Law of Attraction

[Markus74]

Originally Posted by JBRU

I'm unable to answer that question. A) It's completely hypothetical. There isn't a child or a rapist. They are constructs of our conversation.

Ok, you've definitely disqualified yourself. I can't take you serious anymore. You talk about the LoA, and how everybody attracts everything, etc. And if I ask a simple question: Did the rapist or the child attract the rape? Then they're suddenly but constructs of our conversation ... You're simply coping out on the hard parts. You're ignoring the logical consequences of thinking your theories trough.

B) If we were to discuss a specific example, I would be unable to know the specifics of each participant's innermost thoughts.

So you don't exclude that the child attracted its rapist? Good to know.

[Keith]

Originally Posted by Acting Like Godot

Yup, neurons and memory.

Your electrical impulses ran along your neurons and synapses when light reflected off the mountain and fell into your eyes and your optic nerve sent signals to your brain.
What happened next? [...] Where did the earlier impulses (mountain-related) vanish to?

I'm not a biologist, but AFAIK, your pattern of neurons changes to represent that electrical impulse. By analogy, the electrical impulse doesn't sit in your brain waiting; instead the wiring of your brain is changed. When you run a current through the revised 'brain circuit', it comes out as something very much like the original electrical impulse.

Originally Posted by Markus74

So getting rape and/or killed can lead to enlightment?

Being killed makes it hard, but extreme trauma certainly can lead to growth.

We're all familiar with stories of phenomenal people who overcame seemingly overwhelming odds. Phenomenal people are often forged by phenomenal challenges.

[Markus74]

Originally Posted by Keith

Being killed makes it hard, but extreme trauma certainly can lead to growth.

We're all familiar with stories of phenomenal people who overcame seemingly overwhelming odds. Phenomenal people are often forged by phenomenal challenges.

Yeah, but for each person who overcame such a traumatic experience and got stronger by it, you've got ten other people whose lives got broken and shattered by it!

Or do you really think that everyone who gets raped gets actually helped on his way to enlightment? Or why would some people profit from it while other would get devastated by it?

[JBRU]

Originally Posted by Markus74

You're simply coping out on the hard parts. You're ignoring the logical consequences of thinking your theories trough.

I'm not copping out or ignoring logical consequences. I'm refusing to fall into the rhetorical trap of arguing a hypothetical.

Any position I might take on the hypothetical would be based on my thoughts of what makes up that situation. You, however, likely have very different thoughts about what makes up the hypothetical situation. So without getting more specific we are unable to rationally discuss the situation.

Also, nothing about understanding the LoA makes me an expert in the field. My understanding is limited to my experience and I do not pretend to know everything. I'm still on my journey and learning as I go.

I'm willing to hazard a guess at the broader question, "do victims attract their victimizers?" I would say that in the vast majority of cases they do not. Some traumatic events may occur due to a tragic confluence of the things each party is trying to attract. Attracting a strong person that will not allow others to harm you, for example, may not preclude that strong person from harming you directly.

[Dharma]

JBRU, do yourself a favor and stop arguing with Markus74. I can see you're going nowhere and I'm only reading half the conversation (Markus is on my ignore list).

[Markus74]

On the 'ignore' list? Oh, what an honor

But it's ok, people can ignore the hard questions. They free to do that of course. They've got the right to uphold their illusion if it makes them happy.

[Adrienne]

Originally Posted by Markus74

On the 'ignore' list? Oh, what an honor

But it's ok, people can ignore the hard questions. They free to do that of course. They've got the right to uphold their illusion if it makes them happy.

I don’t think anyone is ignoring the hard questions at all. I think the questions are hard and you just don’t like/agree with the answers which is fine, but it is still an answer even if you disagree with it.

I wont pretend to know the answers here. I know my personal options are more inline with JBRU, but I cant be sure. But I chose to align myself with that thinking because I find it more empowering.

As to the do victims attract their victimizer or vice versa. (I know this will be controversial) I think both. Does the mouse attract the cat? Yeah it does because of who/what the cat is and who/what the mouse is. Some mice will do their whole lives never getting eaten, some will get eaten when they are young, and some when they are old, etc.

I think the universe gives us what we can handle and gives us the problems to show us what we need to learn. Now, the process is not always pretty, and we don’t always learn, but the universe is trying to give us the tools to work through life, learn out lessons, grow, and succeed. Some people have financial issues, some people have health issues, some religion issues, and some have emotional issues whether they are brought on by trauma or not.

