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When I was 16, in AP Chemistry, my teacher asked, “If everything is made up of atoms that have so much space and pure energy, then why is your hand solid.” I never looked at my hand the same.

Around the same time, my dad, took me into the kitchen and asked me what a piece of paper was made of. Being Ms. Know-It-All, I said atoms. Then he burned it and asked me, “What is it made of now?” I had no answer.

Later on, I learned that all matter is made of energy. In fact, everything in the Universe is made of energy, at least as far as Einstein is concerned. This is where science and spirituality blend for me. Consider that energy is Spirit, the essence of all of life. Now we’re not just talking about your hand, or paper, or a mug, we’re talking about situations, and life itself.

Life, as we experience it, is a manifestation of Spirit.

That’s a tough one to swallow for many of us because when we look around the world we see hate, and war, and poverty, alongside beauty, and love, and prosperity. So how can all of that come from the same Source? How is it all a manifestation of the same Spirit?

Well, how come a hand is not a piece of paper, and how come when you burn paper it turns into ash? There is something that determines how the energy comes together to form a particular object. For matter, in science, it’s the elements. For life, in spirituality, it’s our thoughts.

This is what the Law of Attraction is seeking to teach. Our thoughts influence what is made manifest in our lives. Now, you can look at it as your thoughts being the magnet of the Universe, drawing out of it what you sent out. However, the Universe is not out there coming to you. It is coming through you. You are indeed one of its manifestations.

Enter the idea of the veil, or lens, of life.

Your thoughts filter what comes into expression. When you impress upon your mind, through affirmations or positive thinking, your intentions, they act as the film. Pure Spirit projects through the film and what you see on the outside is the manifestation of your intention.

So what happens when you remove the veil completely?

In Spirit,
Nneka

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