EP #17 What Manifesting and Religion Actually Have in Common

Is manifesting actually in conflict with faith — or are we just using different words for the same deeper truth? In this episode, Kindyl explores why so many people feel tension between manifesting, prayer, meditation, religion, and spirituality… and why that divide may be more about vocabulary than belief.

If you’ve ever felt curious about manifesting but hesitant because of your religious background, this conversation will challenge that fear in a thoughtful, grounded way. This episode looks at what faith, prayer, visualization, intention, meditation, and belief may all have in common — without dismissing religion or reducing spirituality to trends.

This is a conversation about common ground, not conflict. If you’ve ever wondered whether manifesting and faith can coexist, or whether Jesus, Buddha, prayer, and meditation are pointing toward something more similar than different, this episode is for you.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:01

There is a science behind it because biologically there is something that happens inside of us physically, physiologically, when we think about things. Because your brain does not know the difference between what's actually happening and what you believe is happening.

SPEAKER_00 0:21

Change doesn't start with what you do, change starts with who you are. I'm your host, Kendall Keaton, and this is the Identity Advantage.

SPEAKER_01 0:36

All right, welcome back. And I want to start today with a conversation that has come up for me several times over the last couple of weeks. And every single time it comes up, I get really fired up about it, but like in a really good way, because I'm like super passionate about this subject. I think it is one of, I think it's one of the conversations that has way more tension around it than it actually needs to have. And I want to talk about manifesting. I want to talk about faith, about religion, about prayer, about meditation, and why so many people feel like those things are in conflict with each other. Like that manifesting and religion cannot coexist, or that they contradict, or that they're separate, or that you're denying one to have the other. And it's just, that's not accurate. It's not true. There are a lot of people that are curious about manifesting, curious about the law of attraction. They're curious about identity work and belief work and the power of intention, right? The power of expectation. Thoughts become things, visualizations, vision boards, believing in something before it happens. It's like we all feel like, yeah, there's a little bit of truth into this, but if I go headfirst into manifesting, then I'm going against my faith or I'm going against my religion. If you were raised, and I was, I was raised in a very Christian environment. My family are all very much still of the Christian faith. And when you're raised in a religious environment, it's natural there's going to be some tension when you think about these other things, when law of attraction or manifesting comes up, because we're kind of made to believe that they're in contradiction to whatever your faith may be. Like, am I allowed to believe in this? Is this against God? Does this contradict my faith? Does this mean that I'm walking away from everything that I was taught? Am I no longer a Christian because I believe in manifesting? Now, I'm not a religious person. I don't actually identify with any given religion, but I am very spiritual. I am very faith-based. And you can be either really think you can keep your current religious identity, whatever that is. It doesn't mean that if you have a vision board or you want to work on manifesting, I want to talk about why that does not mean that you're walking away from your faith. You don't have to really leave your religion. And this conversation matters a lot because there are a lot of people carrying around, you might be carrying around a lot of unnecessary guilt over something that may be in many cases much more just about language than it is a truth. It's not a, I really want to explain to you why it's not a faith problem, it's a vocabulary problem. A lot of what people call manifesting, it's not the opposite of faith. Faith is just being explained in different terms. It's semantics. We're arguing over words, we're arguing over vocabulary. We're not divided by belief, we're divided by terminology. And this topic can get really complicated because the word manifesting can mean very different things depending on who's using it. For some people, manifesting would mean clarity, intention, belief, um, expectancy, emotional alignment, maybe taking action. That's a big piece that I talk about is that there's an action piece in manifesting. Some people talk about that, some people don't. Other people, it gets presented kind of like it's magic. Like if you think hard enough, right? You think hard enough about a car, and the universe is going to drop one in your driveway. That's the perspective of manifesting that has been shown to a lot of people. Manifesting is not magic. Manifesting can be seen as like woo-woo and magical and mystical, and it's okay to see it like that too. I see it more of a mixture of science and spirituality. There is a science behind it because biologically, there is something that happens inside