The Law of Attraction tells us that we get what we focus on.  This is often misunderstood and thought to mean that it is our thoughts that create manifestations.  They do, but not in the simplistic way that many people think.

So let’s put together the ideas from Outliers and The Law of Attraction.

Outliers says that genius level success comes from 10,000 hours practice and the right circumstances aligning.  For example, in the case of Hockey Players that means being born in the first three months.  For the Beatles, that meant being known by someone that met someone who wanted bands to play for 8 hours at a time 7 days a week in Hamburg.

photo credit: Thunder Thumbs

The Law of Attraction says that success comes from focused thought and a positive emotional state.  In other words, when you take something seriously enough to practice even 1,000 hours, you are tuning yourself into that wavelength.  Maintaining a positive emotional state, is what I call being a high bandwidth state, meaning happy, free of stress and pursuing your passions.  

Then stuff just goes right for you.  You bump into people who are looking for someone just like you.  You are compelled to look in a bookshop and find the solution you are looking for.  A Talent Scout gets inspired to drop into the club your band is playing at tonight.

photo credit: nicolasnova

The Law of Attraction is the intelligence of the universe that creates the connections to help you achieve success.  To get that working for you, you just have to live happily.  But that is the true meaning of Law of Attraction.  The lucky circumstances.

What people mostly talk about as The Law of Attraction in books like ‘The Secret’ is the idea that you can get success you are unqualified for.  Life will never give you what you do not deserve.  

You won’t get to be a Doctor without gaining the knowledge to be a Doctor.  You won’t get to be a Pop Idol without the technical ability.  So you need to have the skills which come with dedicated practice.

But equally as Gladwell demonstrates vividly with his story of Chris Langham, neither will you get to be successful solely through talent and skill.  You also need the circumstances and luck.  This is where the Law of Attraction, plays it’s part.

photo credit: Dare*2*Dream

We’ve recently been covering processing issues. I’ve always been able to process most things fairly easily. Usually I can go away to a quiet place and think through an issue until I can come to a resolution in an hour or two. The only issue that I have struggled to work through was the issue of money and where it fits into my view of the world.

Going through the last couple of weeks prompted me to focus on processing this issue and come to a conclusive decision on the issue. I was thinking of sharing a report or post on how I processed this, let me know if you think it might be helpful to you.

Anyway, recently I was asked to endorse a book to you on this subject. Usually I discard these requests, but for two reasons I agreed to send my recommendation for this book.

Firstly, I’ve noticed that money is a significant issue for almost everyone and I’m considering making it a topic we address as we have recently with stress. Let me know your thoughts below.

Secondly, I’ve learned a great deal from the authors, Abraham-Hicks and I think you could benefit a great deal from their knowledge.

First though, a couple of points. I prefer to read and find it harder to listen to audio. Yet even so, I still find Abraham far better to listen to than to read. They lose something in translation to print.

Also I think I have all of Abraham’s books, but not all of them are the same quality, in my opinion. If you could only buy one book from them I would recommend first ‘Ask And It Is Given’, since it is a more comprehensive collection of their ideas and techniques. I have checked through this book and this is one of their better ones. If money is an issue in your life in whatever form, I recommend it highly.

Today is the book’s launch and there are a bunch of bonus gifts if you buy within a certain time frame. To find out more click here

If I let go, is that the same as letting bad things happen?

Sometimes people ask this in the sense of I should be more active in helping people? Should I do more? Here’s my answer to that part of Brian’s question;

In the sense that I’m understanding your view of allowing, it’s looking at a situation, seeing something you believe is wrong and letting it go.

To want to control, or be responsible for, what anyone else does, even to judge another, is an attempt of the Ego to want to be in control. It’s the Ego saying

‘I’m right. I know more, am more important than this person and so I can put this right’.

The next step is, ‘Actually I should put this right. It’s my duty to’.

And then start the Crusades and wars. Or sometimes the charities that intend good things, but end up making people feel less independent and less able.

