Where Is The Promised Sequel to The Secret ??

Normally I like to write about things that I might have answers for, or at least suggestions.

The folks behind The Secret were originally saying that we might expect to see a sequel to the movie as early as August/September 2007 time frame. Well since it is almost 2008 now we can say that that was not even close.

They did come out with something different recently, around the subject of gratitude. I doubt that there are many of us who could not benefit from cultivating more gratitude into our lives; but this is not the sequel and does not claim to be the sequel. Also I have not seen any announcements whatsoever about the sequel and I am wondering at this point if perhaps they will cancel it altogether.

Perhaps some of the criticism has just been too harsh. I personally believe that Rhonda did this movie originally as a labor of love and I am quite sure that she was not expecting the popularity that the movie received nor the shrill criticism that it has brought against her personally. It must be kind of weird when millions of people are expressing appreciation to you in the form of buying your book or movie but at the same time hundreds of people are throwing all the mud in your direction that they can find. If Rhonda had really wanted this part she could have just run for political office.

So now I wonder if she has a debate going on in the back of her mind as to what can now be accomplished with a second film. Certainly more criticism will come, and I am not saying that this would necessairly scare her off, but I bet that she is doing a cost benefits analysis in her mind if not on paper as to what a second movie/book could accomplish.

It would obviously sell millions of copies or DVDs. That part is clear.

But it would also start round two of the smear Rhonda campaign, which is unfortunate. I do not believe that she deserves much of the negative criticism that she gets.

There is some evidence that she has distanced herself. She used to post early on to the Secret Forum at powerfulintentions. She has not posted there in quite a while now and she does not respond to PIs there. I know, because I have sent them to no response and others I know report the same. She is rarely interviewed anymore, and in fact I have not seen her anywhere since her appearence on Oprah, which was almost a year ago now. I could have missed her somewhere obviously.

One thing I have learned is that time dilutes all effort. If they do not come out with a sequel at some point, the effort that they put in with the first one will be diluted further and further by the normal passage of time, until hardly anyone remembers it. The press seems to now think the entire thing is yesterday's news.

Perhaps Rhonda likes the quiet, but this work is just too important to just fade quietly into the background. If Rhonda would like my assistance in any way in bringing the sequel to life, she should feel free to contact me. The Secret is a story that needs to be told.

Again.

Joseph

Then I Will Be Happy ??

The first time I watched the original edition (with Esther Hicks) of the DVD The Secret, I had not previously heard of any of the presenters except for Jack Canfield, and I had just heard of him, I had not read any of his books.

But many of them, especially now that the movie has been so popular, are now doing what I would love to be doing, and that is writing books and doing paid speaking engagements. I look at them and I think to myself: Wow, that is a great example of where I want my life to be in the future! To me it seems like that when I reach that point, I will have "arrived", and the rest of my life will be spent in the "magic of life", like they talk about in the movie.

But I picked up on something that I did not expect recently, and that is that there is no arrival, nor should there ever be.

Take Bob Proctor as an example. In many ways seems like he would have it made, right?

Right?

Then I wonder why does he do such hard marketing on programs that cost four digits that he is selling? Most recently I was invited to join the "Science of Getting Rich" club. What a bargain! All the wisdom from the book that you can download for free at http://www.thesecret.tv/ , and you can get Bob's opinion on all of it for only $1,999.00!

Heck! If you like to pay that much for opinions, I will give you mine for only half that price! What a bargain! Pay my PayPal account at JOW Research.

At the risk of being an unbeliever, let me state that it is hard for me to imagine how such a program as this could be a good value for anyone! The only thing that you can count on is that two thousand dollars will leave your account and go to Bob's. In return you may get an inspiration or two that may or may not do anything for you.

I have a better idea . . . READ THE BOOK YOURSELF. YOU DO NOT NEED BOB.

James Ray has the "Harmonic Wealth Weekend". There is hardly a faster way to drop a thousand dollars for nothing concrete in return.

If you like these teachers in the movie then buy some of their books. It is really hard for me to imaging how you would need to do anything more than that. WHY??

