Sunday, November 25, 2007

Giving Thanks IN ADVANCE ??

One of the most striking stories told in the book and movie The Secret is the story of Cathy Goodman and her ability to heal herself of breast cancer without the traditional medical treatments.

This spot in the movie has received a great deal of criticism, and it is easy to understand why. The medical community will certainly be concerned because they believe that this might dissuade some from treatments that could save their life. Even Bob Proctor in interviews given since the movie was released has said publicly that he did not like that they put that particular story in.

Plus it seems to some that the story says that she healed her cancer with laughter. This is missing a very great point, and one that people should understand clearly before they decide to forego traditional medical treatments.

The crux of Cathy's story is that she offered continual thanks, in advance, for the healing of her cancer. The laughter and the funny movies were to allieviate stress, which stress would have made the condition worse. Laughter IS a proven way to allieviate stress.

Her actions in offering gratitude for this were extremely bold.

And yet they are not without precendent and teaching in the source materials that the movie and book were inspired by. Consider this passage from The Science of Getting Rich:

"The man who can sincerely thank God for the things, which as yet he has only in his imagination, has real faith. He will get rich. He will cause the creation of whatsoever he wants."

Maybe this is a little easier to swallow when you think of the responder as "The Universe" instead of "God". After all, "The Universe" is a place that operates by natural law, including the Law of Atttraction, and thus Cathy Goodman's gratitude would have created such a vaccuum in the Universe that the healing energies that she required would have been unavoidably drawn towards her. Cut and dried.

But many do not make much of a distinction between "God" and "The Universe", or otherwise believe that even God operates according to Universal Law, albeit He understands them quite a bit better than us.

Note also that she did not get caught up in any "hows". Knowing that stress would not help, she took steps to get rid of it, but other than that, she did not take any specific actions, other then feeling and expressign the gratitude, towards her healing. Why?

Because she was not inspired to take any further actions . . . in this case they were not necessary.

So here is what I am getting at, and here is where I invite feedback. . .

Can you by these actions bind God?

To your will?

To me that seems a little different than the generally accepted Christian teachings that God is so much better and greater than us, and therefore He has power over us, NOT the other way around. Read the book of Job on this point. (Also see my previous blog posting on Job).

And yet the very scripture says "Ask and Ye shall Receive, Knock and it shall be opened unto you". Add this to the mix; a lesser known scripture says this: I the Lord am bound when ye do what I say, but when ye do not what I say, ye have no promise.

Now how do we know whether we "do what He say"?

Consider yet another scripture: "Verily I say, men should be anxiously engaged in a good cause, and do many things of their own free will, and bring to pass much righteousness."

OK so I think we see a key here. Cathy Goodman's healing was a righteous desire. She was willing to take action towards that desire, which action was to feel and speak the gratitude for her healing before it came to her. While she does not use the word, her faith is evident in her story, and appeared to be unshakeable. She knew that she would be healed, and it was only a matter of when. She also knew that "when" would be before it was "too late", and knowing and believing that, it did not matter exactly how long it took.

Letting go of the timing is letting go of one of the biggest hows. God/The Universe has impeccable timing. Trust it to them, and the timing will be perfect. That will become clear when viewed with the 20/20 hindsight.

So here's the rub. If we face a life changing situation, including a dis-ease of some sort, then we should remember that even in the movie they state that all forms of healing, including the doctors, have their place and should not be ignored. But, knowing that, and being able to have faith, be believing, and especially be grateful, we should feel the gratitude for the end result of what we are looking for BEFORE it actually happens. The body has the ability to heal itself. Incurable means only "curable from within".

If we can have that mental clarity, then we will be in alignment, and the healing will come, and the timing will not matter, and the doctor and the drugs will not be required.

But hear this loud and clear . . .

If we will waver in our faith, if we will not be 100% believing, if we have trouble feeling the gratitude or are saying the gratitude for too long without actually feeling it, then our belief needs help, and it is time to call and visit the doctor and follow through on the treatment plan. Also seek a blessing from all spiritual leaders that you know.

And then, having done all, you can be 100% believing, because you have done all. If you go then, it will be only because it was your time.

