When one mentions the Law of Attraction, I have noticed that people have different reactions and a different perception of it. I wonder if it depends on how they learned about it, and what was the source of the material. Some are skeptical about it, and do think that all this “positive thinking” won’t lead to anything – that it is a very naive approach, and that it misleads the masses. Others say that all this wanting to manifest material goods is not spiritual at all, and it’s just a hype that took hold in a society that keeps wanting to accumulate stuff, where people want to learn to manifest just to improve their material life, without looking deeper with the desire to raise their consciousness.
Depending on how you look at it, they are both right and wrong. What I mean is, they are right because there are sources that teach a mostly materialistic or incomplete approach, they are wrong because they did not look at the true spiritual essence of the principles.
Can the Law of Attraction lead to spiritual enlightenment? What is enlightenment anyways?
Buddhism and Enlightenment
According to Buddhist teachings, enlightenment is the extinction of desire and suffering and the disintegration of individual consciousness. It is the realization that the ego is an illusion of the mind, and that we are One consciousness. It is the awakening to the true nature of this Universe. This realization doesn’t stem from a purely intellectual knowledge, but from a real experience of merging into Oneness, a true knowing of the illusion of the ego.
During a Vipassana meditation course, I had a tiny millisecond glimpse of this. It was like a melting away of the body and mind, and a feeling of Oneness and floating energy. I tried to reach that state again, during following sessions, as it was really blissful in that microscopic moment, but could never replicate it. However, the memory of it is there, so I can really relate to the concept. Should I mention that everything went back to (*cough*) normal, with my individual ego being quite happy?
The Law of Attraction and Enlightenment
According to the best teachers – in my opinion – of the Law of Attraction, Abraham-Hicks, enlightenment is an alignment with Source
Enlightenment means literally aligning to the Energy of my Source. And genius is only about focusing. Law of Attraction takes care of everything else. Physical humans often want to make enlightenment about finding some process and moving through the process that has been pre-described. But true enlightenment is moving to the rhythm of the internal inspiration that is coming in response to the individual desire. Enlightenment is about allowing my Connection to the Source that is me for the fulfillment of the things that I have individually defined here in my time-space-reality. That’s as good as it gets! — Abraham
Excerpted from the workshop in Boulder, CO on Saturday, June 7th, 2003
Here, unlike Buddhism, there is no extinction of individual consciousness or desires. They are spiritual in nature and help the Universe expand. The spiritual essence of the Law of Attraction lies in the realization that this is a vibrational Universe, that we are an extension of the One, and are consciousness in physical form, experiencing this time/space reality.
Law of Attraction is not just about “positive thinking”, because there is an understanding of how frequencies resonate, so it’s also about “positive feeling”. Emotions are our tool, or as Abraham says, our “guidance system”, to understand if what we are thinking will take us where we want to be. Those who believe that simply thinking positive won’t do it, are right, but then, they did not understand LOA.
Is wanting to manifest material things, wanting to “have”, spiritual enough? Not according to You are Truly Loved, a blog worth visiting, and I can see the point being made:
The teachings on enlightenment are designed to help point you to the realization that none of that actually matters since it’s all an illusion anyways.
Even Abraham says that it’s not the “having of it” that will lead to happiness. Manifesting things is a way to understand how this Universe works. Being in alignment with Source is a spiritual understanding of the vibrational nature of things. Those who are just teaching the Law of Attraction to attract money, cars and more, are limiting what LOA is really about. Yes, one can have those, but with the understanding of the spiritual nature of that manifestation. It’s just energy in movement.
What, then? Can they both lead to Enlightenment?
The two kinds of “enlightenment” seem to have the opposite premise. No desire/desire, extinction of individual consciousness/expansion of individual consciousness. They do have in common the vibrational view of reality, and that we are Source.
We are one merging Consciousness, where the ego is an illusion of a temporary time/space reality… while we are experiencing this time/space reality, we can acknowledge the vibrational nature of all things, and create a life experience where we are aligned with the One Source. We play with energy, being able to attract things and experiences onto us, while remaining free from attachment to “material” things, because everything is energy anyways… if it’s there, great. If it’s not there, cool, there is an endless stream of energy available.
What is your view of the Law of Attraction, do you agree that it does have a spiritual nature? Is aligning with Source enough for you, to define it as “enlightenment”? Can one still enjoy individual consciousness, with the ultimate realization that there is none?
reginaldc
Elizabeth Barrette
Marty
Kim Woodbridge
There are many paths to enlightenment, and many flavors of it. Individual awareness and the appreciation of physical life are compatible with some types of enlightenment. I find the Law of Attraction to be a useful tool, but not sufficient unto itself — it really needs a good context to work properly.
Elizabeth Barrette’s last blog post..News: EPA Reviews Mining Permits
Elizabeth, you have a good point there. I agree with you that there are many paths to enlightenment. Because it is a universal state reachable by each and everyone, it cannot be ascribed to just one method, school, or doctrine. Whichever path works best for the individual, and leads to transcending common reality, is equally valid.
Thank you for your feedback!
Palma, I do believe that the so called LOA is spiritual in nature. It is a law that is universal which means by its nature it is viable on any plane of existence. Many teachings seem to want to deny the human experience for some reason. It is almost an implication that being human is a negative and we should shun the emotions that make us feel human. I believe we are here to learn to create in this plane as we do on the spiritual or energy plane. Unfortunately just as with many other teaching before it LOA has been boiled down to a materialistic view. I believe the teachings of the masters is not just about the physical but to enlighten us about our right place in the universe. When materials become our gods we miss our connection to source. It is not wrong to have a plentiful and abundant life materially. It is short sighted to believe that is all there is to your existence and life.
