The Case for Calm

There is an idea that appears again and again across spiritual traditions. This idea has emerged independently in cultures that had no contact with one another. The language differs, but the central teaching remains much the same: the things we desire are not reached through greater striving, grasping or pleading, but through something almost counterintuitive: relaxation, surrender and trust.

It feels natural to most of us to inhabit the opposite response. When we really want something - a relationship, financial security, a child, meaningful work, better health - we worry, strategise and analyse, because maybe we hold the subtle belief that if we don’t respond like this, we won’t attain what we desire. As though worrying proves sincerity or desperation is persuasive.

But is this chaotic internal state actually helpful in moving us closer toward what we want? The great spiritual teachers all seem to point towards prioritising an internal state of being characterised by calm, relaxation, non-grasping, non-desperate in order to ‘attract’ what we desire.

Let’s explore this more.

1. Everything You Desire Already Exists

Abraham Hicks describes the Vortex as an energetic reality in which everything we desire already exists.

Neville Goddard describes something similar through his concept of the fourth dimension - a realm in which every possible state already exists before it takes physical form.

Whether we call it the Vortex, the fourth dimension, the Akashic records or consciousness itself, the underlying idea is similar:

Our desires are not necessarily something we have to chase. They are something we have to become available to.

The practice therefore isn’t to force reality to change. It is to become inwardly aligned with our deeper nature, which is a state characterised by calm, tranquillity and stillness.

Interestingly, this is also what Neville Goddard meant when he spoke of “living from the end”: to inhabit the state of the version of ourselves for whom the desire is already fulfilled.

And as Jesus says in the Gospel of Mark:

“Whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.”

Notice in this moment how you would feel if the thing you wanted were already yours. Would you still be grasping, worrying and wondering when it was going to arrive? Or would you relax, feel secure, content and at peace?

The two practices ultimately lead us to the same place: the qualities already present beneath the striving of the mind - calm, wholeness and peace.

The order is interesting. Believe first. Receive second.

2. Your Body Has to Believe It Too

But there is an important distinction between thinking a new thought and actually experiencing a different state of being.

We can repeat:

Everything is working out for me.

I trust life.

My desire is already mine.

But repeating these words does not necessarily mean that we are inhabiting the state they describe. We may still be doubtful or anticipating what might go wrong. The familiar pattern of thought and the emotional and physiological state that accompanies it remains largely unchanged.

This is where Joe Dispenza’s work becomes particularly relevant. He suggests that our habitual thoughts and emotions create our state of being. When we repeatedly think and feel from fear, lack or resistance, we generate a particular energetic signature or a kind of signal that we send into the quantum field. Our external reality then reflects that signal back to us. The universe becomes, in a sense, a feedback loop.

States such as fear, jealousy, shame, anger or resentment keep us anchored to the same lower emotional frequencies, and therefore to the same familiar patterns of experience. If we want to create something new, Dispenza argues, we cannot continually inhabit the emotional state of the old reality while expecting a different one to emerge. We have to change the signal we are sending out to the universe and ensure the state we habitually inhabit is congruent with what we are asking for. Start becoming familiar with the felt state those thoughts point towards. If the thought is I trust life, what does trust actually feel like? We begin to experience trust as an embodied reality as opposed to merely telling ourselves that we trust.

This may also explain the idea of living from the wish fulfilled. If we desire something while feeling fundamentally inadequate, anxious or desperate for it to arrive, there is a mismatch between the reality we say we want and the state we are actually inhabiting.

Instead, we might ask: if this were already part of my life, how would I feel? How would I carry myself? How would I relate to the world?

The invitation is to become familiar with that state now as a way of becoming inwardly congruent with the reality we wish to experience.

3. Reality Is Kind

There is an idea that appears repeatedly in the spiritual teachings I have encountered and it’s one of my favourites - that reality is fundamentally kind.

Byron Katie’s work is built around ending our argument with what is. Much of our suffering, she suggests, comes not from reality itself, but from the stories we tell ourselves about it.

There is a line from Byron Katie that I particularly like:

“Everything happens exactly when it should. This is the kindness of reality.”

Neem Karoli Baba, Ram Dass’ guru, expressed something similar when he asked:

“Can’t you see it’s all perfect?”

And Ram Dass repeatedly returned to the idea that perhaps there have been no mistakes:

“You are standing in just the right place, with all your ‘if onlys’ and ‘what ifs.’ You’re in exactly the right place. Nobody made any errors.”

If the deeper nature of reality is love, then we might think of love as the frequency of reality itself.

From this perspective, negative emotion takes on another meaning. Abraham Hicks teaches that feelings such as fear, lack, anxiety, resentment or despair can be understood as signals that we have fallen out of alignment with the perspective of our Inner Being.

Our Inner Being already knows that, fundamentally, everything is okay. That we are standing exactly where we need to be, and that life is unfolding with an intelligence and benevolence the thinking mind cannot always perceive.

The mind says, something has gone wrong.

Reality says, you cannot yet see where this is leading.

The mind says, I need this now.

Reality says, you are not lacking anything in this moment.

According to Abraham Hicks, this is why resistance feels so uncomfortable. Negative emotion isn’t something to get rid of; it can be understood as a kind of compass or internal guidance system, signalling that we have temporarily fallen out of alignment with the perspective of a more loving reality.

