Nikolai1

The irony is that I had a healthy vegetarian diet and a love of exercise well before I met my wife. The difference is that if I decide to eat some chips with a movie i don't have even the remotest anxiety about doing so because it doesn't affect my well-being one iota. But my wife is anxious about her diet and. if you ask her, it will become obvious that she is trying to avoid disease, obesity and early death. She does get a sense of well-being from her healthy diet, and you might call that a spiritual well-being, but because it is such a narrow technique she will get very off-balance if it is disrupted by so much as a pack of tortillas. A healthy diet is all very well, but if adhering to it creates stress and anxiety then your healthy diet is actually an unhealthy diet. But this is a difficult concept for a person who has a 'you are what you eat' philosophy.

Yes, thank you all for some amazing replies. One theme that came up quite a bit is the idea that I’ve been pushing my spirituality at her. Actually, the opposite is more the truth. I find it very hard to talk about my spiritual life, and I don’t expect my wife to understand anyway. It is therefore more like ‘an elephant in the room’ in that she can see how important my practice is to me but I can’t really talk about it and she doesn’t really ask. For me the big problem is the way worldviews widen between a person on the spiritual path and one who isn’t. And I’m NOT talking about our conscious philosophies and beliefs. I cannot be concerned about my diet in the way she is. I simply do not recognise health and longevity issues when they arise because they are not a part of my reality. I no longer ‘have the ears to hear’ her concerns about health and longevity. And in turn she does not have the ears to hear spiritual wisdom and so it isn’t a part of her world. If I upset her by not being attentive to her concerns about health and wellbeing for example then it is hard to see how I am responsible. I am no longer that kind of person, just as she isn’t the kind of person who might recognise the value of, say, meditation. Another big theme in all your replies that does inspire is the notion of just being myself and allowing the fruits of my practice convince her. I can only hope that my improvements start to inspire me more than what she is repelled by my shortcomings – no longer sharing her concern for physical health. I find it hard to imagine that I’m ever going to start preaching to her about all the amazing things I’ve discovered, but if she ever asks then of course I will give the best answer I can. It is suddenly so clear to me just how the spiritual life imperils existing relationships. You really do become a different person and live in a different kind of reality. Thankfully, neither of us have met other people – but if I were to meet another woman who was on my wavelength then it is hard to imagine a graver test of our relationship. I’m steering clear of local meditation groups, all full of women so I hear – and all Goddesses no doubt, Cat!

The more the law of attraction becomes a feature of our lives the more we realise that it has always been in operation. We normally imagine that we develop the power of attraction through spiritual cultivation. But the truth is that the law has always been in action, and that spiritual cultivation merely raises it to conscious awareness and understanding. What we call the common everyday ‘will power’ of the ego is actually the power of attraction. We our conscious that we need to go to the shops…and then later on we find that we are actually in the shop. This seemingly mundane sequence is the power of attraction. We have a strong motivation to visit the shop, we believe that it is in our power to achieve it…and behold, we find ourselves actually at the shops. If we had neither the motivation or the belief in its possibility then the manifestation of the shop would not occur. As long as we are egos we are constrained by our belief that the natural laws of time and space constrain us. We subject ourselves to the belief that this mysterious power of will (although, like gravitational attraction, we no longer view it as mysterious) – we believe that this will power is capable of some things and not others. But we limit ourselves by this belief. With spiritual cultivation comes a certain scepticism about our identity as individual egos. We realise through our practice that we are rather more than what we previously thought. It is this transcending of the ego that allows us to be sceptical also about the laws of nature that supposedly constrain us. We see that it is perfectly realistic that our thoughts might manifest in ways that seem, from the egoic perspective – and to other people – are completely wacky and supernatural. Perhaps ironically, it is by transcending the ego we clearly see that, whatever the law of attraction is, it has been in operation all along – we just didn’t believe it. So whether we are ego bound or not, every time we ‘decide’ to do something it is our conviction that we have the power to decide that makes it happen. The law of attraction is just normal everyday stuff – why does it take so much spiritual effort to see this?