of us physically, physiologically, when we think about things, because your brain does not know the difference between what's actually happening and what you believe is happening. That is the science behind this. That's the science behind faith, science behind the power of belief. But I there is a spiritual aspect of it too. And manifesting when you can kind of combine the spiritual side, which is what helps you believe those things, and then the science side of what happens actually physiologically in our bodies and what it motivates us to do and move towards that's the lens that I take on manifesting. And that is faith-based. It's believing in something before it actually happens. And that is the core foundation of so many religions. I really want to get to the bottom of the fact that manifesting and its very core foundation is much, much more similar to religions and their core foundations than they are different. If we could just take a moment and stop looking at how they are different and look at how they are similar, I think you will find that manifesting is not anti-any religion at all. It just explains it in a different way. Which, how amazing is that that faith can reach more people now because we're speaking about it in different ways, because we are all different and we all perceive things differently. So thank goodness there's another way out there to be able to reach people if we could just look at it from that perspective. To a certain extent, every religion talks about in their own way what you believe, what you expect, what you focus on, what you pray for, what you meditate on, emotionally rehearse, what you act upon, starts shaping your life. It shapes your decisions, what you notice, what risks you take, how you show up, whether you quit early, whether you stay in the game, whether you live from fear, whether you live from trust, from faith, faith in a higher power. In order to manifest, you have to have faith in a higher power. You have to believe that there is a source of energy greater than you that is helping you. Somebody please tell me how that is different than religion, than faith. It is the same core principle. This is where the conversation gets really interesting. And I want to preface this with saying, I am not preaching today. I am not trying to convince anybody to believe in any certain direction. All I am saying is that we all pretty much believe the same thing and we're using different language to describe it, and we're all just arguing over semantics. That's it. So I do want to go over, like I am going to quote some scripture today. I'm going to talk about what Jesus said. I want to talk about what Buddha said, like, but only for the point of, I want us to look for those similarities. What do we have in common? So we can all stop fighting over something that doesn't exist. So just know that I'm not trying to convert anybody to any certain religion or any certain faith. I do believe that Jesus is one of the most powerful teachers that we've ever had, and that we can learn so much about how to live a good life, how to live a happy life, how to live a fulfilled, kind, generous, gracious, successful life from studying his teachings. But I believe the same about Buddha. And I think they were teaching the same thing. Jesus said, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it and it will be yours. That's the same thing that manifesting says. Manifesting says, ask, believe that you have it, and then be open to receiving it. That is no different than what you ask for in prayer, believe you have received it, and it will be yours. They are the same thing. If you strip away all the modern branding, the buzzwords, right, that sound very close to what a lot of people today are trying to describe when they talk about manifesting, because I think we get confused by all these, not confused, but new age words, like the whole new age thing gets misconstrued. They're saying the same thing in a modern vocabulary. We hear words like subconscious identity, nervous system, emotional regulation, neural pathways, neuroscience, subconscious, ego, neuroscience. All those things existed in 100 BC, but that vocabulary did not exist. Neuroscience was happening, but you don't see the word neuroscience come up in the Bible because they didn't have that word. Jesus could not go back and say, hey, the neuroscience and neuroplasticity, they would have had no clue what he was talking about. He had to use the vocabulary of the day. Our vocabulary is different now, but it doesn't mean that it's anything different than what he was saying. We just have the words to express it. We have the technology to see it at a scientific level. It doesn't mean that science and spirit are saying different things. It just means we have the technology and the vocabulary to see it through a different lens now. They didn't have that thousands of years ago. But it doesn't mean it didn't exist. It just means Jesus and Buddha, Krishna, whoever, could not call it that. Jesus had said, wherever two or more are gathered, I am there in the midst of them. Manifesting talks about when you get more people together for a meditation, how much more powerful it is and how much easier it is to connect to source. Source is God, the creator. If somebody says source and someone says God, they are speaking about the same energetic