Huna Article

Huna International

Manifesting For Pleasure
by Stewart Blackburn

There are three primary ways that pleasure is important in manifestation work. The first is around our motivation. Why do we want to manifest whatever it is we're trying to bring forth? Since our motivation to do anything is to feel better than we currently do, presumably our motivation is some sort of pleasure.

However, it is easy to forget that that's what we're after. For instance, we might want to manifest a good job. By "good job" we probably mean a well-paying job, doing work that we enjoy, in an environment that suits us. Behind those factors is probably the desire to have enough money to buy the things we want in our lives, like a nice place to live, good food to eat, and enough money to have fun or be with the ones we love. And beneath those desires is probably the desire to have enough money to stave of the fear of lack and the hell of poverty. And add to that one, we probably also have a deep desire to feel the freedom of having the money to do what we want. Thus the desire for a "good job" is the face of a much larger set of desires, all of which are about feeling better.

But with all of the details of a modern life before us, it's not hard to be distracted by things that "we need to do," or things that we feel some duty towards. When we are doing things that we "have to do," we are acting like slaves to some idea of what we're supposed to be doing. We've lost sight of the primary motivation and that makes doing these things very difficult and unpleasant. Remembering why we are doing what we're doing makes life much easier.

Pleasure, then, is the primary factor in deciding what we want. What's going to give us the maximum pleasure, minus whatever pain is involved? We use pleasure constantly to choose between things that attract us. But we can easily overlook the main elements in our decision making process when we start letting in doubt and fear. By maintaining a focus on the primary motivation, pleasure, we stay present and thus can more easily override or ignore doubt and fear.

When we focus on the pleasure of the things we want, we engage our imagination with anticipation and begin to energize the desire. That is, we put our emotional energy into the workings of manifestation. This energy is critical to the outcome of our efforts. I had a friend who found a manifestation course that was said to bring "real results" after only 40 days. She faithfully did the exercises each day for the forty days, but didn't see a great difference in her paltry bank account. So she did it again for forty days. Still nothing really to show for it. So she did it again... and again, for two years. She was very diligent and focused, but she didn't put any emotional energy into it and thus got no return.

The point is that all the exercises and thoughts of prosperity or whatever are only ways of focusing the energy of manifestation. If there is no energy there, no amount of focusing will do any good. And that energy comes from envisioning the pleasure that we expect the manifestation to bring and savoring it fully.

Savoring is a magical art. Savoring is taking the time to fully feel the pleasure of something. It's more than stopping to smell the roses. It's smelling the roses and letting them change you a little bit. It's allowing them to alter your mood and relax you. It's holding the door open to feeling the peace and joy of living. Savoring is the mindfulness of pleasure.

So we want to savor the anticipation in order to bring into our lives the things that do, in fact, bring us joy. Which brings us to the most overlooked aspect of pleasure: enjoying what we have. All too often we forget to take the time to really enjoy what we've already manifested. We acknowledge that we gotten what we wanted and move on to the next thing. Perhaps we have been wise enough to be grateful for what we have received, but that's not good enough.

I see two problems with gratitude. One, it focuses on an outside source for what we have. While we certainly can't claim to have manufactured the something we now have, we need to take full responsibility for it being in our lives. The power of manifestation rests on the understanding that what we are experiencing is a function of what we have created in our inner world. An expression of delight and appreciation is certainly appropriate. But to place responsibility for its presence in our lives outside of ourselves disempowers us. It denies the power we have as creator beings to bring into our lives what is being created by our thoughts and beliefs. Only by grasping that we have already created what is in front of us, can we take on the full power of changing that experience to something even more pleasing.

The other problem I have with gratitude is that it moves the focus away from the non-mental act of simply feeling the pleasure that this something brings. Gratitude goes a long ways towards connecting us to a positive affect of that experience. But it involves a great deal of thought when thought is the least useful focus at the moment.

By simply paying attention to the many facets of pleasure involved in the new something, we do two things. We nurture ourselves with the abundance of energy that comes with enjoying something. And we prepare the way for more good things to come. If we are not spending time enjoying the things we have, why would we expect to enjoy something else? The space of enjoyment is what we want, and if we're not hanging out there, all our efforts are in vain.

So the three primary ways that pleasure is important in manifestation work are 1) it helps us clarify what it is that we truly desire, 2) it energizes our desires so that our manifestation efforts can work, and 3) it helps us to remember to enjoy what we create so that we can create other things that come to mind. Without a full mindfulness of pleasure, manifestation is simply a pleasant concept with nothing there.

Copyright 2017 Stewart Blackburn

Stewart Blackburn is the author of The Skills of Pleasure: Crafting the Life You Want. His website is: www.stewartblackburn.com; email: lomilomiman@gmail.com.