Day 819- Genie In A Bottle
I’m gonna get in trouble with this one. So be it. The notion of the law of attraction, that our thoughts create our reality, positive thinking, name it and claim it, all of it; I’ve never really gotten it. I attend a church that is pretty big on this concept. I was in a small group a week or so and we discussed it. A couple of people there talked about how they had manifested things in their lives. And I openly had to tell them I not only don’t understand how this works, I don’t think it does. I’m past having to understand how something works to believe it works. I believe our consciousness survives physical death and goes into another realm. But, I don’t think the law of attraction works the way many claim it does. Not only that, it’s not supposed to. So, now is when you say “Well, if you don’t believe it, it’s not going to work.”
I think people have taken a spiritual law which applies outside of this realm and applied it to this realm. In the life to come, I do believe thoughts have greater power and what we think and do does come into fruition. We can literally manifest our surroundings and other things. Maybe I Dream of Jeanie or Bewitched (two of my favorite TV programs as a kid were glimpses into that next level. The bobbing of the head or the twitching of a nose can make things appear. But, on this level it don’t work that way. I think teachings about this are misinterpreted to apply to the Earth level. When taken to their logical conclusion just thinking “properly” should guarantee we will never get sick, always have plenty of money, and live a peaceful long, eternal life in the body. Anyone who dies clearly was not thinking properly. No? You see a big problem with this philosophy is that if you are sick, if you are poor, if you aren’t exactly where you want to be in life, you are lacking in mental/spiritual discipline. If you just thought properly, you’d be OK. Did these people read the book of Job? His buddies kept saying “Job, you’ve got some secret sin dude. You sinned against God. Repent.” Job kept coming back “No. I haven’t sinned. This isn’t on me.”
I look at Jesus, the Master. Jesus healed the sick, made the blind see, made the lame walk. But, two things. 1.) Jesus didn’t cure everyone. Why not? Why was He selective? Surely, it wasn’t because He wasn’t capable. 2.) Everyone Jesus cured died; everyone, including Lazarus. Was Jesus’ mojo not powerful enough?
This world is designed to have pain, to have lack, to have suffering. And, our bodies are designed to get sick and to die. It’s not a bug, it’s a feature. If we could magically transform the world with our thoughts, it’d be like remodeling an obstacle course used in training. We’ll take the 12′ wall and make it 3′. We’ll replace the cargo net with a ladder. We’ll set the barbed wire crawl at 6′ so instead of crawling we can just walk under it. What kind of training would that be? What would be the point?
This magical ability would bump up against soul planning and/or divine providence. We have a path set before us that we’re supposed to take and hardship is built in (for whatever reason). If we could train our minds to just opt out of it, wouldn’t we? If we could get to the point where everything we wished for (prayed for) came true, wouldn’t we all take the easy road? And if God provided everything we wished for (or our Higher Self did), wouldn’t that defeat the soul plan? Wouldn’t it mean that we, in our human form with our limited knowledge and short term perspective, we know better than God what is good for us? God would go from being sovereign providing the best for his children to being no more than a genie in a bottle, our servant.
I’m a pretty big believer in divine providence (and/or soul planning). That is everything is the way it supposed to be and will be the way it’s supposed to be. Looking around the world, that certainly isn’t evident. There is war, poverty, sickness, racism, homophobia, sexism, and more. So, is this the way it’s supposed to be? Yes, including the fact that we’re supposed to know this isn’t the way it’s supposed to be and work on changing it. The work is part of it.
I do believe the law of attraction applies in this universe, to some extent. It’s limited. Prayer and right thought can make room for “good” things to happen. Positive thoughts are better than negative thoughts. Negative thoughts are harmful. We can attract better people into our lives. We should strive to be positive and grateful. But, in this universe, it’s a weak force. It’s easily overridden. If you are having trouble, it’s not because you didn’t think positively enough. Many people prayed for Hurricane Irma to just vanish or steer harmlessly out to see. It didn’t happen. Right before a major catastrophic event, random number generators will show movement to be less than random. No one can explain why this happens or why it happens before the event. Clearly, our collective consciousness is having some sort of influence on the physical world. But, the movement is slight and the event happens anyway. We can’t pray someone into growing an arm back. We can’t think such good thoughts that no one ever takes advantage of us. And, that’s the way it’s supposed to be here. Think those good thoughts and you’ll create opportunities that you’ll then recognize. Just don’t expect to manifest the winning Lotto ticket.
