The Secret: Epilogue

 

You got to rock the boat sometimes. :-P

 

Oh, wow.
Just watched the 20 mins worth…
I wasn't expecting to be so repulsed.
It's like a really expensive infomercial.

I will not completely rule out the translative
aspect - though I'm hard-pressed to come up with
a scenario where narcissistic delusion
would be a step up even horizontally.

It's frightening to picture a world where,
with 70% of the population at an ethnocentric
center of gravity, The Secret started working
en masse!

Imagine the implications.

Or, imagine the implications if it started working
in large numbers even for the middle class boomers
for whom the picture was made.

Can the environment sustain everyone living
in $4MILLION mansions in Malibu and driving
stretch Hummers to 7-11 to stock up on Hostess
snacks?

I know not everyone is ready to be undone by non-dual
trans-formative practices. I do agree.
And yr spot on about the genie being out of the bottle.
There's no turning back now.

“Remember you must go “three for three.” Your thoughts, feelings, and actions must all be firing simultaneously for you to create and attract the results you deserve.”

This just smacks of spiritual immaturity so much for me.
The idea that the human ego is in charge of the freaking universe
and that individuals deserve everything they attract..
Come on!
This is full on pluralism infected with narcissism and sitting in
front of the tv watching Saturday morning cartoons.

Which is fine.

But it's not spiritual anything.

And translation?
I was gonna ask if narcissistic delusion
is really the highest we're aiming for,
but then, having just watched the American Idol
auditions, I think I know the answer. ;D

Anyway, great post ~C.
Thanks for the link.
You rock.

xo
cree

 

it's all good. dude.

 

Seeing that a wickedly long reply was in order, I posted as, ”the world ceases to make sense”

It starts by quoting that snippet from Wilber on averting disaster and psychosis because people are too fragile and their world may cease to make sense…:

“The world has ceased to make sense.

Today, heck maybe it's an everyday occurence now, I'm not in a mood to be pandered to, or to pander. Maybe it's just me and maybe it's just the people that come into my sphere, but they are quite intelligent.

Almost too intelligent. They've seen the world's paradoxes. I think of Enid in Ghost World. You aren't pulling the wool over her eyes. She'd puke on The Secret.”

There's a lot in my post about disaster specificially - tsunamis, Katrina, and then the everyday full catastrophe living of life. I guess one of my tenets is:  What most people need is not a false reframing, but a deframing.

Fair question: instead, why don't you give us your own healthy translation? I'll see if anything arises while staying open-minded, yet my first (oh, and perhaps snarky) temptation is to say that “healthy translation” is an oxymoron.

 

evelyn rockin it out.

klare short and sweet.

cree bringing it home down to earth stylee….

c4- dude: i ain't buying this spin.

mo' later….

 

I just read the whole transcript to both Oprah shows. That last Oprah show is way better than the actual movie. It still has its deliriously questionable moments, but it's really uncanny how much better it is than the movie. Perhaps people will just stop at watching Oprah and skip the DVD altogether ;-)

On page 2, second show: James [Ray] says that when bad things happen people might ask, “Oh, God, why me?” ”Because it is you,” he says.

Whoa, he's getting awfully close there, eh?

Lovely story at the end (below). Reminds me so much of Krishnamurti's 'secret' of 'I don't mind what happens' and Byron Katie's 'secret' of things don't happen to you, but for you.

“On the day that Oprah introduced the world to The Secret, Clarissa thought she was in for an ordinary day—which usually includes missing The Oprah Winfrey Show because she's at work. But just 20 minutes into her workday, her boss called her into his office to tell her she was being fired.

On her way home, Clarissa called a friend who was fired by the same boss weeks before. “She and I were talking and we were just saying such bad things about him, just [the most] horrible things that we could think of. There was a lot of anger in both of our hearts for him because we were upset,” she says.

After she arrived home, Clarissa and her mom watched the show about The Secret. “It just made me seriously think back and think, 'God, it wasn't him. It was me. He was right. I was negative. I didn't want this job. I didn't need the job. It was just a stepping stone.'”

She immediately typed up words and phrases—gratitude, true happiness, gratefulness—and hung them on the walls of her bedroom so that she'd remember them daily. Clarissa even wrote her old boss a letter. “I was upset at your reasoning for letting me go. Then I watched The Oprah Winfrey Show and the topic mesmerized me,” she wrote. “For the things you said to me, I forgive you. And in the same sentence, I hope you forgive me. … Thank you for hiring and firing me.”

