Combining E. Tolle and Law of Attraction into one philosophy

[snowheight]

God also likes to play hide-and-seek, but because there is nothing outside God, he has no one but himself to play with.

And when we attempt to apply the LoA the unreality of the separation can manifest as fulfillment for others and exactly the opposite of what we were attempting to attract for ourselves.

The old scripture "as ye sew, so shall ye reap" comes to mind as another early version of LoA.

So is this as "ye" reap/sow or as "Ye" reap/sow?

xxx's children apparently reaped slave wages for her shoes.

Perhaps unsettling but it is what it is.

[Webwanderer]

"as ye sew, so shall ye reap"

So is this as "ye" reap/sow or as "Ye" reap/sow?

As a comment to the first quote: 'as ye sew, so shall you reap new shoes cheap'.

As to the second: yes/Yes.

WW

[Rick]

"The ultimate effect of all the evil and suffering in the world is that it will force humans into realizing who they are beyond name and form. Thus, what we perceive as evil from our limited perspective is actually part of the higher good that has no opposite." ET

Another aspect of the law of attraction is that we will attract unto our egoic selves suffering enough to wake us up to realize who we are. There is of course the mystery as to what makes one awaken while another in the same circumstance will not. But overall, suffering seems to be a life line God throws to Himself.

Some suffer from want and some suffer from too much. "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven". It seems easier to have compassion for the thin, hungry ego than it is to have compassion for the fat, bloated ego.

[snowheight]

"as ye sew, so shall ye reap"

So is this as "ye" reap/sow or as "Ye" reap/sow?

As a comment to the first quote: 'as ye sew, so shall you reap new shoes cheap'.

As to the second: yes/Yes.

WW

Funny 'wanderer... yes I missed the joke the first time

But of course then the LoA subtly contradicts the notion of a Oneness with Being, in that if separation is an illusion then what an apparent individual does happens to all of creation and so the reaction has all of creation as the target for the reaction -- the effect of the cause is not necessarily limited to the apparent individual.

We've conversed on this topic before ... you know that I'll just play the paradox card and leave it at that: this contradiction, while interesting, is just another reflection of the paradox.

[smiileyjen101]

Expand the awareness of natural laws all around and in-between and above and beyond and its not a paradox at all. All things can simultaneously exist.

Focussing only on the law of attraction - I'm really liking the analogy in webby's latest nde thread of viewing things with a torch in a warehouse and then having the lights turned on.

Sorry, I'll start again.. Focussing only on the law of attraction dismisses the interactional effects of the law of balance, or of flexibility or higher will, or choices or discipline or responsibility, or faith or action or cycles .. just to name a few.

If we accept 'what you resist, persists' how can we not accept what you seek you shall find, or what you reap you shall sow, or what you so imagine you can create? What has ever been created that has not been imagined first?

The quality of the creation and the process of it is also impacted upon by the process and awareness of it (and my personal thingy whether the resonance of it is love-expansion/fear-contraction). But, all things are possible - and literally permissable in the grand scale.

It's maybe a slightly veer off the path and it doesn't directly address LOA per se but Dan Millman's book 'The Life You Were Born to Live' discusses a variety of 'laws', how to recognise them in action and to employ them consciously when aware of their energy in action - but remembering it's all a part of the 'whole' of which we are not privvy with our torches in the warehouse, and that they interact with each other in the same spiderweb of energy - no different to how all the planets, stars etc or any ecosystem coexists while constantly in a state of creation and expansion and contraction.

Just within that book are great discussions on many of the things that whether you 'believe' or understand them or not have energy flows that are part of the whole dance. Just as we understand and use gravity or the law of sow/reap for farming/harvesting they will happen whether you understand or employ them or not.

Consciousness ET style would suggest that you might be aware of them, but then they become a fabric of your living, just as gravity is.

Millman discusses the Laws of.... flexibility, choices, responsibility, balance, process, patterns, discipline, perfection, the present moment, no judgment, faith, expectations, honesty, higher will, intuition, action, cycles.

LOA dances with, above, under, within, around all of them, and all of us and every thing past present and future, and all of them and more do the same all the time.

It's energy at work (or play - depending on how you view it).

[hanss]

Those who aren't continuously aligned with Source/Being. What will happen for us?

"Continuously" is not needed. So I'm not worried

It's all very confusing.

Read the books from Hicks carefully and I think you will change your mind.

And what about Eckhart telling us the universe will bring us what we need...doesn't sound like we need to do anything...

