Is The Secret aka LoA Offensive?

[ABlix]

Originally Posted by Acting Like Godot

Yup. This is exactly right. One thing that Paul didn't mention is the idea that the universe has infinite organising power (Chopra's expression). That is why IM theory usually says that you should get very specific about the outcome, but don't even think about the details that will lead to the outcome.

For example, I need not have bumped into the interviewer at the train station. There could have been other ways the universe could have arranged for me to get an update. Eg perhaps I had omitted some little administrative detail in my c.v eg my date of birth, giving the HR officer reason to call me up to ask for it, and at the same time, I could have gotten my update.

Who knows? If I had missed the interviewer at the train station because I was delayed by 30 seconds due to having to tie my shoelace, then perhaps the universe would have gotten me to bump into another interviewer, this time on the train itself.

I don't have to worry about the details. I only need to properly put out my intention - to receive the update. Then the universe will arrange it in its own way, usually in the quickest, most convenient way, taking into account all circumstances (including the many, many circumstances that I cannot possibly know, like the whereabouts of the interviewer at any given time).

In other posts, I have written about the idea of the path of least resistance. This is what I meant by "quickest, most convenient way" as mentioned above. The thought will seek to become reality in the quickest and most convenient. That is why if you really want a cup of coffee, you will usually go to the kitchen and fix it for yourself. For that would be the quickest and most convenient way to get a cup of coffee.

In one of Brian Tracy's books "Goals!", he talked about how he found his dream home. He visualised it intensely and in great detail, drew pictures etc. He made a list of 42 items/features that the house was supposed to have (eg an apple tree in the middle of the garden, a certain type of front door, a barbecue pit in the backyard, windows in a particular positions etc).

It took 2.5 years, but one day he found a house for sale whose exterior looked exactly like what he had visualised. On inspecting the house, he found that it had 41 out of 42 of the items on his list. So he bought the house.

Of course you will once again say that it was mere coincidence. That he found a house with 41 out of 42 features that he had manifested.

As I have mentioned to you many times before, in the beginning, a LOA practitioner will indeed wonder whether his successful manifestations were indeed just "coincidences". Later he will realise that there are just too many coincidences. As his confidence grows, he will manifest bigger and bigger things, and they will happen, and he will become more convinced.

So is it important to manifest a lot of trees?

once there was a couplet
who was only born with a lovelet
but one day they came along
to plant it in a bumlet
then the tree came out
sprouted
one at one
sun for three
out of the soil,
every one counts
for the other one devours

[Acting Like Godot]

Originally Posted by ABlix

I think it's important to know what attracts you, however I also think that to say that the Law of Attraction is real is to say that you can wish for billion dollars and simply have it spoof up. This is plainly ridiculous.

What you don't understand is that all of us have limits on our capacity to believe. If you want to analyse LOA using the billion dollar example, what you need to do is find a group of people who truly believe that they could have a billion dollars, and who have strong intentions to do so.

Such people would be hard to find, but surely they exist. If they did not exist, there would be no billionaires in this world.

If you are a business tycoon who already owns a chain of hotels and factories in different parts of the world, well, you may not have a billion dollars yet. In fact, you may be very far off (eg your personal net worth is only $250 million) but it may not actually be that difficult for you to believe that you could have a billion dollars. Or that it could happen in the next six months. Etc.

And if you truly believed that, and you put your intentions properly out into the universe, well, it would happen.

Personally I don't believe that I could manifest a billion dollars. I did believe that I could earn a higher salary than just about anyone in my law school cohort. So indeed, it has come true.

As a LOA practitioner, the challenges for me are not the technical aspects of how to put my intentions into the universe. The real challenges are:

(1) stretching my capacity to believe (for the more I am able to believe, the more I can manifest); and

(2) deciding what I do want to manifest.

In relation to (2), this is what I mean: if so many things are possible in life with LOA, then what one must decide, at a deeper level, is what one really wants to do with LOA. For example, on this forum, people are often talking about manifesting money, but really for me, there will be a point in time, when more money is no longer the point. Then the question is - "What next? What do you really want to do with the rest of your life?" Because the possibilities are so vast, with LOA.

[Acting Like Godot]

Originally Posted by ABlix

So is it important to manifest a lot of trees?

