The Secret of Life

Alignment

My Dad is 88 and hasn't got much memory left. He spends a lot of his time trying to work out what he's supposed to be doing. I reassure him that he doesn't have to do anything: that he is safe in the home for the elderly where he lives, where they see to his needs and cook all his meals for him. But he can't seem to quite understand this. 'Are you sure I don't have to go out to work?' he asks. 'Yes, quite sure,' I tell him. He looks unconvinced and peers down at the book in front of him, where we write down the things that we do on my visits, searching for 'the answer'.

Perhaps, after all, there is one thing that my Dad still has to do, and I suspect he has been doing it all his life: to teach me. He has always been a worrier, and in him I see my own worries amplified. For I, too, have been searching for 'an answer' - and feeling very frustrated not to find it.

It seems to me it is a Christian idea - though doubtless shared by others - that we all have certain God-given gifts which it is our obligation to discover and make use of. More recently, this idea of finding a life's purpose has also appeared in self-development books. I have always found the concept appealing, though I have started to believe that it can also be a trap.

I used to think it was writing, this thing that I had to do. I have been driven to write since an early age and used to berate myself for writing for fanzines instead of buckling down and writing that novel. So eventually, I buckled down and wrote that novel. And another. And another. I wrote two adult fantasy novels, of a type which turned out to be out of fashion, and a children's fantasy novel which was described by an editor as being 'original but too weird to publish'. I regard having written a fantasy novel that is 'too weird' to be a certain kind of success, but unfortunately it is not the kind of success which makes money or gets readers.

What I found very difficult about all this was that I very much liked what I had written. Clearly, I needed to do better to get published, but how would I know when I was writing something better if I liked the stuff I had written which wasn't good enough? I obviously needed to upgrade my internal critic, but I wasn't sure how to do that.

So, I decided I would write something else entirely. I wrote a spirituality book. And I did what I always did: I gave it to a few likely victims people to read, listened to their feedback, and revised the book accordingly. All of which took me a year or so, by which time my ideas about spirituality had moved on so far that it didn't feel like my book any longer. I had intended to self-publish it and market it online, but I no longer had the heart to do that. I still liked a lot of what I had written but the book's angle was all wrong. It just wasn't the book I would have written if I'd written it today. I could revise it of course, but that would take me a while. By which time...

I should have been pleased, of course, that my spiritual development was moving so quickly that my writing couldn't keep pace with it, but all I felt was frustrated. Here was I with this amazing natural God-given talent for writing (ironic smiley inserted here) and not making proper use of it! What is more, if I didn't find a way to use my writing, I would feel I had failed in my life's purpose, that I had let myself - and the universe - down in some way. And yet what could I find to write? I could no longer think of anything that would 'work'. I was already writing this blog, of course, but my readership here is not exactly vast. (You are reading it, of course, which is what is really important, but we'll get to that a bit later...)

And yet, if I didn't write, what else should I do? My current state of health dictates that everything I do has to be done in short bursts punctuated by rest/meditation breaks, which kind of cuts down the available options.

I couldn't see any way out of my state of frustration.

Or could I?

A week or so ago, I decided to take a look at some of the helpful stuff which I and others write on this blog and came across a quote by Helen about asking for help. So I decided that is what I would do.

But I didn't sit down and explicitly ask for help in finding my purpose in life. I remembered what Joe Vitale had said in The Missing Secret about the importance of aligning your will with that of your higher self, something which is also implicit in a lot of what I've written here myself at The Secret Of Life.

So I asked for guidance to align my will in that way: to put aside my ego-driven desires and declare myself open to whatever the will of the universe might be, to whatever my higher self might have in mind for me.

And the wonderful thing is that I got some assistance in this.

I held various suggestions in my mind one by one and waited to see if I got a reaction. I'll explain exactly how I did this later. One thing came over very strongly: that I should be with my wife Chris. And something else which came up is that I should carry on doing this blog. The idea of writing another book did not get a reaction, and nor did another creative project which I had in mind.

Humph.

Naturally, I queried this reaction. The idea of being with Chris was all very well, but it wasn't very 'grand'. It didn't seem to involve any fame and fortune, for instance. This was me, Simon, we were talking about here, and I had always kind of thought that I had some sort of well, you know, 'destiny'. Was the universe sure that it hadn't got me muddled up with somebody else?

But the universe seemed very sure that it hadn't made a mistake. Being with Chris and writing the blog: that's what I was to do. That was my 'destiny', for the time being at least.

Hmm...

I might have been rather more disgruntled if it hadn't have been for the other things which happened during this process:

1) I experienced a feeling of overwhelming love and compassion.

2) I received healing for my neck, a long-standing problem which had been giving me a great deal of trouble in recent weeks. Since that time, it has been a lot better. I have been lucky enough to receive a great deal of healing energy over the years, but I have never previously experienced anything quite so directly 'hitting the spot' as this.

So overall, I was very happy with the outcome, thank you very much, and any misgivings I had began to fade away as a clear picture began to emerge of what I had discovered.

It seemed to me that the idea that I had some 'grand destiny' to fulfill had been a weight around my neck. Was it any wonder that I had such pain and discomfort in that part of my body? What I was being told was that I didn't have to succeed in these 'great achievements' after all. It was my ego that had laid them upon me, not the universe or God or my higher self or anything else. There were other things which were more important than these grand designs, like simply being a good husband to Chris.

It also seemed to me that the emphasis on 1) my marriage and 2) this blog was telling me something else. It was encouraging me to focus on my spiritual development. Relationships are a great way to work on self realization, because what they are about - ultimately - is recognizing the divine in each other, and so helping us to find it in ourselves. This blog, too, is a guiding hand in this process: hopefully, in some small way, for some of you, but certainly for me, for it allows me to develop my understanding of such things and to maintain my focus on the spiritual part of my life.

