A friend just sent me this video clip of Oprah speaking about her
experience with the Law of Attraction (LOA). These are my comments following
her remarks: http://www.mindmovies.com/inspirationshow/index.php?episode=10002
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Oprah
is one of the few promoters of the Law
of Attraction I have heard who seems to recognize that the
so called "Secret" is just one psychological or spiritual law among
many--not the only or even the primary law. As she said so well in the
interview, "I think that the mistake that was made with The Secret was
that they tried to let that be the answer to all questions."
I
think some advocates of The
Law of Attraction run the risk of cherry picking a
particularly memorable event that happened to coincide with the fact that they
had been thinking about it, and then taking complete credit for "creating
it" or causing it solely by their own thoughts and intentions. The ancient
Greeks called that hubris, which is defined as "an
overestimation of one's own competence or capabilities, especially when the
person exhibiting it is in a position of power." For the ancient Greeks,
hubris was the ultimate sin--ignoring the roles, powers and influences of
the Gods. Do we really have that much to do with "attracting"
the event or object?
Let's
consider an alternative or more complete possibility that some Higher Power (or
Powers) has a larger role to play, beyond my own thoughts. Perhaps this Higher
Power, working in alignment with my soul's unique destiny, plants that
particular idea and feeling in me because the idea holds soul-making power for
my individuation. The "event" or manifestation may indeed be coming
my way, but I am not at all convinced that I alone created or attracted that
event without divine influence, or what William Blake called "divine influx". It appears
to be more true that we humans are allowed to co-participate in
a coming event because that particular event furthers our soul-making destiny.
It is more like a prophetic image or idea that is given to me, or Oprah, than a
thought I, or Oprah, alone decided to make come true.
One
ought to ask why that particular book, The Color Purple, seized
Oprah's notice so deeply. Surely it wasn't her doing. She had likely read hundreds
of books before that particular book, none of which seized her with such
intensity. Do we think that we are the sole instigators of our obsessions with
certain ideas or desires? Do we think that certain movies, people, places, and
fantasies recur in our imaginations for no good reason? I doubt it. Contrary to
popular science, the mind does not just out of the blue create thoughts and
feelings from chemicals leaping across synaptic reception sites in the brain.
And to say that my so called "ego" manufactures all of my thoughts is
just as arrogant. "Something" more than neurons or tiny egos are at
work in our thoughts and feelings. "Something" or "Someone"
whispered to Oprah through the Color Purple, "Your soul-making is somehow
tied up with this story. These impressions will not leave your mind until they
are done with you." Getting the role in the movie was a very tiny part of
the whole process. Taken in its entirety, Oprah's process caused her to face
her food addiction and problems with self will. Those of us who fixate on the
human role in manipulating the Universe by the Law of Attraction run the
dangerous risk of taking credit for a small slice of a much larger spiritual
enterprise. The Gods are at work in our souls--the external manifestations are
a distant second to the work done on our internal psyches.
The
key to Oprah's interview comments is in her song where she finally "surrendered
all". The subsequent phone call from Stephen Spielberg didn't
show up because Oprah was repeating her Color Purple affirmation
during an ecstatic moment at a meditation retreat, but when she was depressed
and miserable, surrendering her hopeless situation on a jogging track on a Fat
Farm. She finally realized that she was powerless over her addiction to food
and finally recognized her need for Help. Her mental obsession about the Color
Purple movie role was nothing but an avenue to her surrender, facilitating
the more important project of soul-making. If the Law of Attraction attracted
anything to Oprah, it was her need to relinquish control, and to surrender to
her destiny which is creating her. To believe that my puny little mind
discovers and creates my reality based on my desires is extremely dangerous, in
my opinion. The message that we are being created is much more significant than
the message that we create our realities. Both are true, but the second is
infinitely dwarfed by the first. But in this culture, hubris is the rule rather
than the exception.
Those
of us who think our thoughts alone create reality, without any inspiration from
a Higher Authority, remind me of Bilbo Baggins comments at the end of Tolkien's
book, The Hobbit. After his battles with Orcs, the slaying of the
dragon and his gold gathering adventures, Biblo asks Gandalf how much he,
Bilbo, had to do with bringing the whole affair to realization. Gandalf wisely
replies: “Surely you don’t
disbelieve the prophecies, because you had a hand in bringing them about
yourself? You don’t really suppose, do you, that all your adventures and
escapes were managed by mere luck, just for your sole benefit? You are a very
fine person, Mr. Baggins, and I am very fond of you; but you are only quite a
little fellow in a wide world after all!”
The way the Law of Attraction is often presented
runs the risk of making us, like Bilbo, over estimate our roles in the
soul-making endeavor. We are very fine people, and people to be fond of, but we
are quite little follows in a wide world after all. Before you start
"attracting," find out which God is whispering to you, acknowledge
that divine voice and move out of the way.
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