Well, you can seek to manifest whatever you like. From big ambitious things, to relatively small things like an empty parking lot or getting an update from your interviewer. If you're in the daily habit of IM, you'd probably be manifesting lots of little things all the time.

For example, one night my wife was feeling down, so I manifested the intention that the next day would be a great day for her. Basically, a series of unexpected little things happened the next day - I shall not go into the details - but the end result was that it was a great day for her. None of those things were particularly "paranormal" or "mystical" or "magical", but added together, they simply created a great day for her.

So LOA isn't always about startling miracles or mind-bending coincidences (although it can be). More often than not, LOA is just a kind, helpful, discreet, creative and very clever universe that works in the background arranging events and circumstances to give you what you had asked for.

And all you need to work on is your own asking.

[Markus74]

Originally Posted by Acting Like Godot

For example, one night my wife was feeling down, so I manifested the intention that the next day would be a great day for her. Basically, a series of unexpected little things happened the next day - I shall not go into the details - but the end result was that it was a great day for her. None of those things were particularly "paranormal" or "mystical" or "magical", but added together, they simply created a great day for her.

Do you actually realize what that means if you were right? That all the people involved in making this a nice day (and they couldn't have made it on their own since why would you have had to intend this then in the first place?) were used and programmed by 'the Universe' to do this. Which means that if somebody was nice to your wife it wasn't because that person just thought it would be a nice gesture or just felt like it (because that would have been an independent thought and independent from your magic) but because you ordered 'the Universe' to do this!

The LoA is in fact a very selfish and egocentric (to be more precise: you and your close ones) world view. Everything that happens revolves around you. You are the center of the world and 'the Universe' uses other people as pawns in a game just to manifest your intentions and wants.

That's pathetic. Since you only focus on the things that confirm your theory and you ignore the others. That's very human though.

[JHL]

I think the LoA as its being articulated here, suffers from numerous flaws.

It requires, as Markus74 points out, other people to (unwittingly) behave in ways that conform with other peoples desires. It seamlessly explains how one can manifest money and all the good stuff into one's life, but falters and stutters when the less glamorous outcomes such as abuse, murders, natural disasters and chance events are raised, forcing its advocates to clutch at increasingly elaborate theories ranging from subjective realities, to quantum physics and multiple universes.

Having said that, I do believe in the LoA. But only to the extent that we are co-creators of what we manifest. I believe that it is useful and constructive to actively work towards manifesting what we want, but at the same time to humbly maintain the understanding that the universe ultimately provides us what we need. It is therefore probably even appropriate that we look to the universe for guidance.

How the universe knows what we need, and how it provides it to us, is beyond me. It is likely that a LoA type process is responsible - but it is, IMO, a mistake to assume that we are entirely in charge of that process.

Perhaps the wisest of all IM practitioners dont ask the universe for what they want, but rather for what they need. As for me, I simply cant help slipping in the odd request for a Bose home theatre system, BMW M5, and, now and again, large house in the mountains.

What?

[Brutha]

Do you actually realize what that means if you were right? That all the people involved in making this a nice day (and they couldn't have made it on their own since why would you have had to intend this then in the first place?) were used and programmed by 'the Universe' to do this.

If the universe is able to program someone to by attracted by the gravity of the earth why shouldn't it be able to fullfil other laws?

[impaul99]

Originally Posted by Markus74

Do you actually realize what that means if you were right? That all the people involved in making this a nice day (and they couldn't have made it on their own since why would you have had to intend this then in the first place?) were used and programmed by 'the Universe' to do this. Which means that if somebody was nice to your wife it wasn't because that person just thought it would be a nice gesture or just felt like it (because that would have been an independent thought and independent from your magic) but because you ordered 'the Universe' to do this!

No, this is where you are missing something Markus. I really didn't get this fully until this week because I asked for it to be proven to me and it was. The way it works is that the universe puts together people in perfect order. For example, I might wake up one day after getting some really good news and be super happy. I'll decide "Oh, I feel like going to 7/11 and getting a coffee this morning." and I'll be on my way there. In front of me, a lady's car will break down and she will be stuck. Because I'm having a very happy day and I'm in a really good mood because the universe has given me something I wanted, I'll get out and help the lady. I will not only help her by pushing the car to the side, but I will also call my brother who is a mechanic and was just at my house while I went to 7/11. He'll come and fix her car for free, and she will be so impressed that 1) She will take his phone # down and now use him as a mechanic for all her cars and tell all her friends about him and 2) Will go home and be super happy that she had such a wonderful day with this demonstration of people being nice to her.