It also came to me that I no longer have to think so much about how many readers I get. If people are meant to find this blog, they will find it. It is as simple as that. You have found it after all, and as I have said, that is what is really important. If I only speak to one person, that is enough. Thank you for being here to read this.

Perhaps, too, at some stage, I will find a larger audience. Perhaps I will return to my books and find a way to get them 'out there'. Or perhaps I will write others. But now is not the time, and I think I will only return to such things when I have learned to get my ego out of the way, when I have found my way back to sitting down to write them because that is the thing to do, not because I have some grand vision of a 'me' that I have to become.

To be like that would only to be like my Dad, vainly searching for the thing that I have to do. He and I must both find a way to peace.

There is more I would like to say here, to discuss the feeling of compassion and healing I received for instance, but this is already a long post, so it will have to wait for another time - or perhaps for the comments section.

But one thing I do want to add as a postscript here - as promised - is to say a bit more about the way in which I communicated with the universe or my higher self or whatever it was that gave me all that useful information. This is particularly important because it is something which you may like to try for yourself. I have certainly found it useful, even liberating. Perhaps it will open a similar doorway you.

So, when I held each of those ideas in my mind (my relationship, the books, the blog etc.) and waited for a reaction, how did that come exactly? Did I hear a disembodied voice? You may be relieved to learn that I didn't. What I used was a process I developed some years before, after reading some material by a guy called Bob Scheinfeld.

What Bob suggested was to develop a process of communication with your intuition by simply asking for this to be done: to ask for some kind of physical sign meaning 'yes'. So what you do is sit down and ask your intuition (or your higher self or the universe or the quantum field or God or whatever you think the source of deep inner knowing within you may be) for a sign meaning 'yes' to allow it to share its wisdom with you. Then you sit there and wait for the sign to come.

(It's a long time since I read that book of Bob Scheinfeld's, so apologies to him if I've got his teaching here all scrambled, but I hope I've captured the gist of it.)

I seem to remember that when I first tried this, it took a few weeks for my sign to emerge, but when it eventually came it was a kind of vibration around the eyes. My eyes are very sensitive, so perhaps it is not surprising that this should have happened. Nowadays, the sign is a rather more general vibration or energy, sometimes with flashes of color. So when I put forward each of those ideas, I waited to see if that energy would come. If it did, it meant a positive reaction. If not, then negative.

I'm not claiming that this process is 100% reliable, and it's as well to test any ideas a number of times to see if you get a consistent reaction. I still feel rather surprised that I usually do...

I hope that this doesn't seem too weird. If so, then I'll just trot out the usual mantra: give it a try and see if it works for you. It's really rather similar to the idea of kinesiology, as promoted by Dr David Hawkins and others, which gives you a strong muscle reaction for 'yes' and a weak one for 'no'. The idea is that you are tapping into some deep well of truth within you. It is allowing you to partake in a part of that truth.

Ten Words That Can Heal The World

A friend of mine recently introduced me to the audio program The Missing Secret by Dr Joe Vitale. Vitale was one of the contributors to the phenomenally successful video about the law of attraction, The Secret. As you might have guessed from the title, The Missing Secret promises to fill in the missing bits you didn't get in The Secret, the bits that meant that the law of attraction didn't work as well as it said on the wrapper.

There's a lot of this sort of stuff around, so I didn't have particularly high expectations when I listened to The Missing Secret. It therefore came as a pleasant surprise to find that it's a sensible, honest and comprehensive guide which happens to echo a lot of what I said in my own series of posts on the law of attraction, The Heart Of The Secret, and which provides exhaustive information on the various techniques you can use to defuse the problems which can get in the way of success.

I still have reservations about the practical use of the law of attraction for those of us who aren't either a) naturally positive people or b) enlightened - and to give him his due, Vitale pretty much accepts its limitations himself. But if you still want to give the law of attraction a go (and why shouldn't you?) then I can't recommend The Missing Secret too highly.

But what really excites me about this program is the third of the six CDs. This covers a Hawaiian technique with the unlikely title of 'Ho'oponopono', which in my opinion has implications of far greater importance than the kind of creature comforts we so often associate with the law of attraction. It has the potential to literally heal the world.

Vitale first came across this technique when he heard about the work of the Hawaiian psychiatrist Dr Ihaleakala Hew Len, who was in charge of a hospital for the criminally insane, the inhabitants of which were generally considered to be beyond cure or redemption. Eschewing all orthodox methods, and without even speaking to the patients himself, Dr Hew Len apparently used the Ho'oponopono technique to cure all but two of the patients to the extent that they could be reintegrated into society. The hospital was eventually closed because it was no longer required. Perhaps surprisingly, this remarkable and heartening chain of events appears to be well corroborated.

The version of Ho'oponopono used by Dr Hew Len was developed in the 1980s by Morrnah Simeona and is based on an ancient Hawaiian practice. Its underlying concept takes the law of attraction to its ultimate conclusion. If we do indeed create our own reality, then it follows that we create everything in our world, even (for instance) the things we hear about on the radio. It entails taking total responsibility for whatever there is in our life.

Yet this isn't about a pointless guilt trip. It is all about healing what has happened. At the heart of the technique, there are four simple phrases: "I'm sorry", "Please forgive me", "Thank you" and "I love you". Through these phrases, the healing (or 'cleaning') can be achieved.

The first two phrases are about expressing regret and requesting forgiveness for whatever in us has created the circumstances we wish to heal; "Thank you" is said in anticipation of the forgiveness we know will be forthcoming; and "I love you" reestablishes the original, natural relationship with God - or 'the Divine', as Joe Vitale and Dr Hew Len prefer to call It. If you have a problem with either of these words, you can of course substitute a word of your choice: the universe, consciousness, the quantum field, the source, whatever you'd like to use instead...