By the way, Finland is good thanks although very dark this time of year as the snow hasn't fallen yet which brightens things up. Where do you live? Don't say Florida or anywhere else warm and sunny...

I love the way you ask the questions but are actually one step ahead. It's like talking to Socrates

Yes, it does. The saint is free to do what he wishes without repercussion. This seems like a frightening and dangerous idea. And yet we can say it with confidence and impunity when we see that all that we call evil in this life, all that we call wrong is nothing more than the failure to love God. We are forced into selfish actions that harm others only because we fail to understand that we are fine exactly as we are. Whatever happens is good for us. We are safe and secure for eternity. When we know this we are finally free to do good in the world.

Hi cat - more answers Yes I agree. In our egoic existence we experience many foretastes of spiritual bliss but I can't think of any experience that is so rich of full of the divine life than falling in love. We see a beauty in our loved one that we see in nothing else - our eyes are illuminated by the spirit and they appear to us as something angelic. We feel a better person in their presence and we are filled we the ambition to be morally better. Our bodies throb with warmth and in sex there is the possibility of perhaps the most meaningful bodily pleasure we know. For most people being in love is the closest they come to being with God. So yes, it's no surprise that love turns us into a Creator. The only thing is, is that when we are in love we want to be creative...on the subject of love. When we are in love would we want to write a novel about, say, sex abuse in the Soviet Union? Perhaps it is when we are filled with comprehensive love for all creation, like saints, that our creativity is comprehensive. In literature I think Shakespeare and Homer had this quality, and to a lesser extent writers like Tolstoy. I think the first thing to note is that catholic priests are no closer to God, and do not love God more than the person in the next profession. Religion is just one way of approaching the divine, and is no better or worse than a life of crime and decadence. Being a priest has nothing to do with God in itself, although the priest is as well placed as the next person because all lives can be used productively. The priest is therefore a person with egoic needs like anyone else, including sex. The priest with a sex drive is in a particularly unfortunate situation though because, unlike most people, having a sex drive is in conflict with their means of earning a living, social status. The priest who is unable to overcome this conflict through sacrificing something will therefore find a solution that meets all his needs. His sexual needs will be met by those who are unable to jeopardize his livelihood - namely those who are too young, too vulnerable or too uncredible as a witness. The priest with a sex drive is like any other person who discovers that they are living an inauthentic existence based on what others think they should be doing. It is down to them to resolve this conflict and it will require sacrifice, just like all seekers sacrifice aspects of themselves As they know and love God more, (and this can happen with age if not through deliberate cultivation) it will become clear what direction they will take. Celibacy is an undoubted and authentic aspect of the spiritual life. But unless the desire to be celibate arises naturally, and the person is motivated and can understand the reasons for it, enforced celibacy can be absolutely disastrous. The Catholic requirement that all seminary's should be celibate without exception is so unskillful - its like a superstition. It shows a complete misunderstanding of sex and the role that sex can have is one's spiritual development. It is the one-sided view where the effect (that spiritual persons are more celibate) is believed to follow the cause (i.e thinking that celibacy makes you spiritual). True, there are many people who make the same intellectual error on this website, but so many of them are genuinely enthusiastic about celibacy. They should desire it for themselves,and it should come easily. The priesthood also offers a quasi-solution for those who view their sexual inclinations as unacceptable. "If I become a priest," they reason, "then I'll have to suppress my desires." Unfortunately what happens is that the priesthood serves as the perfect cover - their desires manifest in scenarios they priest views as safe and no-one suspects them. The culture where confession prompts absolution doesn't help the situation, either. Anyway, my basic point is that closeness to God and being a priest are only vaguely related. best wishes, Nikolai

