You're posing some really good questions Charlie Brown (I love that character, used to watch it all the time as a kid).
Originally Posted by CharlieBrown
Yesterday I finished reading “The Secret”.
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Have you tried watching the DVD? I think it comes across better than the book myself, although I have to say the whole thing smacks too much of using the LOA for personal financial gain and doesn't focus enough on the understanding and true concepts of the LOA, which is why, I guess, you are having these questions.
While I second some of the concepts there <snip>, other concepts are just impossible for me to grasp, because they conflict with “established laws” in which I do believe.
Let’s make an example: at some point it says that to lose weight, you can follow the LOA process and do nothing else than that (no need to exercise more or reduce the food intake). Now, this is just impossible for me to digest. [Nice pun!  ] There is one thing called the energetic balance: if you absorb more calories than you burn, your body will transform a part of the rest in fat – as simple as that. So how do the two things reconcile?
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It's not saying that you shouldn't exercise or reduce food intake. It's saying that you can lose weight without making these the focus of your attempt to lose weight. Many people focus on what they eat or exercising to try and lose weight but, because of their negative view of themselves, and their belief that they are "fat" or "will never lose weight", these types of "diets" just don't seem to work for them.
What it's saying is that, by using the LOA, we can change our underlying negative self-beliefs, whether we are concious of them or not, and this then allows the unconscious mind to naturally become more aware of the things that will help us to progress in the way we want. In terms of losing weight and the LOA principles, we would naturally end up not feeling the need to eat so much or have more desire to exercise or go out for a walk etc. and thus bring new things into our lives (attract) those things that will help us achieve the desired goal. We wouldn't have had to consciously tried to do those things, they would have just happened or the right opportunities would have come to us to allow them to happen.
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Another one is about abundance: just believing that there is enough for anyone, is simply not true, as proved not only by economics (which deals with managing scarce resources), but by logic as well: let’s assume we all want to go and live in the south of Italy, because we like the weather there. That would just be plain impossible, because of the scarcity of the resource “land”, which results in scarcity of the resource “house” – not enough space for building houses for all of us.
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Ah, but it is true.
Economics is statistical and based on material attachment to things.
In truth, all that we truly need is to look after our health, have a roof over our heads to keep our body safe from 'the elements' and enough food to eat. We don't "need" to go and live in the south of Italy, that is just an attachment of ego mind to the value of one thing over another.
In terms of LOA, you simply cannot look at it on a global scale like that. Of course it's not practical for everyone to go an live in Italy, but on a personal level, if you were to choose that this is what you wanted, then the LOA could make that possible. On a more global scale, if more and more people started realising their desire to go an live in Italy and making it possible for themselves, then those already in Italy would most likely be inclinded to choose to move elsewhere, for which the LOA would make that possible.
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Last thing: I don’t see how can I buy into the “if you can imagine it, you can make it real” concept: I can imagine an apple floating in mid air, give thanks for it, live as if it was happening, but given there is a thing called “law of gravity”, this will never happen! Don’t take me wrong: I appreciate the other way around, which is that if something does not materialize in the mind first, it will not be materialize in the outer reality either (for something to happen, I have to believe in it and make it happen in my mind first). However, I just don’t believe in the other part of the equation, as per point above…
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What is reality?
Ok, seriously, like if we are using positive affirmations, we have to be realistic about things. You could use an affirmation to say that you are a multi-millionaire owning your own company and employing 50 people by the end of the week, but realisitically this is very unlikely if you're a junior employee in a company yourself. Realisitcally we can make affirmations (just as we can use the LOA) to make realistic steps towards our goal.
The point of the statement "if you can imagine it, you can make it real" is not that you will make it real immediately, but that it opens up your mind to the possibilities around you that will present themselves; those possibilities that, if you were to take them up will give small steps towards that goal.
In the physical world our senses take in millions of inputs each day... lots of things we see, smell, hear, feel but which we are not consciously processing or aware of. e.g. you may be listening to a particular person talking to you, but your hearing will also be picking up on all the other sounds and conversations around you even if you're not consciously thinking about them or focused on them.
When you use the law of attraction to imagine something as real, you effectively instruct your conscious mind that this ultimate reality is something you are interested in, then when your senses pick up on something related to that ultimate reality your unconscious will kick it into your conscious mind to make you aware of it and allow you to act on it thus bringing you closer to that reality.
e.g. You've been stuck in a dead end job for ages and you decide that you want a new job. You use the LOA to see yourself in your new job, doing just what you want and happy in what you do, and you keep re-affirming this "reality" to yourself. Later, during your daily life, someone around you is talking of a job opportunity to someone else, and your hearing picks up on it, even though you were focused on something else. Because you're unconscious is aware of your desire for a new job opportunity, it brings your conscious focus to what has been heard and thus opens up that opportunity for you to take action on.
A real life example, but from a slightly different angle, is when I went and bought myself a new car. I went to the dealer and looked at the cars available and pretty much decided on the model I wanted. Then I had to choose what colour I wanted. I looked through the colours on offer and picked the one I liked, mainly because it was a colour I hadn't seen before and thought it would give me that 'unique' identity (this was before I understood the mind so much hehe!). I ordered the car and awaited it's arrival. When it arrived, I went and picked it up from the dealer admiring the lovely colour of it, then drove it out of the dealer to go home. On my journey home; just a matter of several miles, I saw a dozen identical cars of the same colour. Had all these people just bought the same car as me? No, they'd already had these cars and no doubt I had seen them before, but I just wasn't conscious of them as they weren't in my interest. But, now I had my own car of that colour, it was very much a focus of my attention and I couldn't help but to see the others around me.
So, you can imagine an apple floating in mid air if you like and if that's really what you choose to desire, your life will lead you to some means of really seeing that. It could be that you are led to opportunities that take you into research facilities into anti-gravity or suchlike, things that you probably never believed were possible. The trick is to recognise the opportunities and go with them and see where they lead you.
If you keep finding the same type of opportunity keeps rearing it's head to you, then you may want to see how that fits in with your desires in life. It may not be obvious, but it could just be the step in the direction you need.
Hugs
Giles