The Missing Secret has a section which repeats these phrases over and over again so that you can play them in the background whatever you are doing; while Vitale himself likes to keep repeating 'I love you' as he goes about his day, which is a powerful exercise in itself. Alternatively, you may prefer to use the phrases to work on specific issues. In earlier posts, I've talked about dissolving away negative emotions using both Nick Roach's approach and my own welcome breath. I still use both of these, but I find that Ho'oponopono usually works even better. I focus on the emotion and then repeat each phrase in turn until the energy changes and the emotion dissipates.

I suggest you try using the phrases in various ways and find out what seems to work for you. If you are drawn to the technique, then do investigate The Missing Secret and/or Joe Vitale's book Zero Limits (which is all about Ho'oponopono) to find out more. Or if you are within traveling distance, consider signing up for one of Dr Hew Len's seminars on Ho-oponopono, details of which which you can find on his web site.

Of course, you may be asking why you should believe a single word of any of this stuff. Given its unlikely nature, this is a fair question. I guess it comes down to the same as everything else on this site. Just give it a try and see what you think. Judge it by its results or any gut feeling you may have about it. I'm impressed by Ho'oponopono because it helps to dissipate my emotions, and I sense a feeling of power when I say the phrases. But you really have to try it for yourself...

You may also be wondering exactly why you should be expected to take responsibility for all this stuff on the news that you never thought had anything to do with you. You may not buy the idea that this is the ultimate consequence of the law of attraction. You thought that the law of attraction was all about getting a nice new house and that sports car you always wanted. You weren't aware of the little-known sub-clause that, along with the house and the car, come total responsibility for worldwide war, famine, earthquakes, crime, anti-social behavior and bad TV.

But the way I look at it is this: if we are all truly One (as I have argued on this blog), all part of a single field of energy, then of course we share responsibility for everything that happens in this world. If we are all interconnected, then collective responsibility follows.

But even if you don't believe in this spiritual stuff, if you prefer to ignore quantum physics and insist that we are all entirely separate from each other, then perhaps you will be willing to accept that we are nevertheless united by chains of cause and effect. Other people are affected by the way we interact with them, and this in turn affects the way they behave with others. Bearing in mind the widely held belief that there are, on average, only six degrees of separation between us and everyone else on the planet, it can be argued that the way we act has an important effect on the world in which we live.

All these actions are stored in memory, and for most of the time - in our current state of consciousness - it is these memories which shape events in our world. It is memory which elects governments, which makes those governments fearful of others, which promotes and prolongs war - because of who did what to whom in years gone by. And if we look in our hearts, perhaps we can come to understand that the emotions which arise within us when we come into conflict with others in our daily lives stem from the same source as those which cause others to kill, abuse, and exploit other people across our planet.

According to Ho-opnopono, all actions arise from one of two sources: from memory or from inspiration. The answer it presents is to heal or 'clean' those memories, to clear away those centuries of accumulated grievances, passed down through the generations, once and for all: to clear away the collective karma of the human race, so that all that remains is inspiration, connection to source, connection to love...

I have written before about the way in which our emotions get in the way of our natural connection to joy. Well, here is more of the same, yet for 'emotions' read 'memories', for it is memory from which those emotions spring.

Remember the four simple phrases: "I'm sorry", "Please forgive me", "Thank you", and "I love you". They can be used to clean away those memories and reestablish our connection to joy.

Find the best way you can to use them. They are ten words that can heal the world.

Related links:

Dr Joe Vitale

The Missing Secret

Zero Limits

Dr Hew Len: Foundation of I

Eckhart, Oprah.... And A Giraffe

There's been a lot of publicity, but just in case you hadn't heard, Oprah Winfrey is talking to Eckhart Tolle about his book A New Earth in a series of ten live interactive webcasts on Monday evenings. Each of the webcasts will focus on a different chapter of the book. You can sign up to participate here.

The first of these webcasts took place last week and is now available to download here. The project seems to have been very well planned. There's even a handy reckoner here to work out when the webcast will take place in your particular time zone. It works out at 6pm US Pacific time, 9pm US Eastern time, and 2am here in the UK (where the downloading option is proving rather popular).

Apparently half a million people watched the first webcast live, so it looks like the project will bring this kind of teaching to unprecedented numbers. I know it's shamefully frivolous of me, but I can't help wondering if Eckhart's trademark beige sweaters will become the must-have fashion accessory of 2008.

I have to say that I found the first webcast compulsive listening. Oprah Winfrey's contributions brought an interesting new perspective to Eckhart's teaching and the webcast may be of particular interest to those who are unsure about how to integrate spiritual teachings with existing Christian beliefs. Do let me know what you think...

And finally... What was that about a giraffe, you may be asking? Well, we've recently touched on IQ tests here on the blog and some of you expressed a bit of skepticism, so I though you might appreciate an antidote to such tests. Here's a link to a test of... well, something or other. I think you'll enjoy it. Take the giraffe test here! And if you'd like to let me know how you get on, I'll be happy to hear from you...

Philip Pullman - A Process Of Evolution

Reading an interview with author Philip Pullman in yesterday's Daily Telegraph, I was reminded of a post I wrote a few months ago, in which I argued that a wholesale change in human consciousness will be needed if we are to survive the approaching environmental crisis. Here's what I wrote at that time:

"Only when we come to think of ourselves as first and foremost an integral part of the human race and the universe at large, rather than as separate entities in competition with each other, will we have the perspective needed to sit down as one and work together to find a way out of this mess."

To some extent, Pullman appears to echo this in his Daily Telegraph interview:

"I think we've evolved in such a way that suited conditions on the savannah 500,000 years ago, a way of life that was acquisitive, territorial and combative. The degree to which the processes of civilisation, or socialisation, can overcome that depends on the timescale. In the long term, I back evolution - if we can survive this crisis that we're in...