Because you have to find your own way. The James Ray way only works for James Ray, and the Bob Proctor way does not work as well for anyone else but Bob Proctor. The DVD The Secret is trying to teach you that you have full control over what's going on, so the improved version of your life must originate from you and cannot come from another.

So we are meant to always be learning in this life. If we come to a point of success where we now think that we have "arrived", and this means that we now stop learning, then that is the absolute worst thing that could happen to us! We are meant to always be learning.

So follow me on this: If we are meant to always be learning, then there is always going to be a higher level for us to get to. For me it is to start doing paid speaking engagements. For another it may be to start charging five digits instead of four for their speaking engagements. Point is that is is never going to seem like we have arrived, and like I said, it never should.

So if we are waiting to "arrive" before we are fully happy, there is going to be an issue, because by design we are never really going to get there.

The Magic of Life is being happy where you are . . .

Right Now.

Yes, right now I am still overcoming a pretty bad cold. pretty easy for me to think that I will be so much happier once it is gone!

Maybe. But what typically happens is that one day later I forget all about it, take my normal health for granted, and am truly no happier than before. It is missing that gratitude part that prevents me from really being any happier there.

So what am I trying to say? Only this:

1. If you cannot be happy Right Now, then why will you be happy later?
2. If you are not happy right now, then I bet you will discover some missing gratitude if you look for it.

So for me the path is clear. See and feel the gratitude, so that I can feel the happiness and joy right now. My continued learning will get me where I need to go.

Yours may be similar.

Joseph

Global Warming: The Chicken or the Egg?

In the movie The Secret, we hear James Arthur Ray talking about how the universe does everything that it does with zero effort. Grass does not struggle to grow, it's just this great design.

The same designer who created you and I as well, just so we are clear on that.

So here is a question: Does the Earth struggle to maintain a proper temperature or a proper range of temperatures? Even in the face of us putting additional CO2 in the air than would have ever been there otherwise? Or maybe it's because we have allowed too many cattle to be created, because the methane from bovine flatulance is the number ONE source of greenhouse gases?

If the Earth was such a great design to begin with, and there are so many systems in place to balance each other, why are we thinking that man through any action he takes can really mess it up?

Nobody is for pollution, but is it really creating the dire circumstances that you hear on the news? We could all drive less, but to do something about the number one cause we would have to reduce the number of cattle somehow.

The real question is whether the designer of the Earth had fore-knowledge that man would be here and had fore-knowledge of what man would do. When you stop to think about this for a moment, you realize that it is impossible that He would not have had that fore-knowledge.

So then we ask did He design accordingly, or did He miss that part? It is hard for me to imagine that he missed anything.

The great design that was the creation of this Earth would have taken all of the future actions of man into account, and that should be a comforting thought for any who believe in the Great Designer (read: God).

For those who do not believe in the Godly design, who believe instead that it just all kinda came together naturally, I am afraid I am unable to help you on this subject, sorry.

But now to an important point. "Global Warming" as something to worry about is a real force, not because there was necessairly any validity in it's creation, but because it was reported as news and people believed what was reported. Independent of any truth or untruth behind it, it will be a source of concern for anyone who believes in it.

And the only way to break out of that trap is to let go of the belief that something said on a news program should have some bearing on what your own world is like.

Stop allowing outside influences define your world and your life.

Your entire world is created from within, not without.

Do not contribute to a non-starter becoming an issue because you prefer to allow others to think for you.

There is no salvation in this life for those who will not stand up and think for themselves.

Amen.

Joseph

RightSizing: All In Your Mind?

This topic, which is of interest (statistically) to more and more people all of the time, was not discussed directly in the movie The Secret.

And yet, in the discussion forums, I have seen people posting and saying that they have been successful losing weight (rightsizing) by just using their mind, and NOT changing their eating habits or their exercise habits.

Now this is just what people are saying. Who knows if it is true? People say all kinds of crazy things. Especially on an Internet forum.

