[reprinted from my former site How to Tune a Human, May 4, 2007]
Everybody’s talking about the cult-hit movie, “The Secret,” and no wonder. The method promises to give you anything you want.
The movie has a focus on “getting stuff,” which is probably a good thing, because this focus that anyone can understand is probably one of the reasons the movie has been wildfire word-of-mouth and rapidly making its way into mainstream culture. And after all, if you’re just too darned spiritual to want some stuff for yourself, you could always manifest a bunch of stuff and give it to the poor!
For the rest of us, getting some stuff sounds just swell. And just a tiny bit of reflection brings us to the realization that we could use the same method to be, do, or have more of the things that interest and inspire us. Nothing wrong with that.
But what about lazy people?
Sometimes people are kind of, well, lazy. And lots of the people seeing this movie are electrified and inspired, but haven’t thought about this kind of “manifesting” before.
As a result, perhaps they find it real attractive to sit on their cushy sofas and just wish up a storm. They’re visualizing sports cars, new homes with pools on the ocean at Acapulco, and bank accounts that just splash with the money overflowing. They’re visualizing new girlfriends who resemble models, cushy jobs where they do nothing at all, and servants leaping around saying “yassah! yassah!”
And some of these folks sitting on their cushy sofas seem to be expecting these things to just magically appear out of the thin air. And … it doesn’t work like that.
It does work. But it works a bit differently.
::: HOW THE LAW OF ATTRACTION WORKS
In the movie, they speak of “Like Attracting Like,” and without getting into discussions of frequencies and vibes, let’s simply say that the idea is that if you’re “tuned in” to the idea of a new girlfriend, then you’re wonderfully positioned to have one show up. And it might be hard to say how much is due to magic — because the universe loves you — and how much is due to your paying attention to what’s around you because you’re tuned in.
I have an opinion about that, and probably you have an opinion about that. My opinion is that it’s simply magic. Some day we may learn that it’s science, but for right now, it’s magic and I’ve seen it happen so repeatedly that I think it’s magic and it’s darned handy.
I have a theory about how it works, but it’s just my theory. I may not know how a refrigerator works, or how a television works, or how a jetski works. But I can use a refrigerator or a television, and I think I could operate a jetski.
In a like fashion, I know the rules for manifesting things, and by golly things manifest, and that’s just swell. And the way that they manifest is not like the cushy-sofa-sitter is picturing.
It works like this …
::: THOUGHTS BECOME THINGS
Thoughts do become things, but perhaps this is less magical than we might imagine.
For example, the lightbulb was just an idea that Edison dreamed up. He then did experiment after experiment learning what didn’t work. And then, one day, one of his experiments revealed what did work.
Nicola Tesla was walking in the park, talking with a friend, and he glanced up at the sun. He was struck with a vision, of a circle around the sun. And the circle around the sun had magnets and he saw electricity flowing. And his friend watched in stupefaction as Tesla stopped in mid-sentence and began drawing a diagram in the dirt. This diagram was the electrical-generator motor, and the same design he saw in a circle around the sun is powering your lightbulbs, refrigerator, and television today.
But his first Electrical Generator, built at Niagara Falls so as to be turned by the falling water, did not spring into being out of thin air. It required steel and wire and machinery and hauling heavy stuff. It required negotiation and salesmanship. Money changed hands. People had to be hired and paid. There was grease and sweat and wrenches and loud noises. And … then … there was an Electrical Generator, and it was making electricity.
Notice that both Edison and Tesla had an idea, a thought, but that before the thought became a thing, each of them went through a period of hard work and doing stuff.
::: WHAT IS ‘ATTRACTION’?
The easiest way to think about this is to think of an iron magnet.
Place an iron magnet upon the table top. Nearby place some iron filings. Zoom! The iron filings leap across space to attach themselves to the iron magnet.
In the same manner, you can seemingly cause things to find their way through space to you. But unlike a magnet, which is “hardwired” to attract one thing — iron — you have the ability to create. What can you create? You can create thoughts. Iron cannot do that.
When you create thoughts properly focused on the thing you desire, like a new car, it is as if you are making yourself into a “new car magnet.” As you go around thinking of positive wonderful things, these positive and wonderful things tend to show up.
And on the other hand, when you go around thinking of horrid and undesireable things, by golly these things tend to show up, too!
