Friday, September 28, 2007

The LOA and the real secret

There is a big difference between just thinking 1) "I want a big car" 2) "I am not good enough" or 3) "I am good" or 4) "I am ugly" or 5) "I am happy" and taking an appropriate action to do something about them. The LOA (Law of Attraction) seems to imply that merely thinking such thoughts will attract the object of those thoughts to you. I don't think the universe works this way. When you think those thoughts you tend to act according to them and those actions will attract you to those objects and modify your behavior accordingly. There is no magic field "out there" or magic genii "out there" that will answer those thoughts by granting your wishes as the film seems to imply. That magic field or genii is yourself.

Hence, for one example, suppose you fear being robbed. Your fear can provoke any number of actions on your part.

For example,

A) You don't go into neighborhoods that are poor wearing brightly colored gold jewelry.

B) You carelessly go wherever you wish to go and when you are in a crowd you tug at your gold watch or your wallet or jewelry just to make sure it's there because you are fearful. These actions tip off possible pickpockets. The probability of attracting thieves to you increases or decreases according to your behavior. The robbers watch you and many others and are attracted to "tuggers" regardless of how the tuggers are thinking. In fact a tugger might be thinking "I want to be secure so I'll check my watch or bracelet or wallet."

C) You go into a crowded arena and simply act alertly to suspicious movements around you.

Here is another example. Say you say to yourself "I will win the lottery today". In the LOA this will attract the winnings to you over others who don't wish this, right?

So you open your emails one day and find that indeed you receive a notice that your email address has just won a zillion bucks. You contact the mailer accordingly and find then to get your money you need to send them some money to cover "costs" or give your bank account information or SSN or something else. But you believe in the LOA, right? So you do this, and soon enough you find yourself ripped off by a scam. Oh, such scams are continually ongoing looking for believers in the LOA. Suppose you are such a believer. Now comes the LOA rationalization. "I must have really desired to be ripped off other wise this wouldn't have happened to me. I attracted the scam."

One of the presenters in the "secret" movie after appearing on the Larry King show was asked, "If you believe in the LOA why did you recently have a heart attack?" His answer? "I wanted to have this heart attack in order to slow down, I was working too hard." If you believe this, then you will always find a rationalization for whatever random events occur in your life. That is certainly not science, but is humans trying to deal with our
indeterminant universe with hindsight. If something good happens, you will tell yourself "I was using the LOA to attract good." If something bad happens, you will say "I was using the LOA to attract something bad." Both are simple and human rationalizations and in fact not based on any scientific fact or experiment and certainly not on quantum physics.

In the first example it is your behavior that that produces the possible theft or non-theft rather than the thought. Indeed the thought "I don't wish to be robbed" in case A or C keeps you safer than in case B. According to the LOA your fear will get you robbed because you have put out that field that attracts robbers to you. The same would hold to the thought "I don't want to get cancer." Or the thought " don't want to be raped." The LOA seems to imply that in these cases you attract cancer or rapists to yourself.

In the second example you get you into trouble by believing in the LOA, which when it fails, you rationalize through hindsight. In other words, you make the LOA work by simply denying it fails through hindsight rationalization. You say "I failed to get my goal because I was unconsciously wishing to fail." If you had succeeded you would have said "I got my goal because I was using the LOA." This is not scientific thinking and is not quantum physics.

In brief, people are attracted or repulsed by your behavior not your thoughts. Things are not. Stuff happens-- good and bad-- to all of us.

We all are born and we die. I believe that aside from the LOA each of us has a purpose on the planet and that the event of your birth is not an accident and that your death is not the end of the road. Finding your purpose in life may take years or decades, but you will eventually find it and act according to that purpose or frustrate yourself by doing what you really don't wish to do. The really big secret is not the LOA, it is the action that people who realize their purpose take in their lives. In every case where I have met successful people, I tend to find the happiest people are those who do what they enjoy doing. The richest people are those who do what benefits others. To be rich and happy do what you enjoy doing for the benefit of others and you can't fail to be rich and happy. It is absolutely guaranteed, provided you take right action.

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