And the timing sense of God/The Universe on this is just as impeccable as ever, though that is not always clear to us who are living on this side of the veil. There are things for us to do in the next phase of our existance, and some get to it sooner than others.

Ever wonder how the ancient prophets were able to bring about a famine in the land by their words? Same principles applying. They had a righteous desire for their fellow citizens to repent, and they could see no other way to get their attention.

Hopefully we are paying attention.

Joseph

Sunday, November 18, 2007

The Secret and Network Marketing ??

Did I scare you off already?

Well, to be fair, they do not once mention network marketing in the movie The Secret; so why am I writing about it here?

Well, quite frankly, because I have my wife's network marketing company to thank for the fact that I was introduced to the movie the Secret the very month it was released back in March of 2006. I got the see the original edition with Esther Hicks.

And she rocked.

Had I not been introduced to the movie through that channel, then it is very possible that I would not have heard of it to this day, because I was not looking for it, and I was not travelling around in circles where anyone was interested in it.

I have had a lot of interesting insights come to me as a result of helping my wife out with her Network marketing business. The training meetings that I have attended with her were outstanding, and very inexpensive and sometimes completely free of charge. Training on how to think like a business person, training on how to better relate to others. Training on how to put your mind to work in helping you reach your goals.

I have since priced these kinds of trainings on the open market outside of a Network Marketing company. You could expect to pay thousands of dollars.

So, if nothing else, the network marketing industry is the greatest training secret known to man.

I have a clear understanding of why some people do not like it. Prior to my wife's starting a business, I had been chased, hunted and almost killed twice by people from other network marketing companies. I understand the bad experiences that people have had, because I have had them too.

In fact I still am not 100% positive in my own belief that a network marketing business is something that that many people would want to do.

And this is why my own attempt in the business resulted in me recruiting exactly zero people.

But my wife was able to find a groove, and has built from nothing a business that does 40,000 to 60,000.00 a month in business. I am so proud of her. She drives the company car, which is the White Mercedes.

So what does the secret have to do with all of this? Well let me tell you a little story of how my wife managed to reach the Mercedes driving level of her company:

Mercedes drivers generally do $40,000.00 a month or better in the business. My wife was sitting at the management level right below that, the level between $10,000 and $40,000 dollars for several months, fluctuating in that range. Making a decent four digit income, but not driving the car.

The one day, specifically Nov 1, 2005, she decided that she was going to qualify for the next level, the car level, in the next two months finishing by December 31. She made the decision, and then worked the next two months of her business as if it were true.

This is all that I can tell that she did any differently. I was watching her the whole time. She did not change her presentation system. She did not change her prospecting system. She did not change anything at all that I could see on the outside.

But she made a significant change in what she was thinking. And she did not doubt, and also I did not detect any fear that she would not make it.

Well you might guess what happened. That November she doubled her volume from the month before, putting her over the $40,000 mark. She did finish by December 31, and we picked out and bought her White Mercedes on Jan 2, 2006.

All of this was about three months before the movie came out.

When we saw it my wife said Yes! That is exactly what I did!

So here is another secret I have learned about the network marketing business that was very interesting, and which for me explains why several people have such a hard time with it.

The business is 10% about what you are doing, and 90% about what you are thinking and believing.

Yes, that's right, only 10% about what you are doing. Compare that to your typical work for someone else job which is 90-100% about what you are doing, and 10% or less about what you are thinking. The worst one's of all are the ones where they specifically tell you that they do not want you doing any thinking. Yes I once had one of those jobs.

So people struggle in the business because they spend 100% of their time trying to improve their actions, which is 10% of the business. At the same time, people who get their minds right build massive organizations and paychecks and seem to put in very little physical effort. People just flock to them.

If you want to see a great example of what can happen when you get you mind right, go talk to anyone who is a mega-success in Network Marketing. Amazing!

So the movie The Secret is the coaching and the instruction of what you want to do with your mind.

And the Network Marketing business in one way (among others) to test out what you have learned in a real world environment.

If you are brave enough, I say try it. You cannot possibly do worse than I did, and yet I see my experience as a great positive because of all of the things I learned, mostly about myself.

And *that* is the whole point of the game.

