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What Do You Really Want?

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Powerful Mind Part 27
Welcome to this week’s Bill Harvey Blog – September 5, 2025
Created September 8, 2023

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Strangely, this is not something we normally think about. The subject usually rises to our conscious mind only at times of great shock, typically the loss of a loved one, a job, or something else we greatly value. At other times, most of us appear to assume that all of that has been decided already, we are “obviously” doing what we want to do with our lives, and so we just go along day to day doing our best, mostly guessing or following the path of least resistance in order to not make things any worse.

The species, or at least the intelligentsia, has finally admitted that homo sapiens are not rational actors, hence the science of behavioral economics. P.T. Barnum could have told us that a hundred years ago. However, some of us may be more rational than others, and for a rational person, it makes the most sense to stop life for a moment or longer while seriously considering what the real you really wants. How else can a rational person guide his or her decisions on a moment-to-moment basis?

As soon as one sets to making an objective fact-finding study of oneself, one finds that there are a great number of things that come up as probable wants, including both material and immaterial things. Page 95 of Mind Magic lists these, for example: “You may want money, specific possessions, status, fame, glory, power, accomplishment, respect, a large family, many lovers, to be loved, to be known, to be happy, health, long life, adventure, travel, certain feelings, certain experiences, etc.”

A more abstract list appears in my work on human motivations through Next Century Media, which discovered 265 psychological variables driving television program choice, and RMT (Research MeasurementTechnologies), which distilled these into 15 life motivations. In Canada, where RMT is already integrated with Vividata (“The MRI/SIMMONS of Canada”), here is the latest snapshot of how these 15 variables rank across the population of Canada:

Motivational States by Ethnicity-vividata

As you can see, wealth/success is the main driver for most Canadians, but there are differences in motivation ranking by different ethnic subcultures in Canada. Culture is definitely a factor in shaping our individual motivations. However, as this book, Powerful Mind being serialized here, has often pointed out, we as individuals are much better off to be able to discover what we ourselves deep down really want, and to not automatically go along with all of the ways we have been shaped by outside forces.

It’s much better to contemplate our lives to the degree that we can be the ones to decide what we truly want out of life.

Aristotle wrote that the un-contemplated life is not worth living. I would say that slightly differently: one is not living the fullest life possible if one is swept along by external forces from beginning to end.

Life situations also affect our motivations. For example, note how important the motivation of “belonging” is to people who recently moved out of their parents’ home, and how important “security” is to people who recently retired. (These measurements are not based on survey questions asking people what motivates them; it is based on what television programs they report watching, and the method has been validated by seven independent studies.)

Motivational States by Life Events - vividata

If we look across all of the cultures in our hisandherstory (aka “history”), we see that in many of them, great value was placed on self-transcendence (altruism) e.g. the Zhou Dynasty, self-knowledge e.g., Greece in Socrates’ time, creativity e.g., the Renaissance. When we look at our current culture, the situation is quite different. In the cancel culture of today, idealism in any form is something that causes people to “cringe”. Cynicism and snide remarks are the safe harbor for conversations. Science in recent centuries has assumed that the universe is an accident; therefore, the culture does not believe that there is meaning and purpose in life, nor is idealism defensible in objective terms. Authoritarians rise to power by promising to remove all of the causes of fear, similar to the protection racket. In our culture, therefore, it is less likely that you have chosen to want idealistic things, or if you have, it is because you are exceptional.

Wanting the Approval of Others

One of our most ignoble wants is the approval of others. Hence the high ranking of “belonging” among the 15 motivations. In order to “fit in”, one generally is expected to share the same values, pastimes, and sayings of the group. After a while, individuals forget that they are wearing a mask and start to believe that the mask is really them.

Make a study of yourself. Take your time. Write down notes as the spirit moves you. What do you think you really want most out of life today? Was it always that way? What was your dream when you were very young as to what you would do with your life? Did it change? Why did it change?

Assume that in your own case, there was the “Me That Was Born”, who you really were, before the culture and other people started to shape you. Using all of the access to memories which you still have, what did that person want out of life, and where were the change points along the route to now?

If you look at the list of wants and motivations above, you may see that you have always wanted all of these things to some degree, but today there may be only a couple of them that really energize you. You may see how running after some of the other things took you off into directions you didn’t enjoy and have now processed past those wants. Or, you may find that nothing seems to matter anymore, it’s all falling short, you need something more, but have no idea what it is.