Reginaldc
reginaldc’s last blog post..Why Am I Not Smarter And More Beautiful?
Reginaldc – As usual, you couldn’t have explained the concept in clearer words! This is exactly what makes me resonate with the spiritual aspects of the Law of Attraction – that our human experience should not be denied and is spiritual in nature. We are here for a reason.
The materially abundant life can be made into a spiritual experience, where the focus in on the creating of it (understanding how energy and vibrations work), rather than in the mere having of it (turning the materials into our gods, as you say).
Great points, thank you for your wisdom!
have you ever considered the following:
a blood cell has a duty – multiply and carry oxygen to the hart and various parts of the body. it is an organ that controls that flow of blood and another organ that creates those blood cells. It is yet another organ that controls all of the other organs to make them do their jobs – the brain.
In this way, we humans are the red blood cells and through enlightenment we can see part of the organ – but never the full body.
when a parent wants a child to learn something, he may employ a method known as a ‘headfake’ (see paush’s the last lecture for his definition). Basically, you have the child do something he thinks will be fun so that he will learn a lesson from it because telling the child directly to do something you want them to do may not work. A simple example is the addition of cheese to brocolli to make the child consume the vegetable he would otherwise never eat. A more complex example is the encouragement of teens to ‘get laid’ with the goal of increasing population and forming lasting relations (hopefully – some never break out of the cycle).
It is the universe that is employing a similar ‘headfake’ to have us accomplish a goal while we think we are accomplishing another one.
Suppose a blood cell decides that his task is boring and mundane, and is determined that in fact there is something more to life than what it is he is led to believe life is about (for all we know, the blood cell thinks it’s going to work every day at the heart and resting at home at some location – hopefully not the toe – those closer to the heart would be considered lucky and wealthy and those far away to be in the slums). Even greater would be if the blood cells could choose their own games to play to occupy itself or play multiple at the same time. If this blood cell gets a glimplse of another reality, realizes its seduction, and controls it (in other words becomes enligtened), the organ may not like this since once the illusion is shed, the cell will not perform its function with the same level of enthusiasm as before. Worse still if he has followers, and they begin to learn. So, when the cell ‘dies,’ it is given a harder task to keep it busy – take care of the organ or something similar. (Maybe he has to wait until the organ itself enligtens for his turn to come). Either way, there are more and more objects stuck in lower levels that decrease as the levels of complexity increase. (like a pyrimid) In each level, the being thinks its supreme, but finds out it is not. The ideal is that which controls all under it and may or may not exist (the eye) – my bet is it exists.
eye
^
/ \
/ \
/_____\
In this same way, we are being fooled into believing we are supreme and continue on with our worldly tasks and games with great enthusiasm and until we can find our seduction, we will never realize something more when we ‘die.’
Hi Moh Singh, your insight is food for thought and should have space for further discussion. I will add it as a forum thread, and reply from there. Your premise is quite fascinating… Thank you for sharing your thoughts.
Update: Here is the Link to the forum thread discussing this.
Meditation and following guided meditation videos are also a really powerful way to gain self-awareness and introspection along with many other benefits.Comment Tags: guided meditation, guided meditations, meditation
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Sonia, traditional silent meditation is key in developing awareness. In regards to videos, I expressed my take on them, on the other similar comment you left in the post How spiritual is the Law of Attraction?.
Hello Palma,
I am a retired/disabled 18 year Army veteran. I have spent most of my adulthood learning to be a soldier. I often pondered perplexed thoughts, such as you speak of in your forums, but was always somehow distracted and never had a long enough time to better understand some of my thoughts. I was discharged from the Army in 2002, and was at the time with a girl that was diagnosed as bipolar, and later discovering she was very dependent on methamphetamines, so this was also a distraction from my very own pure thoughts. Usually whenever I tried to hold any intelligent dialogue with her, or her “friends” it made my brain want to explode.
Anyways, 2 and a half years ago I set out on my own with my dog Duke, and we went out in the world all on our own. It was scary, but very enlightening. We kicked around San Diego for several months, then went to Texas for a few to settle in Yuma for a year. The year in Yuma went great, and I was able to focus a little more on my thoughts, but still found myself distracted. I am finally settled, and even bought my own place in Joshua Tree California. My dog has since succumbed to cancer, and I was torn apart with “the” decision of having him euthanised. I have dealt with death on a few occasions as a soldier, but never had such a strong feeling of loss before. I am convinced, however, that his perception of time has just been altered, and that before he even turns around to see me missing I’ll be by his side. I also truly believe that his soul/spirit was one in the same as my beloved childhood dog, coincidentally named Duke. I think Duke 2 was actually hanging onto life until I was settled to his satisfaction.
Anyways, to get to the point. Since I have been settled over the last 8 months I have found that I do possess a sense of spritual being. I often make an attempt at learning self conciousness, but am often mislead do to all the new technology, I feel overwhelmed at times with information, and find myself losing interest all together. I have a pretty severe back injury requiring me to take a lot of chemical pain meds. I am a kid of the 60’s and 70’s so marijuana has always been a staple. The Army didn’t like it so I refrained for several years from using it. I now use it regularly, and have reduced my intake of chemicals.
What advise would you give me to better discover myself?
Jeff Boelter
I know there is another dimension if not infinitive amounts of dimiensions. I did not see mention of infinity from what I did read from your posts. My thoughts are often of infinity, and when I concentrate on this idea for more than a few seconds it feels like my brain is just going to stop, kind of like a car engine not quite able to turn over. It is such an intense desire to understand infinity that I almost cry, in fact I have wept with the desire to understand.