"It's like going down a river, and about mid-century we're going to go through the rapids, and it's going to be terribly difficult for all of us. But we can survive and if we can get through this... it's going to be wonderful."

How exactly Pullman thinks that this necessary process of evolution is going to happen isn't entirely clear - but then with evolution it rarely is. Don't get me wrong - I'm no creationist - but the small print of evolution has always puzzled me. How did those fish come out of the water exactly? Gary Larson's explanation (in one of his Far Side cartoons) that the fish were playing baseball and evolved legs in order to get their ball back when it landed on dry land seems about as convincing as any other.

All Pullman seems to suggest is that the environmentalists' storytelling skills need to evolve so that they can better communicate the message about what people can do to help the planet. He says:

"People feel helpless when they see pictures of devastated forests cut down and the glaciers melting and the poor polar bear sweating on its bare rock in the sea. 'What can we do, what can we do?' People need to be told what it is that they can do."

I wish I shared his optimism that this will be enough to make a difference.

Pullman, of course, is widely known for the anti-religion stance of his fantasy trilogy His Dark Materials, an ancient, authoritarian 'God' being unceremoniously killed in the final volume. Personally, I kind of like these books, such misgivings as I have about them having a lot more to do with the shambolic plotting than with any underlying agenda. I doubt that Pullman would view this blog in such a kindly light however. He has been quoted as saying "I don't think it's possible that there is a God: I have the greatest difficulty understanding what is meant by the words 'spiritual' or 'spirituality'".

So I assume that Pullman would be fairly horrified - or at best bemused - by my belief that the necessary evolution is going to be a spiritual one, a process of evolution in which we come to realize that all of us are One, that all of us - including our planet and all the life forms upon it - are part of something which some might describe as 'God'.

Yet Pullman goes on to say in the interview:

"I suppose the real story, the basic story, the story I would like to hear, see, read, is the story about how connected we are, not only with one another but also with the place we live in. And how it's almost infinitely rich, but it's in some danger; and that despite the danger, we can do something to overcome it."

Are we really so far apart, I wonder, the 'spiritual' me and the 'secular' Pullman?

I hope not, because it seems to me that it is a gap which is going to have to be bridged in our forthcoming process of evolution...

(You can read the Telegraph interview with Philip Pullman here. This in turn is an edited extract from the forthcoming book Do Good Lives Have To Cost The Earth? by Andrew Simms and Joe Smith.)

The Heart Of The Secret 3 - Contemplating Perfection

Earlier this year, The Secret DVD did much to publicize the law of attraction - the idea that we can create our own reality through the power of positive thought. In this series of posts, I'm highlighting what I see as the most useful techniques in The Secret, and the one I'd like to talk about today is one which you may not have encountered before even if you've seen the DVD, because it doesn't appear in the movie, only in the accompanying book.

The reason it didn't make it onto the DVD may be because it will only make immediate sense to those who are already familiar with the idea of being in the moment and connecting with the energy which can be found there. If you read this blog regularly, you'll already know what I'm talking about. Otherwise, I urge you to look at one of Eckhart Tolle's excellent books The Power Of Now or the briefer Practicing The Power Of Now, which will explain all about it.

You could also try taking a look at one or two of my earlier posts. Feeling What Is briefly describes the process of coming to rest and connecting with the moment, while An End To All Abuse contains a visualization in which you imagine being one with the universe, an integral part of everything that is.

Both of these are gateways to the same state of consciousness, in which you realize that you are an integral part of everything: a part of the force of nature, a part of the universe. In such a state, you are able to focus on your own perfection, on your own boundless abundance, for if you are a part of this great energy, then you too must share its attributes, you too must possess its limitless power.

With a focus like this, there is no longer any room for the anxious thoughts which might creep in if you were trying to imagine a new house or a car. Those nagging questions "will it work?" or "do I deserve it?" become irrelevant. Once you are aware that you are part of this energy, that you are one with the universe, there can be no doubt that you share in its perfection. So focus on that perfection - and bring it into your life.

This technique can be particularly useful for working on your health. The Secret DVD suggests that to improve your health, you should imagine yourself being well, but this can be hard to achieve if you are severely disabled or in great pain - or even if you've got a bad cough for that matter! In such a situation, doubts can be hard to dispel. If you feel really ill, it isn't always easy to imagine feeling better again.

If, however, you realize that you are one with all that is, that you are not separate from the life force which puts the buds on the trees and brings the green shoots from the earth, then you cannot fail to understand that on a spiritual level at least, you are perfection. Contemplate this perfection - and feel it seep into the cells of your physical body.

This is a wonderful exercise, but if you have difficulty with the whole 'oneness with the universe' thing, I came across a useful variation at Sue Ann Edwards' excellent blog, Always Embraces All Ways.  This has the rather dull title of Standard Technology (not Sue Ann's name!) but it's a very powerful exercise.

Briefly, what you have to do is to imagine that there's a perfect cell in your body. I think all of us are willing to accept that we have at least one of them! Imagine that cell all vibrant and happy, then set it as the standard for all the other cells in your body. And watch the perfection spread throughout your being...

If you like the sound of that exercise, please go and read all about it at Sue Ann's blog here.

Next time, in the last of this series, I'll be talking about the most powerful law of attraction technique of all. And this one is very, very simple...

(To see the previous posts in this series, please click here: part 1 - part 2)

The Heart Of The Secret 1 - Intention And Acceptance

In writing this blog, I'm hoping to share ideas about life which may be useful to other people, but also - a lot of the time - trying to work things out for myself. Clarity comes and goes. Sometimes I think I've got all my ducks in a line and everything makes perfect sense. Then someone posts a comment and suddenly I'm all over the place with feathers flying everywhere. "Whaat?" I cry, "How does that fit in?"

