I’m sitting in front of a roaring fire, tucked away in a cozy cabin in the woods. If there weren’t so many trees around I’d be able to see a snowcapped Mt. Rainier from the couch. Mt. Rainier is considered one of the most dangerous volcanoes in the US; one eruption could wipe out multiple cities. A friend told me volcanoes give ample warning before devouring towns, so I won’t get sideswiped with 30-foot waves of molten lava while I sleep. So much for that adventure.

With the exception of some frustrated cows on a nearby farm, life in the woods is pretty quiet.

My parents always said do everything backwards, so I figured I ought to build my fires upside-down, too: dense wood on the bottom, kindling on top. It turns out that building a fire upside-down is more efficient than the traditional tee-pee method. One match and the fire burns hot for hours.

I could stare into the flames forever. Where I once saw burning wood, I now see the electromagnetic flux of the fire splitting the surface of the wood into a grid for even distribution. (Whatever that means).

***

It’s been snowing and I haven’t shaved in a while. I wear a lot of plaid so I imagine I look like a mountain man when I go into town. Thankfully, where I live nobody seems to care what you look like. Or maybe that’s just how I perceive it.

I’m a full time, freelance writer earning close to $100k/year—something I always dreamed of but never thought possible until I learned how manifestation works. And I’m not talking about Law of Attraction or new age nonsense. I’m talking about the way manifestation actually works as opposed to the way people believe it works.

There’s a lot of belief stuff floating around out there, but none of it matches reality. People are out there pushing hard to make reality conform to their beliefs, and it’s not working. But they don’t notice it’s not working. They just keep pushing harder and harder, cheering each other on from the sidelines with cute slogans. The truth is, there are restrictions and limitations to life that nobody wants to acknowledge.

I get that what I’m saying sounds like a “limiting belief” but that’s the thing. it’s not a belief. It’s the absence of belief. It’s the observation that becomes clear when belief is stripped away. And it’s not actually limiting – it’s the key to freedom. It only looks like a limiting belief from within the dreamstate.

In the dreamstate, it’s unthinkable to consider the possibility that limitation exists. Accepting any kind of limitation is a no-fly zone. The good news is, when you’re awake, you can see clearly, and limitations aren’t limitations. In fact, from the awakened state, accepting limitations is one of the keys that unlocks the power of manifesting. I’ll get into this later.

That’s not to say the conscious mind can’t influence the subconscious to create a desire, even if that desire comes from ego. People do it all the time. I’ve done it. The conflict is that the further down life’s current you ride, the less egoic desires you can manifest. In other words, while you’re being carried by the current of Awakening, life’s going to grant you less of your egoic desires as you go through the process. That’s what happens when you tip your priority toward “waking up.”

The standard reaction to what I’ve just stated is usually, “well that’s your reality, and that’s how you see it, but that’s not my reality. If you want to live a limited life that’s your choice!”

Sure, that a logical conclusion when you believe manifestation works according to your personal will. The problem is, it doesn’t, (not exactly), and so it’s impossible to even discuss manifestation until this fact is cleared up. Usually, it takes a traumatic experience like a death in the family, but most people never see it and spend their lives in denial. The personality wants what it wants. Mostly, it wants to chase parked cars.

The tragedy of this denial is the failure to see the beauty in the trajectory Life has crafted for each of us. When our personality wants a house, but the current of our life is flowing in a different direction, if we’d just open our eyes we’d see an opportunity infinitely more fulfilling than owning a house.

***

So, I didn’t manifest this gig as a full-time writer. In fact, I did everything “wrong” according to the alleged rules of manifestation. I didn’t think about it, focus on it endlessly, or look at pictures. I didn’t imagine my life as a writer, basking in the feeling of freedom and joy. No, I threw a tantrum because I couldn’t find a job for a year, got extremely pissed off, told the Universe I was better off dead because I can’t pay my bills, and was ready to punch a hole in the wall.