“Now I'm so much more positive on everything that has happened,” she says.

“You're open to the possibility of whatever is supposed to come into your life,” Oprah says.”

 

spoken like a true integral theorist :) but i think you're misinterpreting James Ray. again, they are talking to people who have yet to encounter those uber-cool integral jargons ;)

I know.
I hear what yr saying. Really I do.
This is not a case of anyone being fluffier than anyone else
(to borrow your trans-integral(?) jargon;)

As I said:
I will not completely rule out the translative
aspect - though I'm hard-pressed to come up with
a scenario where narcissistic delusion
would be an improvement, even horizontally.


here's my challenge to you (and all others who think that the Law of Attraction is bunk). forget about how others would interpret the Law of Attraction. instead, why don't you give us your own healthy translation? based on your understanding of where you're at in your spiritual path right now, how would you interpret the Law of Attraction?

I don't think the law of attraction is bunk. Geez, ya Projector! :D

And, others are free to interpret it (and everything else) however they wish.
I've already conceded that it may have some translative value.

However, elevating it as they do in what I saw of the movie, to be The Secret of the Universe - that's where it slides into the realm of delusion for me.

i'd prefer to hear your translation rather than your assumptions on how others would do the translation.

Come on. I have offered no assumptions on how others would do the translation.

I am definately on board with the need for healthy translation!
It's absolutely crucial.
And I am not at all compelled to tell anyone how they should translate.

That doesn't mean I'm going to agree when someone, attempting to elevate the law of something, to spiritual status, goes around telling cancer patients, or starving children, or the populations in war-torn countries that they created their reality by thinking negative thoughts, and that if only they hadn't let the fact that they were out of toothpaste bum them out and send them into a negative skid - that they might be able to create the reality they deserve.


I think that when any form of translation masquerades as transformation it impedes the transformative process. 



forget about how others would interpret the Law of Attraction. instead, why don't you give us your own healthy translation? based on your understanding of where you're at in your spiritual path right now, how would you interpret the Law of Attraction?

When I examine my own interpretaion of the law of attraction I find that it is has changed over time like everything else.

There was a time when I experienced it as magical - closely aligned with my period of petitionary prayer.  All powerful other would grant my wishes if my conformity was sufficient.

Then came all powerful self. Ego in the lotus seat  attracting greatness or misfortune depending on my skill at emoting correctly.
In a way, you could say this was a step towards taking responsibility for my thoughts, intentions, and actions.
However, to stop there, by elevating this stage to some type of spiritual glory is such an obvious retardent of the whole growth process.

It's not the law of attraction that's in question for me.
It's the inflation of it. It's the masquerading as transformation
what is really just the ego in drag.
I'm sorry, but I can't buy it as healthy translation.

To me, healthy translation has to lead (or at least point) beyond the separate self as center.

I'm currently in the 'throttling to death' phase that you quoted above.  I can't say I reccommend it - it sucks my butt most days.
 I don't know where to internally situate something like the law of attraction anymore.
I no longer have the luxury of indulging in the fantasy that my separate self is charge of squat.

Words fail. Sorry.

cree

 

Wow.I love this one,a lot,on many levels…Thanks!

 

It is definitely “Mean Green Meme” pluralism at it's finest hour.  But if it get's alot of the “My God is better than your God”  Amber mentality lifted up another stage, then the Third Tiers have alot less work to do, don't you think?  Spiritual Greed is still greed, but I think once the initial Honey Moon with the mindfulness wears off, It might just transform it's potentially ugly head into another step into the Turquoise by way of mindfully manifesting for others to the point where the term “others” can be defined as “all things”.  If this occurs it could, albeit loosely, be a shaky step into Third Tier Kosmocentric consciousness.  Cross your fingers.

Buzz

 

Cree: ”I no longer have the luxury of indulging in the fantasy that my separate self is charge of squat.” Amen.

I'm curious since the Larry King Live segment is titled, Beyond Positive Thinking, if we can maybe offer resources in some tagged, maybe organized way, here at Zaadz or wherever since as ~C4 says, the genie is out of the bottle that really is Beyond Positive Thinking.

