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The average person has thousands of thoughts a day, somewhere between 6000 to 70,000… That’s a lot of thoughts! Most of us are not very careful with our thoughts, but what if our thoughts actually turned out to be very powerful? What if our thoughts could affect our physical world? Actually…they do!
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I remember back in high school science, I learned a little bit about quantum physics, and I found it super interesting. Many years later, I read Dr. Joe Dispenza's books Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself and Becoming Supernatural. Both of these books use quantum physics to explain how our mind can influence and even manifest physical matter!
When we understand that our thoughts can change our reality, we can make good use of those 6000 to 70,000 thoughts per day to manifest better futures, such as good health, harmonious relationships, career success, a clean environment, and a peaceful world.
This article will look how our thoughts and emotions affect physical matter from a quantum physics perspective, explain how to manifest, and give some real life applications.
Here is a table of contents to help you navigate this article:
Part 2: Manifestation Using Visualization
Part 1: Quantum Physics Explains How Thoughts Affect Matter
How could our non-physical thoughts affect physical matter? Although this idea seems surprising to those of us who grew in the modern western world, this is not surprising at all to people who grew up in the East. Ancient Eastern religions, such as Buddhism, Hinduism, and Daoism all teach that the physical world is manifested from the mind. And now, quantum physics has a scientific explanation.
We probably all know from high school science that all things are made of atoms, and atoms are made of subatomic particles like protons, neutrons, and electrons. If you keep going smaller and smaller, eventually, there is no more matter, but instead just wave energy. In other words, matter arises from electromagnetic wave energy.
We now know that an atom is 99.999999999999% empty space, and that empty space is actually wave energy. That means our five senses can only detect 0.0000000000001% of reality. Our five senses cannot detect most waves, such as radio waves, microwaves, UV rays, and X-rays, but we know such waves exist. All matter arises from waves, and waves are just energy. So where does this energy come from?
German physicist Max Planck said,
“I can tell you as a result of my research about atoms this much: There is no matter as such. All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force which brings the particle of an atom to vibration and holds this most minute solar system of the atom together. We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent mind. This mind is the matrix of all matter."
Quantum physicists call this "conscious and intelligent mind" the Quantum Field. Buddhism calls it "our true nature". Daoism calls it "The Dao". Western religions call it "God". For our purposes, we will continue with the quantum physics view.
All of our consciousness is connected to the Quantum Field, and all physical matter in the universe arises from this non-physical Quantum Field. The Quantum Field is in all space and all time, but we cannot perceive it with our 5 senses because it is not physical.
To give an analogy, imagine you are looking at an ocean from above. The top of the ocean has waves and movement; that is like our physical world, always changing. The bottom of the ocean is still, invisible, and has infinite potential to make infinite waves at the top. The bottom of the ocean is like the Quantum Field.
The Observer Effect
Since our mind is linked to the Quantum Field, we can tap into that infinite field of possibilities to manifest a specific possibility. This is shown through The Observer Effect.
For example, we know an atom has electrons. In the old Newtonian model of an atom, electrons orbit an atom’s nucleus in a set path, similar to how planets orbit the sun. But now, we know that electrons do not orbit in a set path, they actually 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.
An electron is extremely small and has almost no mass, so it does not require a strong thought to manifest. But the Observer Effects proves a link between thought and matter. If we want to manifest bigger and denser things than an electron, that would take much more concentrated thought and energy.
The Law of Attraction
In Becoming Supernatural, Dr. Dispenza explains that 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.
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.
Part 2: Manifestation Using Visualization
Once we understand The Observer Effect and The Law of Attraction, we are ready explain the manifestation process in four steps.
Four Steps to Manifestation Using Visualization
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
The challenge is feeling and maintaining elevated emotions.
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. If you try to manifest with lower emotions like stress, unhappiness, and lack, then you will manifest more suffering.
Albert Einstein said,
“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.”
How do you know if your manifestation is working?
First of all, you should be 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: Dream Job
In Becoming Supernatural, Dr. Dispenza explains how he guided his son to manifest his 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).
In his journal, his son wrote "J" to signify dream job. On the left, he wrote down his thoughts on the details of the job. On the left, he wrote the elevated emotions he would feel.
Source: Becoming Supernatural by Dr. Joe Dispenza
Then the son visualized and meditated on those details and feelings every day. Each meditation session, He did not get up until it felt real, as if he already has that job right now.
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.
Part 3: Manifestation Using 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 like joy, gratitude, and love. 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.
Cultivate a Virtuous Heart and Cut Vices
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.
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: 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 equates to wealth and prestige.
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. 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.
