Intentions are powerful

In meditation, there is always an intention. Even if you are just sitting there being, your life has a direction, your soul has an intention and meditation is a way to serve that intention. If you were to meditate with no theory in your head, then the meditation will be guided and inspired by your own natural desires. By and large, your innate desires and ambitions and cravings are the best guide for you. Meditation will tune your body, senses and nerves so that you are better at whatever it is you do.

It is always good to have a couple of intentions in mind before you meditate: rejuvenation, relaxation, health, love, energy, healing, blessing, peace. A good way to work with an intention is to just think of it for a few seconds, then release it. You do not need to be thinking of your intention over and over again during the meditation.

Even if your conscious attitude in meditation is neutral, then your deeper intentions, your soul intentions, will magnetize you. If you are sitting on your sofa in the evening, feeling fulfilled by your day's activities, then you will at some point drift into contact with your own life essence, the deep currents of electricity that sustain and guide your being.

Be Aware of Other's Intentions for You

When you study with a teacher, read spiritual books, or are in a tradition, then to some extent other people's intentions for you will seep into your force field. Even basic meditation books are littered with anti-life attitudes, implying that you should repress your desires and be obedient to some spiritual authority or another. Masters need slaves, and are always on the lookout to add to their entourage. Even celibate monks are looking to propagate their way of life through inseminating your soul with their anti-life vows. Religious types are seeking to turn you away from whatever you are thinking, to worshiping their image of what God is.

If you put yourself into the magnetic force field of a spiritual group, they will be seeding you with their intentions for you, which may be: surrender to us, surrender to the guru, be obedient, be celibate, be sanctimonious, give us lots of money. A meta-intention many groups strive to impregnate you with is: "Don't trust your own intentions. Your desires are selfish and unspiritual. That is just your ego."

Oddly enough, the inner level of life - the spiritual world - is just as filled with advertising as a city street. Belong to our group. Do our technique. Subscribe to our beliefs. Worship our god. Our technique is the only technique. Our way is the only way. Our guru is the uber-guru. You are lost without us. And also, "It's Our World. You have to pay us rent."

Meditation does not make you invulnerable to being dominated by other people. We are all suggestible, all the time.

This is fine, the nature of life on earth. And this is fine if you want to be owned - PWNed - by some group. And check it out - groups and masters like to feel that they own you, and that you owe them. Getting out of the deal is harder than canceling one of those services that automatically deducts monthly charges from your checking account.

The truth that is rarely said is that no one owns the truth of meditation. There is no gatekeeper to the inner world. No one owns access to your soul. But everyone is fighting to claim that ownership and profit from it. The advertising in meditationland tends to be more subtle than that in orthodox religion, but subtler is sometimes more effective.

Have a guru if you want. Accept that over time the guru and the group will work to create in you the feeling that they are the only way, and that you cannot live without their direction. And know that if you feel the need to leave, you can, and you will go through a process of withdrawal that may feel quite intense and painful. It may take awhile to come back to being in tune with your own direction.

Intention - to direct attention

The word, intention, comes to us from the Middle English entencioun, from Old French intention, from Latin intenti, intentin-, from intentus, intent, from past participle of intendere, to direct attention.

From the American Heritage Dictionary online at Bartleby.com
Intention, NOUN:

1. A course of action that one intends to follow.
2a. An aim that guides action; an objective. b. intentions Purpose with respect to marriage: honorable intentions.
3. Medicine The process by which or the manner in which a wound heals.
4. Archaic Import; meaning.

SYNONYMS: intention, intent, purpose, goal, end, aim, object, objective. These nouns refer to what one plans to do or achieve. Intention simply signifies a course of action that one proposes to follow: It is my intention to take a vacation next month. Intent more strongly implies deliberateness: The executor complied with the testator's intent. Purpose strengthens the idea of resolution or determination: “His purpose was to discover how long these guests intended to stay” (Joseph Conrad). Goal may suggest an idealistic or long-term purpose: The college's goal was to raise ten million dollars for a new library. End suggests a long-range goal: The candidate wanted to win and pursued every means to achieve that end. Aim stresses the direction one's efforts take in pursuit of an end: The aim of most students is to graduate. An object is an end that one tries to carry out: The object of chess is to capture your opponent's king. Objective often implies that the end or goal can be reached: The report outlines the committee's objectives.