Now we might quibble: Is it due to the Magic of the Spheres? Or is it just that you’re sensitizing yourself to these things and so you notice them? And I say, “Go ahead and have any opinion you wish,” but please notice that the facts seem to be true.
When you constantly picture good stuff, good stuff seems to show up. When you constantly picture bad stuff, bad stuff seems to show up in your life.
So it appears that you can create your reality. And it doesn’t really matter whether it gets created by elves or far-out science. If you can create your reality, why not create a good one and enjoy your good life?
::: WE START WITH A THOUGHT
Perhaps the oak trees began as a thought in the mind of God. Hard to prove it. But for certain all the man-made things — shoes, and ships, and sealing wax — began with an idea. A fellow invented bubble gum by accident. Another guy invented useful rubber products by accident. Other folks invented things like the cotton gin and the gin and tonic by experimenting.
But every (man made) thing in the universe began as a thought. So we can feel pretty certain about that one.
::: IS THAT ALL THERE IS TO IT?
You think a thought and then the thing is there?
Well, actually, sometimes it does happen like that. I think of a friend and my phone rings and it’s my friend. That sometimes happens. And similarly maybe I think that today I’d like to have $1800 of new income show up. And quite often I get an email or a phone call from somebody who wants to send me $1800.
Now it is possible that it might be Publisher’s Clearing House telling me I’ve won, but quite often these people who want to send me money also want something for their money. I make musical instruments — see http://megatar.com — and often when people contact me to send money, they want me to send them a musical instrument.
Is the the wondrous fact that I thought of getting $1800 and somebody called up and offered to send $1800 diminished by the fact that it’s commerce? Is this reality diminished by the fact that the dollars didn’t just appear “Poof!” on the table?
Not really. I find that being able to call up what I’d like makes me happy when it shows up and it doesn’t matter to me whether it’s delivered by UPS or Federal Express.
Sure, if I found $1800 lying on the ground outside my back door, that would be another swell way to get $1800, but when you’re all a-manifesting stuff, the one thing you don’t get to do is to tell the Universe how to send it. You get to choose what you want. The Universe gets to send it any way it chooses.
::: THE PREACHER AND THE FLOOD
There were warnings of a flood one day, but the Preacher knew that the Lord would provide, so he didn’t leave with all his neighbors. And sure enough it did come a flood, and he had to climb up on his roof.
The view up there was fine, and he saw some people he knew paddling by in a boat. They smiled and waved.
“Come on, Preacher!” they called. “We’ve got room in the boat.” But he shook his head.
“No, thanks,” he said, “Pick up somebody else. The Lord will protect me.”
So they paddled around the bend, and then the Preacher saw two men holding onto a large log. They called to him to jump in the water and join them as they drifted down the current. But he declined, saying that the Lord would provide.
And the water rose, and rose. And it swept him away and he tumbled in the dirty water, and he drowned.
And when he opened his eyes, he stood before the Pearly Gates. And he saw, past Saint Peter, God himself looking out at him. And the Preacher was just a little bit miffed.
“Lord,” he said, “I believed in you. I believed in you and you let me down!”
“Foolish man,” said the Lord, “I sent you a news broadcast, a boat, and a log.”
::: HOW TO GET IN THE BOAT
Take action.
In the movie, “The Secret,” several people (Joe Vitale, Jack Canfield) say that “you may have to take some action.” Perhaps you get an inspired idea. Maybe you just get a “What if …” idea. Maybe you already know what you need to do.
You’ve got to do your part.
If you’re sitting in front of a table, and on the table is a glass of water, and you’re thirsty, you don’t just sit there asking the Universe to get the water into your mouth. Instead you just pick up the glass and drink.
What if you’re in some business building, and you’re thirsty. You ask the Universe for some water. But you also look around the halls and ask people. Sure enough, you find a water cooler. Now you could be ungrateful and snippy, and you could say, “The Universe didn’t do a darn thing for me. I found it myself!”
Which reminds me of Moishe in Jerusalem
::: MOISHE IN JERUSALEM
Moishe had finally gone to see the Holy Land and he had a car to drive around. He was having a hard time finding a parking place, though. So he called on the Lord.
“Lord,” he said, “I really need a parking place. If you’ll just give me a parking place, I promise to keep the sabbath, and to be a better man.”