Now that we realize that our every thought and emotion is influencing all the matter around us and attracting a specific reality from the Quantum Field, then we will naturally become more careful with our thoughts. There are endless implications, but here are some big ones
Health
Relationships
The Environment
World Peace
The rest of this article will detail these four areas.
Part 4: Manifesting Health
Both Western Medicine and Traditional Chinese Medicine emphasize that emotions are one of the biggest factors for our health.
From quantum physics, we understand that our thoughts and emotions are constantly changing the physical atoms around us, and the closest physical thing to our brain and heart is our body!
Here are some different ways to manifest more health in your life:
Cultivate virtues and cut vices
Daily mantra meditation
Daily visualization meditation
Method 1: Cultivate Virtues and Cut Vices
We now know that virtues bring elevated emotions while vices bring low emotions. Dr. Masaru Emoto showed that our thoughts and emotions will change the way water crystalizes, and this is very relevant to our health because around 70% of our body is water.
We can even watch in real time a water crystal responding to calm and peaceful classical music:
Therefore, having virtuous thoughts and elevated emotions will make our body healthy, while vices and low emotions will make our bodies unhealthy.
Health Example 1: Venerable Jing Kong
Despite being in his 80s at the time, Venerable Buddhist Master Jing Kong looked so alive and had more energy than people in their 30s and 40s. His schedule was hectic, always flying to different countries to speak about world peace and morality education, but he never seemed to get tired even if he missed meals or barely slept.
Many people asked him what his secret was. Did he eat anything special? Drink some sort of special tea? Do some sort of special exercise? His answer was simple: a compassionate heart and a peaceful mind.
Venerable Jing Kong commented on Dr. Emoto’s experiments saying
"Therefore, we should be happy and joyful with benevolent hearts, and always be mindful of repaying others’ kindness. Then the cells in our bodies will stay healthy. If we have anxieties, worries, hatred, fear, and confrontational minds against others, these will do serious harm to our bodies. If we want to be healthy, we must have good thoughts, say good words, and do good deeds. As a result, all the cells in our bodies will be healthy."
Method 2: Mantra Mediation
Jay Shetty, author of Think Like a Monk, explains a mantra to be a spiritual sound expressing thought and meaning that summons a power greater than ourselves. Chanting the mantra sound over and over again summons the power of sound.
Mantras have meaning, and knowing their meaning can help us bring forth the related elevated emotion, which is usually tranquility, love, or divinity. The more focused you are, the more powerful the effect. Dr. Emoto exposed water to various mantras and found their crystallization to be very beautiful.
Examples of common mantras include
Om (which means “infinite knowledge” or “everything”)
Hannya Shingyo (which means “heart of perfect wisdom”)
Om Ma Ni Bä Mê Hum (which means “let me be like the lotus, rising from impure mud yet untainted and pure.”)
Amitabha (which means infinite life and wisdom)
If you don’t like the idea of chanting some random sounds that you don’t understand, you can simply chant a word or phrase that you like over and over again, kind of like a personal motto. Here are some examples:
I can do it
Love and gratitude
Lotus flower
“At your own pace, in your own time”
"I am happy about who I am becoming. I am open to all opportunities and possibilities. I am worthy of real love. I am ready to serve with all I have."
When doing your mantra meditation, just focus on the sound of the mantra and let that sound purify your mind and energy. If your mind wanders, simply notice and return back to the mantra. The goal is to cultivate elevated emotions related to your mantra, such as tranquility and love. You can do for 10 to 20 minutes, or however much time you have. You can also chant your mantra while doing mindless work like eating or walking or cleaning.
Health Example 2: 112 Year Old Monk
The old monk Venerable Hai Xian was basically a farmer who did physical labor out in the fields all day...at the age of 112!
That's a picture of him climbing a fruit tree to pick some fruits at the age of 112. Despite his age, his body and energy levels were the same as a healthy young person! Moreover, all he eats is stuff that he planted like taro, sweet potatoes, wheat, peanuts, and vegetables.
Most of us cannot fathom how that could be possible. Master Jing Kong explained that Venerable Hai Xian's secret is that his mind is always chanting "Namo Amitabha" no matter if he was doing farm work, eating, cleaning, walking, or listening to others talk. In other words, his electromagnetic field was always manifesting infinite life and infinite wisdom.
Inspired by his example, I also spend time every day to do concentrated mantra meditation where I recite "Amitabha" in my head over and over. I've personally experienced calming and healing effects, and I encourage everyone to try it too!
Method 3: Visualization Meditation
Visualization meditation is when we imagine something vividly in our mind such that it feels real to us right now. Dr. Dispenza says,
"Something as simple as moving into an elevated state of joy, love, inspiration, or gratitude for five to ten minutes a day can produce significant epigenetic changes in your health and body."