One clue is to think back about the things that you’ve been good at, and that you enjoyed doing. Those are your gifts to the world. Your Mission is to do those enjoyable things that you do so well so as to make as many people and other living things as happy as possible.

If you follow that star, it will take you to the Flow state.

My best to all,
Bill

Keeping Score Is Mundane Thinking

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Powerful Mind Part 26
Welcome to this week’s Bill Harvey Blog, August 29, 2025
Created September 1, 2023

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We have been conditioned to rate how well we have performed for other people. Our parents told us we were “a good boy” or “a good girl” at times, and “bad boy” or “bad girl” at other times. Gradually, we became more aware of which things would get us which rating, and played to that scorecard. Now, all these many years later, that same approval-seeking program still has independent existence in our minds.

It is what it is. Good and bad are just labels we paste on real things. This labeling has positive outcomes when it helps guide us toward benefiting living things and away from disadvantaging them. But the way we are constantly labeling ourselves moment to moment is a neurotic pattern that is mostly counterproductive.

We also carry around a certain amount of unforgiven guilt, probably as deeply repressed as we can make it. We regret some things we did in our past, and some part of us refuses to ever forgive ourselves for it. Even if we act out such a forgiveness, it tends not to take the first few times.

These related behaviors use up a certain amount of cognitive capacity that holds us back from Flow state. Our thinking remains petty because of these old wounds and ongoing concern with how well we are performing moment to moment. These are just more attachments we have, conditions we have counterproductively established that do not permit us to feel good about ourselves, nor enjoy the now, unless we can prove ourselves to ourselves every moment. As if we can never be good enough.

Self-rating is irrelevant. We need to relieve ourselves of the burden of constant self-judgment. This is really the ego, presenting the masks that we think people want to see from us. Just more other-directed conditioning, that is preventing us from exercising free will and being in Flow.

Observer state enables us to clear the slate of all mundanities arising within our robotic false selves, as they arise. Like shooting down a missile while it is just leaving the launching pad. We actually have enough attention to be able to pay close watch on what is going on both inside us and around us at the same time. But not if we are unable to control our own attention. If we are living in fear, that fear can cause us to be distracted by sounds or movements in the periphery of our vision.

This is why for thousands of years, empiricists in all world cultures have trained themselves and others to be able to concentrate, and to ignore distractions and stay single-pointed. Without the ability to concentrate, metacognition becomes much more difficult, if not impossible, and Flow state is likely to never occur.

Among the exercises practiced in some cultures is the burning out of fear, by meditating next to a corpse or in a graveyard. My preferred method is to imagine the feared event happening, and working out what one will do if it happens. Once you see yourself having the guts to ride through the feared situation with your head held high, the fear abates.

Getting rid of fear is part of getting rid of distractions, attachments, and other common habits of people who do not know about the higher states of consciousness they are giving up to hang onto these primitive mental ways.

Instead of keeping score on yourself, just let those impulses float away downstream.

Those scorings will otherwise either pump up your ego, making it more capable of distracting and fooling you, or they will undermine your confidence. Either way, they will detract from your future performance. In effect, when you give yourself a bad score at moment #1, you are increasing the odds of giving yourself an even worse score at moment #2.

It is more logical and practical for you to recognize the value of the mistake you just learned from, because it makes you much less likely to make the same kind of mistake again, so in effect, you ought to be rewarding yourself for having gotten that mistake out of the way as soon as possible.

But the best path is the one that lets all the scoring disperse as quickly as it tries to grab your attention. With a little practice this is not so difficult. That’s why this is the shortest chapter in this serialized book, Powerful Mind.

If something is happening, going with the flow of it is generally the best practice, unless you are certain it is not who you are to go along with that. If something is happening that is against your highest principles, you should not go along with it. What you might do is ask a question without seeming to take sides. This gives you the most potential leverage to correct the situation, although others with similar principles might misunderstand your actions. Not being attached to what others might think of you temporarily or permanently frees you to do the most good by your own lights.

Control

You are what you control. Your body and mind may not currently be entirely under your control. Deeply habituated ego conditioning may control your emotional reactions faster than you can stop them. This can feel frustrating and you might be tempted to blame yourself for it. However, if you do not currently control those things, it would be unfair to blame you. Leave aside the blame and simply persevere to take over your own castle knowing that in the end it cannot stop you from taking over.

