[ahimel]

Good post. I like the practical applications, the discussion of where the theory of the polarity and polarization concepts intersects the real world. Plus practical exercises. I plan to start a 30-day lightworker trial and see whether I'm really drawn to that side or I'm just deluding myself.

As I sat meditating yesterday, feeling the winter wind on my skin, it occured to me: Steve's saying that wealth and prosperity are open fluid systems. This is an extremely geeky way of putting it, so let me 'splain. The weather is an example of a fluid system: When wind blows out of Colorado into Nebraska, wind flows into Colorado from Utah to replace it. No one has to "strive for balance" or "keep an eye on both sides to maintain equality." It just happens. The ocean is an other example: if you pull water out of the ocean, more water will rush in to fill that spot. If you pour water into the ocean, it doesn't pile up and make a water tower - water rushes out of that spot to compensate.

Now let's pick a particular area of the ocean. Say you've got a few cubic feet netted off and are growing fish. You want the fish to have new water, and there's two ways to do that. You can do it directly, by pouring new water into that section. Or you can do it indirectly, by piping water out of that section and letting the pressure of the ocean move the new water in.

Either way the fish get new water. Either way, you're running a pipe to the ocean. Either way you're exerting effort to get water through the pipe. So for all practical purposes, there's really not any difference. You just need to avoid pumping water into the ocean and pumping water out of the ocean using the same pipe. If you try that, you expend a lot of energy without moving anything anywhere.

Steve says that the LOA works similarly. When you want something new in your life (new job, new friends, new LG Chocolate phone), there are two ways to do it. You can push something good out, and wait for the new good things to come in. Give away what you'd hope to sell in your new job, volunteer someplace new, or help strangers when they need it. Give your old phone away. New stuff will come; the pressures of good-stuff-space guarantee it. This is the "lightworker" or "loving" or "faith-based" or "pay it forward" or "abundance' mentality. (Take your pick, or make up your own terms.)

Alternately, you can try to manifest the new stuff directly. There's no difficulty pulling it into your life. Darkworkers/fear-based/karmic debt/scarcity mentality people don't quite trust the idea of paying the price and just trusting that things will happen. They don't mind paying the price, but they'd rather get the stuff first, and then, if the pressure-thing does work, they'll pay when the collection man comes knocking.

The other aspect of this analogy that I found striking is the "open fluid system". Anyone who paid attention in physics will tell you that the above is only true if the system is not closed or separate. This is a fancy way of saying that if you walled off your few cubic feet of ocean, then you could pump water in or out all you wanted, and nothing would flow into or out of the ocean. If you pump air into a sealed vault, air doesn't flow out to compensate... the vault is sealed. This means that if you walled off your section of the ocean instead of using netting, you'd have to laboriously pump water into your section, and haul the old water out. Flow wouldn't take care of half the work - you'd have to do it all yourself.

It seems to me that the LOA works similarly here, as well. You are part of the universe just like my fish garden was part of the ocean. But you can choose whether you want to be your own, separate entity with a wall around you, or part of the larger whole. Either is valid, but only one will allow the LOA to work. The more plugged into the universe you are -- whether that's physically interacting with people, taking part in a network online, engaging in financial transactions, connecting spiritually with a higher being, or simply "opening up" and allowing yourself to connect with people emotionally -- the easier it will be to manifest what you want (in either direction.) The universe can't give you stuff if you won't answer your door.