That is also what LOA says but with other words.

[Sighclone]

I did read erict's post in the other thread (thanks, eric -- well written). And I will read some Abraham-Hicks. And I understand from eric's post and others that we first somehow find the universe-aligned, life-supporting personal purpose and direction, and then, the things which actually support that path will appear. And I hear other posters here, well-read and clear-thinking as they are, saying..."hey, this sounds like non-duality...we first move into our true essence which is Source/Being...then the direction of our "little me" life will smooth out, suffering will go away over time, and material things, and life events will occur which seem like synchronicity, and be mostly blissful...and the LoA is just a sort of catalyst or nitrous-booster for the Big Engine of Being...but Unity Consciousness has to come first, or at least be the basic condition for all the glorious manifesting which LoA attracts to us."

Or something.

But my problem is still Ananda's. The LoA is about stuff or events which come to "little me." Be it life partners, money, cured disease, a loving friend, a good job, etc. Eckhart and the Zen tradition have a little-mentioned foundation: There is no "little me."

This is from Albert Low's "The Iron Cow of Zen" (see another thread for more on this remarkable book), page 157:

Buddha taught anatman, no individual soul.

Low goes on to explain:

All beings are endowed with the Buddha nature. There is none who cannot become Buddha.

I guess if the LoA provides a "technique for awakening" (as we speak of in jillions of posts here) then fine...it's another on a long list.

Oh well, I have more reading to do (and I will and will report back). But the LoA seems like a dangerous crutch, offering a short-cut to material goodies, for those unwilling to do the real important work of waking up.

Andy

[Webwanderer]

But my problem is still Ananda's. The LoA is about stuff or events which come to "little me." Be it life partners, money, cured disease, a loving friend, a good job, etc. Eckhart and the Zen tradition have a little-mentioned foundation. There is no "little me."

I think this is a misperception of what LoA is about. It may be true that there is no little me in a greater sense, but there is the experience of the little me, and there is the outflow of creation. That which experiences the perspective of the little me is still an issue to be considered. That which experiences, even in its temporary (and designed?) misconception of what self is, is consciousness of the most fundamental nature.

LoA seems to be how creation on the more rudimentary levels of human experience may be more purposefully directed. I'm not saying that the chosen direction is good or bad, however the necessity to align with Source to enhance the likelihood of focusing a creative flow of energy must surely be influential in a deeper recognition of the existence of a greater reality of being than what is known through the perspective of the little me.

On another note I offer some more evidence of the history of LoA. I'm not trying to beat Biblical drums here, but merely to point out that the teaching LoA has been around for a long time. Add this to my previous notations.

Hebrews 11:1 provides a definition: "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."

Matthew 21:21 Jesus replied, "I tell you the truth, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only can you do what was done to the fig tree, but also you can say to this mountain, 'Go, throw yourself into the sea,' and it will be done.

Mark 9:23 "'If you can'?" said Jesus. "Everything is possible for him who believes."

There are more, but I think this makes my point.

WW

[Sighclone]

I think it is a leap to move from observing the possibility of some "law" at work, and blind faith. If a "law" is functioning, it is real regardless of some individual's belief. To quote Philip K. Dick, the sci-fi writer:

Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away.

If the LoA requires that I believe in it, have faith in it, hope for it, then it's like pixie dust again (Peter Pan, etc.)

I believe if I drop a brick on my foot it will hurt. Because that has been my experience. The earth was round even though everyone believed it was flat.

If the LoA won't work unless I believe it will, what does that mean? Does it mean that if it doesn't seem to be working, that my faith is not strong enough? Like my faith is four on a scale of ten? So I faith harder and harder and then it works more and more (how do I do that, by the way)? So then the LoA actually becomes some kind of solipsistic measure of my faith in it?

Arghhh..my brain is hurting!%#$%#$%!!

Andy

[snowheight]

conditioning our thoughts to unconsciously repeat patterns of positive perceptions will automatically bring more positive experience simply because there are many ways of perceiving any given event.

This concept of essentially "being good to yourself" is discussed at length in Buddha's Brain by Hanson and Mendius, with a firm foundation in modern neuroscience. This book is about changing your brain chemistry through habits and thinking -- feeding the "wolf of love" as opposed to the "wolf of hate." I highly recommend it to those who would like a scientific basis for much of what we talk about in this forum.

Andy

Thanks for the recommendation Andy.

