To begin my Manifest Mount Dora project, I have to define what I believe manifesting through the Law of Attraction is or does. Can I manifest anything I want? Is the world a giant cookie jar just waiting for me to pry open its lid and indulge in all the goodies within? Or, are there some rules or limitations to this manifesting thing? Does my success with attracting what I want rest solely on my ability to manifest and the strength and duration of my focus? For example, if I want a new car am I sure to attract it as long as my desire for the car is strong enough, my visualization of the car detailed enough and the duration of my focus long enough? Or is there something greater, more spiritual at play here?
One of my most profound discoveries as I have studied the Law of Attraction and related subjects relates to the idea of God or gods or a higher power or whatever sort of supreme being in which one believes. Long ago I’d drifted from the conventional idea of God - you know, that “guy” in the sky who makes and enforces the rules, showers us with blessings or allows us to learn through trials and tribulations, either small or large. Even the word “god” was uncomfortable to me. I shied away from all the related elements of my Christian education - Jesus, the saints, the disciples, the Bible, church in general, prayer.
During that first conversation with my neighbor Kathy about Edwene Gaines, a minister with the Unity Church, I found myself shutting down to Gaines’s message simply because she was a minister in a church and many of her teachings are based on the words and deeds of Jesus. My mind struggled to stay engaged and interested in our conversation because my past experiences were limiting my ability to consider anything even vaguely related to religion, and particularly to Christianity.
As my studies continued, I often found myself in the middle of conversations or reading books or attending classes in which religious references were made. The first prosperity class I attended was at a Unity Church so you can imagine how often I squirmed with discomfort. Then, I had what Oprah calls a “light bulb moment”: The message not the messenger is what’s important! The message can come from anyone, anywhere at anytime. The message may arrive in the words of a minister, in the musings of a criminal or in the lyrics of a pop song. The messenger may be Christian or Muslim or Jewish or atheist or Wiccan or agnostic. The messenger may be holy or spiritual or a thug. The message may come from a child who does not even understand the impact of his or her words or from a wise sage who has spent a lifetime studying the spiritual.
And, what about God? Is there one? Does it matter? I have come to believe in what is often called Universal Energy. Think of it as a pool of intense energy and we are all part of it. We started there and we will return there one day and may even come back here again to live another life, to learn more, to teach more. We draw our strength and our peace from that pool. Together we are what some may call “god”. That is what I believe. But, you don’t have to believe the same thing because you are here to have your own experience, not mine. My experience over 57 years has led me to embrace the belief of Universal Energy, but your experience may have led you to a different belief. We each have our own path and that is okay. We need to respect one another and our individual paths. We don’t have to believe exactly the same to learn from one another.
As part of the “I am here for a reason” philosophy that resonates with me, I believe we have a “higher calling” or a mission. Some of us wander all over the place and never discover why we came here, some discover why late in life and others seem to emerge from diapers with the knowledge and insight that others strive for years to obtain. Have you ever met a child that seems wiser than his years would allow? Do you know someone who is an “old soul”? My belief is that these people have come back in human form many times and are further along their paths than some of the rest of us. These people are the teachers, the guides and the sages. They have a spiritual connection that is stronger than most. They just seem to know the answers to life’s toughest questions. We consider them prophets, teachers, rabbis, pastors, philosophers, medicine men or women, yogis. They teach us in churches, mosques, synagogues, temples, ashrams and schools. They preach, they write, they teach, they lead. And, sometimes, they are the old man down the street that always has good advice or the grandmother that taught us how to survive the hard times in life or the singer who writes songs that touch our souls.
So, if we are here for a reason, if we have a higher calling, how does that play into the whole Law of Attraction theory? Would someone with a higher calling use the Law of Attraction for stuff - fancy cars, a big house, expensive clothes? Well, maybe. Maybe that is his/her calling - to show us what we can manifest. There are certainly plenty of people out there making lots of money telling people how to attract stuff. That use of manifestation can seem cheap and tawdry, but who are we to judge? Again, we don’t know the path of others. If someone can use the Law of Attraction to get whatever they want, no matter how shallow it may appear to others, does it cheapen the method in any way? I don’t think so because, again, we don’t know the path that someone else is on. Maybe that person who manifested all kinds of material items seems shallow to us, but what if that person’s reason for being here is to experience having lots of stuff? Perhaps that person lived in devastatingly poor circumstances in another life and know has the opportunity to learn what wealth is. Or perhaps that person has a lesson to learn in overindulgence or greediness. Again, who knows? Who should be the judge of another’s path?
