The Stream is a metaphor for Source energy. It's a way of describing the process of getting into alignment with source energy so that manifestation can occur.

The concept of the Stream is used by Abraham to explain that you can either manifest things into your life by moving upstream, or by flowing downstream with the current. It is easy to imagine which way is more effective.

Abraham further characterizes some thoughts as upstream, and others as downstream. Generally, those thoughts which make you feel better are downstream thoughts, allowing thoughts which facilitate the manifestation process; while upstream thoughts are those thoughts that make you feel worse, and create resistance to Source energy.

The oars in your canoe are used as a metaphor for your inclination to control the process of manifestation, which is also considered upstream.

In Illusions, the Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah, Richard Bach tells a great story about the Stream:

Once there lived a village of creatures along the bottom of a great crystal river. The current of the river swept silently over them all-young and old, rich and poor, good and evil, the current going its own way, knowing only its own crystal self.

Each creature in its own manner clung tightly to the twigs and rocks of the river bottom, for clinging was their way of life, and resisting the current what each had learned from birth.

But one creature said at last, "I am tired of clinging. Though I cannot see it with my eyes, I trust that the current knows where it is going. I shall let go, and let it take me where it will. Clinging, I shall die of boredom."

The other creatures laughed and said, "Fool! Let go, and that current you worship will throw you tumbled and smashed across the rocks, and you will die quicker than boredom!"

But the one heeded them not, and taking a breath did let go, and at once was tumbled and smashed by the current across the rocks. Yet in time, as the creature refused to cling again, the current lifted him free from the bottom, and he was bruised and hurt no more.

And the creatures downstream, to whom he was a stranger, cried, "See a miracle! A creature like ourselves, yet he flies! See the Messiah, come to save us all!"

And the one carried in the current said, "I am no more Messiah than you. The river delights to lift us free, if only we dare let go. Our true work is this voyage, this adventure."

But they cried all the more, "Savior!" all the while clinging to the rocks, and when they looked again he was gone, and they were left alone making legends of a Savior.

god is a river, so let go swimmer... peter mayer