Thanks for the additional insight into the LoA 'wanderer.

Thanks to everyone else for taking the trouble to think about this issue.

[karmarider]

If the LoA requires that I believe in it, have faith in it, hope for it, then it's like pixie dust again (Peter Pan, etc.)

If I wanted to believe in the LOA, it would fit the recent event in my life perfectly. First, three years of low-energy and isolation and the kind of despondency others here have talked about in other threads, and a girl too engaged in her cell phone wrecked my car, and a financial wipe-out.

And now, a deep sense of peace settled as seeking stopped, and life has a vibrant flow, with new friends and relationships, financial recovery and more, and a great deal on a new car with insurance paying me far more than I could have sold the old car for.

I can easily relate these events to attractive thoughts, if I were inclined to hold on to a belief in LOA.

I can also easily relate these events to a belief in karma, or some other universal debit-credit system, or astrology or fate. And I'm positive I can find many supporting quotations from scriptures and the Bible to support any of these beliefs.

But I don't lean that way. I lean towards awakening, towards noticing and releasing delusions, and I know any beliefs I hold will be self-confirming, and obstacles even if they are true.

Now I see both the period of despondency and this period or bliss as mental states. Neither better nor important than that other.

But as Jed Mckenna says, beliefs, for and against, are a strange thing: "It's amazing how desperately we cling to our beliefs. As history shows, the fastest way to reduce decent people to state a savagery is by tampering with their belief system."

[Sighclone]

Kaushik -

Again, welcome back. I have always enjoyed your entries, your website and your continued presence here, your engagement with ruthless-truthdom notwithstanding. Thank you for your wise comments in this last post regarding beliefs.

That said, failing to believe in obvious truths (brick falling on foot, serious consequences to punching your neighbor, etc.) results in repeated pain and suffering. And yes, perhaps "repeated pain and suffering" is required for some people to endure to evolve. But usually there comes a point where a lesson is finally learned from experience, and a belief formed, to wit (theoretical examples): I believe that if I keep fighting with people I will have no friends. I believe that if I spend my last dollar on beer, that I will be hungry tomorrow. I believe that if I do not study for a test I will fail it.

From personal experience, I have formed the following beliefs, among others:

I think and work more clearly in the morning.

If I do the hard things on my "to do" list first, the rest get easier and the universe shows up to help me.

If I do not sit down a a keyboard and begin typing, I will not finish my novel.

Exercise improves my body and mind.

Too much ice cream makes me fat and sluggish.

Continuing to do the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is insane. (That one comes from Einstein.)

Kaushik is a delightful and wonderful person.

Andy

[snowheight]

An observation on the thread title posed in the form of a question -- Does Tolle consider his body of work to constitute a philosophy? Does it?

[hanss]

I think this is a misperception of what LoA is about. It may be true that there is no little me in a greater sense, but there is the experience of the little me, and there is the outflow of creation. That which experiences the perspective of the little me is still an issue to be considered. That which experiences, even in its temporary (and designed?) misconception of what self is, is consciousness of the most fundamental nature.

LoA seems to be how creation on the more rudimentary levels of human experience may be more purposefully directed. I'm not saying that the chosen direction is good or bad, however the necessity to align with Source to enhance the likelihood of focusing a creative flow of energy must surely be influential in a deeper recognition of the existence of a greater reality of being than what is known through the perspective of the little me.

Right on. Thank you for confirming my beliefs so they can grow stronger

[hanss]

I believe if I drop a brick on my foot it will hurt. Because that has been my experience.

So, who is having the experience if Little Me does not exist? Sorry for that one, but I just could not resist

This my personal confused questioning and babble but I write it here anyway. Just ignore. What if awakening is not the important work. Where does that come from? Some book or teacher? What is the important work in my own experience? What if we are here to live as humans? Call it manifested forms, extension of the source or whatever. What if the existence of the real you, ego and all that is totally irrelevent. Maybe the reason we are humans is that we should live as humans, not try to be God (universe, I'm that etc.) That our main purpose is to live life, have experiences and create. That desires is natural for this human form and should be fulfilled, not seen as something bad or "in the way of awakening". Maybe we are here to really live, to get in the "flow" and enjoy it (not worry about it). Not sit and meditate and read spiritual books. Maybe we should skip all the self enguiry and questions like "who am I?", "who is doing the seeing?" and "is there awareness already?". Substitute it all with one simple question: "Am I living life or am I denying it?" Yes or No in every moment.