Everything humans create starts with thought. EVERYTHING! There is not a murder or a good deed that didn’t start first with a thought. There is not a skyscraper or sod home that didn’t start with a thought.

So if “The Secret” gets more people to be aware that they have some control over their thoughts and therefore their lives, I think it’s a great thing.

Here, here Steve!

As Steve said, everything that exists today was thought about at some moment. In a literal and deliberate sense this is easy to see. For example, if I make lunch plans, then have lunch with a friend later on this week, I can trace the thought that originated the action. What about if I just run into a friend and we have lunch? The thought behind that action is a bit more difficult to detect, but I did make the decision in that moment to have lunch with that friend. What about if the same friend shows up at my office with lunch? Where is the thought that originated that action? The link gets harder to see.

There are 2 major categories of incidents that don’t seem to fall within the Law of Attraction paradigm. Not everything that we think becomes manifest. Not everything that we see manifest can be traced back to a thought.

Not everything we think manifests.

After my first year in grad school, I decided I needed to get serious about it. After all, I was getting funding for my major and I should be at a big school doing serious research. I applied to another school that was more serious about engineering. All the while, something didn’t feel quite right. I didn’t get into that school even though I was a National Science Foundation fellow, and I had the grades.

Contrast that with this scenario. When I was about to graduate from grad school, I envisioned the perfect job for me. I wanted a job in the corporate world, with the opportunity to travel. I wanted to get on the fast track. I wanted to work on a lot of different projects. I wrote it down. I envisioned it. I really saw myself in this role at the perfect pay. I got that job right down to the penny. The experience was everything that I envisioned.

In both cases, I affirmed and envisioned, so what was the difference? Clarity.

In the first example, I was thinking and visualizing, even telling people one thing, but in the back of my mind I was hoping that I didn’t get into the other school. I really did not want to continue in my major, but I felt obligated. I was working on ’shoulds’.

In the second example, it was all systems go. I was crystal clear on what I wanted. There was no fall-back plan and I was looking forward to the manifestation of the intention. I spotted the job as soon as I saw it. It seemed to gravitate toward me.

When you set your intentions with clarity, they will manifest.

Another ingredient that we don’t talk about adding to the law of attraction is action. All the affirming and visualizing in the world would not have manifested the perfect job. I had to show up at the mixer, the first interview, the recruitment fair, and the on-site interview.

Not everything that we see manifest can be traced to a thought.

I must admit that I don’t know exactly why this is, but let me posit a few explanations.

I have allergies. I can’t think of anything that I consciously thought that would cause me to have allergies. It appears to be a manifestation with no seed thought. However, having allergies gives me a sense of belonging. Usually, I can’t find a conversation to have with the people around me. I don’t watch much television, don’t read the newspaper. I’m not into college basketball (huge where I live), and I don’t have kids. At work, I find that I have very little to converse about with my co-workers. Now that I have allergies, I have a topic for conversation. It seems people can relate more to sneezing and runny noses than they can to the nature of reality.

So here’s my hypothesis. It’s not the allergies themself that I’m manifesting. It is a sense of belonging, a sense that I am ‘normal’, that I’m one of the gang. The thought that created the manifestation was wanting to belong in a way that other people would even have a little pity for me.

(As I wrote this my eyes and nose stopped running and my nose unclogged after 3 days of perpetual misery up to this moment. I kid you not!)

It is the intention behind the thought that is manifest.

This would also explain world hunger and poverty. By and large, we believe that there is not enough - that in the world there are have’s and have-not’s. As a result, we create, collectively, a world where there is poverty. If we adopted the thought that there is more than enough AND acted in alignment with it, I dare say that we would single handedly erradicte hunger and poverty.

What about the child that has leukemia? Natural disasters? Honestly, I have no answer for this one. The only explanation that it is part of a larger Design or created by the One Mind. More on this tomorrow.

In Spirit,
Nneka

One of the books that changed the course of my life. When I was 18 my dad gave me The Way of the Peaceful Warrior. It really warped my mind on what was possible. It was then that I began to see that I create my world in a very Matrix-y sort of way. I started dabbling with it and it worked.

This evening I went to see the movie. It was EXCELLENT! Very few movies are able to do justice to their books, but this movie did the job. They didn’t flinch on the hard stuff either. They came right out and talked about your power being in the moment. Even though I read the book many years ago, the acting really kept me in the moment and I didn’t anticipate the scenes. (Of course that might be due to the subject matter.)

The best part was that it returned me to the reason why I started this site: to impart this information to the rest of the world, by example, and through my writing. I think I may have fallen off track a bit. So without ruining the movie, I’ll point out a few Truths that are essential.

The ability to change your life is in the moment. All of the vizualizing and affirming will not do anything to change your life. The choice that you make in the moment is the pivot point. The good news is that the pivot point is always available.

Being present is the only way to access the power to change. Since you can change your life in a moment, if you want to actively create your life you have to be present - aware, conscious - in the moment.

You can only control your choice in the moment. You cannot control the outcome. And you certainly can’t control what’s gone. Only the choice right now, right here is under control, and I don’t mean in an egoic sense. As such, there is no point in being attached to the outcome. The journey is what matters.

Goals and dreams are still important. Being in the moment does not mean that you abandon your goals and dreams. It just means that you recognize that it is a point on the horizon, but the moment is where you decide whether to go towards it, to the left, or to the right. The other thing is that anything can happen, despite your best intentions. Life is about being present, being as aware as possible.

The book and the movie explain it much better. Go check them out!

In Spirit,
Nneka