Hi K, Imagine two people sat opposite each other and between them is a cup of coffee. They are both arguing. One is saying that the mug is left-handed and the other is saying it is right-handed. They are both convinced they are correct and are even demonstrating their correctness by picking up the cup with their favoured hand. You, in your wisdom know that it is possible for the cup to be both left and right handed, and yet you also know that in any given moment you would only use one hand to life the cup. Your actions are suggesting that the cup has an intrinsic handedness - in reality you there would always be a correct hand to use, but in your wisdom you know that the 'handedness' of the cup is just an intellectual overlay. You might try to demonstrate your understanding to the arguers, but if you fail then you'll quietly leave them to your own ignorance - you'll be supremely confident in your own wisdom even if, in any given moment, your actions in lifting the cup with contradict it. All things in this life are like the cup. Nothing has any intrinsic qualities. if we think that something has a quality, it is possible for us to come up with an alternatively valid, yet completely opposite perspective. This holds true for the most fundamental foundations of our understanding. time is also eternity, self is also other, existence itself is also non-existence. Both free-willers and determinists agree that things exist in time and space and obey laws of causality. They therefore both believe that there are causes and there are effects. But in their ignorance they think that a thing's status as a cause or an effect is somehow intrinsic. Some people therefore think that people are intrinsically free to be as they choose, and others think they are intrinsically determined by previous events. And yet, the truth is that, like the cup, we can understand a human action in terms of the preceding causes (determinism) or we can view it in terms of the succeeding events (freedom). Either way works, and yet either way is not the whole truth. If we want to know if something is free or determined, perhaps we should first ask if the cup is right or left handed. It can be either, we just have to use our wisdom to see both sides.

Hi Cat, Well one perspective is the main subject of this thread so I won't repeat that. The second perspective is dependent origination it is the equally valid, but polar opposite perspective. if the LaO assumes there to be a desiring individual that exists in a universe where the desires are granted, in dependent origination (DO) there is no self, no desire and no universe. It is based on a vision that the Buddha called impermanence. The world we see is impermanent. Everything is annihilated in the blink of an eye. If a phenomena is not here now then it is not anywhere. The world is literally vanishing and reforming itself moment by moment. Needless, to say, it takes a special kind of wisdom to believe this and so impermanence is a virtually universally misunderstood idea. In my experience it is an idea too radical for the vast majority of Buddhists. To understand impermanence is itself a significant spiritual achievement. One of the consequences of impermanence, which the Buddha also placed great emphasis on, is that nothing has any independent existence. whatever we see has 'died' and been 'reborn' literally as we watch. All the things that associate with the ego -perceptions of our body, ideas, feelings are likewise impermanent - therefore the ego is an illusion, simply a flash of awareness instantly to disappear forever. Actually we are already used to the idea of impermanence - we already imagine that our thoughts vanish into nothingness once they are out of awareness. What the Buddha taught is that perceptions of so called external objects behave in the same way. Our visual world is constantly being annihilated and replaced moment by moment. When inner thoughts and external objects are seen as entirely alike in their impermanent nature then the subject -object distinction is banished. And if nothing exists except for the briefest possible flash then time and space are also completely banished. In fact time and space are just thoughts which are themsleves impermanent. If the present content of awareness is loved and feels welcome to us we imagine normally that it has some meaning to us as individuals , we imagine that we have desired it. To the Buddha there is simply this moment of love and understanding. This understanding occurs beyond time and space as they are seen as illusions and there is simply appreciation and insight. It is called dependent origination because it is the recognition that through this moment we can understand a great deal that is not manifestly apparent. We understand things just by looking at them For example, if I look at my wife and feel love and insight into what she is, this is a direct intuitive understanding. I have not lived with her for ten years, i have not learned about her over a period of time, what i know I am able to know about what I call her 'history' I apprehend from this moment alone. This is called dependent origination. What we see in this moment is meaningfully related to all. These connections spread infinitely, and because we no longer believe in the ego we are no longer constrained by what he knows and might come to know. Illusion is that the self exists and has existed in time. It also is believing that there is a whole universe of things and objects that also exist. When we drop the belief in the self and other independent objects we stop believing in a whole universe of things randomly interacting - where anything is possible. Normally we imagine combinations of events that would never ever happen. The ego is therefore full of vain desires that could and would never actually come to pass. We feel completely frustrated by what we want and what happens. When we reject this worldview of people and things we are free to see what actually happens - we are free to see with our intuitions the true dependently originated connections between things. We see what is actually the case and we are less confused by what might be the case. This insight is analogous to how I have talked about the ego desiring things that are authentic to the ego, and those that are inauthentic. In the LoA what we desire we have the power to manifest. In DO we see clearly the reliable relations between things. We therefore desire only what will happen. But of course, in the language of DO it is not a desire as such but simply love and understanding. I've got a feeling that this brief post on a very radical idea might need more explanation so feel free to ask questions. I'll write to you about your other questions again later in another post