Positive thinking using the so-called law of attraction through a 'me' eventually fails as a skillful means. Maybe I'm simply speaking for myself, but I've never ever been able to sustain positive thinking even in my glory days of righteous sovereignty over my fiercely independent self. Stuff would happen that despite my best efforts of sheer will and brute force sent me into grief, or guilt, or shame, or whatever.

I couldn't seem to positive think my way out quite a few baffling situations in last six years.  For instance, in a ten day period,  I injured my knee, first-hand witnessed devastation on a global scale the likes this earth hadn't seen in a century, went through a breakup with the boyfriend I went to Thailand with, and learned that a dear friend - my ex-husband - had just suffered a serious head injury in an accident and was on the brink of not making it.

This is known as a wake-up call, or what my teacher calls fierce grace. It's probably not because I wasn't thinking positively enough.

I wrote of the experience: ”We're afraid that if we sit still with the emotions - the grief, the anguish, the pain, the sorrow, the emptiness - then we will be totally consumed by waves upon waves of emotion.

What we run from pursues us, what we welcome transforms us, he repeated from earlier in class.

The staying was more intense than the physical tsunami for me. I wasn't sure how far done the rabbit hole I could keep falling…and falling. Where and when would the unraveling end? He shared that what usually happens is that as we go deeper into “what is present” we eventually go through it to the other side. And this is exactly what happened.”

Even on the Oprah show I said was better than the movie (it is), I wasn't surprised that two folks had gone through a major tragedy. I'm not sure enough people recognize that times of disillusionment aren't times to buck up and get with the program. They are times for contemplation. To feel what you're feeling 100%. (I didn't know how to do this either, but the teachers appear.) To feel that “I don't know what life is about anymore” so thoroughly it catapults you into beginner's mind.

I still can't positive think my way out of things. If anything, on this path, it feels more and more that which is unmet, that which is unconscious (and it  sure ain't always pretty nor always perceived as positive) comes to the forefront in an accelerating even raucous fashion to be made conscious.

Sometimes positive thinking can be used as a means of resisting and repressing what wants to be seen and liberated. If refused, in my experience, the knocks just get louder, the wake-up calls undeniably  sobering.

I love how Adyashanti puts the acceptance and gathering of the unconscious:

“This brightness comes back for all itself, for every bit of confusion, for every bit of its suffering. Everything that the me tried to get away from, the sacred Self will come back for. This bright Self starts to discover its true nature and wants to liberate all of itself, to enjoy itself, and to truly love itself in all of its flavors. The truly sacred is the love of what is, not a love of what could be. This love liberates what is.

The true heart of all human beings is the lover of what is. That's why we cannot escape any part of ourselves. This is not because we are a disaster, but because we are conscious and we are coming back for all of ourselves in this birth. No matter how confused we are, we will come back for every part of ourselves that has been left out of the game. This is the birth of real compassion and love. For too long it has been said by spiritual traditions that you have to slay so much to get to love. But that is a myth. The truth is that it is love that really liberates.” - Adyashanti, Emptiness Dancing

 

follow me here:

1) people who are drawn to regressive, delusional, narcissistic ideas about themselves and their relationship to reality generally have a preponderance of trauma/psychological wounding. (this is not a stage thing it's a pathology/defense thing - and there is zero unkind judgment in this statement, seriously…)

2) it is regressive, delusional and narcissistic to believe that your thoughts can affect things like parking spaces, a man appearing to place the gold necklace around your neck, wether or not hate criminals attack you on the street, wether or not there are “unexpected checks in your mailbox”, and wether or not a child with a rare form of hepatitis dies - no-one has that power - the belief that you or anyone does comes from a naive magical thinking regression.  in the altered state of trauma the experience of cause and effect, self and other, reality and fantasy, intention and event, gets really tweaked… look at sean hornbeck as a simple example.

3) therefore this set of ideas/worldview is a defensive strategy against a healthier relationship to reality that would entail mature acceptance (certainly a difficult  but essential process for traumatized, wounded individuals) of being in a grounded relationship to reality where magic is not the answer to your problems - that would be consciousness, healing and self-inquiry. (and we aint even getting into what wilber calls transformative spirituality yet - just simple translative learning to be real about your feelings and your life.)

