Living without Intentions

Written by Mathew Naismith

Sorry for going on about intentions and un-intentions but a few people are interested in this topic so I thought I would go a little further with this. This is not an ideology or a concept or anything like it and it’s not anything new, living without intentions is something various spiritually aware people have been doing all along especially through spiritual practices like meditation, praying, chanting and so forth.

So what would it be like living without intentions? 

Let’s go back to early man; if man was content without any further intent to improve on himself in certain ways or had no intentions of ownership, what would the world today be like?  The funny thing is the world would be somewhat more pristine than what it is now and it would be far less chaotic, yes you would still have animals and the environment reacting between and to each other but the world as a whole wouldn’t be as chaotic and as soiled to what it is today. In other words without man intentions, the world would be much more at peace and in harmony with itself.  Does this mean man, no matter what, would cause chaos and soil environment? Well no, it’s man’s intentions that cause such degradation not just the presence of man himself.  If man learnt long ago to live without intentions or very few intentions, physical life would be somewhat different to what it is today; I actually think man could have improved on the already existing chaos instead of adding to it. 

You would think without intentions we wouldn’t have progressed at all but that isn’t actually the case, for example, man wouldn’t have had intentions of ownership and destroyed the environment for this ownership, the world would be still quite pristine and certainly not over inhabited.  Indeed we wouldn’t have all these possessions and acquired human knowledge that we have today without intentions however I do think we would have obtained something far more valuable, an awareness and wisdom through being unintentional within our thoughts and actions.

Man has the idea to progress and to obtain knowledge we need to do this through intentions; this is the only way that most men know how to obtain such possessions, remembering man also treats knowledge as a possession.  This is quite different when living by being unintentional within our actions and thoughts, you never own anything including knowledge and the way you obtain knowledge is quite different as well. There is no truer knowledge than inner knowledge and that is what I think most spiritually aware people tap into especially when living without intentions.  Through being unintentional, we actually quite automatically improve on ourselves without actually intending to do so; this is due to being more in touch with our inner selves.  Human intentions actually hinder us from becoming in touch with our inner self; this is due to our inner selves not being about intentions but about going along with the flow of things.  This is saying that human intentions are not in tune with our inner self which makes it a lot harder for us to become in touch with our inner self.  

 I think this gives a pretty good idea what life would be like for us and everything else if man wasn’t so intent within his intentions.  I also think if man wasn’t about intentions, he could have been more constructively influential on the already existing chaos instead of destructive through adding and creating more chaos. We indeed had a choice and we chose, we chose a life of chaos and degradation when we could have chosen a life of utter peace and harmony.  It’s by no way too late to turn things around but to do this we must all become more aware of what our intentions actually create.

I received an interesting query in relation to my last post I thought I would share.  This post in particular was brought about by other people’s perceptions not just my own; it’s a good indication that the collective is indeed becoming more aware and in synch.

Reply

wow! so much to think about!

My immediate thoughts are: perhaps intentions are mistaken for more earthly goals. . .  Is there perhaps a 'higher' strata of intention that we might use to create a better experience for all of us?  Is acceptance the opposite of intention? I am also thinking about the Taoist belief of action through non-action . . .  Mathew, I love this, thank you!

My Reply

I think there are higher consciousness's than ourselves that use intentions but probably quite in a different way to ourselves. Humans use intentions quite intensely which is why we create so much destructive chaos I feel.

I'm actually suggesting that we lesson the use of intentions as much as we can which will hopefully lesson the chaos in our lives.

Is acceptance the opposite of intentions? A very intriguing question to ask Carolyn.

I've been about acceptance for about two/three years now which has noticeably lessened my intentions. I don't think acceptance is the opposite of intentions as such but it certainly lessons the effects of intentions by being more accepting of our environment. When we are accepting, we don't react as much; acceptance does indeed seem to automatically lesson the use of intentions. 

Action through non-action, indeed.  An action depicts an intention however through this non-action we are truly not reacting at all, we are merely in action to stop reacting, once we are aware of what our actions produce, we automatically stop reacting unless we want to continue to react that is. 

I recently wrote about living without intentions, it gives a brief depiction of what it would be like without little or no intentions; we could have indeed assisted Gaia instead of destroying her.

Gaia is of intentions but it’s very much different to man’s intentions in that Gaia’s intentions isn’t about dominance, power or control, it’s about an intention to evolve, that is all. You could certainly say that Gaia’s intentions are of this higher consciousness.  It’s not of various and numerous intentions like man but very few intentions. We chose to live with Gaia but we also chose to try to dominate Gaia instead of just living with Gaia. 

I do indeed love other people perceptions, you certainly add to the awareness of it all.