your thoughts on "The Secret"

I have not read the book or seen the movie, but it seems that there are some positive aspects to it, and some misleading ones too.

As i understand it, "The Secret" is meant to help people find success, but what kind? Do you really consider success being all about having a positive love relationship and having a high paying job, etc.?

Many of us have wishes which never end up turning into reality, in fact, most of them are far from reality. You should look into your wishes and try to discover their source, and perhaps why you have had a bad experience with the spiritual work.

The spiritual work is very difficult, but it is the best way to change. There is a short quote i always keep in the back of my mind, it is by Samael Aun Weor: "The external is the result of the internal", if things are looking bad in the external circumstances of life, an inner change is needed.

Thinking positively is valuable, but without a determined effort of inner change (the spiritual work), i think it does little good in changing our situation, and the way we react to life's circumstances.

When it comes to romantic relationships, love is often confused with passion. The vast majority of couples have never truly experienced love, as strange as that may sound.

The esoteric work is not easy, but the effort we put into it is what will help us get through the difficult times, and the rewards are truly worth it, real and genuine love starts to manifest itself within, not just for the people close to us, but for all of humanity.

All the best

I have to second Sead.

I have seen "The Secret" and the "What the bleep do we know" and my impression was split. I liked the examples that related to positive thinking on health. As I have had fight with a digestive disorder over the last 6 years and have to say that the more I was talking and thinking about how bad things are the more sick I felt.

After seeing this movie I did decide to take more optimistic outlook into viewing my condition. Mostly I do not try to dwell on how bad I've got it, but rather focus on what a great opportunity rose out of this condition towards awakening and acceptance of change. I thank my divine father for turning me in this direction.

I personally reject the success aspect towards attaining wealth, as that has much baggage attached to it. The attachment is not in the wealth that exists outside of me, but rather the poverty that exists inside of me that makes attachments to outside world in order to satisfy identity and fuel the egos that need me to be enchanted by the outer worldly things.

This "Law of attraction" works and as stated through out history "We will get what we want" we always do, either conscious or unconscious of it. When we seek worldly things we will get them at a cost to us. It is better to use this psychic genie to climb the spiritual ladder and gain the greatest gift - the eternal joy that comes only from our eternal being, that is beyond the needs of this world.

Yet we are here, but luckily for us there is a path to our eternal being and Gnostic teachings give us this path. It is up to us to walk it.

Good example of this is how much sleep do we need? I always thought I am not getting enough sleep - hence that became my reality. A certain events in my life are showing me that I don't need as much sleep as I thought, but there is a catch here - I must stop waisting my thought / desire energy and stay dis-attached from wanting and just be. Allow the hands of that genie (holy ghost, divine father, divine mother) to do its work.

Great example of that I just read the other day from Hindu traditions: God is viewed as a Dancer and thy dancing is thy creation. When man dances, he falsely thinks him self as God creating, because man is being danced by the hand of creation - God. When man allows hims self to be danced he is overjoyed, when he resists the dance, he suffers.

Wishing you all a great spiritual morning.

I think that the law of attraction is great as long as you remain true to your inner self. The Secret seems to value status and possessions, but you can still apply its advice to whatever noble causes you choose.

Here is an experiment on the law of attraction that I tried once. I tried it out on money, just because it is measurable. If I tried it out on a cup of coffee, that wouldn't be enough to convince me. I wrote down an affirmation, got excited about it, and saw money coming to me (I don't believe I named any amount though).
About 2 weeks later, we were driving in the country and stopped at a pub for a counter lunch. They had poker machines there, so I put myself psychologically 'in the zone', calmly walked up to a machine that felt right, and put a dollar in. (I don't frequent pubs or gambling, so don't get upset anyone). After pushing the roll button a few times, the machine spat out 80 dollars. My father said "that machine won't give out any money for a while now" and I replied that there was still money in there. I told him to put in a dollar, and the machine spat five dollars back out.

I've still got a few hangups about whether the law of attraction actually works, but the odds of a poker machine spitting out 80 dollars from the first coin are pretty low. I don't use the LOA too often, just on a few special projects which are important to me. I tried it on astral projection, but the piece of paper which I wrote on has been lost, and I should probably do it again (in the meantime, I have changed from a believer to an experiencer, though).

Simplistically, it's just getting excited about your goals, 'seeing' yourself living it out, feeling confident that it will happen and feeling gratitude afterwards. If you choose worthy goals, there's nothing wrong with applying this principle to help it manifest.

Norman Vincent Peale talked about a woman once. "She never asked the Lord for anything. She just thanked Him for everything in advance"

Best wishes to everyone on their journey.

Hi Foxtse,

Yeah, I have seen the secret. It's interesting... I wish they put the three keys in that movie:) Then it would REALLY give people a way to transform their lives.

There's a lot to this topic.

I remember reading some works by Rabolu about aspiring gnsotics praying to be given something... it was in reference to relationships and single people. Im not sure if the same principles apply to things like jobs etc but it probably does.

Basically the two main reasons we dont get what we ask for is we dont know how to ask, and that we lack faith.