Equilibrium

Balance and moderation are two of the great virtues taught by classical Greek Philosophy, Taoism, and, to some extent, by all spiritual traditions, as well as inner exploration psychologies. The ability to deal with every moment is maximized by not overreacting, taking everything in stride, not throwing people out of your heart based on something said or unsaid, not being so fervent about your high principles that you get sucked into attachment to them, and passionate rejection of what seems like opposite principles. Everything is connected. Dichotomies exist in the mind, but what is, is one connected whole.

Key #5

Self-rating is irrelevant.
This is radical new mental strategy #5,
the fifth simple key to the doorway
of the upper mind.

Love to all,
Bill

 

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Oneness

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Powerful Mind Part 25

Welcome to this week’s Bill Harvey Blog, August 22, 2025
Created August 25, 2023

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There is no separation between you and the scene you inhabit.

There is no separation between you and the scene you inhabit, you are not doubting nor second-guessing yourself, everything is flowing by itself, and it’s all perfect, you are having a peak experience you will remember forever, and enjoying it to the hilt.

This is the way you will feel when you’re in the Flow state of ecstasy. In this level of Flow, your body and your feelings are both in Flow, and you love and are grateful omnidirectionally.

There is a Flow state one step below that, where only your body is in Flow, but even in that level, your mind and emotions are not getting in the way. Your body’s actions are perfect and are doing themselves. Your mind and emotions are not gloating about it, because you are immersed in a state of play and are detached from the attachment to any outcomes, such as winning. This is the Flow state of action.

One step up from ecstasy, Flow is mental Flow, where words come into your mind that are drenched in meaning and significance and yet exhibit artistic brevity of the highest order, and seem to be coming from above. You know that you are reading the minds and feelings of other people. Your ability to anticipate accurately is greatly increased. You have visions of possible futures, and how they can be steered toward or away from. You can grok eternal truths at a deeper level.

The Flow states nest into one another so that when you are in mental Flow, you are also in ecstasy and in the Flow state of action.

Above the mental Flow state, I’ve experienced two other levels, both spiritual in nature. One step up from mental Flow state, you directly sense the consciousness of the universe as an embracing love. You can detect the presence of the universe consciousness with you, right there, and you know that it knows everything going on within you, you are in direct communication.

In the highest level, there is a degree of control which you appear to have over events around you. Or the universe has the control and is using it to support your work.

“I am with a couple of friends and one of them is exhibiting her characteristic tendency of wanting to guess what I am about to say even before I say it. However, every time she interrupts, there is a loud thunder-like sound coming from somewhere that drowns her out. The other friend and I cannot stop laughing. The interruptive friend tries to outguess the thunder-like sound by waiting in silence and then suddenly speaking before the thunder gets her, but the thunder is always faster on the draw.”

— You Are the Universe, page 250

You probably agree that, if I am not imagining all the above, these are states of consciousness that you would like to experience. Many of you probably can verify the truth of some of the above, having experienced it yourself, and if that applies in your case, you probably agree that you would like to experience those states more often.

That is the whole point of my highest passion work, to make it possible for more of us to spend most of our time in Observer state and Flow state.

Observer state is the entry point into Flow state. In Observer state, we are able to discern our own ego impulses from the inspirations of our own highest self.

Below the Observer state, there are a variety of ego-dominated states in which we are somewhat or very obsessed with our own selfish desires and in fear of not getting or not keeping the objects of our desires. Some of us in these lower states are somewhat or completely sane, while others in those states are somewhere on the neurotic-psychotic spectrum.

I find it pragmatic to lump all of these lower states into what I call EOP, Emergency Oversimplification Procedure, a pandemic coping strategy which arises autonomically in the presence of information overload and what appear to be unanswerable questions, such as “Who Am I? What Is This Universe?” The mind “decides” (typically below the level of consciousness) that there is no point wasting time thinking about such things, and the mind instead chooses among and subscribes to popular pre-packaged ideologies, choosing based on similarities to what one has been conditioned to believe by early experiences.

One does not reach individuality but convinces oneself of the opposite. One does not see that rooting for one party over another, or one religion or non-religion over another, is the avoidance of thinking for oneself by buying into some established belief system.