I do believe that manifestation only occurs when we are on our path - even if that path is not obvious to others. There is a higher good, even if we don’t see the “good” part. I also believe that the Law of Attraction only works when you are connected to your higher path and when what you are desiring is the best experience for your evolvement. When I wanted to move to town, I was considering buying a house and that did not happen. I was devastated when deal after deal fell through for me. When I finally stopped trying to control all the details of how I was to move to town, I was given a rental home that I’ve loved for move than seven years. In retrospect, I know that buying a house, any house, was not the best thing for me. I was on my path towards higher good, but I was overly involved in the details and making choices that were not good for me. The Universe stepped in and said no, buying a house is not the what you need.
Manifesting is not just black or white. Sometimes what we manifest might seem like a nightmare, but, perhaps, that nightmarish experience is exactly what we needed to move forward on our path. And, sometimes, the nightmare we are experiencing is because we are not on our path at all. Complicated? Yes.
Manifesting and our higher good may seem like fate, but it cannot be called fate in the true sense of the word. According to dictionary.com fate is:
fate
1.
something that unavoidably befalls a person; fortune; lot: It is always his fate to be left behind.
2.
the universal principle or ultimate agency by which the order of things is presumably prescribed; the decreed cause of events; time: Fate decreed that they would never meet again.
3.
that which is inevitably predetermined; destiny: Death is our ineluctable fate.
4.
a prophetic declaration of what must be: The oracle pronounced their fate.
5.
death, destruction, or ruin.
The Law of Attraction says that we attract both negative and positive into our lives according to what vibrations and energies we are emitting. Often our negative vibes may be attracting what we don’t want - more negativity, fear, loss, lack. We can blame the negativity, which certainly is the cause of unwelcome experiences, but we can also see that our negativity has attracted unwelcome experiences into our lives so we can learn lessons that will move us toward our higher good. We do have choices. We are born with a purpose and that can be seen as a type of fate, but how we move forward cultivating and achieving that purpose is not fate. It is personalized action. We may not be aware that we are attracting what enters our lives, but we are - unconsciously or consciously. Carl Jung said, “What you resist, persists.” Fighting against something focuses our attention on the very thing we are fighting against and therefore we attract more of that thing. Likewise with our thoughts. Rather than thinking about what would make our lives better, we think about what is making our lives miserable so we attract more of the same. Mother Teresa was an expert on the Law of Attraction and she said, “I will never attend an anti-war rally; if you have a peace rally, invite me.” She understood that anti-anything attracts more of the same.
Another element to the Law of Attraction is gratitude. Yes, we all feel gratitude when what we desires becomes reality, but the tricky part is that we must have gratitude now - before we get what we want. We must have gratitude for our lives right now. Gratitude is the most positive feeling we have. Gratitude for what exists now will help you manifest what you want in the future.
And, to me the trickiest “rule” of the Law of Attraction is the that we must always ask in the name of the greater good. If you believe we are all part of the same energy pool or the same cosmos or we are all children of God, then you must realize that what is good for you must also be for the greater good of all. That seems like a heavy burden, but it isn’t really. What makes me truly happy allows me to share my happiness with others, thereby, making them happy. If I am moving forward on my path, it just naturally follows that I am better able to help others move forward on their path to a higher calling. Manifesting a car may seem like a very unspiritual pursuit but not necessarily. If I have a good, reliable car, my life is easier and I have more time and money to spend on other pursuits that will move me to my higher good or allow me to help others on their path to higher good. Manifesting a car may be your first step out of poverty or it may provide transportation for you to take your child to school - the same child that will discover a cure for cancer. That may sound over-the-top, but it illustrates how all of our desires and manifestations are interrelated. We do not dream in a vacuum.
The last bit of advice I want to give now on the manifesting is that the only time we truly have is this moment - the one you are living right now. The past is gone and the future has not and may not happen. The world and the Universe exist in the NOW. Therefore, your words and thoughts of manifestation must exist in the now for the Universe to understand. Choose your words carefully. See yourself and speak of yourself in the situation you desire as if it is happening right now - not tomorrow or next year - right now. I AM a college graduate with a medical degree. I AM living a lovely historical home in Mount Dora. I AM married to the perfect person for me. I AM driving a reliable car in good condition that will safely take me wherever I want to go.
Yes, complicated, but, then again, very simple. Be conscious of what you believe is your higher calling, if you can identify it at this stage of your life. Identify what you really want. Be aware of your thoughts and your feelings. As soon as you are aware of a negative thought or feeling, transform it into something positive. Use positive words especially when expressing your desires. Avoid negative thoughts and images. Always do good. Use your imagination to clearly see what you desire.
