anyone can do. Cultivating virtues will lead to more elevated emotions, while vices will lead to more low emotions.
If we can persevere for three years to cultivate virtues and eliminate vices, then our thoughts and heart will surely become elevated and attract a better reality. Moreover, we can even set a manifestation that we want and then cultivate virtues to obtain that specific goal!
Manifestation Example 2: Wealth, Prestige, and Children
Liao Fan is a great role model of this daily self-improvement method. In his book, Liao Fan's Four Lessons, he explains how he spent many years cultivating virtuous deeds and thoughts. He wanted to obtain a high government job, which equated to wealth and prestige.
Step 1: Think Clearly
First, Liao Fan got specific on what he wanted: A promotion to a higher government job.
Step 2: Cultivate virtuous actions and thoughts every day
To manifest this dream job, he vowed to cultivate virtues through doing 3000 good deeds. Every day he practiced good deeds, studied virtuous books, and self-reflected in a journal.
Step 3: Persevere to change the heart
At first, he was able to do good deeds, but his mind and heart were not aligned. Later, his actions and mind were good, but his heart still didn't feel fully virtuous. In these situations, the manifestation will not work.
By the time he completed his 3000 good deeds, his heart had changed, so he could feel and maintain elevated emotions throughout the entire day, and his goal was indeed manifested. He then did vowed again to do 3000 deeds to have a son, and before his 3000 deeds were even finished, his son was born.
Conclusion
Albert Einstein summarized manifestation nicely:
“Everything is energy and that’s all there is to it. Match the frequency of the reality you want and you cannot help but get into that reality. It can be no other way. This is not philosophy, this is physics.”
Manifestation only works when what we think, feel, and do are constantly aligned. One method is to do visualization mediation until you feel the elevated emotions of gratitude, joy, and love, as if you already got your wish. Then maintain that elevated state for the whole day.
That method is probably quite difficult for most people, so another slow-but-steady method is to improve our character every day. We can focus on doing good deeds, thinking good thoughts, and feeling good emotions. As this becomes more and more habitual and natural, our electromagnetic signal will attract a better reality from the Quantum Field.
If you are interested in further reading, examples, and applications, you can check out this article: Mind-Matter Connection: How Our Thoughts Affect and Manifest Reality. I wish you lots of joy, gratitude, and love!