Joseph

Saturday, November 10, 2007

AI Meets The Secret

The 2001 movie AI: Artificial Intellligence was a pretty divisive movie. People either loved it or hated it, and that feeling got stronger in either direction on a second or third viewing.

This tells us that an increased vibration is caused by this movie. It pushes towards the poles and the middle ground disappears.

So what does this movie have to do with The Secret? I am so glad that you asked.

First, and most important in the movie, is the idea of a machine that can love. Could it happen? We universally said NO before we had a better picture of what love really is.

What is Love? It is a vibration; in fact it is the highest vibration. It is an energy vibration that we direct with our own minds and thoughts. We make it happen, we also stop it from happening. Could a machine be programmed to emit that vibration?

Well . . .

In the movie The Secret, they talk about how they can now measure the frequency of a thought, because all thoughts have frequencies. John Asseref explains this part. If we can map that, then why would we not be able to design a machine that did that same thing?

The answer is that there is no reason to assume that we cannot do that. Sure there is a lot of physics and science and engineering to be done, but mapping the vibration is an ultimate guarentee that it WILL happen.

And here is the next question. Would that machine, that emits the same energy vibration that we have measured and called love, actually attract things? Asked another way, does it know what it wants?

Well what it wants will be programmed. Fear can be left out of the programming. The machine is an energy field operating in a larger energy field, and we all are also energy fields operating in a larger energy field. So I ask this . . .

What's the difference?

From a vibrational point of view I mean.

I am not sure that there is one. I am also not sure of the wisdom of building such a machine. We cannot possibly guess how it would act. No human can constantly emit the vibration of love 100% of the time, but this machine would. We just do not know what the effects of this would be. So to anyone who is thinking of building one I say this . . .

Please don't.

On to the other fascinating part of the movie, which is at the very end. In case anyone is confused the alien looking guys are portrayed as the 2000 year evolution of the robots. It is reasonable to assume that once AI reaches a certain point that it can do its own research and advancement. We are no where near that point today.

So those are robots at the end, and they have the technology to assemble a human body that has passed on from a sample of the DNA. Here is the really interesting part: They have discovered that the memories of all of the human beings, even though they have been gone for 2000 years, are stored somewhere in the space time continum.

So they are able to recreate that live and supply it with many of the memories that are stored somewhere; but they find that the being will only live for one day, and their explanation is that life seems to have a bound in time and it just does not function correctly when it is brought back outside of its schedule.

Why one day, and not more or less? Probably the extent to which the machines can support that life, becuase they have to likely supply energy and vibration and a bridge to the memories or everything just falls apart.

Now, for the surprising part. Quamtum Physics describes an energy field which is called the zero point field. Its discovery came as a result of watching things at the subatomic level when something was frozen to absolute zero. In theory there should be no motion of any kind at that temperature, but the scientists have detected motion. This is where the name comes from when it is called the "zero" point field.

So what is the Zero Point Field? Well, in some crazy way it was very well described by Wallace Wattles in The Science of Getting Rich. He called it "thinking substance". I am not sure how Mr Wattles knew about this 100 years ago when the current theory is so recent. In short, the zero point field contains the energy from which all things are made and manifested.

Further current theory suggests that all of our memories are not actually stored in our heads or in our brains, but are stored out in "The Field" in eggs or something of that nature. This is the theory that the machines at the end are quoting. Bet you did not expect a quantum physics lesson when watching this movie.

I recently heard Deepak Chopra speak to this subject. In the current research being done into the mind and how it works, the first discovery is that there are thinking cells all over your body, not just in your brain. So the first leap was that the mind encompassed the whole body, not just the brain. The next leap came with the discovery of the field, and if the memories are really stored there, then you would argue that your "mind" is not even in your body at all!

Uhhh, so where would it be then?

Within your higher self.

And what is that?

All of the Intelligence, and the Power, and the Glory, that is the real you. I mean the real you as a cosmic being who is the child of a Heavenly Father. Who and what we are is defined by this relationship, which is literal, and not figurative.

But we do not remember all of that here, because we were not meant to. We are unlimited and abundant beings living a human life of limitation. We are meant to rediscover our power. We are meant to understand lack thinking and then conquer it. We are meant to seek abundance and find it. We are meant to understand joy and live it. We are meant to increase the vibration of all others that we have the chance to meet.