It is to believe in the illusion of perception, more than the invincibility, eternalness and indestructability of life. It is to value the transitory nature of material things, more than the true nature of life, which is freedom. It is to worry more about the stain on the bedroom wall than the development of the child.

To allow is a sign of trusting the intelligence of the universe. It is to know that I’m a part of this stream of life, no more or less worthy than any other part and we can all find our way through it, make our mistakes, see them play out and grow from the process.

To interfere, is to impose your view on the world. It is an attempt by the Ego to say. ‘No. I’m in charge here. This world must conform to my idea of right and wrong. Anything other than that is a threat to my wellbeing’.

When my Daughters were born, there used to be an advertising campaign for a washing powder that made an impact on my wife and I. The ads showed a child making a complete mess of her clothes. And when the Dad was nearly blowing his top, the Mum would say ‘Learning’ in a tone that reminded him that the dirt and mess was a small price to pay for their child to learn and grow.

What are we, but the children of life. To interfere, therefore is to attempt to become the Father. Which is another way of saying the Ego is trying to usurp God’s role.

The first step in life is to accept where you are. You look at your life or at the situation you are in and accept it is, what it is. This is the baseline. Everything from there is progress.

What the Ego wants to do, is to say. ‘No. No. That’s not how it should be. Put this here and that there. Then it will be right’.

But you can’t change everything around and so you run into brick walls and make everything a fight, a battle of wills.

To let go and allow is the greatest action we can take. It is to acknowledge your indestructability and eternalness and to trust in life.

However, having said that our vision and purpose in life will come mostly from fixing wrongs. It’s the wrongs that give us work to do.

Should we walk past a woman being raped or a child being beaten because we don’t want to impose our views on others?

In such a circumstance, I think there’s two elements. I’m going to use a personal example to relay them. The area where I most struggle with this idea is as a Parent.

On the one hand I don’t want to be controlling my kids, but on the other I have to, at some level, parent them. The way I look at it, there’s two elements to parenting.

First, there’s nurturing. There’s helping them to step up a level in growth. Letting them do tasks, so that they become more independent. Talking with them to help them think more expansively and at a more evolved level.

Then there’s damage limitation.

I don’t want them hit by a car, so I pull them back from the road. I don’t want them hurt by playing with a knife so I take it off them. If they have a tantrum in the supermarket I want to minimise the embarrassment and disruption. All this is damage control.

The more, I nurture my Daughter’s (and they accept) the better they will react to a given situation and so the less need for damage control.

Damage control won’t shape the child or mature them. They are in a frame of mind that’s so closed off that they just aren’t open to growth. So any action you take is really about limiting the damage or embrassment to you.

So in the same way, when you come across someone behaving in a way that you feel is wrong. You can let it go and wait for the situation to play itself out. Or you can step in to limit the damage.

Some people have the ability to do both at the same time.

For example, Jesus, when they were about to stone the Adultress. He didn’t jump in and tell them how wrong they were. He was able to evolve the crowd’s thinking, because he never made them his enemy, he just displayed a higher level of thinking to them.

Socrates was the master at this. His method of Socratic Questioning is an incredible way to evolve people’s thinking. I think it works because the intention behind it and the posture it takes, doesn’t conflict with the other person. There’s no level of accusation or judgment. He would just let the other person’s ideas play out until it became apparent that they were flawed. When people feel understood and given the opportunity to fully explore their idea, it enables them to see it more dimensionally.

False ideas are like fires. When you allow a fire to burn, it dies out if it lacks substance. When you meet fire with fire, you feed it and so prolong it. Once an idea is proven false then the other needs a better idea to replace it and so they upgrade their thinking. Much as when our cupboards are empty we need to shop for more food.

When you instead jump in to fix a situation, it becomes Ego vs Ego. And so people get closed off to opportunities to grow and relate. Instead they bash heads for the sake of being right. And that just makes for a soul destroying destructive experience.

First I need to set a little disclaimer.  Two of the attributes that I am sometimes accused of, are being idealistic and intense.