Now before we start saying, I have no idea what I am talking about, or have not seen horrible things. Let me say, I have. I have worked with crack babies, rape victims, children who have had unspeakable things done to them. I have seen victims rise to the crises and others break from it. Some people let it define them, and other don’t. Regardless, it happened for a reason. Maybe what the person is supposed to learn is how to handle crises, or maybe they are supposed to learn to rise above it to help others, or maybe they attract it to become who they need to be.

I read a fiction book once… The main chapter, who we followed through many books, was rapped, beaten, almost killed repeatedly between the ages of 3 to 8 (give or take). She was not allowed to eat, talk, and her greatest hope everyday was that her dad would come home too drunk to hurt her. The stories take place when she is in her 30s, and as she remembers the childhood she forget when she woke up in a hospital with a broken arm when she was 8 and did not even know her name. About 20 books or so into the series, she finds out that there were some people who knew she was being abused (this is a set in the future) because they were monitoring her father for illegal activities and the government left her there so they did not blow their cover.
Now in her 30s, she is married to a very awesome character who can be very ruthless at times. He is actually the person who finds the info that the government knew and did nothing. He gets all the information on these people and intends to track them down and kill them in painful ways. They get in a huge fight about it, because she tells him, you cant do this, and he says watch me. After days of them arguing about it, he asks how could she not want revenge on the people who let this happen. She tells him. “I want revenge so bad I can taste, I want it so bad I can’t think of anything else. And it scares me.” He still does not get it and she tells him that she became the person she is because of it, and she would not change it. She would go through it all over again to help the people she helped (she is a cop, homicide, lieutenant), to be the person tough as nails, no fear, etc. Because of her childhood experiences she became a person who deeply respects justice and cant just take the law into her own hands, she brings people to justice, she helps people, and most importantly perhaps, she learned helping other peoples helps her.

My point, some people rise, some people fall, but we are all here to learn, and it is part of our journey. We may hate parts of it, and many people don’t want to go through the hard parts, but the human collective consciousness or state of being is still such that we need such. We attract what we need.

I have two ways I can think of it.
1. It is useless and pointless and senseless violence that services no purpose and no good can come out of it.
2. I can choose to believe that the people who go through such atrocities chose it to make them stronger, and hopefully learn something.

So I chose to believe the second one. It is a choice.

Adrienne

[Markus74]

Adrienne:

2. I can choose to believe that the people who go through such atrocities chose it to make them stronger, and hopefully learn something.

I get the point you're trying to make and I can see why you chose to believe this.

But I can't. Especially since not everyone who goes through such atrocities a. survives and b. is stronger/wiser afterwards. This may be the case for some, but most will be more or less 'damaged'. A lot of people who had to endure this also tend to act later like this on others (consciously or subconsciously).

For me a theory has to be valid, or make sense, for everyone and every situation. And not just for isolated cases. That's also why I cannot believe in any of the religions. Ok, they're ways to cope with the craziness and the injustices of Life, but they don't answer everything in a coherent way. At least not for me.

But don't get me wrong: I wish that Life was more simple and more beautiful for everyone. I don't hate Life or the people. As for this forum: Consider me the Devil's advocate in here against whom you can sharpen your theories!

[JBRU]

Originally Posted by Markus74

But I can't. Especially since not everyone who goes through such atrocities a. survives and b. is stronger/wiser afterwards. This may be the case for some, but most will be more or less 'damaged'. A lot of people who had to endure this also tend to act later like this on others (consciously or subconsciously).

Failure to learn a lesson does not invalidate the lesson. So while many or most people who go through the kinds of traumatic experiences you seem so focused on may perpetuate the problem, those that learn and grow from the experience help all of us move forward.

The child abuse example is a good one in showing how more people becoming connected to greater consciousnesses could be helping. We are talking about the problem in a public forum. 50 years ago, that wouldn't happen. 40 years ago it would be the province of a few radicals working for change. 30 years ago, there would be broader acceptance of the problem but little formal action to address it. Today certain professionals are required by law to report any suspected abuse so that it can be addressed by the justice system and social services.

So we are all becoming more aware of the problem, what we can do to help solve it and what can be done to heal the victims. We are also finding ways to help stop abusers from becoming abusers in the first place. It looks to me like all of that can be tied to greater awareness; having the problem be part of our consciousness and choosing to do something to solve it.

For me a theory has to be valid, or make sense, for everyone and every situation. And not just for isolated cases.

And yet you seem to support the theories of the physical universe. Any decent scientist will tell you that things like gravity are valid or make sense in broad cases but that they fail your "every situation" test. That doesn't make them less valid for the majority of cases.