OK, well if you change your mind...!

Cat, Where have your recent posts gone? I prepared a response in my lunch hour today but all your questions are gone when I look.

Hi K The law of attraction belongs to the world view where there is a self and a world of other selves and objects - in other words the normal world view of time, space and causality. Within this world view any action can be understood as either free or determined - it's simply a matter of perspective. Any supposed cause can also be seen as an effect of some prior event in time. To argue over this question is like arguing with someone over whether the road to the store is on the right or left hand side - it all depends on which side you approach it. So when we desire something that we then attract we can understand it in terms of free will or the fact that our desire was determined to happen. All this is summed up by the philosopher Schopenhauer's dictum: "we can do what we want but we cannot will what we want." Then its to your credit that you even bother reading it! The arguments I'm laying out here are a kind of theology, some people will understand them very readily but they will seem strange and alien to others. If you find it strange, don't worry about it. There are plenty of other ways of making the same message and you should focus on that which makes more sense. One of the disconcerting things about reading an alien theology is that when it is used to explain events in real life it can have a ring of truth, even while the reasoning to get there is baffling. This is perhaps why you recognised the stage where we start to strip away some of the inauthentic dross from our lives. Best wishes, Nikolai

Hi jox, One thing that becomes noticeable as we cultivate ourselves is that our interactions with people become much more positive. Even complete strangers seem friendlier and more disposed to us than we were. We aren't necessarily desiring this to happen so we just accept it as something that has changed. But sometimes we might find ourselves attracted to someone and yet they do not respond to us positively. When this happens it is quite noticeable. If we are honest with ourselves we see that it only happens with certain types of people - ie people who we perceive as being very different to us. We don't believe that they would be attracted to us, for whatever reason. This is lack of confidence, based onto egoic ideas of who we are. There are two magic ingredients to make something manifest: consciousness and belief. We give these persons plenty of the former but little of the latter. if you are wanting a long term relationship but instead find yourself in repeated failed relationships then that shows that your relationships are based on neurotic egoic notions. You (not you personally!) probably have some false ideas about who you are, or your need for a relationship is motivated by fear, a sense of lack, or some other notion that the spiritually mature person would recognise as an illusion. Until you gain self insight the cycle will just repeat. But even for many spiritual seekers there is a middle phase in their development where relationships frequently fail. Their practice is established enough to start bearing fruits in the form of greater self understanding, more confidence, less fear of loneliness, social stigma and other things. It is as these fruits emerge that it becomes very clear that your relationship was based on a perceived lack or deficiency. You were putting up with negative things because you imagined you were getting positives in return, for example companionship. But when you realise in your confidence that you would also be just as happy without this person, you question why you put up with the negatives. There are three outcomes to this insight into your relationship, depending on its strength (because all relationships have some strengths) 1) You simply walk away without a backwards glance knowing that your next relationship will be much more successful. 2) You try to take your partner with you on your path. In other words, you try and show them how to have the confidence not to mistreat you. 3) Your partner ends the relationship because they can't stand the fact that you no longer need them. As I've said in previous posts, this transformation of our lives doesn't just happen in our relationships but in careers, interests, where we live...I used to think that I would be some kind of novelist or even poet but the desire to write just died away. Now i realise that it was an inauthentic ambition based on who I liked to think I was. Best wishes, Nikolai