Exercise

For a moment, turn off your inner dialog, and see the world around you. Let yourself feel the love you feel toward each of the things you can see around you, how grateful you are to have those things, including your family, your pets, your work, your home, your “toys”, nature, your memories, life itself.

Identify with the whole scene you apprehend, not just with your current vehicle. See yourself as your consciousness (including that which appears within the perceptual field of your consciousness), and your current body as something you love, and which is like your car but even closer to you than that.

Accept the fact that there is not much you can know with absolute certainty right now, but you still have to go on making the best decisions you can. Accept that it is totally not going along with the crowd for you to identify with the universe, nor will you win the support of the masses by keeping an open mind about life after death. Nevertheless, in the privacy of your own mind, you can decide to remove the block against currently unpopular notions.

It turns out that this is essential to spending more time in the higher states of effectiveness. Eschewing the mundane view of life. Being an individual with your own views of life and openness to possibilities still on the fringe of scientific verification.   

Be on the lookout for slipping back into mundane thinking and feeling. It will happen to you; it happens to all of us. The conditioning and the repetition have their own powerful momentum.

Realize and feel good about it when you click back into individualism.

When you sense you are not in a joyous state, realize that you’ve slipped back into attachment to lower things, a mundane state of mind.

Remember this song [lyrics and music] at those times.

Be grateful to the intelligence which caused the miracle of the universe which gave you life as a native part of that same intelligence which manifests as the universe.

When the universe is convinced that this is authentic on your part, it will be disposed to give you these higher powers. The universe wants all of its parts to succeed because, in reality, everything is one consciousness, so benevolence begins at home, and protecting other parts by not sharing higher powers with those parts that are dangerous is just good sense.

Tyrants and other dangerous people in our hisandherstory have been allowed to use their free will but have not been given Flow state. Hitler, if given Flow state, would now be our planetary ruler.

It would be wise for we ourselves to limit even mere earthly powers given to people who do not authentically exhibit love, compassion, and forgiveness.

Key #4

Root for the Universe, not just for your current vehicle.
This is radical new mental strategy #4,
the fourth simple key to the doorway
of the upper mind.

What does it mean to “root for the Universe?” It means, in practice, nurturing and trying to benefit everyone and every living thing.

Being self-sacrificing is sometimes the right tactic, but not as a general practice; you too are part of The One.

Note that this strategy will make you feel good and will gain you more loving friends, even if it turns out that, counter to Einstein, the universe turns out to be a non-intelligent accident. However, if you are merely faking it in order to get those benefits, it will not work, which in itself is an interesting bit of evidence of the consciousness of the universe.

Love to all,
Bill

 

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Shift in Perspective

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Powerful Mind Part 24

Welcome to this week’s Bill Harvey Blog, August 15, 2025
Created August 18, 2023

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Possibly the most pervasive hidden assumption we all make without thinking twice is that we are each a separate entity.

Science has neither proven nor disproven that we are each a separate being. Science has perhaps not given much attention to this at all. The numerous scientists I have met besides myself appear to have this hidden assumption, too.

If, however, my Theory of the Conscious Universe happens to be right, this hidden assumption is wrong. My theory likens consciousness to a self-aware (sentient) computer made out of energy. A type of energy that science has not yet accounted for, which I call psionic energy, presuming a quantum of that energy called a psion. I speculate that psions are a species of tachyons, i.e., they move at faster than light speed.

Robert Anton Heinlein wrote a novel, Time for the Stars, in which telepathy between identical twins is used for instantaneous communication between Earth and its starships ranging out to other stars and even to other galaxies, where light and radio waves take years and even millennia to travel back to Earth. A neuroscientist friend of mine is doing basic work in this area right now, seeking to determine first if there really is telepathy.

Both consciousness and computers process information. John Archibald Wheeler, who trained many of today’s top physicists, in his “Bits Before Its” theory, postulated that information is the substrate of the universe.

This aligns with my Theory of the Conscious Universe, which came to me before I read Wheeler’s work, and coincides with Wheeler’s theories in all particulars except one: Wheeler has quantum foam, probability waves, and virtual particles pre-existing consciousness which freezes the probabilities into certainties called matter and energy existing within a field of spacetime.

Where I differ with Wheeler is that I postulate that his quantum foam, probability waves, and virtual particles are the information processing of the universe’s consciousness. The foam, probabilities, and virtual particles are the thoughts, feelings, images, and other qualia arising within the Master Mindfield. I have used initial caps to signify my respect for the Universal Mind.