I admit to both.  I am idealistic in that I look for perfection (as I see it) as being the standard to strive for.  Generally I have found most people will look around and use other people as their reference.  So they’ll justify their actions by saying, everyone else is doing it.

I am intense in that I want to get to that standard of perfection now.  I used to call myself a Coach.  Mainly from laziness.  Because I wasn’t ready to really dig into what was different about me or ready to start expressing it to other people.  So I used the handiest label around.

When I started to work with people as a Coach, I would want to resolve every problem they had now or would ever face in one go.  I found most people were burned out after a couple of hours.  I was just getting started.

My point is that I’m always striving for perfection.  I’m a long way from achieving it, but I want to share what it looks like to me.

I grew up in a Catholic home.  We went to church every Sunday.  I was even an Altar Boy.  Not because I was religious, but because if I had to go, I might as well be doing something.  I went to a Catholic school.

So like every good rebel, as I grew up I rejected every part of religion.  I dismissed the Catholic Church and Jesus as being a ridiculous story.

As I matured and looked for examples of greatness I looked more towards Lao Tsu and Buddha, because they hadn’t been shoved down my throat.  But two or three years ago I watched Mel Gibson’s film, The Passion of The Christ and that changed the standards I set for my life.

photo credit: h.koppdelaney

That film changed the way I thought about Jesus.  I’m still not a great believer in religion.  I believe the Church is a political organisation.  I think if you study Jesus’s words they contradict the doctrine of the church.  I’m only sharing this as a background, not to dissuade anyone.  If it works for you, that’s great, but it’s not for me.

I wanted to share what I saw in that film that I believe most people seemed to miss in it.

First, let’s set this up by explaining a few fundamentals that determine the frame from which I perceived the film.

I don’t believe that Jesus was any different than you and I from birth.  I don’t believe in the immaculate conception.  I do think he achieved a level of exceptional purity.  In studying what I can of his life, my belief is that St Paul created a myth around him to sell people on his church.  The account of Jesus’s life that seems most likely to me is the account in The Urantia Papers. But to paraphrase him, all he did, we can too.

I believe the highest standard of living, the highest attainment we can achieve is not worldly success, not popularity or social status, but purity.  I believe we are designed with certain desires, interests and aptitudes placed into a certain environment that will, if purely expressed, allow us to exhibit our own unique greatness.

It doesn’t matter what you achieve, what you do.  What matters is what you are.  The end never justifies the means and there is never a greater good.

I veer between two attitudes towards the world.  At some times I understand where it is going, why people do as they do, and what the deeper meaning is.

And sometimes I despair.  It’s filled with weakness, lack of integrity and the way it dilutes it’s purity for a short term gain.  Over the last couple of years there has been a vivid example of this in ‘The Secret’.  I watched 3 or 4 minutes of it that made me despair for humanity.

‘The Secret’ is the ultimate in unintended irony.  While it bills itself as the answer to humanity’s problems, it actually encapsulates all of them.  It is the 21st century version of the money lenders in the temple.

photo credit: Wm Jas

Every moment in time has it’s passing fads, that are wildly popular and soon fade into obscurity.

Some Opportunist gets all excited about discovering an elementary fact of life who, maybe is motivated by sharing it, or maybe just sees a chance to milk it for all it’s worth.  But there is no rigor or effort put into seeking the real truth.  There’s no purity in it.  It’s pure exploitation.

Either they are consciously over exaggerating their ‘secret’ or they are debasing it.  If it really is the secret to all of life, is it’s highest use really going to be getting more checks in the post or driving a bigger car?

photo credit: preciouskhyatt

Contrast this with Jesus.  Someone who attained a far greater understanding and mastery of life.  Who’s understanding was so much deeper that he refused to use it for his own gain.  His life was the most vividly lived demonstration of;

‘let it be your will, not mine’.

Something the Creators of The Secret haven’t grasped.

Many of the comments about ‘The Passion’ talk about the brutality of the film.  But life is brutal.  Besides, which, they’re missing the point.

The beauty of the film is in it’s brutality.

Does anyone really think that the people behind ‘The Secret’ have discovered something that Jesus didn’t know?