Dr. Dispenza teaches his students to visualize their elevated self:
Observe your thoughts for any negative or limiting beliefs you have towards yourself.
Let go of those negative emotions to the past.
Visualize your new, elevated self until it feels real. Imagine how that person would act and respond to daily interactions with elevated emotions.
Another type of mediation we can do is loving kindness meditation, which helps people to feel the elevated emotions of love and kindness. The basic procedure is
Imagine someone or something that you love dearly. Maybe it is your parent, or grandparent, or pet, or child.
Once you feel the love, imagine that love as a ball of energy coming outside your heart. Then let that loving energy grow and cover your whole body.
Then send that energy to someone who you feel needs it or someone you feel negative emotions towards.
Keep meditating daily until you get the results
The loving kindness meditation will probably help you feel elevated emotions easier than the visualization, but the visualization has the benefit of helping you change your behavior throughout the day.
Health Example 3: Miraculous Recovery from Cancer
In Overcoming the Habit of Being Yourself, Dr. Dispenza shares the story of someone named Bill. Bill developed cancer after 30 years of resentment, which came from giving up what he wanted for the sake of others. He then attended a two week meditation retreat with Dr. Dispenza.
Step 1: Observe your thoughts for negative emotions
In the first week, he observed his thoughts, feelings, and unconscious thought patterns. He realized that he was holding onto emotional resentment in his unconscious mind without realizing it.
Step 2: Let go of those negative emotions to the past
After he realized this, he decided to stop any thought or behavior that was unloving toward himself. This decision helped him feel free, which released a lot of stuck energy in his body.
Step 3: Visualize your new elevated self until it feels real
Then he visualized how his new self: If anyone expressed a request to him, he would respond with kindness and generosity, and he would not make anyone feel like a burden. He did the visualization until he felt like that new Bill right now. After he got up from the mediation, he maintained that elevated state.
Step 4: Keep mediating daily until you get the results
Bill kept up his focused meditations for the the two-week retreat. After he flew back home, his doctors discovered that his cancer was completely gone! Dr. Dispenza explains that those cancer cells couldn't coexist with the new Bill because those elevated emotions created a new body chemistry for Bill.
Part 5: Manifest Happy Relationships
Relationships also have a health to them. If we want our relationships to be healthy, we need to send the other person (and the relationship) with lots of elevated emotions such as joy, gratitude, appreciation, and love.
Marriage researcher Dr. John Gottman found that happy couples have at least 5 positive interactions for every negative interaction. He calls this "the magic ratio". Meanwhile, very happy couples have at least 20 positive interactions for every negative one.
Dr. Gottman also found that the Four Horsemen that kill relationships are criticism, contempt, stonewalling, and defensiveness. These all relate to low and negative emotions and result in ugly water crystals.
When we maintain feelings of love, joy, and gratitude in our heart, then we will naturally act in accordance with those emotions, and the other person can't help but be influenced by our elevated emotions. Then the relationship will keep getting better. On the flip side, if we hold blame, resentment, and dissatisfaction in our hearts, our actions will reflect those emotions, and that will influence the other person for the worse.
Example: Sending Elevated Emotions
In Becoming Supernatural, Dr. Dispenza describes experiments he did to prove that our electromagnetic fields affect other people’s emotions. He got a group of 550 to 1500 students together. Then he picked 50 to 75 people randomly to sit in the front of the room.
During the meditation session, the people all cultivated and sustained an elevated emotion. Then he told all the students to send the energy of their elevated emotions into the space of the whole room. Additionally, he told them to have the intention of wanting the greatest good or the students sitting in the front rows, for their lives to be enriched, their bodies healed, and mystical experiences to find them.
The result? All those people sitting in the front row got coherent and elevated electromagnetic fields at the same time, in the same meditation, on the same day. They repeated this over and over and found consistent results, thereby proving that we can impact other people to feel elevated emotions with our elevated emotions.
Cultivate Emotional Mastery
You might be wondering,
When the other person behaves badly or gets negative first, how can I not get upset?
This is a very legitimate question. After all, quantum physics explains that their thoughts and emotions will affect us too. The answer lies in cultivating the strength of our own thoughts and emotions to be more powerful than theirs.
Yoga Master Sadhguru said,
"If somebody else can decide what can happen within you right now, isn't this the ultimate slavery?"
American Nun Pema Chodron said,
"Inner peace begins the moment you choose not to allow another person or event to control your emotions."
Therefore, we need to cultivate mastery over our own emotions. Our elevated electromagnetic field needs to be stronger than their negative electromagnetic field. Then we can become unaffected by other people's negative emotions and instead positively affect them. That's why if an angry person goes up to an old monk, the old monk can calm him down just with his energy alone.