Whether we believe this or not, it is striking that so many people who claim to have reached expanded states of consciousness seem to arrive at the same conclusion: that the deeper nature of reality is love.

Further, from Hicks’ perspective, desire arises because some deeper version of you has already moved towards it. The desire is therefore almost an invitation to catch up internally with where your Inner Being already is.

4. Calm Is More Powerful Than Need

This brings us back to desire.

Accepting reality does not mean that we stop wanting things. You can accept where you are and still desire somewhere new. You can be single and desire love. You can appreciate the life you have and desire greater abundance.

Desire and acceptance do not have to oppose one another.

The difficulty begins when desire becomes entangled with resistance.

David Bayer expresses an alternative principle through an equation I always try to bear in mind:

Desire + Non-Resistance = Desired Result

The desire itself isn’t necessarily the problem. Our resistance to not having it is.

This doesn’t mean that we don’t take action to achieve certain goals. We still do. The difference is that we learn to take action without the grasping, angst and desperation that so often accompany it.

There is an interesting parallel here with scripture:

“Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.”

Again, the biblical text does not tell us not to desire anything, but what complicates the process is everything we do afterwards: doubting, grasping, wondering when it will arrive, noticing its absence and worrying that it may never come. Express your desire, and know that what determines how likely it is to experience it is dependent on our ability to relax and trust.

And perhaps one of the most familiar forms that resistance takes is worry.

This is something the Bible returns to again and again. In Matthew 6, Jesus asks:

“Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?”

He then points towards nature:

“Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin.”

The lilies do not anxiously monitor their progress. They do not strain themselves into becoming flowers, and yet they grow.

It reminds me of the Taoist idea that nature does not hurry, and yet everything gets done. There is an intelligence to life that does not seem to require the anxious interference of the mind.

Jesus continues in the same vein: Do not worry about what you will eat, drink or wear. Your Heavenly Father already knows that you need these things.

I love this idea. You don’t need to plead, beg or continually worry about whether your needs will be met. God, the universe, a higher intelligence — however you understand it — already knows what you need. Worry adds nothing.

Instead, Jesus says:

“Seek first the kingdom of God… and all these things shall be added unto you.”

Eckhart Tolle interprets the Kingdom of Heaven as the dimension of Being already within us. To recognise our deeper nature beneath the thinking mind. To seek the Kingdom first, then, is to make this inner state primary.

5. A Practice in Non-Resistance

You can experiment with this directly.

Think of something you deeply desire. Hold it in your mind. Don’t push it away or pretend you don’t want it. Allow yourself to want it fully.

Now notice what happens in your body. Do you remain open? Or does something contract?

Perhaps there is a tightening in your stomach or pressure in your chest. Perhaps your mind immediately begins:

What if it never happens?

Why hasn’t it happened yet?

Maybe it isn’t meant for me.

This is the resistance.

Don’t resist the resistance either. Simply bring awareness to it. Feel the contraction without immediately believing the story attached to it. Allow it to be there. Breathe and soften around it. You haven’t failed if resistance arises.

And then return gently to the desire.

Ask yourself: If I knew this were already taken care of, how would I feel right now?

Perhaps something begins to soften. You feel relief, trust, openness, calm. Rest there for a moment. And give gratitude.

This is not about pretending you already possess something that you don’t. It is about becoming familiar with the internal state you imagine its arrival would give you.

You don’t have to stop wanting it. Keep the desire but release the contraction. When you notice yourself tightening around its absence, return to the present and loosen your grip.

You can hold the desire while simultaneously saying:

I would love to experience this. And I don’t need to fight this moment in order for it to come.

Let go. Let life move. Let it come to you.

6. The Paradox

And then something rather interesting happens. We begin this practice because we want something. We may initially be drawn to this work because it seems to promise the ability to attract the things we desire. We imagine that obtaining it will finally allow us to feel okay.

But in learning to inhabit the feeling of fulfilment before the desire arrives, we begin discovering the very peace we thought the desire was going to give us. This is the paradox.

While learning how to affect our external reality, we also begin discovering something about our own nature. Eckhart Tolle states that nothing we attain can ultimately give us more than what we already are. The more we practise returning to stillness, presence and non-resistance, the more we begin to discover something incomparably more valuable: our own Being.

This is not to suggest that money, success, loving relationships, children, meaningful work or beautiful experiences don’t matter. Of course they do. They can profoundly enrich the quality of our lives. But the more rooted we become in Being, as Tolle describes it, the more we discover a peace that does not depend upon any of them.

I think this is the “peace which passes all understanding” described in the Bible: a felt connection to something within us that remains untouched by the changing circumstances of our lives. A kind of inner refuge point.

And then the things we once believed would give us happiness become additions to an already-full life, rather than conditions for our fulfilment.

This is what I love about: “all these things shall be added unto you.” They are added, as a kind of bonus. They are not the foundation.

We can still desire them. We can still pursue them and feel joyful when they arrive. But we no longer need to postpone our sense of being alive until they do.

The life that you are is already here. It wants to be lived, to be enjoyed, to be noticed.

And this is the deepest paradox of all: we begin by trying to attract more from life, and end by discovering the life that was already within us all along.