Hi Hydrogen - believe it or not, neither do I !- or not fully. The law of attraction is actually a one-sided way of explaining something that I certainly know from experience: When I want something it has a way, sometimes uncannily, of appearing in my life. There are two opposite ways of explaining this, for me, undeniable phenomenon. 1) Agentically. That is that I am a willing agent who wants things which the cosmos or God then delivers. This is the Law of attraction and a spiritualised conception of free will. It feels like whatever we want shall happen 2) Non-agentically. That I am an uninvolved observer who sees things mentally just before they manifest physically. This is what the Buddha called dependent origination and is a spiritualised conception of determined causality. It feels like whatever happens we want. This intepretation appears egoically not as free will but as a kind of determinism, perhaps even fatalism. Were I to talk about both of these perspectives at the same time I would make no sense. I've therefore chosen the sexier one. But, as I said, the lived reality in a way transcends either of these all too intellectual accounts. Nikolai

Hi Cat, When we still believe ourselves to be separate individuals the pleasure we experience is identical in nature to the pleasure we experience as transcended beings. The reason our methods are inferior and irregular is that we believe: 1) that some things cause us as pleasure and some cause us pain. 2) that there are other people who are also in search of the same pleasures as us, and avoiding the same pains. Because this is what we believe this is how our experience really is. If we believe that some things are pleasurable, for example being high on cocaine, it follows that not being on high on cocaine will be experienced as less so. Furthermore, we are aware that other people might have wanted the cocaine that we were able to buy - our consumption therefore deprives them,and vice versa. This can be experienced as guilt or envy depending on whether you are deprived or depriving. Where there is guilt and envy there is strife. Clearly in real life its more complicated than this but this is essentially the ego's condition. When pleasure arises then so too, either within you or without you, does pain. I don't understand all this as being a lack of confidence in the spiritual life because the ego is an amazing spiritual achievement. But if the egoic phase is the extent of a person't spiritual development then they will attract circumstances that fit with that self-conception. It is only when the ego becomes dissatisfied or disillusioned with these precarious pleasures that the ego is slowly transcended and the LoA as we know it starts to get noticed. Yes, this is true. It reminds me of St Augustine's dictum: if you love God then you are free to enjoy whatever you wish. The reason sex came up is because Hydrogen said that his desire for better sex was his introduction to the spiritual life. If sex is your only method of cultivation then you are likely to find it irregularly successful also. Firstly, it requires you to find a partner who is also motivated to turn sex into a kind of yoga, which isn't everyone. Secondly, if you neglect other aspects of your spiritual development then the best sex in the world isn't going to make you tolerable to live with or tolerant of others. Disputes in other areas of your life will affect the sex. People might think that theoretically very high sexual experiences might be achieved with partners who serve that purpose in your life and nothing else. But in reality only the spiritually advanced would be able to be so detached. If a normal person has great sex with someone they hardly know, maybe a one-night stand, then they are likely to have fallen in love as well. if we say "oh it was just great sex" then we more often that not deceive ourselves. We find ourselves wondering what this virtual stranger is doing, we have a silly urge to tell them about our day, introduce them to our friends... The well-developed person whose spiritual pleasure is gained from many areas in their life could certainly enjoy sexual ecstasy regularly and without side-effects. But...in reality it might be that they have lost their motivation to actively seek it out. Some people are less gendered than others and so achieve sexual balance relatively early. For such people spiritual development brings with it a celibacy that might feel involuntary. For others sexual desire remains a source of deep satisfaction right to the end. Sex is a very deep issue because it relates to one of the ego's most fundamental categories; gender. But If we look at our own lives we might see how our lesser desires have fallen by the wayside as we develop. I hope I've answered your questions, Nikolai