So did he miscreate his persecution, his crucifixion and so on?

Of course not.  He knew clearly his mission.  Jesus was not the most popular Teacher of his time.  The most popular is always the one that tells people what they want to hear.  They are the ones that best package their words to sell

The best technically, in any field, usually isn’t the best selling.  I look at it like this.  I like to listen to music while I’m driving, walking the dog or doing something mindless.  I would never just sit and listen to music.  Nor would I go to a concert.  It’s just not important enough to me to devote time just to it.

I’m not a Connoisseur of music.  I don’t trust my musical judgment.  I don’t have an educated musical palette.  So I never listen to anything outside the bestseller list.  I need other people’s judgment to filter out the rubbish.

People that I know, who go to a lot of concerts and spend a lot of time listening to music tend not to listen to much of the bestselling songs.  Because it’s not refined enough for their educated musical tastes.

Same in most fields.  Computer geeks wouldn’t dream of using mainstream bestselling software, because they know of technically better stuff.

Serious car lovers don’t buy Ford’s mass market cars.

Jesus knew his life was about living his truth in such purity that he would be a shining example that people for thousands of years could strive to achieve.

There have probably been many people that have lived quiet lives, probably as enlightened and evolved as Jesus, but we have never heard of.  Jesus knew that he was to provide a light so that whatever circumstance we should find ourselves in, we would never be worse than him.

It wasn’t that he took away our sin.  I don’t believe this.  We do not need a Saviour to do it for us.  Jesus was a Saviour only in that he showed us a higher standard for us to aspire to.

His mission was to show us that the highest mission we have in life is to maintain our purity.  To be what we were created to be.  Regardless of any pressure or intimidation.  Even if everyone hates you.  Regardless of what you are threatened with.

photo credit: alanlpriest

Jesus showed the strength of purity.  He never flinched or took any of the weasel routes he was offered if he would just compromise.  He never begged, bargained, whined or complained.  He purely radiated what he was and trusted that God’s plan for him was greater than that of his ego.

Everyone else in the film was conflicted and compromised and ended up diluting their integrity out of fear;

• The High Priests were weak because they were threatened by Jesus’s teachings.
• The Roman Governor was compromised because he feared the consequences of an uprising.
• Judas’s lack of integrity sold out Jesus, whether motivated by money, prestige or injured pride.
• His own Disciples were so frightened that they denied Jesus for fear for their own safety.

Peter tried and honestly wanted to be as pure, but he believed in the illusion of life.  You see life is a flow.  It comes from a source, God.  Translated through the senses, it seems real and can confuse and frighten.  Jesus was not swayed by his senses, because he maintained the purity of his connection to God.  He knew God as the source and origin of all..

This world deals in confusion, anxiety, guilt, stress, depression and so on.  Happiness comes only when our consciousness leaves this world.

Think about it.  When you are happy, you are not focused on anything specifically.  You just are, without being aware of it.  But when you are unhappy, in any form, you are focused on something specific.  Unhappiness is rooted in worldly concerns.

While the world is your reference point, nothing is certain.  You will be enticed, swayed, manipulated and intimidated into diluting your purity.

The brutality of the film only goes to emphasize how nothing would break Jesus’s connection to his source.

‘He was of this world, but not in it’.

People judge things by the way that they would react to it, but people are different.  They feel things differently and respond differently.  It may seem that he suffered greatly, but he knew that it would cause greater pain to suffer the internal miseries and pains that most of the world suffers.

His greatest wish was to give his gift of truth to the world.  And so the greater the brutality, the indignity, the persecution, the greater his gift was.  No one could ever feel that he had a harder challenge.

What is missed in most simplistic messages like ‘The Secret’ is the fact that there is a calling greater than money, prestige and so on.  In your calling, you may be called to look a fool, to reject money rather than dilute your purity, be persecuted and even suffer for your art.  But the pursuit of your art far outweighs the acquisition of stuff, of comfort or even the greater good.

Will you forsake all false Gods to live your truth or will you dilute it’s purity with conflict and compromise?