Story: Mahatma Buddha, Enlightenment and Villagers (Source: Google Baba)
Once Mahatma Buddha was giving a discourse about enlightenment. After the discourse was completed, one of the participants (Sanjay) got very excited and felt very good. He came closer to Gautama Buddha and said that enlightenment can solve all the problems of our life. With a lot of enthusiasm, he continued that enlightenment is so good that everyone will embrace it and it will change the life of everyone.
Mahatma Buddha smiled after hearing the optimism of the villager and suggested he get feedback from all the villagers of his village that what they seek the most in their life. Buddha asked him to get the response on a piece of paper and requested he not read the response.
As the village was small and that guy had a good reputation in the village, everyone responded to his request and shared their feedback in writing. Sanjay was very excited and went back to Mahatma Buddha early the next morning.
Buddha opened the papers one by one and shared the response of all the villagers. To the utter surprise of Sanjay, everyone wanted some materialistic things in life and no one opted for enlightenment!
Sanjay was puzzled & shocked and asked Gautama Buddha how it is possible. By having enlightenment, they can get everything in life but why his fellow villagers are opting for mundane 
things? Buddha smiled and told him that this is the reality of life. We do wish good things in life but we are never serious about working on it to achieve it!
What is the Meaning of Self-Manifestation?
Manifestation is about creating a vision for the future, putting energy and intention into making that vision a reality and then aligning your thoughts, emotions and actions accordingly so that your vision can come to fruition.
Interestingly we manifest what we want to do based on our convenience and situation. If we are working in the service sector, we manifest ourselves that irrespective of what customers may say, I will always be polite. But the same person at home may abuse the spouse and children as the manifestation is different!
Throughout the day, we manifest something or the other in our minds. It can be good (I can do this, I am always empowered) or bad (negative thoughts, self-deprecating thoughts). For example, if I have a habit of drinking alcohol and I am trying to avoid it; I am not successful so far. When I fail to contain my emotions, I start saying to myself that ‘I am weak, we can not control our emotions, and I fail every time’! What will happen when I manifest such thoughts and still, I want to leave alcohol, certainly it will NOT work.
Does Self-Manifestation Work?
Manifesting sometimes gets a bad rap for being just “wishful thinking”. It has happened to many of us that we wished for something in life but it never turned into reality. What we do not realize is that merely with wishful thinking, things will not change (just like we discussed in the story related to Enlightenment). We need to be serious about it, commit ourselves and work hard towards achieving, what we are manifesting.
A 2017 study published in Basic and Applied Social Psychology found that when tennis players used a visualization exercise to imagine their goals of improving their performance and winning a match against their opponent, they were more successful than when they didn’t visualize those goals.
Assume that you are making a mistake for the last 20 years, you have two choices, either to quit and continue or to manifest the thought one more time that I CAN DO IT. Internally we all are powerful and we have all the capability to do what we want to do. During special religious festivals, we do not eat non-vegetarian food although we cannot live without it even for a single meal, we have that innate power to control our urges during those days.
Like Many of us strongly feel that I cannot wake up early in the morning as I am a ‘night person’! The same person easily wakes up at 3 am to catch an early morning international flight without any fuss! We condition our minds in such a way that we limit our true potential. We need to break the box by thinking about what we want by using the power of manifestation.
How to do Self-Manifestation?
Achieving your dreams is possible — first, you have to believe.
We must keep in mind that there’s no exact right way to manifest, so your strategy can be whatever you want it to be, as long as it consistently includes inner reflection (to get clear on what you want for your future) and practical actions (to help get you there).
Someone has rightly said that ‘Mind is the best Friend and Mind is the worst Enemy’. In social media, If out of 100 messages, 95 are speaking highly about you and only 5 are criticizing you, what do you remember? Only the negative messages and you continue to feed your minds with only those messages. Whatever you manifest becomes the reality and began to question your ability to perform!
Your mind is your most powerful tool. Reprogramming your conscious and subconscious mind takes time. The more you train yourself to think positively, the more natural it’ll become.
Gratitude, Mindfulness and Positive self-talk can play a very important role in avoiding any worry.
Practice Gratitude: A key element of giving blessings is being grateful for what you have. Practice gratitude in your daily life and learn to appreciate all of the good things in your life.
Meditate: Meditation can help you to focus your mind and clear your thoughts. This can help you to give/receive blessings that are more powerful and meaningful.
Practice Mindfulness: Mindfulness can help you to be more present and aware of the blessings in your life. Practice mindfulness regularly to help you to receive/give blessings more easily.