The current state of my belief on this point is that I am unbelieving. Because of this unbelief, the plan would not work for me whether there was truth in it or not. I believe that nothing stops the law of attraction faster than unbelief.

And yet I wonder, given all of the other aspects of the Law of Attraction that I do believe, is there something here that I am really missing?

Here are the fours things that the experts say has to be done to right size:

1. What you eat. Critical. The general rule is that if God made it, then you can eat it. If it was invented by man, stay away.

2. How you exercise. Exercise has to be included. Weight bearing exercise should be included in the mix. As always, make sure your health care provider knows what you are going to do.

3. How you sleep. If you do not get enough, then it is really hard to lose the weight.

4. How you handle stress. A stressed body does not lose weight easily.

OK so that's what the experts say. Kind of complicated. I sometimes have the feeling that I have to be perfect on these things to make any progress. In any case that is a lot to remember.

Would it not be easier to just spend 10 minutes everyday visualizing yourself as the size you want to be? Maybe I have wishful thinking that this could be true. Perhaps if we spoke to our bodies and assured them that they would receive the nutrition that they need, so there is no need to hold on to any extra weight.

I do know this for sure. Taking the actions above without changing our thinking at all is 95% doomed to failure. This means that 1 in 20 will succeed on this route. Our brains work on a thinking model, so what we will ultimately do depends on what we think, not what diet we are trying.

I hear the words of James Allen in the back of my mind: "Change of diet will not help a man who will not change his thoughts; when his thoughts become pure, then he no longer desires impure food".

And somewhere in those words I believe is the key that unlocks the door to good-lookingville.

It does suggest that we need to perhaps look more within, than without, to ultimately solve this issue; because I do believe that when the thoughts become pure, then we do not need to stress or pay undue attention to the actions; because the pure thoughts will keep them in line without us putting a lot of effort into it. Some call this "effortless prosperity".

So is losing weight and right-sizing hard to do? If you think it is, then you are probably trying to change actions without changing thoughts. I am a professional at this approach, but it does not pay very well.

So is changing your thoughts hard to do? A very good question. Changing your thoughts requires mental effort, and there are many who will live the physical life of a slave before they will be willing to put in some kind of mental effort.

But it is something that can be practiced, and with practice it is something that can be changed.

And once changed, watch out!

So is right-sizing really "effortless" for someone who has successfully changed their thoughts?

I believe YES. But I cannot yet prove it to you from my own experience. Still working on it.

I would love to hear from anyone out there who changed their thoughts for the better and found that rightsizing was a side effect.

What did you do exactly?

The world wants to know . . . .

Joseph

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

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

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

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

Rise of the Mega-Pastor

The book and movie The Secret are very much inspired by the Wallace Wattles book The Science of Getting Rich. In fact this is the book that Rhonda reports being given by her daughter that started everything off for her. (The cover page shot in the movie shows a different book, which is Secret of The Ages by Robert Collier).

I wish to address the following passage from The Science of Getting Rich:

"What is now needed is a demonstration of the science of life from the pulpit. We want preachers who can not only tell us how, but who in their own persons will show us how. We need the preacher who will himself be rich, healthy, great, and beloved, to teach us how to attain to these things; and when he comes he will find a numerous and loyal following."

Mr. Wattles wrote this 100 years ago. If he were alive today, I think he would visit Houston, point to Lakewood Church, and say: See! I told you so!

If you are one of the five people in America who have not heard of Lakewood Church or Pastor Joel Osteen, it is a non-denominational church following similar theology and methods as an Assembly of God church would. Pastor Osteen draws crowds of several tens of thousands every weekend, filling up the former Compaq Center, where the Houston Rockets used to play basketball. At the rate they are growing it seems that the currently unused 60,000 seat Astrodome might be the church's next location. The television audience is numbered in the millions.

To put things in a little perspective, I estimate that about 3-4 million people have had the opportunity to see the DVD movie The Secret. Pastor Osteen reaches twice that many people directly every single week. I do not know the numbers for the book.