A theory is simply a way of describing a way that things seem to work. It can describe something as encompassing as gravity or something that works only in an isolated case. If the theory can be tested and shown to produce reasonably reliable results, it can be seen as valid.

We can test the Law of Attraction. (See the Million Dollar Experiment.) Doing so involves honestly entering into the experiment with scientificly open minds. We can predict an outcome, but we must be open to the possibility of a different outcome. If a different outcome that we expect results, we can examine our method for flaws or re-craft our theory and repeat the experiment.

As for this forum: Consider me the Devil's advocate in here against whom you can sharpen your theories!

That's what I've been doing. It's good to examine one's thoughts and ideas now and again to see if they still have internal value; are they helping you live a better life?

[Markus74]

But did you attract me or did I attract you?

[Adrienne]

Originally Posted by Markus74

Adrienne:



I get the point you're trying to make and I can see why you chose to believe this.

But I can't. Especially since not everyone who goes through such atrocities a. survives and b. is stronger/wiser afterwards. This may be the case for some, but most will be more or less 'damaged'. A lot of people who had to endure this also tend to act later like this on others (consciously or subconsciously).

For me a theory has to be valid, or make sense, for everyone and every situation. And not just for isolated cases. That's also why I cannot believe in any of the religions. Ok, they're ways to cope with the craziness and the injustices of Life, but they don't answer everything in a coherent way. At least not for me.

But don't get me wrong: I wish that Life was more simple and more beautiful for everyone. I don't hate Life or the people. As for this forum: Consider me the Devil's advocate in here against whom you can sharpen your theories!

And I get the point that it can’t be proven. I can’t prove mine anymore then you can prove yours. Just like a catholic can’t prove god exist and an atheist can’t prove she doesn’t.

Devils advocates are good things because it makes you reevaluate your position and think in ways that you might not have.

JBRU handled the theory section so i am leaving that alone. Oddly enough, i agree with both of you. Markus - thinks theories always work if they are accurate and I agree... and JBRU i think then when a theory does not work, its because we don’t truly understand it. We see symptoms and the fallout of particular things set in motion but we fail to see what set it in motion, therefore our theories don’t always work.

I think our understanding in many areas can be explained with this analogy. Say all we see is a foot (like we are intelligent bacteria living on a foot). An if by magic this foot manages to move. Toes move, the foot seems to just leap around all over place with no real direction or anything. In early human development we would call this magic and incorporate it into our myths and stories. As science gets better and people say, its not magic but something we can explain, theories are produced. People notice the foot always start moving around 5am and you can predict the probability that the foot will move between certain times. As time goes by, we get better at predicting. We might manage to see when a certain part of a foot get hard (like a toe) its about to curl etc, we might be able to see this thing way in the sky (a knee) that when it begins to bend, we will all be thrown around. They might make all sorts of theories saying how this works, and why this works and that there are plates (muscles) under the land (skin) the movement effects us (the bacteria) Tons of theories are played out as to how does this foot we live on act, why does it do what it does, etc.

The bacteria like us, keep seeing symptoms (toes curl, foot moves, gets wet etc) and try and come up with answers without knowing there is an intelligent life moving stuff around for them. We see symptoms all the time, everything we see, earthquakes, weather, gravity, but because we don’t understand the fundamental idea that is under it, so we never quite ‘get’ it.

I am not saying there is an intelligent life moving us around, I am just showing how a bacterium might jump to some very wrong conclusions about us.

I agree that that is a major failing in religion as well. But I think organized religion has many other issues as well not just that they don’t make sense but that is best saved for a different thread.

I don’t wish life was more simple. I love it the way it is. Too simple would be boring. However, I do wish life was more beautiful for everyone, so I work on that everyday.

Adrienne

[JBRU]

Originally Posted by Markus74

But did you attract me or did I attract you?

Assuming we're both sentient, we worked together to create our interaction. Since we are both parts of the greater consciousness that connects all sentients, it has obviously been good for both of us to examine how that connectivity works.

[JBRU]

Originally Posted by Adrienne

JBRU handled the theory section so i am leaving that alone. Oddly enough, i agree with both of you. Markus - thinks theories always work if they are accurate and I agree... and JBRU i think then when a theory does not work, its because we don’t truly understand it. We see symptoms and the fallout of particular things set in motion but we fail to see what set it in motion, therefore our theories don’t always work.

The thing about theories that I like most is that many of science's greatest discoveries were "accidents." That is, experiments meant to test one theory or another resulted in something that fell so far outside the theory that the researcher had to pay attention and discover what this new thing was!

[Markus74]

Originally Posted by JBRU

Assuming we're both sentient, we worked together to create our interaction. Since we are both parts of the greater consciousness that connects all sentients, it has obviously been good for both of us to examine how that connectivity works.