But that's OK - it's what it's all about. Yet it can be inconvenient if I'm just in the middle of writing a post...

Leaving the quantum physics aside (which I always find is best unless I particularly want a headache) there's nowhere I've struggled more in the whole spirituality area than with the law of attraction, that idea which was so successfully popularized earlier this year by the DVD The Secret. This is the idea that we can create our own reality by the power of our positive thoughts. I've written about this before in Positive Thinking For Beginners and also in the comments to another previous post, The Secret Antidote.

One particular problem I have is in reconciling the law of attraction with acceptance of what is.

If you've been reading this blog in the last month or so, particularly the posts How Does It Feel To Win A Million? and Ripples On A Sea Of Peace, you'll know that I'm pretty big on 'acceptance'. Indeed, it seems to me that acceptance, as in truly accepting and being OK with whatever is in our lives right now, may be the real big 'secret' of life, rather than the law of attraction.

Acceptance is all about not arguing with reality, which is something we do all the time but (when you think about it) makes absolutely no sense at all. "The buses should run on time", "Chocolate shouldn't make you fat", or "You shouldn't have walked out on me", are the sort of things we say every day, but they don't get us very far if they're simply denying the way things actually are. This sort of denial of reality uses up a vast amount of energy but we don't realize what's happening because we've been doing it all our lives. If we can let go of that resistance, and feel our whole body relax as we stop saying "no" to what's happening now, we may suddenly feel an incredible burst of freedom. (Read more about this here.)

But how can we have this acceptance of life yet also use the law of attraction to bring about changes?  Do we have to choose either one or the other approach?

At first glance, there does seem to be conflict here, yet when you actually read the small print of the law of attraction, the conflict falls away. To make the law of attraction work, you have to be free of attachment to whatever outcome you're trying to bring about. This is kind of skated over in The Secret but it's very important. In fact, it's one of several important features of the law of attraction which you could easily miss if you watch The Secret, and which I intend to highlight in this series of posts.

So just to get this straight: what you have to do is to put the intention out there - imagine whatever you want to happen - and then let it go. You can't be thinking "I do hope this works..." or it won't! It's necessary for you to imagine richly and passionately whatever you want to bring into being and then be willing to accept whatever happens.

Why is this non-attachment so important?

What we are told is that the law of attraction takes things very literally. It brings into being whatever thoughts we're putting out there. So if what we're doing is wanting something, that's exactly what we get: a situation of want. We don't actually get that shiny new car (or whatever it may be) but we create a reality in which we very much want a shiny new car. Which almost certainly isn't the outcome we had in mind! So to be successful,  you have to keep the wanting out of the equation. Put the intention out there and then let go.

Another important factor is the need to keep unhelpful, negative thoughts at bay.  A big problem with putting the law of attraction into practice is that thoughts such as "What if it doesn't work?" and "What if I don't deserve it?" tend to creep in. These thoughts tend to push whatever we're trying to bring into being away from us, undermining the whole process. If we can drop the attachment, however, and be easy with whatever the outcome may be, then such anxious, negative thoughts need no longer trouble us. Why should they, once we are willing to accept whatever may be? As I like to put it: we can have whatever we want, once we realize that we no longer need it.

I've described this problem with negative thoughts at greater length in the previous post, How To Have It All, and it's the main reason why I personally find the classic 'imagine what you want and get it' version of the law of attraction hard to put into practice. I fully accept that this isn't a problem for everyone however: such as, for instance, people who have a very positive disposition (the sort of people who will tend to be successful even if they never read a self-development book in their lives!); and those who are enlightened, who have total acceptance of whatever may be, who understand that worldly circumstances can never be a source of lasting happiness.

But where does this leave the rest of us? Should we forget all about the law of attraction? Should we put The Secret back in its box and list it on eBay?

No, that's not what I'm suggesting. Though I don't believe that the law of attraction is the universal panacea that some have claimed, there are lots of things in The Secret that are valuable to us all. In this series of posts, I want to focus on what I believe are the most important aspects of The Secret, one of which does not even appear in the film, only in the accompanying book. They are things that you might have missed, yet it seems to me that they lie at the very heart of The Secret - and they may be particularly valuable to those who have so far found it difficult to put the law of attraction into practice...

Coming next: The Heart Of The Secret 2 - Walk Before you Run!

Harry Potter And The Holy Trinity

As regular readers will know, this isn't a Christian blog, but I'm a bit of a Harry Potter fan, and by way of a bit of a change, I'd been planning a post about Christian ideas in the Harry Potter books - especially in the final volume, Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows. I'd spotted the parallels myself, but I did a search of the net a few days ago, and found that the Christian-Potter link was still being hotly debated. It was therefore interesting to search again today and find that the author, J K Rowling, is now talking openly about the whole thing on her US book signing tour.

"To me (the religious parallels) have always been obvious," she says, quoted on that well-known theological web site, mtv.com, "but I never wanted to talk too openly about it because I thought it might show people who just wanted the story where we were going."

Of course, this is all particularly ironic because the Potter trilogy has long been vilified by many Christians due to its supposed links with witchcraft. Yet even before the final book, it seems that some such opinions were starting to soften, a change in perspective I can only applaud as a triumph of sense over superstition.

Spoiler alert: If you are a Potter fan who hasn't read the final volume, you may not want to read any further!

To illustrate the links with Christianity, the mtv.com article quotes a couple of biblical passages which appear in The Deathly Hallows and points out that towards the conclusion of the book, Harry appears to get zapped by his arch-rival Voldemort, only to apparently return from the dead in triumph. Meanwhile, another recent article (in Newsweek) points out that Harry spends his time between death and resurrection in a misty sort of afterworld which he calls 'King's Cross'. (Get it?)