If we are avatars in a “videogame” the One Self is playing, then our real identity is that of the whole universe. We are a phenomenon representing the universe itself, as each of our cells is a part of us.

This relationship of sameness and “partness” with the parent universe has a pragmatically beneficial implication: the universe has every reason in the world to be benevolent toward us, as we are part of it. If my theory is correct, death is not the end, and the direction of the play we are acting in is toward a happier future, as the universe itself is invested in our success.

Then how bizarre we must seem in our hisandherstory to observers out in space who know the truth. The One Self understands us from the inside and outside. So the explanation is there to eliminate the sense of the bizarre, yet even from the point of view of the universe, we probably seem like deviant savages.

We can imagine Earth in another timeline where the human inhabitants could tell right away that they were all part of The One Consciousness. They would not have invented war and weapons, nor even business competition; they would have been very cooperative with one another, and kinder to animals and plants and even to minerals and bodies of water.

Perhaps The One Self considers that timeline somewhat boring compared to ours, whose nastiness might be considered an acceptable cost for the greater sense of adventure we bring. More likely, the universe is helping us to learn to evolve out of our present state, where we have turned a heavenly planet into a somewhat hellish one at the moment.

As I have sought to logically prove here before, science has not yet verified (or even figured out how to verify) my theory. Nor has science proven Materialistic Accidentalism. Therefore, if each of us is to behave so as to make our actions appropriate, whether the universe is a free-for-all of separate beings or all one being, we need to make a shift in our perspective every moment of our lives from now on.

The pragmatic benefits of this open-mindedness include the reduction in causing unpleasant things to happen to us because we expected them and unconsciously brought them upon ourselves. Instead, we shall leave open the possibility that Wheeler and I are both right in saying that our minds affect reality, and so we shall use our minds to focus on what we want to have happen, and not to dwell obsessively on what we fear will happen.

How might we attain this shift in perspective, down at the operational level?

 Identifying With All You Perceive

Kabbalah, Advaita Vedanta, Buddhism, and Kashmir Shaivism are among the many philosophies which predate, predict, and align with my Theory of the Conscious Universe. A practitioner who totally gets these philosophies no longer looks out his/her eyes, identifying with their  body/mind as themselves, they look out and identify with everything they experience, inside and outside. “I Am That” is a sacred/holy trigger phrase that crops up in almost every such tradition. It is a reminder to not identify with the illusional separate self, but with everything in the experience bubble moment to moment.

Nobility

A noble person is one who is unselfish, fair-minded, unbiased, and morally good. These traits emerge as organically natural to one who identifies with all he or she experiences, rather than identifying with only the one body seemingly being occupied by the individual consciousness. That body is just the self-propelled tripod (actually bipod) for the current camera one is inhabiting at the moment in the play.

In ancient times, there were occasional good and noble kings and queens who identified with the people whom they served, protected, and took care of. The noble kings and queens had typically been trained in spiritual philosophies.

In present times, in movies and television/streaming series, and occasionally in real life even today, we call such people “heroes” and “heroines.” Their every action proves convincingly that they care about others. Unfortunately, there is not enough of this going on. You can make a difference there.

In your experience bubble with other people, strive for all to win, not just your bipod to win.

Positive and Negative Feedback Loops

“If your motives are truly for ‘the good of all,’
this will be sensed by others
and they will cooperate with you,
lending their energies to your actions.
If your motives are to simulate selflessness
in order to gain power for your self,
this will be sensed by others
and they will tend to not cooperate with you,
lending their energies to the muffling of your actions.”
— Mind Magic, Page 222

 Accept What Is


View time: 37 seconds

Becoming upset is railing against the universe – one’s larger Self. If something is happening or has happened that means the universe let it happen. Your taking umbrage at such happenings is fighting city hall in the largest possible sense – making no sense at all.

A superior response is to accept what is and work on figuring out what to do about it that will bring the most happiness to the most people as soon as possible. Armed with a smile, your plans will stand a much better chance of sooner success. Even if your plan will probably not see fast results, there is still no better course of action for you to take until you think of a new plan that could see faster positive results.

You may be in a hellish situation, but if you accept it is what it is with a smile and take it as a creative challenge, you will do yourself and everyone else more good than by taking any other strategic course of action.

Love,
Bill

 

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