She might have been having a crappy day the night before and she might have been thinking "I used to believe in people. I used to believe people are good. God, please show me I'm not just wasting my time. Please show me there's good in people." or something like that. So the next day she's given a sign that people are good by me helping her and getting her car fixed for free. She wins and she's happy.

I might have been very happy that morning thinking "Man, this universe stuff is so cool. I wish I could share my success with more people. I really feel so blessed." and so I encounter this lady that needs my help and I help her. Afterwords I feel super good about myself, get my coffee from 7/11 and I'm happy.

My brother might have been thinking "Why do I have so many clients who think that I am ripping them off? I do an honest job and I charge people honest prices and they always want to negotiate the prices down when I'm already charging them a more than fair price. I wish I could get some clients that don't assume I'm ripping them off just because I'm a mechanic. I like helping people, but I also need to earn a living." and because he helps this lady, he ends up getting a stream of new clients (her friends) who are all happy with his work and never complain about his pricing because they believe him to be honest based on the raving praise of their friend which he helped. So now my brother has lots of clients he is happy with, so he is happy too.

So, everybody wins because the universe gives them what they asked for in perfect order. How the universe is able to organize billions of people on earth into a perfect mesh like that, don't ask me. I know it seems almost impossible to create such order, but it's technically no more complicated than making a single human body function. How all the cells in your body organize themselves into a perfect order is beyond me but it happens. I believe the same thing with the universe, it's perfectly capable of organizing everything and everyone in this way.

To make it easier to understand how this is possible, realize that the universe is not limited by time. For example, in the above story, it would know ahead of time that the lady would need her car to break down at exactly 10:42am as an example, so 6 months before that date the universe paired up the woman with a mechanic who's intention was "I gotta go home early today to celebrate my wife's news that she's pregnant, so I need to get a client that I can fix quickly before I punch out for the day." and so he gets her as a client, rushes when fixing her car and screws something up in the process which will break the car 6 months in the future at 10:42am, but it will allow him to get this client out the door quickly so he can get home and see his wife and the "mistake" he makes will be unknown to the woman until 6 months later when this mistake will help her achieve the intention she intends.

What this means though, you'll say, is that the universe must have known what her intention will be 6 months into the future on the day the mechanic made the mistake, and that is true, the universe knows the whole timeline because it sees it as a whole from start to finish, just like an author like George Lucas can see the whole story in his head while writing Star Wars. This doesn't take away the lady's free will to choose her intention, the universe didn't take away her free will, it simply knows ahead of time what her free will choice will be because it is not bound by time.

[The David]

You may be misunderstanding it. The LoA is something you choose to believe (as much as anything else, anyway), not something you push on other people. I haven't seen the Secret, though, so I don't know if they do that or not.

[Acting Like Godot]

Originally Posted by JHL

It requires, as Markus74 points out, other people to (unwittingly) behave in ways that conform with other peoples desires.

But of course. By the way, in case you did not know it, JHL, you also behave in ways that conform with other people's desires. These include people like your mother, your father, your lover and the last clever salesman who successfully sold something to you that you didn't really want to buy and still regret buying.

There is something, however, that you must understand, and it is the third law outlined by Esther Hick's Abraham (the first law being the Law of Attraction). The third law is the Law of Allowing.

What does the the Law of Allowing say? While you are the creator of your reality, others are also the creators of their own realities. Because we all innately desire to be creators, things can go very sour if you directly impose your intentions on someone who has contrasting, opposite or clashing intentions of his own.

Example: Suppose a parent holds the strong intention that his child shall be a doctor. However, the child holds the strong intention to be an artist. Well, what happens is that even if the parent succeeds, the end result may well go sour. For example, the child may resent or hate the parent, a consequence that the parent wouldn't like. Etc - you see my point.

How does this fit with my attracting nice events and people into my wife's day? Well, it doesn't. You see - I don't force anyone to change their behaviour such that they become nice to her. I simply attract into her life people who feel like doing nice things for her anyway, and for any variety of reasons of their own.

