Quote:
Originally Posted by moonrambler  A skeptic would say, look: your furnace was 15 years old and it needed replacing.
......... Now, the skeptic will say, look: your car had 150,000 miles on it, and something was bound to go out. |
Yeah ...... Here I'll just digress a little and touch on a point which I think that many people (skeptics + semi-believers) don't really get. Suppose you manifest for X. Then X really happens.
Now, X will almost invariably happen in a way that's reasonably consistent & compatible with your idea of what "normal" reality is. In other words, there will almost invariably be room for a line of reasoning like:
"Oh, come on, your furnace was 15 years old and it needed replacing. It is just coincidence that it broke down then."
or:
"Oh come on, your car had 150,000 miles on it, and something was bound to go out, it is just coincidence that it broke down then."
or:
"Oh come on, X didn't happen because you visualised it to happen. X happened merely because of the following conventional, sensible, commonsensical reasons, A, B, C."
In other words, X will almost invariably be explainable as a mere "coincidence".
Now the point that people don't get is this. Your "normal" reality is constructed entirely by your thoughts. In this "normal" reality, your thoughts have constructed numerous "rules" about how events, circumstances, people and things are supposed to behave. And you started constructing this reality with your thoughts, from the moment you were born. Many of these rules are very powerful simply because you've sustained them for so long. For example, one of the rules that you have constructed for your reality is that "all old things, like furnaces and cars, wil eventually break down".
Now when you start experimenting with LOA, your reality definitely will not dismantle or entirely collapse (unless you totally dismantle or collapse your old way of thinking). Instead what's typically happening is that you continue to sustain and interact with your current reality, while fiddling with just a couple of new thoughts, like "I am very, very healthy" or "Money is coming to me out of the blue".
These new thoughts do have effect. But they have to emerge in a way consistent with the rest of your reality (which is also created by your thoughts). So for instance, let's say you manifest for money, but your current reality cannot accommodate an event like, say, a little green man from outer space suddenly appearing and giving you $1,000. Therefore such an event won't happen.
But your current reality may accomodate an event like your furnace breaking down, and you having to get a loan in relation to the furnace, and in the process of applying for the loan, getting an extra $1,000 etc. To you, such an event seems believable, possible, plausible, normal, and overall,
quite consistent with reality as you know it. Therefore money, if it comes to you, will come to you in such a manner - such that it's consistent with the rest of your reality.
Of course, your reality as a whole, can change gradually over time. (In fact, nothing is permanent, because thought is always in flux). But at any given time, what you strongly expect to exist, will tend to strongly exist in your reality. What you consider to be rather unlikely, will tend to be rather unlikely to appear in your reality. What you consider to be impossible, will just about never happen. (Meanwhile random, unpredictable events may occur in your reality, to the extent that you have random, unpredictable thoughts).
What we want to do, as LOA practitioners, is to expand our beliefs about what is possible and what is believable. If you can believe that the bizarre and the amazing can really happen to you regularly, then it becomes possible to manifest bizarrely and amazingly positive things for yourself on a regular basis. (Of course, by then, what you consider "bizarre" or "amazing" will have changed as well).
If you read through my blogs in a chronological order, you'll see that in the past, I would be terribly excited if I manifested something, and it came true within two or three weeks. Over time, this no longer amazed me (although it continues to be very pleasing to me, to see this happening). Now, as far as time frames are concerned, two or three weeks for a manifestation to come true is no longer amazing to me. And that's simply because I'm increasingly succeeding with manifesting things within a few days, or overnight, or even within hours. These impress me a lot (currently).
It's a matter of altering your beliefs, you see? Not just about the subject-matter of your intentions (eg money, health, family etc). But about
what is possible with the LOA. You just have to keep pushing those boundaries.