Hi hydrogen, This is as good a place to start as any and everybody has to start somewhere. If you were looking to heighten sexual experience what you mean is that you were seeking transcendence or unity with something higher. In all our most 'basest' most 'worldly' pleasures there is a still a germ of pure spiritual delight. I cannot emphasise this enough. Our pleasure always has been of the purest, most exalted nature. It is the methods we use that are variable, work irregularly, and often cause displeasure to others. Sex is a mutual pleasure and rarely causes harm to others, but as a method or spiritual union isn't foolproof and isn't guaranteed. One thing that has struck me is that what is so often called spiritual or religious practices are no more truly spiritual than the secular counterparts. Taking Communion wafer in Mass is no different for most people than is taking a pill in a nightclub. I'm sorry if this offends some people but it happens to be the truth. To anyone offended, I hope you realise that I recognise the spiritual value and meaning of them both - it's just that they both happen to be quite bad methods when taken alone.

Sometimes we can have conflicting desires. We might find ourselves attracted to a new woman, but don't want to lie and cheat on our wife. So we might simultaneously want to gratify our passion, but have a clean moral conscience at the same time. In these situations we might be unwilling to consciously and wilfully pursue the woman, but find ourselves wishing that the power of attraction will arrange it all for us. We might find ourselves wanting the universe to do our dirty work, while we with clean hands protest that it was heaven's will. This is an inauthentic state based on an illusion of separation between will power and the law of attraction. If we do not want something consciously then we will not manifest it in our reality. But if we are decided that we are willing and happy to leave our wife then heaven will bust a gut to make the new woman your own. What mostly happens in the above scenario is that an ambiguous situation prevails. The woman clearly returns your affections but neither of you are able to make the breakthrough. If it seems like her ambivalence, then you are failing to recognise your own. After a while you will no longer see each other. After more time you will look back and realise that you never really wanted to leave your wife, and that is the reality that you attracted. These unsatisfyingly grey situations become fewer as you outgrow your ego. Your desires become stronger, purer and more authentic - but in doing so contrast more with anything inauthentic in your outer life. Next time round, your wife may have to go.

Hi all, When we first notice that our desires are few and far between we can feel a mild bewilderment. We realise that all our lives we have been propelled through life by our desires. Now we have reached a point where our desire even for spiritual practice has largely withered away. What do we do with ourselves? We must wait passively for desires to arise. When they do we can trust them and act on them with confidence and efficacy. This is acting through passion - or wu wei. Some desires swiftly manifest in reality, for example the desire for food and sleep leads swiftly to satisfaction. Other desires may be felt more strongly and may relate to deeper less transient changes in our reality. But while we are waiting for passion our only passion can be for the present moment - to make it as beautiful and as good as possible. This is the life of love and happiness. When you realise that every moment is here to be improved by your desirous intention - then your life will improve of its own accord.

Yes, if I have to keep faith that I am being led somewhere despite the barrenness, you perhaps have to keep faith that you're not being led a stray. Deep down I know we're both fine

Hi all, This interesting idea has been mentioned a couple of times. It represents an intermediate view between the normal egoic 'will power' phase and the more powerful law of attraction. if we imagine that we are still individual's in competition with other individuals then we are still thinking mostly egoically, although there is the nascent recognition that visualisation might give us a competitive boost. As we transcend the ego, we increasingly realise that the world is, in a sense, our own creation. If there are others around then they can't possibly compete with us unless we let them. This phase that Jetsun mentions is similar to the phase I wrote about when our power of attraction is compromised by conflicting internal desires. As we transcend the ego our desires become purer and stronger. The parallel process is the notion that we outcompete our competitors. The power of the law of attraction is in proportion to the amount of spiritual cultivation we have undertaken. To believe that the law of attraction is real but limited belongs to the early stages of our recognition of it.