4) underneath the inflated all-powerful magical thinking defense is a lot of pain and despair at the true nature of life's hard realities. (the fact is, people from less traumatized/wounding backgrounds simply don't get caught up in this stuff - or if they do it's a minor passing fancy - not a supposed “life-changing” milestone…) perpetuating the defense and dignifying it with language like “philosophy,” “spirituality,” “psychology” etc does no-one any favors in terms of finding their way into healing, translative spirituality, or transformative practice.

5) now effective translation (and movement forward) would be this: learning to be more honest with ourselves and eachother about suffering, change, chaos, and how our humanity (and ultimately our spirituality) is discovered through that honesty - the defenses against that honesty can be relinquished as we find permission and support to get real and process the pain - there actually are victims and people do NOT choose, create or attract their abusive childhood experiences, oppressive societal circumstances, level of birth and priviledge in their particular “caste system” etc - translative spirituality does not perpetuate the denial and pump more air into the inflated regressive narcissistic magical thinking-based defense - it supports us in getting real.

seriously - some stats say that  1 in 3 girls are molested. so let;s just think about the real implications of the number of trauma survivors buying into the secret  and so believing that they “attracted” their abuse - or that if they continue to be abused it is their fault….

i have seen that dynamic for years.

but julian, where is the partial truth?

well sure - there is a partial truth in that our unresolved traumas keep coming up for healing and that there is a victim/abuser dynamic that once imprinted in early life can keep repeating - but the solution to this problem is deep honest healing work with the reality that you were victimized - that it was not your fault, that you have a right to be angry at your abuser, that the world is unfair, that you were still good and worthy of love even though this terrible thing happened, that yes you may be perpetuating the dynamic unconsciously because of your wounding, but you can learn to take better care of yourself now (that is healthy translation and it is  a prerequisite for grounded and genuinely transformational spiritual work) 

NONE of this happens through surface level thought-change or magical thinking - in fact that 9 times out of 10 does more harm than good, perpetuates the confusion about what happened and why, and encourages further dissociation from reality and regression.

now how about all the rest of the suffering and trauma in the world - how about that kid in sub-saharan africa who things only of foood and water until he dies of starvation and dehydration?

how about the child with their arms blown off in iraq?

or your liver disease?

or ken wilber's autoimmune di=ysfucntion and ensuingg grand mal seizures….

or the reality of poor people all over the world who do not have “an avalanche of money pouring over them” - guess no-one hipped them up to the secret? puh -lease…

hmmmmm law of attraction huh? everything in your life you have attracted with your thoughts?

should we perpetuate such a superficial statement?

do your thoughts/intentions play a role in your experience and in how the world responds to you? yeah. with limitations.

but they are not the supreme genie in a lamp power - and thinking so is technically called “infantile omnipotence” - not translative spirittuality. ha!

(and c4 - have you watched the whole movie yet? don't even talk to me until you've watched the whole thing - blogger please :Op)

 

Good Morning ~C,


i agree, that is if we're talking about genuine spiritual transformation. but i'm just saying that other people has yet to develop a healthy ego in the first place. the Secret seems to be their catalyst for growth. so let's pause for a moment and try to look into the eyes of people who just discovered this “new” way of thinking.

I agree with Julian that this is not a stage thing it's a pathology/defense thing.
And interestingly, aligning thoughts/feelings/actions is a major tenant of psychological health - it's a by-product of a healthy ego, not a trick that can be put into the service of a damaged, grasping self.



“I know. Most of you who are reading this blog, especially those of you who are familiar with Integral theory, are probably rolling your eyes right now and thinking about pre/trans fallacyBoomeritis. Ok, fine. But make sure you also remember translation vs. transformation. ”

Darlin' those of us who are farmiliar w integral theory and reading your blog are not the ones who need reminding about translation vs. transformation!  We get it! We are not the ones EXPOLITING the law of attraction for fun and profit.

“Yes, people can develop the same translation mechanism by going to a shrink, but that's more pricey and time consuming. And meditation? Well, that's too much work for busy people. So there :)”

:O
Okay, well when you've managed to cobble together three for three and are a multi-bazillionairre,
at least you'll have lots of money for therapy and plenty of free time for meditation! :)

xo
cree (for cree-ate a healthier translation and REAL prosperity through better cultural models!

 

 

Interesting -cree and julian really have your number in their comments, but you soft-shoe away from what they are saying.