I applied for a writing position on Craigslist, declared to the Universe that my life sucks and I know this gig is going to be absolute shit and probably won’t pay me more than 2 cents per word IF they even respond, which I was certain they wouldn’t, and just like clockwork – according to the rules of manifestation that never change and always work reliably and predictably – I got the gig, it pays me well, they love my work, and I haven’t had a single complaint about it for five years.

How’d that happen? It wasn’t luck, and it wasn’t random. It was so unavoidably systematic and it taught me (much to my surprise) exactly how manifestation works. My input – positive or negative – had nothing to do with it. Life doesn’t give a shit about what anyone wants. It happened because it couldn’t have been otherwise.

***

So, I’m a ghostwriter. I get paid to write stuff other people take credit for. It’s actually a pretty sweet deal. I don’t have to interact directly with clients and I don’t have to talk to anybody. I just write.

I wasn’t always a ghostwriter. I had fans once, and I don’t recommend it. It seemed like a good idea until I realized “fans” aren’t flexible enough to ride the current of self-annihilation. My popularity imploded when I realized the “paradise” I’d been unintentionally leading people to was just more illusion. When I realized my life was a lie, I tried to warn them and tell them to to go back, but they kept going, which pretty much made me a false prophet who led people off a cliff. Whoops.

When I say my life was a lie, I mean there wasn’t a drop of authenticity to be found. I’d be surprised if my internal organs weren’t coated in a thick layer of manipulative slime.

Where was I? Oh, right. The secret of how manifestation works. Well, it’s actually simple, it just takes a while to see it.

Manifestation only makes sense when you know what reality is. How manifestation works is only perceived as a secret because nobody wants to look reality in the eyes. So manifestation appears elusive. Not because it’s a secret, but because we’re looking in the wrong place.

Now, when I say manifestation makes sense when we know what reality is, I’m not talking about subjective reality. As in, “we all have our own version of reality.” I’m not talking about subjective truth, either, as in, “your truth is unique to you.” I’m pointing to something that transcends the concept of subjective truth. There’s nothing subjective about reality, and the only way to know it is to come see for yourself.

***

“If man will strike, strike through the mask! How can the prisoner reach outside except by thrusting through the wall? To me, the white whale is that wall, shoved near to me. Sometimes I think there’s naught beyond. But ’tis enough. He tasks me; he heaps me; I see in him outrageous strength, with an inscrutable malice sinewing it. That inscrutable thing is chiefly what I hate; and be the white whale agent, or be the white whale principal, I will wreak that hate upon him. Talk not to me of blasphemy, man; I’d strike the sun if it insulted me.”

(Herman Melville, Moby Dick)

Although it takes intense determination to discover, how manifestation works is not guarded by anyone or anything outside of yourself. But first you have to destroy all the false identities and beliefs you’ve created in order to survive in this world. Until you strike through all of your masks, you’ll interpret your life through the filters of your beliefs.

Some people go through this process with masters, teachers, and gurus, and others go it alone. The irony is that teachers prolong the process while convincing you they’re the “fast track.” I’ve been through the wringer with many of them and they all threw me off a cliff. Sneaky little bastards. Yet that was still part of the process and it was absolutely perfect. It was a cliff I had been walking along the edge of for many years and I needed that push. Truth at any price. That push brought me truth.

The thing about masters and teachers is that in order to get the core of what they’re teaching (which is extremely simple and can be summed up in one sentence) you have to be aware of how you automatically overlay your beliefs and ideas onto reality. You have to be able to distinguish where you’re holding on, not to your ego or your humanity, but to your attachment to delusion. That’s all any teacher can help you with… if you’re learning information and knowledge from a teacher, you’re moving in the wrong direction.

While you’re in the dreamstate and unaware of how your beliefs maintain your state of delusion, a teacher’s words, no matter how true, will always push you deeper into delusion. In order for a teacher to move you out of delusion, you have to be aware of how you are filtering every word that comes from that teacher’s lips according to what you want to believe is true about life, reality, and who you are. That’s not an easy task. Basically, you have to accept the possibility that everything you’ve learned from your teacher is false, not because it’s untrue, but because you’ve never really learned from your teacher; your delusion was interpreting for you.