At just that moment, right in front of him, a car pulled out of a parking space that couldn’t have been more perfect. Moishe leaned out the window and looked up.
“Never mind!” he called. “I just found one!”
Albert Einstein once said, “You need to treat life as if nothing is a miracle … or everything is.” And that’s really the choice that we have. You can choose either way. But here’s a hint: When you choose to treat life as if it is all miraculous, it’s more fun.
::: THE HEART OF THE MATTER
When you decide to try the method given in “The Secret,” you will start to picture something that you desire. You will start to *feel* the emotion that you have when you contemplate this thing you desire. You will remember to *feel* gratitude for the things you already have in this life. You will choose to *trust and believe* that what you want is on its way, that you are going to have it.
Now here’s the key point.
On the one hand, though you get to choose what you want, it is *The Universe* that gets to choose how it will come. You don’t get to choose that. No matter how it comes, it will get to you, but you have to give up being able to tell the Universe how you want it delivered.
Nextly, you may have to take action. Suppose you want a girlfriend, and you know there’s a gaggle down at Joe’s Bar on any Saturday Night. If you *refuse* to take action, and wander on down to Joe’s Bar, then you are picturing a *COUNTER-INTENTION* to your alleged desire.
It’s like a diet. Losing some weight should be a simple thing in theory. You just eat less food and burn more energy, and you’ll lose weight. But for most of us, it’s a little more stubborn than that. And the reason is dead-simple obvious.
The reason why diets proceed slowly is because you’re holding two different and conflicting ideas in your head at the same time. On the one hand you say, “I want to lose some weight.” And at the same time you think, “I want to eat that luscious big piece of cake!”
Going in two directions doesn’t work!
Try it. Stand in the middle of the living room. Take one step to the North. Then take one step to the South. Repeat this over and over, as fast as you can. See how long it takes to get to the kitchen!
::: COUNTER-INTENTION GOES NOWHERE
In actual fact, the practice of visualizing (with emotion) what you want, and having it appear in your life is actually pretty simple. However, you cannot move in two directions at once.
You cannot picture the “good times with new girlfriend,” while at the same time picturing “how bad old girlfriend treated me.” Because at the same time you’re picturing good times and bad times. It just cannot get you anywhere.
Likewise, if you’re picturing “fun times with new girlfriend,” and for a moment you have the inspired idea to mosey on down to Joe’s Bar, but then you think “sit on my butt and watch wrestling on television, yeah!” And now you’re picturing two opposite and contradictory ideas. And which one are you *acting* on?
::: THE UNIVERSE ISN’T STUPID
The Universe isn’t stupid. It’s clear where your priority lies. And that’s what the Universe will deliver to you. You get to watch wrestling on television.
And similarly, if you’re picturing “fun times with new girlfriend,” and it just pops into your head to maybe wander down to Joe’s Bar and flirt around, and then you have the thought, “Oh, but wait. I’m clumsy at flirting. It might not work.” And so you think you’d like to have a new girlfriend but you don’t want to mosey down to Joe’s Bar, so you go into the kitchen to see if there’s any doughnuts left.
And guess what? You’re refusing to act. You are *declining* the available women standing around down at Joe’s Bar.
When you decline to go to the trouble of mosying down to Joe’s Bar to fetch one of those women, what are you thinking? That you’re going to find one in your kitchen cabinet in the sack of doughnuts?
When you decline to bother to go fetch your new girlfriend, you’re expressing a counter-intention. You are *demonstrating* that you don’t really want the woman.
Guess what?
That’s what you’ll get.
You’ll get a doughnut, but no woman.
::: THE ANSWER
Use the method given in the Secret. It will work. And, at the same time, get yourself down to Joe’s Bar and hustle. And walk up to them at the Supermarket. And ask your Aunt Mabel to fix you up with women from Church. And join a pottery class. And strike up conversations at the bus stop. And ask them out every chance you get. And keep on using the visualization with feeling. Now everything you do is telling the same story.
That’s when it *really* works.
Immediately, it’s as if unseen forces in the Universe cause women to come toward you in seemingly strange coincidental ways.
The Law of Attraction says that when you send out your message as a thought, with feeling, and when you hold that desire clear in your mind, with belief and faith, that it will come.
Try it. Try it with your eyes wide open, and be willing to do the work that is shown to you.
You’ll see magic. Real magic. If you take action.
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