If you want a more concrete example, imagine that you have a nasty boss, someone rude and unpleasant to all his subordinates. You then start applying LOA deliberately: "I shall have a nice boss, one who treats me with respect and courtesy". You hold such strong intention on this, that the outcome becomes true. But how? There are MANY possible ways, for example:

(1) Boss begins to change. He becomes nicer to everyone in general. Actually, he had been nasty and irritable to everyone because in the past five months, he had been very stressed and worried about his poor mother who was very ill, but now she has recovered.

(2) Boss begins to change, he becomes nicer to you only, perhaps after working with you on a few projects, he starts to appreciate certain qualities in you as an employee.

(3) Boss leaves for a better job opportunity elsewhere. You get a new boss, a nice person who treats you with respect and courtesy.

(4) Due to corporate reorganisation, you are transferred to another department. You get a new boss, a nice person who treats you with respect and courtesy.

(5) You change jobs. Because you are very focused on having a nice boss, the universe leads you to a job opportunity where at the interview, the potential new boss seemed like a genuinely nice person. You take the job, and so now indeed you have a new boss, a nice person who treats you with respect and courtesy.

Etc etc. So this is how the LOA works. Everything that happens in your life has been attracted into your life, by your thoughts. If you strongly intend to attract only nice people into your life, it doesn't necessarily mean that all the nasty people in the world will drastically change their behaviour or that they will cease to exist. It merely means that they won't show up in your life, or that they will show up in your life only if they have reasons for being nice to you (eg you just happen to be one of the few persons which for whatever reason they truly regard as a good friend).

Esther Hicks (through Abraham) even says that where positive + negative appears to be wrapped up in one package, you can even attract ONLY the positive and leave aside the negative.

For example, suppose there is a person who is very fun to be with, but he also has a habit of borrowing money from his friends. You like to be with him, but you don't want to lend him money. This is also possible, and it doesn't mean that you mind-control him into ending his habit of borrowing money from his friends. It merely means that it is possible for you to bring about a situation where you continue to enjoy the fun of his company, but without having to lend him money (for example, he may decide to borrow from all his other friends).

It seamlessly explains how one can manifest money and all the good stuff into one's life, but falters and stutters when the less glamorous outcomes such as abuse, murders, natural disasters and chance events are raised, forcing its advocates to clutch at increasingly elaborate theories ranging from subjective realities, to quantum physics and multiple universes.

This again is a severe misunderstanding.

People like Fred Alan Wolf were physicists long before they ventured into areas like intention-manifestation. Physics led them to IM; IM did not lead them to physics.

Multiple universes theory was created by Hugh Everitt to explain empirical results in a science laboratory, not to explain Steve Pavlina's posts. It just happens that everything turned out to be interrelated. It is neither the fault of the physicists nor Steve Pavlina that they happened to be talking about the same universes.

[Markus74]

Originally Posted by Brutha

If the universe is able to program someone to by attracted by the gravity of the earth why shouldn't it be able to fullfil other laws?

That's not a valid question. It's impossible to prove a negative. You cannot prove that there aren't invisible unicorns on Mars, for example.

But there's no reason or evidence to believe that the physical, Newtonian laws can be bent at will. If that was the case it would be well-known and Science would be very interested in it. Alas, no proofs.

[Markus74]

Originally Posted by impaul99

No, this is where you are missing something Markus. I really didn't get this fully until this week because I asked for it to be proven to me and it was. The way it works is that the universe puts together people in perfect order. For example, I might wake up one day after getting some really good news and be super happy. I'll decide "Oh, I feel like going to 7/11 and getting a coffee this morning." and I'll be on my way there. In front of me, a lady's car will break down and she will be stuck. Because I'm having a very happy day and I'm in a really good mood because the universe has given me something I wanted, I'll get out and help the lady. I will not only help her by pushing the car to the side, but I will also call my brother who is a mechanic and was just at my house while I went to 7/11. He'll come and fix her car for free, and she will be so impressed that 1) She will take his phone # down and now use him as a mechanic for all her cars and tell all her friends about him and 2) Will go home and be super happy that she had such a wonderful day with this demonstration of people being nice to her.

So we're all just pawns in a big game, with the 'Universe' or 'God' as the game master?

Otherwise all these occurrences and encounters could also be completely random.

[Markus74]

Originally Posted by Acting Like Godot

Example: Suppose a parent holds the strong intention that his child shall be a doctor. However, the child holds the strong intention to be an artist. Well, what happens is that even if the parent succeeds, the end result may well go sour. For example, the child may resent or hate the parent, a consequence that the parent wouldn't like. Etc - you see my point.