***

Right now, I’m living a dream I “manifested” five years ago. I wanted to live in a cabin in the woods with a garden and get paid to write by a sizzling fire. I also wanted a dog who would choose me, but belong to someone else. I got that, too. She also came with five friends.

This reality didn’t manifest because it’s what I wanted. It manifested because that’s where the current was taking me and I didn’t waste any time getting with the program. Nothing about it was easy, but it was perfectly aligned and I didn’t have a choice. Ah, choicelessness… another taboo part of reality that I’ll discuss later.

It’s important to know that my lack of doubt didn’t factor into the manifestation of my current reality. Doubt doesn’t play any role in creating reality – it only appears to have influence when you’re looking through the filters of belief.

So here I am. And you might be thinking, ‘hey, that’s not a manifestation. Anyone can pack up and move to another state.‘ Of course, that’s true. Though, that’s not how this move happened. I had no money, no job, no car, and only 2 months to get here. The vehicle manifested a week prior to the move, and once I arrived, a tornado of circumstances moved me around like a fierce game of Tetris until landing me by this roaring fire.

Although the manifestations happened quickly, it didn’t occur like something out of a fairytale. I went through hell to get here. Hell was the only path to get here. It couldn’t be any other way. The thing about manifestation is there’s no rule that says you have to like the way things happen. It’s an open-ended possibility and it’s not always going to go your way. Anyone who tells you otherwise probably has a bridge to sell you, too.

Anyway, I packed everything I owned in my van and hit the road for a few days to take my time on the 16 hour drive. Just three hours before I was supposed to arrive to sign the lease on my apartment, they called and changed their mind. I already knew they would. Signing a lease is not part of my trajectory, and neither was living in an apartment. However, having a secure place to live lined up was necessary to get my mom to move with me. I didn’t ask her to move with me – she decided to come on her own. I would have moved with or without a lease to sign upon my arrival. She needed security.

The thing about reality is that it always works according to specific rules – it’s never random. Once you know how to read the patterns, it’s easy to know what’s going to happen and the “why” makes itself known quickly. Whatever’s in your current can’t not manifest. You can take a bunch of detours, but eventually you have to come back to the stream.

So I lived in a hotel for a week until I found a temporary room to rent. Then my brakes went out in the parking lot. The lines had rusted through and drained all my brake fluid. Of course it didn’t happen while I was on the road; that wasn’t part of my trajectory. It wouldn’t have served a purpose. Besides, I knew that was coming, too.

After several months my temporary living situation exploded and I got the boot. Rather than look for another place to live, I decided to live in my van in the middle of a freezing, snowy, Washington winter. Why? That’s what the Universe indicated as the correct choice. Anything else would have thrown me off course.

I didn’t look for a home or a job. I knew with absolute certainty that taking any kind of action was incorrect. I had surrendered to the Universe and it was swiftly taking me where I needed to go. This time I was smart about it – I didn’t tell anyone. There’s nothing more frustrating than other people trying to help you solve a problem that doesn’t exist.

I knew other people would think I was crazy for sitting on my ass, and I wasn’t willing to put up with anyone’s inaccurate assessment of my life so I kept quiet.

My life was falling together. The patterns I observed all indicated that truth. Patterns are never wrong. Despite outer appearances that I was going to be homeless, living in a cargo van with a rusty, leaky roof in a snowy winter… I didn’t question what I knew was correct.

Then it happened.

Just days before I had to move out, a friend left the country and asked me if I’d like to live in her cabin rent-free and take care of her property. All I had to do was pay the bills. She didn’t know my situation, and of course I said yes.

Here’s the thing about how reality works. Because she asked me to live in her cabin and pay the bills, I knew I’d have a source of income soon. That’s part of reading patterns.

And that’s where I am now, sitting in front of this glorious fire with my dream job making more money than I ever have in my life doing what I love. And yes, I often work in my pajamas.