identity using a different word. Manifesting teaches that you have to believe that you have the power to change your circumstance, that your power is internal, not external. And this is where things might get sketchy. Right? This is where sometimes conversations with someone who is very attached to their religion go a little awkward because manifesting teaches the law of attraction teaches that you have the power of source inside of you. But Jesus also said that the kingdom of God is within you, not outside of you, within you. That is the same thing as saying the source, the power of source is inside of you. The kingdom of God is within you. It is not external. That's probably, I think, the biggest difference in how we perceive things is that, and I've had this conversation, and it's not necessarily rejected completely, but there is a little bit of like, hmm, I never thought of it that way. When I say there is a part of God that lives within us. God is not an external force that we're waiting on just to change everything for us. The kingdom of God is within you. If we can really take that and say, no, actually, I mean, we were made in the in his image, right? Scripture says that we were made in the image of God. That's all that manifesting is saying. It's just saying that that power source is not all external. You have access to it inside you as well. And then you co-create with that source, with God. You do it together. That's the action piece. Take some action, do the thing. There is so much similarity, and you can have a manifesting practice, you can have a vision board, you can work on your thoughts, you can work on your beliefs, you can meditate, and you can still be connected to your Christian faith, to your Catholic faith, whatever that is. You are not going against it. They do not contradict each other, they cooperate together. Maybe you'd be stronger if you used both of them. Take a look at how it's just a vocabulary difference. We don't believe different things, we're just calling it different things. Some people hear the word prayer and they feel peace. Others hear the word meditation and they feel peace. Right? Some people hear the word visualization and it clicks for them. Prayer, meditation, visualization, they're all the same thing. Some people might hear the word surrender, right? Jesus take the wheel. Some hear trust, some hear faith, some hear expectancy, all the same thing, different vocabulary. We're all pointing at very similar human experiences, and we're just using different language. And we would all be a lot less divided if we could start to be a little bit more honest about that. And I'm not saying that all religions are the same, like it's just like the same across the board, but I'm saying that there's way more that we have in common than we do otherwise. There are recurring themes across all traditions, right? They're all faith-based. Believing in something that you cannot see: inner transformation, love, humility, surrender, attention, and focus, belief before visible proof, and some form of morality or ethical alignment. When you look at something as simple as the golden rule, the golden rule shows up in pretty much every tradition, every religion in some way, shape, or form, which tells us that human beings keep arriving at pretty much the same moral wisdom over and over again, right? Do unto others as you would have done unto you. Because what goes around comes around. Right? That's the golden rule. Like Christianity specifically, when Jesus is asked about what is the greatest commandment of all, he answers to love your God and love your neighbor as yourself. If you have done one, you have done the other. Right? That's the golden rule. This is so important because we have had literal wars between religions. And if we could just look at what the core foundation is, it's faith. Belief in something that you cannot see. Do unto others as you would have done unto you. And it's because what you are doing to someone, you are also doing to yourself. We are all created from the same little small speck of energy from the same source. No one's arguing that there were two different creators. We all believe that one energy source, you just call it whatever you want to, source, creator, God created all of us. We are all connected. Stop looking at the differences. Start looking at what we all have in common, and you will find so much there. We're all just trying to have faith in something that we cannot see. In religious circles, we are told to pray in the spirit of gratitude, right? Thank God for the things that you are asking for. And so often we don't do that. We pray, please give me this, please give me this, please do this, please do this. No, you are supposed to pray in gratitude, thank him for doing the thing as if it has already been done. That is said in scripture over and over again. That is also the foundation of manifesting of the law of attraction. Gratitude, even though they may not call it prayer, they may call it meditation, meditating gratitude, have a gratitude practice. It is the exact same thing that scriptures will tell you about how to pray. They call it prayer, other people call it meditation. It is no different. We have got to stop arguing over vocabulary. So if you are finding some truth in manifesting, if you're like, God, this is really interesting, and