Why was the parents' intention stronger than the child's? What made the former supersede the latter?

Or did the child subconsciously intend to be resenting or hating his parents ....... ?

[JHL]

There is something, however, that you must understand, and it is the third law outlined by Esther Hick's Abraham (the first law being the Law of Attraction). The third law is the Law of Allowing.

@ Acting: Its ironic that you should mention clever salemen in your post. You are no doubt aware that to successfully market a product, the marketer has to create a point of differentiation for their product. I was just browsing my local bookstore and came across the Hick's Abraham book you mentioned on intent. Close to it was a Wayne Dyer secrets of manifestation book. Dyer went with "The Nine Spiritual Principles to Getting Whatever You Want!" The Hick's invented a new law entirely. I can't wait to see what new ancient Laws/Principles next years marketers will come out with that "You Have to Know! to "Get Whatever You Want!"

On a more sober note, on the shelf above was a Rickard Dworkin book about "Artificial Happiness": briefly, it describes how, in many cases, the prescription of anti-depressents makes people feel "happy" and allows them to sashay through life in a dim haze of merriment, never advancing on any spiritual or personal level simply because their altered chemistry negates the necessity of doing so; negates the necessity of dealing with the actual ailment (caveat: obviously there are cases where these drugs are necessary and appropriate.)

It was a perfect perspective on the zeitgeist of our times: instant gratification and the gluttony of consumerism.

But to your first point:

What does the the Law of Allowing say? While you are the creator of your reality, others are also the creators of their own realities. Because we all innately desire to be creators, things can go very sour if you directly impose your intentions on someone who has contrasting, opposite or clashing intentions of his own.

I think I've already expressed my contempt for this so-called Law, however that is not to say I think its wrong. The truth: I dont know. The possibilitiy exists that its right. My problem with is that its authors dont themselves KNOW if its right either. They are merely repeating and repackaging what they have read somewhere else, or what they think. It may have no relationship with the truth whatsoever. "..things can go very sour if.." Hardly seems like a Law to me.

If you want a more concrete example, imagine that you have a nasty boss, someone rude and unpleasant to all his subordinates. You then start applying LOA deliberately: "I shall have a nice boss, one who treats me with respect and courtesy". You hold such strong intention on this, that the outcome becomes true. But how? There are MANY possible ways, for example...

:

We are in agreement here I have direct experience of this myself.

In summary: I agree with the principle of LoA to the extent that I have had direct experience of it. In terms of the techniques for invoking it - I think there is much value in discussing these insofar as one can practically apply them to ones life. Finally, I suspect that LoA will largely be applied with superficial intent by people looking for quick fixes, as a replacement for the hard work legitimately demanded by the pursuit of PD and I believe the problem is exacerbated by new age marketers who trumpet the promise of "Getting what you want" with these X prcinciples, and these X laws (which are ingeneously repackaged and reinvented year after year). I was pleased to see that Steves approach was sans marketing hype and positioned as a consequence of PD.

This again is a severe misunderstanding.

Are you related to my girlfriend???

Thanks for your considered response to my post. If you have time, there is one aspect that I'm still confused about, and which has not really been tackled yet here, that is where random events like natural disasters or space debris dooming an airliner fit in. In your view, how does this fit in with IM?

[Brutha]

Originally Posted by Markus74

That's not a valid question. It's impossible to prove a negative. You cannot prove that there aren't invisible unicorns on Mars, for example.

But there's no reason or evidence to believe that the physical, Newtonian laws can be bent at will. If that was the case it would be well-known and Science would be very interested in it. Alas, no proofs.

The question wasn't directed at whether the LoA actually exist.

The question was why do Newtons laws don't need a conscious universe to be fullfilled but the LoA needs an conscious universe to be fullfilled.

[impaul99]

Originally Posted by JHL

My problem with is that its authors dont themselves KNOW if its right either. They are merely repeating and repackaging what they have read somewhere else, or what they think.

I like how you take a personal opinion and weave it into a sentence to make it sound like a fact. I can't remember what the name for that technique is called, but in either case, how exactly do you know that these author's themselves don't KNOW if it's right either?

In summary: I agree with the principle of LoA to the extent that I have had direct experience of it.