Many books have been written about the Law of Attraction and, obviously, I cannot cover all the theories about it. Nor, do I want to. I am just hitting the points that seem most important to me, the ones that have made a difference in my life. The ones I plan to use as I move forward on this manifesting journey. I suggest you read as much as you can and determine what resonants best with you and then apply what you’ve learned. You can always make adjustments to your approach later. Remember, it is a journey.
Next, I will talk about how I am following my own advice - stay tuned!
One of my most profound discoveries as I have studied the Law of Attraction and related subjects relates to the idea of God or gods or a higher power or whatever sort of supreme being in which one believes. Long ago I’d drifted from the conventional idea of God - you know, that “guy” in the sky who makes and enforces the rules, showers us with blessings or allows us to learn through trials and tribulations, either small or large. Even the word “god” was uncomfortable to me. I shied away from all the related elements of my Christian education - Jesus, the saints, the disciples, the Bible, church in general, prayer.
During that first conversation with my neighbor Kathy about Edwene Gaines, a minister with the Unity Church, I found myself shutting down to Gaines’s message simply because she was a minister in a church and many of her teachings are based on the words and deeds of Jesus. My mind struggled to stay engaged and interested in our conversation because my past experiences were limiting my ability to consider anything even vaguely related to religion, and particularly to Christianity.
As my studies continued, I often found myself in the middle of conversations or reading books or attending classes in which religious references were made. The first prosperity class I attended was at a Unity Church so you can imagine how often I squirmed with discomfort. Then, I had what Oprah calls a “light bulb moment”: The message not the messenger is what’s important! The message can come from anyone, anywhere at anytime. The message may arrive in the words of a minister, in the musings of a criminal or in the lyrics of a pop song. The messenger may be Christian or Muslim or Jewish or atheist or Wiccan or agnostic. The messenger may be holy or spiritual or a thug. The message may come from a child who does not even understand the impact of his or her words or from a wise sage who has spent a lifetime studying the spiritual.
And, what about God? Is there one? Does it matter? I have come to believe in what is often called Universal Energy. Think of it as a pool of intense energy and we are all part of it. We started there and we will return there one day and may even come back here again to live another life, to learn more, to teach more. We draw our strength and our peace from that pool. Together we are what some may call “god”. That is what I believe. But, you don’t have to believe the same thing because you are here to have your own experience, not mine. My experience over 57 years has led me to embrace the belief of Universal Energy, but your experience may have led you to a different belief. We each have our own path and that is okay. We need to respect one another and our individual paths. We don’t have to believe exactly the same to learn from one another.
As part of the “I am here for a reason” philosophy that resonates with me, I believe we have a “higher calling” or a mission. Some of us wander all over the place and never discover why we came here, some discover why late in life and others seem to emerge from diapers with the knowledge and insight that others strive for years to obtain. Have you ever met a child that seems wiser than his years would allow? Do you know someone who is an “old soul”? My belief is that these people have come back in human form many times and are further along their paths than some of the rest of us. These people are the teachers, the guides and the sages. They have a spiritual connection that is stronger than most. They just seem to know the answers to life’s toughest questions. We consider them prophets, teachers, rabbis, pastors, philosophers, medicine men or women, yogis. They teach us in churches, mosques, synagogues, temples, ashrams and schools. They preach, they write, they teach, they lead. And, sometimes, they are the old man down the street that always has good advice or the grandmother that taught us how to survive the hard times in life or the singer who writes songs that touch our souls.
So, if we are here for a reason, if we have a higher calling, how does that play into the whole Law of Attraction theory? Would someone with a higher calling use the Law of Attraction for stuff - fancy cars, a big house, expensive clothes? Well, maybe. Maybe that is his/her calling - to show us what we can manifest. There are certainly plenty of people out there making lots of money telling people how to attract stuff. That use of manifestation can seem cheap and tawdry, but who are we to judge? Again, we don’t know the path of others. If someone can use the Law of Attraction to get whatever they want, no matter how shallow it may appear to others, does it cheapen the method in any way? I don’t think so because, again, we don’t know the path that someone else is on. Maybe that person who manifested all kinds of material items seems shallow to us, but what if that person’s reason for being here is to experience having lots of stuff? Perhaps that person lived in devastatingly poor circumstances in another life and know has the opportunity to learn what wealth is. Or perhaps that person has a lesson to learn in overindulgence or greediness. Again, who knows? Who should be the judge of another’s path?
I do believe that manifestation only occurs when we are on our path - even if that path is not obvious to others. There is a higher good, even if we don’t see the “good” part. I also believe that the Law of Attraction only works when you are connected to your higher path and when what you are desiring is the best experience for your evolvement. When I wanted to move to town, I was considering buying a house and that did not happen. I was devastated when deal after deal fell through for me. When I finally stopped trying to control all the details of how I was to move to town, I was given a rental home that I’ve loved for move than seven years. In retrospect, I know that buying a house, any house, was not the best thing for me. I was on my path towards higher good, but I was overly involved in the details and making choices that were not good for me. The Universe stepped in and said no, buying a house is not the what you need.
