Hello u lot
I'm fine with the goofy stuff, too, but feel there's something left hanging for me, and I feel like I still have things to say about daveangeles question (or statement 'Garbage,all of it'.
Hi ALG, you said:
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There is this thing. For convenience, we call it the Law of Attraction. It means that our thoughts create our reality.
If we accept the above, it follows that by changing our thoughts, we can change our reality. If we merely think, we are creating our reality.
How skilful or powerful or capable we are, at controlling our thoughts, is a separate question. What we choose to create, is also a separate question. Indeed, how able we are, to make those choices, is also a separate question.
Every person, whether he has ever heard of the LOA or not, is creating. Whether the person is thinking about a new car or world peace or good sex or how to launch a terrorist attack or more money or what to eat for dinner, the person is creating.
For those of us who are learning about the relationships between thought and reality, it will follow, quite naturally, that we begin to see the importance of taking responsibility for our thoughts, and our creations.
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Your posts have made me aware of some of the ways in which the proposition - there is this thing called the LoA - is true. On certain levels it is quite obvious that if I think "I can do this!" I'm more likely to set the mental scene for being able to do it. I also allow for the possibility that at the other end of the spectrum, there might be no objective reality whatsoever, although I feel that it is unwise to discount the possibility.
I disagree with the direction your attention goes from there on. It is natural, of course, having had this insight, to exercise skill in what we think - project - into subjective reality, influence 'creation'. But you equate this with Buddhist philosophy, and I believe that Buddhist philosophy points in another direction altogether. Having recognised that thoughts influence or create reality, the Buddhist idea is that it is better to stop creating, which is why there is such an emphasis on stopping thinking. This, the transcendence of thought, is how I see the Buddhist route to liberation, when all has ceased to become and is just how it is.
Of course, you can argue that you're not ready for extreme, other-worldly attempts at enlightenment, and enjoy creating whatever you want, and you're right to say that everyone is creating all the time (if the theory is right), but another way to go is to let things be, as I said before, and when one practices this, one finds that one approaches more and more the Absolute, Reality, Things As They Are.
Buddhism says that all is maya - illusion - and we can live with it as long as we keep choosing to do so. Just discovering the LoA and then making stuff happen is, in my view, to miss something wonderful, the gift of Buddhist philosophy. I guess you understand all this and I'm just trying to clarify. In other words, I'm with Krishnamurti:
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Spiritual teachers like J Krishnamurti, however, warn against seeking to acquire the siddhis, for the reason that he considers them to be distractions from true spiritual growth.
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You seem to have admitted that you are not, at the moment, going for spiritual growth. That's up to you, of course. I am, however, pointing it out.
Daveangeles, I don't think it's garbage, all of it, but I do think we have to decide for ourselves how direct and complete the LoA is as an explanation of reality. Everything of human construction has its origins in the human mind, in ideas and thoughts. Skyscrapers and railways and TV were materialised from thought. MrsCogan insists that action is required, and I have to say that so far, in my own experience, I have virtually no evidence (and ABSOLUTELY NO RELIABLE EVIDENCE) of intention-manifestation happening in anything like a supernatural way - the REALLY goofy stuff. Bending spoons, all that jazz.
I do think there's an interesting question about whether, if we intend to get through the traffic lights swiftly, our unconscious minds might just possibly have taken in enough information from 'watching' them (at other times and even without us noticing) to time our journey so that we pass through unhindered, and I think this principle is real (though this example might be pushing it a bit, depending on the complexity of the task). I believe that the Derren Brown's of this world can 'read' miniscule bits of information in people's faces to be able to know what is in their minds, or at least that it is a feasible idea. This means only that the unconscious attention and processing power is much greater than we think, and people like that have learned to empty themselves of all other stimuli, and trust what appears as mystical intuition. Derren debunks the cold readers and other fakirs who pretend they're psychic. We all have experiences of this kind of thing. We stumble in the dark and miraculously 'know' where a banister is to stop us falling down stairs, for instance, or we know what someone is about to say. But these are not supernatural powers, and if they were I don't think we would be arguing about tiny shreds of disputable evidence from occasional lucky experiments - it would be normal for people to prove that they were 'psychic', rather than what we have, millions of failed attempts in the scientific literature, one or two lucky ones left over that the gullible go goofy about.
And going back to your original post, there are a helluvalot of people creaming money off the gullible, pretending to (or genuinely believing they can) teach you how to break the rules of physics, manifest by means other than physical-psychological ones (i.e. directly, spiritually, mystically), and very often the worm on the hook is getting rich and successful ourselves.
Instead of trying to grasp what we think will make us happy, the perennial philosophy suggests that if we give up the ego desires and deal with our loss of control, the resulting intimacy with Reality brings, paradoxically, Everything We Really Wanted. "Cast your bread upon the waters...", to switch religions. It's what has been called Divine Not-caring.
And going the other way, it seems to me, you run the risk of trying to think everything your way, think your way through life, and deal with more and more details. Look at Steve Pavlina. Has his insight into the nature of reality been liberating; is he relaxed, spontaneous, joyful? I doubt it. He seems to want to read every book, keep a detailed journal of everything he does, categorise and deal with every skill and threat to progress and turn his whole life into an experiment - he's his own eternal lab rat. He's publishing pictures of his dinners on his blog and complaining that he feels depressed and doesn't want to eat.
Life supports us. Trust the wisdom of the unconscious or 'soul'. Let go into the stream of life.
Love
John