What strikes me as particularly significant, though, is that Harry goes into the final battle with Voldemort in the full expectation of laying down his life to save his friends, after which gesture they are suddenly able to turn the tide of the battle in their favor -  all because, we are told, of what Harry has done.

The evidence for the Christian connection seems to be scattered throughout the book(s), and more ardent scholars than I will no doubt gather it all in, but I'm particularly grateful because it helps to explain the puzzling presence in the final book of all those magical artefacts. Magic swords, enchanted chalices and the like are the stock in trade of fantasy fiction, of course. The critic Nick Lowe used to call them 'plot tokens'. But rarely have so many been introduced in a single volume as Rowling manages to cram into The Deathly Hallows.

To start with, there are the Horcruxes. Harry doesn't have to find three of the things, not even five, but seven of them. Why so many? No doubt the clever kids could cope with them all, but were there any adult readers who hadn't lost track of the blessed things by half way through the book? A single magical artifact can have a certain power and charm if the writer describes it well, maybe even three of them can work at a pinch, but any more is too many and seven is just plain boring. Would The Lord Of The Rings have worked better if  Frodo had had to destroy seven rings instead of just one? I don't think so.

So why didn't the publishers ask Rowling to think again? Was it because she was adamant that there had to be seven Horcruxes? Because there are seven seals in the Book Of Revelation perhaps? Not to mention seven trumpets and seven basins into the bargain. (I think they were basins anyway - I can't really remember. Even St John  could have done with a firmer editorial hand...)

And not content with those seven Horcruxes, Rowling goes on to introduce yet more magical artifacts. Half way through the book we finally encounter the Deathly Hallows themselves - all three of the d**n things: the sword of power, the ring of resurrection and the cloak of invisibility. Now what is that all about? Even Harry is uncertain whether to turn his attention to the Hallows or the Horcruxes, and readers can only sympathize with his plight. Perhaps it was a good thing that he didn't look too closely. If he'd realized that the Deathly Hallows might symbolize the Holy Trinity - the power of God the father, the resurrection promised by God the son and, well, Ghosts are invisible, aren't they? - he might have chosen them instead of the Horcruxes. But of course, that would have been a mistake on Harry's part. That would have been using Godhood for earthly power, as Voldemort wished to do. Get thee behind me, Satan...

Aside from this muddle of artifacts, however, I do feel that some aspects of the final Potter book can genuinely speak to the soul. Harry's time in the wilderness is surprisingly bleak for a children's book. I had expected a breakneck chase from one location to the next as they tracked down the various Horcruxes, but it isn't like that all. A lot of the time, Harry and his friends just sit around clueless, not knowing what to do next. As I read, I wasn't sure whether this was just bad writing or deliberately making a point. In the end, I think, there's sufficient evidence that the latter is the case. It's as though the characters have to look inside themselves to find the answers, a concept which will be familiar to readers of this blog. At one point, Harry remarks that he was meant "not to seek but to know", a curious quote in the context of the book - and one which holds echoes for me of one of my earlier posts on enlightenment. As for Harry's frustration that things haven't been properly explained to him, there are many times in my life when I've felt exactly the same. What exactly are we supposed to be doing here? Why doesn't life come with a proper set of instructions?

So why was the Harry Potter series so popular, I wonder? Can it really be explained by the cozy school-story comfort food of the earlier books? Or was it Rowling's reputed use of the law of attraction to sell her books that made the difference?

Or did readers perhaps unconsciously sense the underlying spiritual message right from the start?

The latter may seem unlikely, yet I find myself wondering too about that most popular book of the twentieth century, The Lord Of The Rings. Again, why the immense popularity? I've been a great reader of science fiction and fantasy, believing that the former - and sometimes the latter - are greatly underrated, yet when I first read Tolkien's trilogy as a teenager I was disappointed. The quality of his writing did not seem to match his world-building skills and, well, I could have done with a little bit of humor. Yet I found watching the movie of The Return Of The King a profoundly moving experience. As I watched, I began to realize that the Great Ring, which promised the bearer so much power yet which weighed him down and threatened to destroy him, might be seen as a symbol of the human ego - this great weight which we all carry - which had to be burnt and cleansed in the fire of the mountain.

I don't know if that's what Tolkien (or director Peter Jackson) intended or not, but it's a great way to watch the movie! Do other people see - or sense - something similar, I wonder? It sometimes seems to me that such ideas - the kind of stuff we discuss in this blog - are actually of great importance not just to a wacky minority but to the population at large: not consciously perhaps, yet glimpsed beneath the surface of popular art.

How Does It Feel To Win A Million?

Looking through the biography notes on Arjuna Ardagh (author of Awakening Into Oneness, the book I mentioned in the previous post) I came across this interesting quote about the culmination of Ardagh's search for enlightenment:

(Ardagh) had the profound realization that he had been seeking for what he already was, and always had been. He realized that it was in the abandonment of seeking and wanting that his heart found its fulfillment.

What might he mean by this?

It seems to me that if people think about enlightenment at all - and it helps to remind myself from time to time that not everyone does - then it's usually in terms of lots of foreign travel. People are expected to journey along perilous mountain passes to isolated monasteries, where they rise in the middle of the night to pray, drink yak's milk, and smite themselves with sticks at frequent intervals. If they are lucky and survive twenty years or so of this, they become enlightened, which means that they sit around with their knees crossed and make cryptic remarks to their students.

Whatever this enlightenment thing is, the idea goes, it is out there. You have to go out and find it. It is all about long haul flights and frequent flyer points. You have to search under every stone, and having searched, search again. There is no such thing as a long weekend to enlightenment.

And yet increasingly, people like Ardagh seem to be suggesting that this popular concept of a lonely soul scouring the world for some hidden truth is mistaken: that enlightenment is really closer to home than we think. That if we only understood, we could have it here, right now, in this moment.