I feel like I kind of want to do some things, like I want to meditate, I want to do gratitude, I really want to focus on manifesting. You're not going against your religion. You're not contradicting faith. You're really just strengthening it. And you're opening yourself up to make connections to more people, to be able to spread faith to more people. And this is why sometimes, like when I do things, I do believe in a higher power. You have got to believe in a higher power. But a lot of times I don't call that higher power God because I think that that higher power exists no matter what you call it. And I don't want to ever leave anyone out of the conversation by saying you have to call that higher power something specific because you don't. And I will stick by that. And higher power does not care what you call it, as long as you believe and you trust and you act in integrity, in kindness, in love, in compassion. And please, please, please do not judge someone else for what they believe. Because more than likely, if you were to really be open-minded and sit down and have an honest conversation with that person, you would realize that you probably believe pretty close to the same thing. You just don't use the same terminology. One of the huge similarities, and I don't want to miss this because it is really important, when we talk about the subconscious, when we talk about identity work, when we talk about ego, prayer and meditation both serve the same purpose, as in they are to try to separate you from your ego, from those beliefs, basically that don't serve you. In Hinduism, Buddhism, a lot of those Eastern faiths, a lot of those eastern religions meditate. The whole point is they're trying to separate themselves from the ego so that they can create a higher connection to source, to their higher power, whatever they call that, to source, to the universe, to the enlightened being, to the highest version of themselves sometimes. But the point of the meditation is to separate themselves from the ego. It's the same thing that Jesus would have been doing with prayer. He said, if you want to follow me, you first have to leave yourself. You have to die to yourself to follow me. Jesus was talking about the ego. You have to die to your ego. That's what prayer was all about, about trying to separate yourself from your ego and just align yourself with God. It's the exact same thing that Eastern religions do through meditation. We're just calling it different things. And then we fight over it in the name of whatever your higher power is, when it's really the same power. Like how backward is that? And it's all because we're focusing on the differences instead of focusing on the commonalities. We're living in a time where people are trying to assign labels, right? They are very quick to separate, to identify, to label, to reject, to divide. If we could just let go for a moment of all these words, of all these labels, and just look at what's really underneath all of this. We all just want the same thing. We all just want to be happy. We all really do want the world to be a safe place. We all want our children to have a better life than we've had. We all want fulfillment. We all want contentment. We all just see a different way of getting there. At our base, at our core, we are all much more alike than we have ever been different. And what we believe is much more alike than it has ever been different, because at the root of everything is just a faith, a belief in something that has not happened yet and something that you cannot see. The question is not, is manifesting religious or is it anti-religious? It's just what's the principle underneath them both? And when you look at that, it's faith, expectancy, alignment, right, inner transformation, connection to the higher power, living in integrity. If we look at all these principles underneath it and just focus on those and not the name we've assigned to whatever religion is out there, right, the conversation becomes a lot smoother. It's not nearly as divided as people think it is. So I think maybe the real invitation here is like, can you become less attached to the vocabulary you've been used to using? The thoughts are all the same. The faith is the same. The idea, the concepts, everything we're doing is the same. The words used to describe it is the only difference. The divide is not faith, the divide is just vocabulary. None of us are really fighting over what we think the truth is. We are fighting over the language we're using to describe the truth. So can you let go of the language and just be a little more open to seeing what the intention is behind it? Because I guarantee you, if you look at what we have in common, you will find so much more there than you ever thought before. You will find more to agree on than to disagree on. Imagine how much things could change if we could all just do that.

unknown 21:59

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 22:00

So much for listening. And if something you heard today made an impact or changed the way you think somehow, then share it with somebody you care about. Because sometimes it's that one moment, that one idea, that changes everything. And until next time, remember if you want to do something you've never done, you have to become someone you've never been. That is the identity advantage.