Hi all, The law of attraction is a very real force in my life, but only because I have slowly come to realise that there is no difference between what we term the mental and the physical realms. Realising this has opened up my eyes to how these two realms interact with each other in experience. For example, an internal willed decision is followed by an external manifestation as regularly as night follows day. Those who are trapped in the ego think that the mental and physical realms are separate. This belief is itself the major reason why the power of the law of attraction isn't recognised. It follows that our mental lives become much more meaningful and significant. Jesus said that looking on a woman lustfully is the same as committing adultery in deed. The warning has a moralistic flavour, but refers to a truth that really does apply to the spiritually developed person. The underdeveloped person has no need to take heed. Their inner life is so chaotic and scattered that the lustful thoughts are unlikely to upset anyone in reality. But the poor saint struggling with his lust for the brewer's daughter is almost bound to stumble across her as she bathes naked in the brook! How he handles the situation will either perpetuate his egoic lusts or will be the final self-mortification. After this there need be no more. When our inner and outer worlds are believed to be separate there is a separation between reality and the meaning of reality. It is this separation which provides the basis for the law of attraction. A mental event loaded with meaning (either as desire or fear) will be succeeded by a corresponding reality. But as the inner and outer worlds merge together (and the transcendence of the ego through spiritual practice is the process) - as the two realms merge the meaning and actuality will coincide. We see the world with the numinous vision of the poet, we engage in it with the skill of the Olympian athlete. When we have reached this state the notion of the law of attraction is transcended. There is no longer any miraculous connection between the mental and the physical realms. Rather, the two have coincided into a skilfully lived life of beauty, meaning and purpose - without desire and without fear for what might be. This is the way of the Tao.

Sorry I missed this question. I think to answer it would need to say a few things about my own path - which has mostly been an intellectual search. It can take a long time for those who have been on an intellectual path to realise that they they were also on a spiritual path. I simply thought that I was on a search for truth - the questions I was concerned with occur to everyone, spiritual and secular alike. My 'gurus' at this time were scientists, philosophers and artists rather than saints. The intellectual path is essentially the way of scepticism. It is wondering whether there might be alternative explanations to the one's that we usually accept in life. I followed this path for fifteen years and I can't sum it all up easily. But to cut a long story short I ultimately realised that the basic categories of our existence: time, space, the self, will etc are nothing more than opinions and have no real truth to them. Once you reach this stage you realise that all this philosophy is an invalid enterprise in itself. The moment you seek and imagine you have found any kind of truth, you have fallen immediately into error. A feature of this path, which might sound very dry and barren to many, is that there is very little in the way of unusual or miraculous experience. The spirit of scepticism is too strong to get too amazed by anything. But, there is no doubt that the search for truth does transform your life slowly and subtly. For example, I haven't seen majestic visions of angels, but I am struck daily by the radiant beauty of mere people in a way I never used to be. Women in particular often appear to me as, if not angels, then something more than merely human. So in terms of Final temptations and fears they have manifested in everyday life situations. Actually I am engaged in one of each at the moment. Whether they are final depends on how I resolve them - but they are certainly strong and feel disruptive. I should emphasise that the relative mundanity of my experience will not be the case for all spiritual seekers. It all depends on the path they have taken. My path has been one of conscious intellectual understanding. I'm therefore unlikely to receive inspiration through visions, avatars, angels etc. My avator, my guru, is my reason and it is beautiful and precious to me. Sometimes I open my notebook and I'm astounded by what comes from my pen. I think visions and revelations will occur suddenly to those who aren't taking the slow, step-by-step philosophical path. Their focus of cultivation has been elsewhere so their intellectual insight keeps pace out of sight. Then it 'catches up' in sudden, intensely meaningful experiences which can't be translated into the mundane world around them. There's been a part of me that has envied people these rich moments, but it hasn't been my way and never shall be. On the other hand, I've been reading with immense interest Taoiseasy's thread on Qi Gong. This practice is a million miles from anything I have done, and yet many of the bodily states he describes I have discovered without any conscious effort or understanding at all. Likewise, I have no doubt that Qi Gong could turn people into great philosophers who've never ploughed through the German metaphysicians as I have! I hope this answers your question, and sorry for missing it the first time around. Nikolai