Two useful ways to remain unaffected by other people's negative energy is to be humble and grateful. When we possess these two virtues, we can reframe other people’s negativity into good things:
If they did something that made us upset, then they are teaching us that we are still a slave to the outside world, and so we can be grateful for their reminder.
We probably have the same vice as them, so we can thank them for reminding us to not be like that. For example, if we don’t like them spreading their garbage to us, then we can see it as a reminder for us to not spread garbage to other people.
They are giving us a chance to practice the virtues of tolerance and tranquility.
For a more detailed discussion on how to not get affected by other people’s garbage, check out the article Don’t Be A Garbage Truck.
Part 6: Manifest Healing the Environment
Our electromagnetic field does not only affect our body and the people around us, it actually affects the whole environment around us. When we send out elevated emotions to our environment, that can actually purify and clean our environment, including the water, air, and soil!
Example: Cleaning Polluted Water Using Thought
Dr. Emoto also showed that our thoughts can purify and clean polluted rivers. In one instance, he managed to conduct an experiment in a bay at Lake Biwa in Japan. The water in the bay had been polluted for 20 years and smelled terrible.
Dr. Emoto gathered over 100 people to pray by the bay, and the prayer was led by a monk who was over 90-years old. Specifically, the people were asked to sincerely and single-mindedly concentrate on one sentence, "Pure lake water, I love you". That's it. They did this for one hour.
Three days later, the water in the bay became clean and pure, and the water crystals went from ugly to beautiful. This was very surprising even to Dr. Emoto, and it caught the attention of Japanese media. He managed to repeat the experiment for many other rivers in Japan, Korea, and Brazil.
The bay water at Lake Biwa actually remained clean for half a year, then the water became polluted again as before the experiment. Think about it: A 1-hour prayer session purified the dirty water for half a year. Dr. Emoto comments that if people came to pray to the water every month, the river would remain clean forever.
Part 7: Manifesting World Peace
In Becoming Supernatural, Dr. Dispenza says,
“To date, the power of temporary peace-gathering projects has been exhibited and thoroughly field tested in more than 50 demonstration projects and 23 peer-reviewed scientific studies scrutinized by independent scholars around the world. The results have consistently demonstrated a positive effect in the immediate reduction of crime, warfare, and terrorism by an average of greater than 70 percent.”
In other words, when a group of people gather to meditate or pray, their collective electromagnetic field can create a change in physical reality without them physically doing anything. The key is that they feel the emotions of peace, unity, and oneness. Furthermore, the studies found that the more meditators and the longer they meditated, the greater the reduction of crime and violence in society afterwards.
Example: Lebanon Peace Project
A group of mediators were brought together in Jerusalem in August and September of 1983. The group was often large enough to achieve a “super radiance effect” for both Israel and nearby Lebanon, and the result included
A 76% reduction of war deaths
Reduced crime
Reduced fires
Decreased traffic accidents
Less terrorism
Increased economic growth
These results were then replicated in seven more experiments over two years during the Lebanon war. All of this was the result of a large group of people combining their intention for peace (the electric part) with their emotions of love and compassion (the magnetic part) to create a powerful electromagnetic field that would fight against the electromagnetic field of the area.
Dr. Dispenza comments
“Can you imagine the results and positive effects, as well as the speed with which they would occur, if this type of meditation and mindfulness was a part of the education curriculum?”
Start with Yourself
Changing the world can be accomplished by us individually cultivating virtues and elevated emotions. We can also do daily meditation, whether that's visualization, loving-kindness, or mantra. Everything that helps us manifest health also helps to manifest a better world.
As Gandhi said,
"If you want to change the world, start with yourself."
Conclusion
Everything in the physical world is actually made of non-physical waves. When the waves become dense enough, they become physical matter. Our thoughts and emotions are also waves, and they influence all the waves (and physical matter) around us.
The stronger our elevated energy is, the greater the influence we can have on the matter around us, and the faster we can manifest our mind's intention. Most people have low emotions and weak energy, so they keep manifesting their current, non-ideal reality.
The three keys to manifesting a better reality are
Have deep concentration
Have elevated emotions (e.g., joy, gratitude, love) and get rid of low emotions (stress, fear, blame, victimization)
Maintain elevated emotions
Manifestation only works when what we think, feel, and do are constantly aligned.
By cultivating our mind to become more virtuous, to think virtuous thoughts, speak virtuous words, and do virtuous deeds, then our virtuous energy will grow stronger and stronger each day, which will naturally manifest a better future.
We can use manifestation to create health, happy relationships, environment purification, and even world peace. Let's make good use of those 6000-70,000 thoughts per day!