This is a very smart position to take. I didn't trust LoA until I tried it out. Before then, nobody could convince me logically it works. After I tried it, nobody can convince me it doesn't work. Unlike many other systems which are based on pure faith, LoA is one that can be directly verified by direct experience. THat's why I like it so much.

Finally, I suspect that LoA will largely be applied with superficial intent by people looking for quick fixes, as a replacement for the hard work legitimately demanded by the pursuit of PD...

I will agree that "hard work" is required for PD, but not in the sense that most people understand it. I tried the hard work route. I used to work 16hour days 6-7 days a week running a business and taking "Massive Action" and after many years just found myself spinning my wheels, frustrated and burned out. Only after I read "The Science of Getting Rich" and I learned about LoA was I able to manifest real success into my life without the "hard work" most action oriented systems call for. I realize now that most action taken by success driven people is self created to make them feel busy and important. It's not necessary.

The REAL hard work required for PD is self reflection, thinking, journaling, working on yourself, discovering who you are, facing your beliefs, and really getting to know yourself. Most people think the "hard work" required for success = working at a job, that is why you have so many workaholics out there trying to be successful and achieving nothing. Nobody wants to think anymore for themselves, nobody wants to spend time on self-reflection. Everyone just wants to be told what to do and how to do it and wants a guarantee of success.

Ask a typical success driven workaholic questions like "Who are you?" , "Why are you here?" , "What are you here to do?" and he will probably give you his job title, his position in the company and his job description. We are not our jobs. I think it was Henry Ford or Napoleon Hill that once said "Thinking is the hardest work out there, that is why so few engage in it." and I really like that line, because most people just want to take the shotgun approach to life and take massive action and attack the problem with a nuclear missle, instead of spending five minutes realizing they are self-creating the problem in the first place.

[Acting Like Godot]

Originally Posted by JHL

@ Acting: Its ironic that you should mention clever salemen in your post. You are no doubt aware that to successfully market a product, the marketer has to create a point of differentiation for their product. I was just browsing my local bookstore and came across the Hick's Abraham book you mentioned on intent. Close to it was a Wayne Dyer secrets of manifestation book. Dyer went with "The Nine Spiritual Principles to Getting Whatever You Want!" The Hick's invented a new law entirely. I can't wait to see what new ancient Laws/Principles next years marketers will come out with that "You Have to Know! to "Get Whatever You Want!"

I'm not in the position to know anything about their business plans. But to use a simple analogy, in your local bookstore there are also many books available about, say, photography. The respective books contain explanations / suggestions / tips / principles / ideas / examples / facts / opinions, about how the reader can take better photographs.

Between any two photography books, there will be some common ground. But there will also be uncommon ground. One book may for instance mention the thirds rule of composition. Another book may not, because the author doesn't think it's important.

One book may contain a chapter on how to do good sports photography. Another book may be ENTIRELY on how to take good sports photos. A 3rd book may have no mention of sports photography whatsoever.

For any reasonable complex topic (including photography), there will be a variety of different approaches and perspectives. The larger your topic, the wider the range of different approaches and perspectives. LOA, I think, is a very large topic; and I am not surprised that authors present quite different perspectives.

Also, I don't think it's quite correct for you to suggest that LOA is an invention of modern-day marketeers. If LOA is universal, then it must have existed for a very, very long time, and if it has existed for a very, very long time, different people and cultures from all over the world must have discovered it, or some aspects of it, in their own ways.

One particular way, I think, is called prayer. It is a rather ancient method. The person prays to his god or gods for help, and if he has faith, if he truly believes, he will get his divine intervention.

Sounds suspiciously similar to IM, doesn't it? At the same time, it seems to be a rather common theme across many religions.

It was a perfect perspective on the zeitgeist of our times: instant gratification and the gluttony of consumerism.

That is a possibly fair comment, and I would like to share with you a single paragraph from a meditation book that I use. This particular book is written with serious spiritual development in mind - peace, kindness, love, wisdom, compassion etc are its themes, not things like making money or getting a parking lot etc. In the entire book, there is just one direct reference to IM, and this is it:

"Keep in mind that your motivation determines the effect of practising any type of meditation. Some styles of meditation use methods of creative visualisation to attract the perfect soul-mate, become prosperous, or fulfill some other personal desire, but practising meditation with self-centered motivation may only reinforce the illusion of a limited, separate self, and in the long run, actually impede spiritu