It's that people ask the Hierarchs for something but then dont see it crystalize immediately and then give up asking soon after... so nothing comes. But we need to show faith and will power to keep making the same petition and musnt get tired of asking.

With eneough time, if they see we didnt lose faith, we get it. We need to prove that we are a person in need and that we have faith, and there needs to be continuity with it all.

He also puts importance on asking our Divine Mother.

Personally, I find being genuinely consistent and having strong faith a hard slog though.

Kind regards,
Robert

I personally don't think there is something wrong when asking for wealth or love. I have seen Indu yoguis who have achieved enlightment, they got no weatlth and yet you see they are so happy and compationate. I have also seen people who raised their kundalini and lived a life of hell and are begining to find themselves and most of them agree that they're not sure wheather kundalini was good for them since they sacrificed the physical life to gain a spiritual one.

And also I have seen ex murderers and ex drugadicts doing charity from door to door to help the catholic church wich "saved them".

What I mean is that, doing the spiritual work is hard, you can try to achieve enlightment by forgetting any material thing, but if you fail you can end up with no job and no future.

But you can also try to live a bit in the material world and yet look to be a better person.

I currently have not enough money to get married or have children and it will continue this way until I get succesful with this business project or something else in the future, so I will focus on asking and receiving.

Asking for material wealth is probably not the best way to present one's case in front of the divine hierarchy. The way i see it, there are more important things to ask for, such as spiritual help, which is much more useful (in my view) than physical wealth, which is impermanent.

Also, Karma has a lot to do with circumstances in life, there are many cases where people do not get what they ask for because they have karmic debts that need to be paid, and the best way to do this (and eventually halt the cycle) is by carrying out the spiritual work.

When we carry out the esoteric work, we are not really sacrificng our physical life, but rather the egos which make ordinary, mundane life so painful. Inferior things are sacrificed so that superior (spiritual) one's can replace them. Most of us live a life of hell anyway, this is truly due to the egos and the low level of consciousness.

It is perfectly normal to have a job and make a living, but i think it is such a huge waste to focus on amassing worldly wealth over advancing spiritually. Happiness is not found in physical wealth, it cannot be found outside of oneself.

Sincerely,
Sead

Hi foxtse,

I think the whole topic is quite complicated and I don't profess to understand it a great deal. But from what I do understand, I think the most important thing we can do is the spiritual work.

I completely agree with what Sead and Currently a_male experience have said. I admit that I have not seen the movie. However, I’ll share my perspective on it based on what I know about it.

If we always think negatively and feel sorry for ourselves then it can be very hard to get out of that sort of rut. Our negativity imprisons us; depression and laziness can attract us to unpleasant circumstances: a job we don't like, lack of friends, etc.

Yet when we break out of this negativity and try to see things objectively then new doors can open up to us and out life may improve.

I think further to this, by thinking positively and being optimistic, we can perhaps bring upon material success, etc.

The main issues the above are that what we get is often limited to what we deserve. Sometimes when we pray for things, we may not get them. This could be simply a lack of faith or sincerity in our prayers, but it could be the case that due to our karmic account, we cannot receive it.

And if we are getting more than we deserve then we may actually be using black magic (performing magic that does not go in line with the Divine Will) – this is just speculation.

Okay, so this aside, what are the benefits of gaining material wealth, having a family, etc.?

In the short term, we are happy (at least our egos are happy). We may accumulate a lot of possessions. But we will always want more - the egos will never be satisfied. So this can again make us unhappy. And even if we actually got everything on earth, once we die, it's all gone. No money. No house. No family.

With the spiritual work, there are many struggles. There is a lot of darkness within that we have to overcome and we will have to face unpleasant events in the process (being treated unfairly, being sick, etc.) Yet as this happens, we develop our consciousness which is what gives rise to true happiness and peace - something far more powerful and amazing than the so called happiness of the egos.

Beyond the physical world, we have our consciousness. If we reach enlightenment we have eternal bliss and freedom.

So overall, my opinion of the ideas of the movie is that there may be truth in them but their benefits are only temporary and shallow (mostly for the egos) yet the benefits of the spiritual work are eternal and genuine.

Take care,

Mike

Depents what you realy want in life.

When you are lonely and poor this life, then there is obvious a reason for this.
The difficult thing is to figger this out why. Then when you know this, it can go, even when still being along and poor, cause it is just a state of mind.

The wealth and other 'good' things in life are like toys given to us, in order to learn. (VM Rabolu)

For example eliminate desires of wife and wealth if you want. But you don't want, that's the difficult thing with karma.
We have to do what we don't want.
If we have the power to do this, desires are going trough the toilet, and we become truly free.

Peter

James N. Chambers, Jr.

BUT THE ONLY PROBLEM IS.....

I think that anything carried to the extreme can be very detrimental. To try to put anything into an exacting formula is going to turn some people off. It sort of irritates me when someone comes up to me and tell's me to say: "I'm blessed! I'm prosperous! , etc." But yet there is a lot of truth to having faith and believing that the universe wants good things for you. I just don't like it being reduced to a formula that say's you've got to "speak the word." I think this is a path for all of us to approach individually and decide for ourselves what works best for us.

I totally agree James.