If we're all connected and intend each other, how can we still have freewill?

[JBRU]

Originally Posted by Markus74

If we're all connected and intend each other, how can we still have freewill?

Each ego has free will. You can choose to recognize the connection with a higher consciousness or you can ignore that connection.

It is like my "cell in a body" analogy. Ever find yourself tapping your foot along with song without having noticed that you'd started doing so? Your head may not have intended to have the foot tap, but something started that tapping. Likewise I may not want you to have a cup of coffee this morning, but it's not like that's going to stop you.

[Markus74]

Originally Posted by JBRU

Ever find yourself tapping your foot along with song without having noticed that you'd started doing so? Your head may not have intended to have the foot tap, but something started that tapping.

This shows that we've got some auto-pilots in our brain. We're not totally that free or autonomous as we would want to like to think

[JBRU]

Originally Posted by Markus74

This shows that we've got some auto-pilots in our brain. We're not totally that free or autonomous as we would want to like to think

Similarly, many people live their lives on auto-pilot; they don't make use of their consciousness to examine their lives. In some cases, this is due to things like the heirarchy of needs; it's hard to philosophize about how the universe works when you're wondering where your next meal comes from. In other cases, it is a complacency caused by the relative comfort of their lives. To examine one's life and beliefs is to risk having your world over-turned and, having spent great effort to construct their lives, most people are unwilling to take that risk.

[Octavian]

I am new to all this, and i just read the article on Subjective Reality and decided to post here.

For me personally the biggest proofs against this theory are;

a) My Parents

b) The Internet

a) The fact that i didnt imagine my parents into being, i didnt create them with the power of my (infant) mind, rather they created me. This would show that i am not the only concious human being on the planet, nor am i 100% responsible for my own reality.

b) Secondly, the Internet, has given Mankind one of the greatest ways to interact with each other- no matter how powerful my mind, i could not have imagined and created such a concept on my own.

p.s. i believe Steve Pavlina to be a real person with his own thoughts/ideas sperate from my own, and not merely a manifestation of my consciousness

[Markus74]

Originally Posted by Octavian

I am new to all this, and i just read the article on Subjective Reality and decided to post here.

For me personally the biggest proofs against this theory are;

a) My Parents

b) The Internet

a) The fact that i didnt imagine my parents into being, i didnt create them with the power of my (infant) mind, rather they created me. This would show that i am not the only concious human being on the planet, nor am i 100% responsible for my own reality.

b) Secondly, the Internet, has given Mankind one of the greatest ways to interact with each other- no matter how powerful my mind, i could not have imagined and created such a concept on my own.

p.s. i believe Steve Pavlina to be a real person with his own thoughts/ideas sperate from my own, and not merely a manifestation of my consciousness

Unbeliever!!!

You cannot disprove the claims, so they HAVE to be true! Like my invisible unicorns on Mars! You cannot prove that they don't exist. Therefore they exist!

[wolfgang]

Originally Posted by Octavian

I am new to all this, and i just read the article on Subjective Reality and decided to post here.

For me personally the biggest proofs against this theory are;

a) My Parents

b) The Internet

a) The fact that i didnt imagine my parents into being, i didnt create them with the power of my (infant) mind, rather they created me. This would show that i am not the only concious human being on the planet, nor am i 100% responsible for my own reality.

b) Secondly, the Internet, has given Mankind one of the greatest ways to interact with each other- no matter how powerful my mind, i could not have imagined and created such a concept on my own.

p.s. i believe Steve Pavlina to be a real person with his own thoughts/ideas sperate from my own, and not merely a manifestation of my consciousness

Thoses proofs against the theroy are from the point of view of the ojective, seperative, ego centered individual particle self. Other people are also individual egos and in the pyshical world; your parents helped you incarnate; you as a ego type self is not the part that created the Internet. However, the theory is that there's another part to all of, although calling it a part is not correct - it's more like a field that goes through everything that is called many things, like oneness, nirvana, Christ consciousness, God, the Universe, enlightenment, etc... It's not that your ego has imagined the Universe into exsistance but that the oneness of everything is going through you to allow your ego to experience the physical world. So from the connection to everything that we all have, that we all really are one, are God too, then yes, the Universe did create the Internet and you as a seperate ego self had a part in it because you are also God, or one with all that is, just like everyone else.

[wolfgang]

Originally Posted by Markus74

If we're all connected and intend each other, how can we still have freewill?

Why does assuming we are all connected and intended each other (or had a part in creating), mean there's no freewill?