Manifesting is not just black or white. Sometimes what we manifest might seem like a nightmare, but, perhaps, that nightmarish experience is exactly what we needed to move forward on our path. And, sometimes, the nightmare we are experiencing is because we are not on our path at all. Complicated? Yes.
Manifesting and our higher good may seem like fate, but it cannot be called fate in the true sense of the word. According to dictionary.com fate is:
fate
1.
something that unavoidably befalls a person; fortune; lot: It is always his fate to be left behind.
2.
the universal principle or ultimate agency by which the order of things is presumably prescribed; the decreed cause of events; time: Fate decreed that they would never meet again.
3.
that which is inevitably predetermined; destiny: Death is our ineluctable fate.
4.
a prophetic declaration of what must be: The oracle pronounced their fate.
5.
death, destruction, or ruin.
The Law of Attraction says that we attract both negative and positive into our lives according to what vibrations and energies we are emitting. Often our negative vibes may be attracting what we don’t want - more negativity, fear, loss, lack. We can blame the negativity, which certainly is the cause of unwelcome experiences, but we can also see that our negativity has attracted unwelcome experiences into our lives so we can learn lessons that will move us toward our higher good. We do have choices. We are born with a purpose and that can be seen as a type of fate, but how we move forward cultivating and achieving that purpose is not fate. It is personalized action. We may not be aware that we are attracting what enters our lives, but we are - unconsciously or consciously. Carl Jung said, “What you resist, persists.” Fighting against something focuses our attention on the very thing we are fighting against and therefore we attract more of that thing. Likewise with our thoughts. Rather than thinking about what would make our lives better, we think about what is making our lives miserable so we attract more of the same. Mother Teresa was an expert on the Law of Attraction and she said, “I will never attend an anti-war rally; if you have a peace rally, invite me.” She understood that anti-anything attracts more of the same.
Another element to the Law of Attraction is gratitude. Yes, we all feel gratitude when what we desires becomes reality, but the tricky part is that we must have gratitude now - before we get what we want. We must have gratitude for our lives right now. Gratitude is the most positive feeling we have. Gratitude for what exists now will help you manifest what you want in the future.
And, to me the trickiest “rule” of the Law of Attraction is the that we must always ask in the name of the greater good. If you believe we are all part of the same energy pool or the same cosmos or we are all children of God, then you must realize that what is good for you must also be for the greater good of all. That seems like a heavy burden, but it isn’t really. What makes me truly happy allows me to share my happiness with others, thereby, making them happy. If I am moving forward on my path, it just naturally follows that I am better able to help others move forward on their path to a higher calling. Manifesting a car may seem like a very unspiritual pursuit but not necessarily. If I have a good, reliable car, my life is easier and I have more time and money to spend on other pursuits that will move me to my higher good or allow me to help others on their path to higher good. Manifesting a car may be your first step out of poverty or it may provide transportation for you to take your child to school - the same child that will discover a cure for cancer. That may sound over-the-top, but it illustrates how all of our desires and manifestations are interrelated. We do not dream in a vacuum.
The last bit of advice I want to give now on the manifesting is that the only time we truly have is this moment - the one you are living right now. The past is gone and the future has not and may not happen. The world and the Universe exist in the NOW. Therefore, your words and thoughts of manifestation must exist in the now for the Universe to understand. Choose your words carefully. See yourself and speak of yourself in the situation you desire as if it is happening right now - not tomorrow or next year - right now. I AM a college graduate with a medical degree. I AM living a lovely historical home in Mount Dora. I AM married to the perfect person for me. I AM driving a reliable car in good condition that will safely take me wherever I want to go.
Yes, complicated, but, then again, very simple. Be conscious of what you believe is your higher calling, if you can identify it at this stage of your life. Identify what you really want. Be aware of your thoughts and your feelings. As soon as you are aware of a negative thought or feeling, transform it into something positive. Use positive words especially when expressing your desires. Avoid negative thoughts and images. Always do good. Use your imagination to clearly see what you desire.
Many books have been written about the Law of Attraction and, obviously, I cannot cover all the theories about it. Nor, do I want to. I am just hitting the points that seem most important to me, the ones that have made a difference in my life. The ones I plan to use as I move forward on this manifesting journey. I suggest you read as much as you can and determine what resonants best with you and then apply what you’ve learned. You can always make adjustments to your approach later. Remember, it is a journey.
Next, I will talk about how I am following my own advice - stay tuned!
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