is enlightenment possible through intent?

This beautiful perspective is excerpted from insights of Dr Christian Opitz, presented in www.onenessmovement.org.

Sri Bhagavan emphazises helplessness, that we cannot change on our own. What about the idea that we can create our own reality through intention?

All human beings are born as emotional beings, without the ability to form conscious intentions. The main portion of neurological pathways in the brain is built in the first three months of life, long before an intentional mind is formed. Various schools of developmental psychology agree that 90% of our psychological patterns are developed in the first years of life, when direct emotional experience without a rational perspective or intention is the dominant life experience. So whatever conscious intentions we formulate later in life to create change, these are always coming from a deeper unconscious resource. All our conscious intentions are fueled by largely unconscious motivations and those motivations cannot be changed through intention. Unconscious motivations are the storehouse of trauma, of limiting ideas about life, of self-sabotage and they came into existence long before we ever could formulate goals and intentions. Therefore no amount of intention can ever change that deeper part of our psyche that determines our life experience much more then the surface of conscious thoughts.

If I am aware of limiting concepts in my mind or trauma in my unconscious, why can I not change these things, for example through positive affirmations?

According to renowned cellular biologist Bruce Lipton, the conscious mind can process 2000 bits of information per second. The unconscious however is processing four billion bits per second. That is a two million to one ratio. If you want to change an unconscious belief or limitation through conscious affirmation, it is like arguing with two million people who are convinced that you are wrong. You might as well try to reverse a tidal wave by shooting at it with a water pistol. Another important factor is also the motivation for using affirmations or any other modality to change. For example, if a person feels like a loser in life and then wants to change that feeling by repeating affirmations of success, the very desire to do so comes from unconscious wounds that where also at the root of blocking success, not from a free conscious choice independent of these wounds. The attempt to change the problem always comes from the problem and is thus an extension of it, not the way to a solution. The brain center associated with deep emotional motivations in the unconscious is the limbic system and the center associated with volition is the frontal cortex. New research form Germany suggests that the limbic system constantly feeds input into the frontal cortex, but there is very little input coming back. This shows how unconscious feelings influence our conscious mind, but the conscious mind is not capable of influencing unconscious feelings.

But I read about studies that show that people can for example improve skills like shooting a basketball just thorugh visualisation wihtout actually practicing the skill. Does this not prove the power of the mind to create change?


One study showed that people who only visualized successful basketball free throw shooting improved by 23% over six weeks, whereas people actually practicing free throw shooting improves by 24%. This study is often cited by those who promote the idea that the mind can be used to change human life. But what did the people in that study actually change? A simple mechanical skill of the sensomotoric nervous system that was competely irrelevant to their happiness or inner freedom. Such a mechanical skill is indeed easy to change with conscious intention. Changing one’s fundamental life experience, how we feel about ourselves and life, what traumas we carry and live out, these are infinitely more complex than shooting a basketball. Changing who we are and what life is in our perception cannot be changed by the conscious mind. The conscious mind is itself a sub-reality of our life experience, and a relatively small one compared to the unconscious and various genetic and collective factors. As such, the conscious mind is powerless to change the greater reality of which it is only a part.