But if so, then what is it? What is this truth which is supposed to be staring us all in the face?

Eckhart Tolle tells a story about winning a million dollars. This is something which makes people happy. But why should that be, he asks?

We know from reading the newspapers that many people who win such a large amount of money don't stay happy for very long. They may be bouncing off the ceiling a while, but when the elation has worn off, they find that they just have a new set of problems. They may be besieged by people begging for money; they may have trouble with jealous relatives; they may have arguments with their partner about how to spend all the money; or they may simply become morbidly obsessed with the fear of losing this vast fortune, in spite of the fact that they have managed perfectly well without it until now.

So with all this in store, why are people still so happy to win the lottery?

It clearly isn't the money itself, not really, for even if they manage to hang on to it, the chances are that some of these problems will come along to make them miserable anyway. Even at best, it seems inevitable that the elation will start to dwindle away over the weeks and months, even if all the money remains.

So if it's not the money itself, what causes that initial burst of elation?

Eckhart Tolle points out that we tend to spend a lot of our time 'disagreeing with reality'. We refuse to accept that things are the way they are. He describes this as a kind of madness, and if we think about it a while, we can see that he's right. Things are the way they are. Period. There's no getting away from it and no amount of raging against it is going to change it. We might wish we'd done this or wish we'd done that, and want to have this or want to have that. We might want politicians to tell the truth, or our relationship not to have ended, or to have got that job we wanted, or to have eaten a bit less chocolate for breakfast. We might want it to be warmer in winter and cooler in summer. We might want the trains to run on time. But things are the way they are are the way they are - and banging our heads against the wall and wailing isn't going to make them any better.

Now don't get me wrong - I'm not saying we shouldn't take action to change things. If we notice some injustice that's being done to us or to someone else, or if we see how something might be done more efficiently, it's perfectly reasonable to set out to change that. But it's important to distinguish between that will to change and our absolute point blank refusal to accept the less than perfect nature of how things presently are.

The truth is that when we see something we think is wrong, we don't put all our energy into changing it. We don't do that at all. We channel a lot of that energy, perhaps most of it, or - let's face it - in most cases all of it into moaning about how things are right now, in refusing to accept reality, in resisting what we can see in front of our eyes. "The buses should run on time," we will say. "You shouldn't have walked out on me." "Chocolate ought to have less calories and then I wouldn't get fat!"

This resistance does nothing to change things and neither does it make us happy. It makes us tense. It makes us angry. It makes us frustrated. In the end, it is not the situation to which we object which causes us so much pain, but our blind, obstinate, utterly mad refusal to accept that it is so.

And this, Eckhart Tolle suggests, points to the reason why winning all that money can make us happy: because for once in our lives we are willing to accept that things are the way they are. We have won a million dollars - yes, we can accept that. So just for once in our lives, we can drop our resistance to how things actually are. We can drop our disagreement with reality. We can drop our obsession with how things were or how they might become, put our plans and dreams to one side, finally stop resisting and let in life. It is not the money itself, it is the great relief of doing this, of letting go of that struggle, which feels so wonderful.

Which brings us back to Arjuna Ardagh "seeking for what he already was, and always had been". Ardagh reports that he found fulfillment when he stopped this seeking, when he abandoned his wanting. In other words: when he no longer disagreed with reality, when he simply accepted the way things were - and accepted the way he was.

So perhaps it is this acceptance, this surrender, not just from time to time but continuously, from one moment to the next, which forms the cornerstone of enlightenment. Which means that we don't, after all, have to search the world for the ultimate truth. It really is waiting for us right here. We just have to give up the struggle and accept the way things are.

So if you want to know what it feels like to win a million, just try accepting the way things are in this moment, really accepting. Then feel the tension ease...

Feel the lightening.

Making Plans

In a couple of recent posts, How to Slow Down Time and In the Zone, I was talking about a recurring theme in this blog: living in the moment, as promoted by Eckhart Tolle in his book The Power Of Now. This is all about being in touch with our senses: focusing on whatever we're actually doing at the time, instead of being lost in a tangle of thoughts as we so often are. I've described this myself in more detail in another earlier post, Feeling What Is.

One criticism which is often leveled at the idea of being in the moment, especially by those who wish to dismiss it as a 'new age fad', is that of course this is impossible, or at any rate unwise, because we have to plan ahead to organize our lives. We have to think about the future because we have to be prepared for whatever life has in store for us. At the very least, we need to make sure we have some food in for dinner tonight.

Now strictly speaking, it is said that we humans are able to reach a state in which we don't have to plan ahead. If we become enlightened, we will be so in touch with the flow of life that we respond spontaneously and effectively to whatever life may throw at us. We are permanently 'in the zone', like a pro sportsman in touch with his game, as I described in a recent post.

But most of us, regrettably, are not enlightened - at any rate, not yet. Even after dabbling in this spiritual stuff for some time, I am only catching glimpses of this wonderful state of being for myself. But that doesn't mean to say that living in the moment is impossible for us. Yes, we have to plan for the future, but we don't have to do it all the time.

If we have a meeting tomorrow, for instance, we may have to think about what we want to say - perhaps jot some notes down on a piece of paper - and work out when we will have to set off to arrive in time. If it is an important meeting, we may even think about what we should wear to create the right effect. But we don't have to spend all day thinking about it. We don't have to think endlessly on about what we should wear, or whether we will be held up in traffic, or whether we should set three alarm clocks instead of just two to make sure we wake up in time. We don't have to turn these things over and over in our minds as we go about our day. And yet this is what we often tend to do. Which means that real life - the actual business of living - goes on almost unnoticed around us.