Those of us who move towards these things discover the magic of life.

And the magic of life is something for us to remember, not something that we need to learn.

Remember.

Joseph

Sunday, November 4, 2007

Is This What Happened to Job ??

Sometimes it is fun to take a look at well documented events from the past in the light that comes from learning about The Secret.

Take the story of Job as told in the Old Testament. According to what we read in Chapter 1 Job was "perfect and upright, and one that feared God, and eschewed evil". (KJV).

But we learn something else that was not obvious perhaps at the beginning of the story at the end of chapter 4 where we read: "For the thing which I greatly feared is come upon me, and that which I was afraid of is come unto me". For those who do not know the story, Job was smitten with all manner of affliction, he essentially lost everything that could be lost, including his health and his whole family, everything except his very life.

So, let's consider a couple of things. The tragedy of the book of Job has long been discussed in philosophical and religious circles. How could such harsh affliction come to a man who had been "perfect and upright"? Those who think and say that no good deed goes unpunished (the absolute worst kind of lack thinking) could have been thinking of this story.

Well consider this possibility . . .

The Lord was trying to bless Job.

What was that?

The Lord was trying to bless Job.

Really?

He seems to have a funny way of showing it then, doesn't He?

Consider the following scripture: There is a law, irrevocably decreed in heaven before the foundations of this world, upon which all blessings are predicated --- And when we obtain any blessing from God, it is by obedience to that law upon which it was predicated.

Consider this scripture also: I the Lord am bound when ye do what I say, but when ye do not what I say, ye have no promise.

Put these two together with a "perfect and upright man" and you may find a situation where increasing numbers of blessings were slated to come to Job.

Now this next statement is a guess, but it is supported by some evidence . . .

Perhaps Job was not in a position to accept the new blessings.

How could that be possible?

Well . . . . . . .

Because sometimes it is necessary to let go of the old for the new to come in. Based on the fear that Job had as described in chapter four, he feared losing what he had already been blessed with. He appeared to be holding onto it very tightly.

So it appears that he was not letting go.

And that was preventing new blessings from coming.

And the Lord was bound to send new blessings his way.

Yes, a disconnect.

Caused by FEAR.

Interesting that "Thou Shalt Not Fear" is NOT given anywhere as a commandment, and yet fear causes more pain and suffering to be attracted than almost anything else.

In As A Man Thinketh, James Allen says that men attract that which they love, and also that which they fear.

So it could be argued that Job attracted exactly what he feared; or it could also be argued that all of this had to happen to him, in order to help him "let go" of what he was so afraid of losing.

So that there could be room for more to come into his life.

What is the end of the story?

Well after a period of time where Job figured out a few things courtesy of his new found afflictions, he was blessed with abundance to exceed what he had previously been blessed with.

The scripture says that "the Lord turned the captivity of Job, when he prayed for his friends (the ones who were not exactly supportive), and also the Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before.

Job went on to have a new family that was better then the old one that he lost, and he lived for another 140 years in the pleasure of their company, down four generations from himself.

And after facing and surviving his greatest fear, I would say that it could never take hold of him again.

But could the entire situation have been avoided if he had been more willing to "let go" prior to everything happening? If he had looked that fear squarely in the eye, and been OK with any of that happening? I believe that if he could have done that, then there would be no purpose in his affliction, and therefore it would have never come.

Because I believe strongly that God does not send or allow affliction to come that is not a transport mechanism for a blessing.

What do we learn from this? A few things.
1. The Lord wants to bless us, and can be bound to bless us as we are obedient.
2. It is often the case that we must let go of something that we perceive to be good in order to receive something that is definately better.
3. If we will not let go, meaning we are too attached to things, then affliction comes as a way to transport in our new blessings.
4. We must not let the "good" of life keep us from the "magic" of life.

So here is the real question . . . .

Are we bringing affliction upon ourselves ?? We must Let Go, and Let God.

Face your greatest fear, and be OK with it if that happens!

If we can do that, then the fear is conquered, we have let go, we are receiving for more, and no affliction as a transport mechanism will be required.

Learn.

Joseph