For what its worth, you input a lot of strawmen assertions to Cree and Julian - translation and transformation, that the objections even have to come from an “integral” place - but the same obejctions are valid for a hard-nosed rationalist.   The objections are independent of whether someone is a “integral theorist”.

Still, the magical synchronistic world often DOEs work on the principle of Law of Attraction.  You do a Magickal Spell, and the next day, what you wished for comes true, if sometimes in a “monkey's foot” type of way. 

That's the frustrating thing about this conversation - there is enough truth in synchronistic wishmaking/spellcasting, that the Law of Attraction promoters have something to hang their hats on.

But, I think we all agree, the truth is definitely partial!

:)

 

I like ~C4's suggestion of dealing with it “with Aikido moves, rather than Karate chops.”

Alas, perhaps this is yet another opportunity for both/and, eh? :)

While framing all the potential ramifications of delusional thinking and expressing outrage over the materialism, I think it's important to remember how it can catalyze positive growth. evelyn's comments about the woman's experience after being fired captures the powerful partial good that comes out of watching this movie.

any analysis/perspective that doesn't include that is (very) partial.

 

this is a huge subject people - it's what the whole tension between several different worldviews turns on…. lot's to explore and unpack here.

let's keep unwrapping the gifts and making good distinctions.

greedy orange, regressive green, and condescending yellow are all in the mix here.

and THEN there is the problem of trauma/pathology in the purely psychological sense.

once all of these areas have been clearly defined and agreed upon some sense can begin to be made of the complex issues a throw-away film like this touches on without 1% adequate depth….

 

you have got to be kidding!

here’s mr. pavlina from your link doing backflips worthy of a stoned first year philosophy student with a gymnastics scholarship to try and assert the plausability of the so-caled law of attraction in the face of real world critiques. it ends up sounding suspiciously like a semi-psychotic narcissistic fantasy - thanks for making my point:

”
Subjective reality is a belief system in which (1) there is only one consciousness, (2) you are that singular consciousness, and (3) everything and everyone in your reality is a projection of your thoughts.

You may not see it yet, but subjective reality neatly answers all these tricky Law of Attraction questions. Let me ’splain….

In subjective reality there’s only one consciousness, and it’s yours. Consequently, there’s only one source of intentions in your universe — YOU. While you may observe lots of walking, talking bodies in your reality, they all exist inside your consciousness. You know this is how your dreams work, but you haven’t yet realized your waking reality is just another type of dream. It only seems solid because you believe (intend) it is.

Since none of the other characters you encounter are conscious in a way that’s separate from you, nobody else can have intentions. The only intentions are yours. You’re the only thinker in this universe.

It’s important to correctly define the YOU in subjective reality. YOU are not your physical body. This is not the egoic you at all. I’m not suggesting you’re a conscious body walking around in a world full of unconscious automatons. That would be a total misunderstanding of subjective reality. The correct viewpoint is that you’re the single consciousness in which this entire reality takes place.

Imagine you’re having a dream. In that dream what exactly are YOU? Are YOU the physical dream character you identify with? No, of course not — that’s just your dream avatar. YOU are the dreamer. The entire dream occurs within your consciousness. All dream characters are projections of your dream thoughts, including your avatar. In fact, if you learn lucid dreaming, you can even switch avatars in your dream by possessing another character. In a lucid dream, you can do anything you believe you can.

Physical reality works the same way. This is a denser universe than what you experience in your sleeping dreams, so changes occur a bit more gradually here. But this reality still conforms to your thoughts just like a sleeping dream. YOU are the dreamer in which all of this is taking place.

The idea that other people have intentions is an illusion because other people are just projections. Of course, if you strongly believe other people have intentions, then that’s the dream you’ll create for yourself. But ultimately it’s still an illusion.”

give me a break. this is exactly the problem….

ya got any more dissociation-perpetuating “experts” up your sleeve c4?!

 

You got to rock the boat sometimes. :-P

But if  you do, you best know how to walk on water!

 

“so while your approach is generalizing the negative aspect of The Secret, my approach is differentiating the healthier interpretations. and therein lies the integration.”

THAT is a worthy goal - irregardless of the trenchant and also true criticisms of The Secret that cree and Julian ably list here.