Hi bluemonk - I agree with what 7strikes was telling you So true!! (but people don't often talk about it) Yes, all this stuff is impossible to understand unless you use different methods of investigation than the usual rationality. Meditation is perhaps the keystone because I can't think of a spiritual path that doesn't include something like it. Personally, my path has been a very intellectual one in that for years I was a philosopher more than anything else. But philosophy and the search for truth only really yielded fruit when I combined it with sitting meditation. Best of luck!!

Great question Hydrogen thanks! As I've tried to make clear the law of attraction is a process that has always been at work our whole life. To begin with we normalise it as being commonplace will power and 'decision making'. The scope of our will power is bound by who we are as egos and the so-called natural laws that we, as egos, believe in. As we develop spiritually our ego's become broader and less constricted. We become less bound by narrow and self-restricting beliefs. To begin with it the law of attraction still wouldn't occur to us, this expansion and freedom within the ego is just considered to be maturity and confidence. This is the time when we are likely to walk away from unsatisfying relationships, and thus expose ourselves to our fears. But we walk away because we are still basically improving our lives through active modification of externals. It is only when we have virtually outgrown the ego that we start to notice that the way things come our way is quite uncanny. It is only when our confidence in our laws of attraction is high that we notice that some people are not responding to us. It is these people I suggest are reflecting remnants of our egoic lack of confidence. The people who seem to be immune to us represent our deep-rooted lack of confidence in ourselves. To people at this stage, it is hard to imagine that they would ever walk away from relationships. A, they wouldn't need to because their spouse would reflect their own exalted state and B, they would never solve problems in this way. Phew! All this is very hard to talk about because the law of attraction has these two aspects, even though it is always itself. 1) When it is called will power and it is limited in scope. Because it is limited in scope we don't recognise it as it is. 2) When it is called the law of attraction because we are fully conscious of it as a process. Believing in it and experiencing it are the same thing, in which case it is not a belief but a fact. But of course, there are many people who don't recognise it as a fact because it isn't with them and so quite understandably dismiss it as a belief. In this sense the LoA is like so many spiritual concepts: God, enlightenment, salvation...To become enlightened is to see that you have always been enlightened. Thanks again, Nikolai

There is lots of talk on this forum, and in life in generally about the notion of 'giving off a positive vibe'. It is imagined that you emit some kind of unseen 'energy' that transforms another person. While this is a perfectly good explanation for the LoA, it can just as easily be described as a simple sequence of events. Our mental states are succeeded by their corresponding physical manifestation. The first energetic theory posits a causal explanation; the second is a simple sequence of events - night follows day but is not caused by day. If you feel low and lacking in self-confidence then people will behave as if you aren't worth a lot, Both explanations accept this, as well as the oppsoite view: if you are high in self-confidence then the world will reflect that. It follows then that believing in the law of attraction is itself important for making it a law in your life. When we recognise the law we are free to shape our experience as we see fit. If our belief in the law falters then we will start to think that we are powerless to shape our experience. What can also happen is that remnants of low self worth in otherwise confident people can still manifest. Low self worth manifests as people who we imagine as 'our opposite' - the kind of people who are far too vulgar to recognise how wonderful we are. But if it is low self worth that creates them then it follows that we shall want to attract them but can't. What kind of person might we see as simultaneously low and vulgar and yet attractive? It is very likely to be a member of the opposite sex. A gorgeous vivacious woman who is completely oblivious to all our intelligence and spiritual sensitivity. How irritating! How vulgar she must be on the inside! Well if you ever find yourself criticising people, or finding yourself in conflict with them - you can rest assured that the criticism is really about yourself. Work on your own issues and you'll find that all the vulgar people in your life have miraculously...vanished.