Intent is what it is all about. Intent is the core of awareness, of awakening.
There have been some events lately that provide an excellent example of what this path is not. Of what intent is not. Slings and arrows, sticks and stones, words - these are all part of the journey, part of the world we move through. We get hurt, we trip, we get up, we move on, we look back and make notes - not to fall for that one again. We learn and reset our pack, then off we step once more.
Anyone who dwells on insults and delights in intrigues, they have lost their way. If you associate with people who dwell on insults and intrigues, then you have lost your way. This is a rule - no one made it up - it has been observed from time immemorial. We all have to make serious decisions about who we befriend, as their mind will become ours, and it is so much easier to walk downhill than up.
Intent is Doing. You intend to do something. You stop, look forward, decide, take a bearing on a point in the distance, then set forward with purpose and resolve. It is not about looking good, or filling in time on a slow evening, or chatting with your friends, or going to the pub for a good night out, or surfing the internet looking for some titillation, or reading things on forums that you have no intention of ever using. It is about setting your compass, applying yourself with effort. It is about saying “No.”
Saying no to things you like doing, or to people who ask you to come to parties, or to ‘chocolates’, or to lying around watching TV. Saying no to things which you would be doing if you had not set your intent. By intending, we push aside some things in our life to make space for the work we have to do to fulfil our intent. The bigger the intent, the more we have to push aside.
The other evening I heard an interview with a scientist who has recently published a book on learning. After talking about the usual amazing stuff like how crows can not only learn to use tools, but can actually craft their own tools, he then referred to a ‘threshold’ learning task that some parrots in New Zealand were able to complete. This involves some kind of looped tube setup in which you gain the food by initially pushing it away from you - via some piston. Using a tool to first push food away in order to gain the food. This task is considered a threshold because it involves actively denying something in order to later gain a better reward. It is this ability we employ when intending.
Intent means work. You can’t say “I intend to be a famous singer” and then sit back and wait. It doesn’t happen that way. There is a process I call the maturation of desire. We begin with likes and wants - usually these are passing whims. We evolve to wishing and hoping. As our heart matures, we begin desiring, and longing. When our will has developed, we learn to intend. But it all has to do with the degree we are prepared to push aside other things and dedicate our time and energy to pursuing a goal.
There are two types of Intent - Active and Passive.
There is really nothing passive about any form of intent, it is all work, but it is called that because the goad, the pressure, the force, comes from outside - not from our inner free choice. Julie’s mother doesn’t like to walk, but she has too, or her leg plays up, and aches. This is an example of how we are forced from bodily pain, to intend action. But usually our intent is not solely passive or active, but a mixture of both. I go to a yoga class, to borrow the intent of the teacher and the class to help me - left to myself, I would likely not hold the positions that long, nor practice that much. I also do yoga so that my body doesn’t fall apart. That’s all passive. But then I also do it because I love it, and would do it regardless of it’s physical benefit - that’s active.
Passive intent is highly beneficial, as it inculcates into us a position of stamina which we would not reach on our own. This is how education in our society works - we are forced by legal and societal pressures to apply ourselves to learning. When we get a job, we are again forced by the employer to apply ourselves, often beyond our limits. These are great utilities of passive intent, and teach us will from outside.
Once the outer pressure is released however, we are inclined to collapse. That is one reason why passive intent is of very limited use. This is why realisations that come to us through our association with a teacher or a group are of limited use on our path. Passive intent is also of limited use because it does not contain the spark of our own deepest core - ie, ‘we’ are not there, not awake, just a phantom.
On this path, we have exams, and in those exams, the teacher has to stand back and allow the student to succeed or fail on their own merit. The student is tested to see if the lessons of the last phase have been well learnt. But more - there is always a testing task which was not covered in the lessons. This is where we are seeking to see if the student can resolve difficulties beyond her knowledge, by the simple fact of inner knowledge. It is this inner knowledge that all teachers look for - to know the student carries deep within them the seeds of knowledge, which the teacher cannot plant, but can only foster. At the final bridge, we have to know without knowing.
Active intent is a very different matter. It is when we by our own initiative FREELY CHOOSE to intend, and follow that intention through. No outer goading, no outer pressure - an inner decision based on our knowledge-less knowing. We initiate spontaneously. That is true creativity, and that is the birth of immortality.
It comes from our own ‘heart within our heart’. It is a longing that arises from where we know not. It shows we are children of the White Tree. And our destiny is to return to the stars from whence we came. This is why Gurdjieff laid such emphasis on intentional suffering. This is why a wise parent will stand back at a crucial moment, to see what lineage the child harbours deep within the soul.
Unbending Intent.
This is the sleepless variety, which is the cornerstone of all true traditions. This is in another league altogether. This is where, once this intent is donned, like a mantle of solitude, we no longer do anything, go anywhere, think anything, hold any attitude, without knowing it could be our last. We step forth with purpose, in everything we do! We never just lob into a place for heck’s sake - when I took this covenant, I knew my life was over. All things from that day forth were for one purpose, and one purpose only.
After we have offered ourselves beneath this covenant, wherever we go, we are always alert, always looking for the thread, the buried dog. Never again do we do something just for the fun of it, or just for the survival outcome. We are touched by the magic of an immortal destiny, and the awareness that brings. We still have fun. Oh yes, and what fun, but we sleep not - for no matter what, we are always ready.
Naturally, we have to grow into this, and we are brutally shown our failures. But it is the undercurrent I speak of. The momentum of our life and our doings.
That is not all there is to Intent. Intent is magical - Intent can shatter the fog, drop the veil, expose the ferret. Intent is a mystery, we do but befriend, yet never fully know - it will do it’s own thing when we only turn our head to see.
Michael Maher 2008