In that vein, many claim that there is actually a “technology of the purple”, whereby you can quickly initiate a “magic spell”, and consequences from that magic spell show up in your life, soon afterwards.

To quote:

It shouldn't come as any surprise; people have been writing down reports and detailed instructions for thousands of years. Did you honestly believe all those brilliant Buddhist sages, Christian mystics, Muslim sufis, witches, alchemists and 'occultists' were just blowing it out through their asses?

Get with it. Magic is real. It works like gas. Everyone can use it.

EXERCISE 1

As a first exercise in magical consciousness spend five minutes looking at everything around you as if ALL OF IT was trying to tell you something very important. How did that lightbulb come to be here exactly ? Why does the murder victim in the newspaper have the same unusual surname as your father-in-law ? Why did the phone ring, just at that moment and what were you thinking ? What's that waterstain stain on the wall of the building opposite ? How does it make you feel ?

Five minutes of focus during which everything is significant, everything is luminous and heavy with meaning, like the objects seen in dreams.

Go.

 


EXERCISE 2

Next, relax, go for a walk and interpret everything you see on the way as a message from the Infinite to you.

Watch for patterns in the flight of birds. Make oracular sentences from the letters on car number plates. Look at the way buildings move against the skyline. The noises on the streets, voices cut into rapid, almost subliminal commands and pleas. Listen between the lines. Walk as far and for as long as you feel comfortable.

The more aimless, the more you walk for the sake of pure experience, the further into magical consciousness you will be immersed.

Magical consciousness resembles states of light meditation, 'hypnagogic' pre-sleep trance or alpha wave brain activity.

Myself, because using a “magical consciousness” so easily leads to superstition, ego trips, and encourages infantiiism, it isn't anything I use.

But the purple realm is real, as are the physics of that realm.

 

A little bit more - this is from Grant Morisson, genius comic creator of the Invisibles, as well as a ot more.  I've talked with him, and he isn't b.s'ing in terms of believeing what he is saying, and he seems to be a pretty standup guy.  Now his section on sigils:


The sigil takes a magical desire or intent - let's say 'IT IS MY DESIRE TO VISIT RWANDA'  (you can, of course, put any desire you want in there) and folds it down, creating a highly-charged symbol. The desire is then forgotten. Only the symbol remains and can then be charged to full potency when the magician chooses.

Forgetting the desire in its verbal form can be difficult if you've started too ambitiously. There's no point charging a sigil to win the lottery if you don't buy a ticket. Start with stuff that's not too emotionally-involving. I usually sigilise to meet people I'm interested in, or for particular qualities I'll need in a given situation. I've also used sigils for healing, for locating lost objects and for mass global change. I¹ve been using them for twenty years and they ALWAYS work.

For me, the period between launching the sigil and its manifestation as a real world event is usually 3 days, 3 weeks or 3 months depending on the variables involved.

Sigils ALWAYS work. If you encounter any problems getting the to work for you, let us know.

 

Oh, one last thing - for you Wilber Watchers out there - Morisson's spiritual journeys, and writing career, seem to be exact opposites of Wilber's.  But, they both have the bald shiny pate, they were born on the same day, January 31st, 11 years apart, and both are very unique and fascinating takes on the way to connect with God, while maintaining your unique voice.

 

The more I think of this stuff, the more I think that The Secret is an overcomplexification of the Kosmos, or universe if you will. The Law of Attraction as presented therein (again, the Oprah show is heaps better) explicitly implies separation, which typically doesn't do wonders in anyone's life.

“Everything, all the time, is causing everything else,” says Joseph Campbell in his 1969 Zen essay. He continues, “The Buddhist teaching in recognition of this fact is called the Doctrine of Mutual Arising… You and your enemies; you and your friends: all parts of the one thing, one wreath: “thing and thing: no division.” This surely is sublime.”

As my teacher, Adyashanti, said the other night in satsang, “When you know God, you don't have to trust. To trust would give it a form and implied in trusting is separation.” (btw, Adya refers to Primordial Awareness, the Unborn, thus no-thing and everything as God, as he's a nondualist teacher.)

I sense a layer of manipulating and efforting in The Secret on top of the manipulated experience of reality that most people prone to watch The Secret already have quite enough of.  Why tack on additional strife and striving and stress and waiting?