When I was a kid, I used to love the vacation and hated going back to school (at least until I got there, at which point I realized it wasn't so bad after all). So because of this fear, I used to spend my final day of freedom in a state of dread about what was to come: all those lessons, all that homework, aaagh! Then one day, I realized that I was wasting a perfectly good day of the vacation by worrying about all this. I could have been enjoying that day instead of being miserable all the time. So I decided that in future, I would save worrying about going back to school until the final evening of the vacation. That way, I could enjoy myself for the rest of the day.

And that is what I did from then on.

If I'd been really smart of course, I'd have decided not to worry about school at all, not even in the evening, but even so, I don't think I did too badly for a twelve year old.

There's no reason why we can't adopt a similar approach to life in general. If there is something you have to plan for, ask yourself if there's anything you need to do about it now. If so, take that action. If not, then put the matter out of your mind for the time being until some specified time which you designate for doing the necessary planning. When that time arrives, give the matter the thought it requires. Then put it out of your mind again until one of two things happens: either some further prearranged planning time arrives or the thing you are planning for - gosh, wow - actually happens.

Occasionally, of course, something unexpected will come along which will require you to give the event additional attention - you have to be flexible. But generally speaking, organizing your planning time in this way will free up a lot of space in your brain for other things - like paying attention to actually living your life.

Which is all very well, but if you're like me, you may find yourself hearing a little voice in your mind from time to time which tells you that you are being irresponsible in not worrying about this event in your life that's about to happen. It is your duty to be worried, it may tell you. It's very important - you have to think about it! "But I've decided to think about it on Tuesday morning at half past ten," you reply. "That will give me plenty of time for all the planning I need." Ah yes, the voice says, unconvinced, but you should be worrying about it now. You should be worrying yourself sick. You should be...

Just tell it to shut up, that's my advice. You've taken any action you need to take at the moment. You've prearranged the necessary planning time. If anything unexpected turns up in the meantime, you will deal with it then. That's all you need to do. It is not your duty to worry about it now, quite the opposite. It is your duty not to worry. The more you worry about it, the more wear and tear you will put on your nervous system and the less effectively you may deal with the event when it actually happens. What is more, you will be missing out on life while you worry away. This is your life we're talking about here. It only happens once - and you have a responsibility to be there when it does.

In any case, it is wrong to assume that just because you are not consciously thinking about something, you are failing to give it any attention. From time to time, you have probably woken up from a night's sleep to find that you suddenly have a solution to some problem which has been troubling you. This is because your subconscious mind has been dealing with it while you were asleep.

Yet your subconscious mind can also work on problems while you are awake, especially if you are not getting in the way of it by turning them over and over again in your conscious mind. So give your subconscious a chance and focus on whatever is happening in the present moment instead. Then you may find that when your prearranged planning time arrives, you have subconsciously done a lot of the planning already.

What is more, when we are in the moment, we seem to tap into a source of what appears to be almost supernatural energy. (I don't think it is really supernatural - it's just that we don't understand it yet...) This source can manifest itself in a great many ways. One of them is in the perfect connection of bat on ball when a sportsman is 'in the zone'. And perhaps that same enormous power can be brought to bear on this problem of yours, on your plans for the future, on all aspects of your life... if you can only learn to put them out of your mind.

In The Zone

In the previous post, I was writing about an article on Steve Taylor's book Making Time, about how time can seem to get shorter as we get older. That article mentioned how top sports players often report that time seems to slow down when they are in a state of consciousness they refer to as 'in the zone'. When they are in this state, time seems to move so slowly that they are able to predict with absolute certainty where the ball will land and have plenty of time to make the right response to it. They know exactly how to strike the ball and where it will go.

Players seem to enter this 'zone' spontaneously when they are having a good day and the phenomenon has become so widely known that the phrase 'in the zone' is now in common use. This is perhaps the most generally recognized example of being 'in the moment', the practice promoted by Eckhart Tolle in his book The Power Of Now. The players are concentrating so hard on their game that they are completely present in the moment, instead of being lost in thought the way we all so often are. They are fully alert to everything their senses are telling them and so can pick up on information they would otherwise miss.

Chris and I had an example of this the other day. We were sitting in a garden, chatting away, and decided to practice being in the moment together for a while. We let the chatter, both verbal and mental, fall away and connected instead with our senses, so that we were really there in that lovely garden instead of somewhere away in our heads as usual.

After a while, we reported back on our experiences. We had both been focusing on a nearby fountain. Chris reported seeing areas of light and shade in the spouts of water which she hadn't noticed before, while I remarked on something similar in the sound of the fountain. There had seemed to be almost a choir of voices within the sound. I hadn't realized that gurgling could be so complex.

In our everyday lives, such complexities tend to be overlooked. If we hear the sound of the fountain at all, we file it away in our heads as 'the sound of the fountain' and dismiss it from further investigation. Then we rush around in our heads, giving simplistic labels to everything else our senses are telling us, leaving us free to get back to the all-important business of worrying about whatever is on our minds today.

It is the same for the sports people too. If they have a problem in their private lives or are concerned about how they are playing or something that might have been written about them in the press, their game is likely to suffer. Preoccupied as they are with these worries, they will be out of touch with their senses. They will not be 'in the zone'. They will not quite connect with the ball and the perfect shot will elude them.

Perhaps it would help if they read The Power Of Now...

I wonder how many of those who regularly find themselves in the zone on the sports field - and we are talking here about a great many people, not just professionals - realize that they could carry this over into their everyday lives, that if they focussed on their senses all the time, just as they do on the playing field, they could live their whole lives in the zone. Then they would always be alert to what is really going on in front of them instead of being lost in a tangle of thoughts; able to respond in spontaneous perfection to whatever life might throw at them; and able to experience life in all its glory, moment and by moment - like a ball well observed and perfectly smitten, heading towards the sky.