When I am receptive and willing to cooperate with the universe (yeah, I realize that statement seems to imply I am separate from universe), I am in harmony with reality as it is.

When I need money or a resource it comes (or the clarity and inspiration for the next action for it comes), when I don't need it, it doesn't. It doesn't require willfulness on 'my' part.

This is how Peace Pilgrim walked across the country without money. (Peace said explicitly she was not her body, “I'm that which activates the body.”) This is how Byron Katie says she 'handles' money. There's isn't any difference between what I want and what I get or what I get and what I want.

Sure, most people don't know how to do this. Because it requires stopping, not yet another skill. (“I invite you to do nothing, and see how much gets done,” Byron Katie said last Sunday in her book tour stop in Palo Alto.) Obviously, some of what is in The Secret (actually more so in the Oprah segments) is helpful because any time anyone speaks to openness, nonjudgment, love, gratitude, kindness, receptivity, acceptance, nonresistance, that's great, but it doesn't do enough in this regard. And it does nothing to address what happens when we are knocked out of the 'positive' and triggered and reactive to so-called 'negative' events and people showing up (which often point to unconscious, hidden aspects that require attention and awareness)?

If the film gets someone to question interiorly that question Einstein said was the most important question that any human being could ask, “Is the universe friendly?” That's a good start. They can throw away the list, throw away the treasure map collage with the mansion and simply ponder that.

Julian, I have corresponded with Steve Pavlina quite a bit in the past, and when he says, “Consequently, there’s only one source of intentions in your universe — YOU.”

I know he means the You that is Self. He is not speaking from philosophical thought, but his own direct experience, which from my previous exchanges with him far surpassed my own at the time. I think he's experimenting and surfing at the edges of Mystery these days and trying to share that. However, my quibble is that most people aren't really ready to hear nor apply nondualist teachings. I think as many have said before me it is best to help people to discover for themselves what is not truth, so then the truth that requires no proof or beliefs will become self-evident.

Ebuddha, Thanks so much for sharing the magic consciousness exercises. It reminds me of how a poet moves through the world. Or a Sufi master. One sees symbols and signposts to the unity everywhere one turns. There is nothing wrong with walking in enchantment and engagement with the world. I am reminded by what Amma, the so-called hugging saint, said (paraphrasing): We look for miracles to appear and yet do not see that the bird flying through the air is a miracle, and that the fish swimming in the waters is a miracle. 

“The world is its own magic.” - Sunri Suzuki (do we see it though?)

 

ooooh it's a can of worms - it's a can of worms - miraculous worms - but tangled up and slippery all the same….. :O)

what's a fierce distinction-lover to do?

back away with a smile and a bow…..

 

Ladybear,

walking on water is too easy. :-P

 

~C4 kindly asks: “how would you interpret the Law of Attraction?”

As fruity flavored country crOck. In other words, a money making pacifier.

However, it is in no need of being de-bunked. It will do that to itself. Confidence and/or connections is what success is all about. Many very positive people experience tragedy (Buddha), and many negative people experience enormous success (Osama). Oops.

Wrapping it up as ”the Secret” is for commercialization (bank rolling hope). Touting ”Law of Attraction” as definitive serves as a pacifier to voicing injustice. And is not a law at all. Its merely a hopeful concept. Yet, oppression is neither naive nor lacking true consciousness.

'What is' proves freedom and opportunity are out of the realm of such a ”feel good” concept and beyond “myspace” human law. Smiling and agape works better.

I'm on board with Julian, Cree and Forest Gump.

Serendipitous blog entry there ~C. Well done. Keep up the fine work.

 

Bravo to what Ken said! That's it.  And it's exactly what the message of Eckhart Tolle's A New Earth is. It's not the you that's running around as a dream-character that wakes up. It's more like Existence waking up from the trance of you. Steve Pavlina is the real deal, but personally, I don't see how The Secret  movie helps one iota in waking up from the trance state.

 

Ooops, sorry about that ~C4, I forgot you did say that it was translative, right.

BTW, in my view, A Course in Miracles is sneaky in that it may seem translative too, but it's actually transformative and it's nondualist teachings set in a Christian-sounding context (and I'm still a student of ACIM today). I believe it was Conversations with God, Anatomy of the Spirit, Four Agreements and listening to some Pema Chodron audio tapes (and her books like When Things Fall Apart) helped me at first. I already had plenty of material wealth at the time, so couldn't see how more of the same would help.

 

Thanks for the link. I’m glad that The Secret is all the rage right now. It’s a sign that people are ready to grow. And even with all the LOA messiness, there’s some good that can come out of it. Most people will try the LOA out and find it hopelessly lacking at some point in their transformation and will move on. IOS is the next step.

Transformation happens in stages. We don’t start at step one and move direct to non-dual realization.

 

the tragicomedy of errors

pre/trans fallacy comedic rule #13

the mystic knows that they are swimming in god while walking on dry land,
but the drowning man attempts the impossible to try and 
prove a childish fantasy.

category error comedic rule # 42

though the interior domain of thinking and feeling is inextricably 
related to the
outer world of physical reality, reduction of either to the other 
eviscerates spirit, 
while bloating vanity.

translation vs transformation "let's-think-this-through"
exercise #9

a) what about moving from wishful-thinking denial to 
psychological honesty as translation?

b) one has to have an interated psyche before healthy
transformation can transcend it.

c) the secret is pre/trans through and through - 
dissociated magical thinking 
omnipotent fantasy, "universal law" kitsch 
in drag as enlightened awareness.

when c) gets confused with a) by those who should know better, 
it is a sign that a) has been 
completely forgotten and b) will remain
just a vague abstraction that gets attributed to 
c) by those who don't know better.

don't dignify it - debunk it.

sure set goals, change your life, make choices - but there is 
no such thing as the
law of attraction and the world is a complicated place 
with lots of contingent factors determining
outcomes and ocurences - your intentions are just 
one of those contingencies.

there is no "universe" pouring money on you like an 
avalanche because you 
"believe it" - how
banal!

americans need to wake up to reality outside of the 
culturally conditioned self-entitled
materialistic, spiritually vacuous, 
near-sighted, gullible bubble that is so familiar.

ummmmm ok so on 911 
those people on the towers must have had some 
pretty negative 
thoughts, huh?

camman!

 

i love you c4, your wit, intelligence and even-handedness,  but until you actually see the movie and differentiate it from healthy forms of positive thinking, you won't get that it actually is making claims this simplistic and simpler - i am all for goals and healthy self-esteem, realistic, healing, translative self-growth and going for what you want - but it is important to distinguish that from inflation and the kind delusion that actually does harm and teaches regressive distortions as higher truths.

and of course i have applied ideas like the law of atrraction to my life - it's not new - this stuff has been around since forever - william james debunks it in the varieties of religious experience, written in 1901 fer chirssakes! :O) he calls it the “religion of healthy mindedness.”

not only have i applied it, i have watched countless others do so over the years, and there are some nice benefits, but they are outweighed by many negative effects which i have already gone into here and elsehwere at length….

it's critical thinking suicide
it confuses the reality of cause and effect
it places the blame on the victim
it encourages belief in magical power over reality
it invents a mythic god/magical wish fulfilling tree “universe” out there that grants your wishes if you think right, regardless of any other variables - it's reductionist in a solipsistic narcissistic way - not even rising to the false dignity of black and white religious moralism.

these are not small problems with this not big idea.

if one is to posit a “law” of the universe - a “secret knowledge” that explains everything that happens in life - well then it has to at very least stand up to the challenge to explain things like sufffering, death, abuse etc…

pavlina gets this but his attempt to dance around it is slippery with the snake oil he too is peddling.

you get this and then dignify the ideas by saying they are more complex than i am suggesting - would that they were - dear blogger, would that they were!

as with religion, one can get all the benfits and more of positive thinking, goal setting, slef-esteem enhancement, visualization etc with out the reductionist dissociative magical nonsense the secret encourages…

 

Julian, please share how you managed to bypass all stages of narcisism so we can share with all viewers of “The Secret” how they might do the same.

Here’s the problem with “don’t dignify, debunk.” You rob the person you are debating with of their dignity. Even if you are correct about the LOA - which I believe you are - you won’t persuade anyone to immediately develop a stage or two in their growth. You will probably end up pushing them deeper into their true but partial belief system because they now have to argue their position.

So the best way to connect with a LOA believer - or anyone of a different meme - is to have a dialogue about shared values. Let all the other stuff just fall to the floor where it will stay… if you practice some diplomatic spiral wizardry.