And yet several other pastors and leaders from other churches level much criticism for Lakewood Church being really light on doctrine or even repentence, which is scarcely mentioned. In my mind Pastor Osteen is more a motivational speaker than a Pastor, but having grown up as the son of the former Pastor of Lakewood church it was natural for him to follow in his father's footsteps.

And yet to attend motivational seminars that are half as good as what is presented at Lakewood costs several hundred dollars. At Lakewood, the services and the parking are free. The church brings in millions upon millions of dollars from donations from the congregation and from the TV audience, which is quite interesting because the do not show collection on the TV program, and they never ask for money on the TV version (a great plan given what some TV preachers have done in the past).

So, why is this Pastor so popular?

Because his message describes a loving God who is always working to bring better things into our lives. All of his sermons discuss different ways that we block Him from doing that, and how we can stop blocking Him. It is a refreshing change of pace from those who preach that God is uncaring or uninterested in the details of a single persons life, or the message that true spirituality is obtained through poverty and lack.

As information comes to light in this age about the Law of Attraction, we can begin to understand how it was us, and not God, who caused most of what we are complaining about to happen to us. This is an important distinction!

If our afflictions are sent to us by God, then we would be absolutely powerless to do anything about them at all except for muddle through, and pray to the God who sent them to take them away. Does this seem like a disconnect to anyone?

What if instead we attracted them ourself? True or Not, this is a more empowering idea. You see if God is the cause of your afflictions, then i do not know how you do anything different than live your entire life as a victim. The God in this thought universe is the God of Justice, brimstone and damnation.

If instead you attracted them yourself via the Law of Attraction, then guess what? You can do something about it! Given we are taught that God helps those who help themselves, it is apparent that we were meant to do something about it ourselves. The God of this thought universe is the mentor, the loving father, the advocate. The one who wants to bless us with more than we can imagine, but also the one who knows when we are ready to handle something.

Pastor Osteen does exactly what Wallace Wattles said 100 years ago, and he certainly does not lack for a following.

Here is another item to consider. The success of Pastor Osteen is but an example of the success that every human being can attract once they get in line with the Universe and start using the talents that they were blessed with. Combine that with some marketing work to find the right audience, and a similar success story can belong to anyone else who seeks it.

And we should all seek it. How would you like to go to different cities and towns and have hundreds of people line up all telling you that you have so inspired them, that their life is so much better now since they have come to know you. Talk about a virtuous circle, here is the case of someone living in the magic of life.

All of us are meant to do the same, no matter how much we ignore it.

Joseph

The Evidence All Seems to Lead to This . . .

If you watch the DVD or read the book The Secret, then you have a great introduction to the Law of Attraction.

The movie says that the Law of Attraction is everywhere, if you are knowing what it is.

With this in mind, let's look at some of the current trends in the world and see if there is a Law of Attraction reason for them occurring. I will present all the evidence, and then draw a conclusion at the end. The conclusion will be something to consider, not doctrine.

1. The rich are getting richer. This is a matter of simple statistics. There are more millionaires than ever before, and the 400 richest people in the world are worth more than ever before. These numbers are growing in both cases, as more millionaires and more billionaires are coming along all the time.

2. The poor are getting poorer, and the middle class is shrinking. The reason that the middle class is shrinking is that more and more of them are joining the ranks of the rich or the poor.

3. According to the Bible and most Christian Churches, the wickedness on the Earth is increasing. It is projected that this will continue to happen up until the return of the Lord to the Earth.

4. This fact is less well known but should not be . . . but the spiritual gifts being bestowed upon the faithful are also increasing. The Spirit of the Lord is being felt by more and more people, and the work of the Lord is increasing in the Earth, and is also projected to continue doing so until and beyond when the Lord comes again.

5. Courtesy of the Internet and the Information Age, it is easier to start a new home based business now than ever before, and increasing numbers of those businesses are successful.

6. Courtesy of the credit card and banking industries, it is now easier to get into tremendous amounts of debt than ever before in history. This trend seems to continue as well.

7. The Network Marketing industry, once dismissed as a sham by most normal people, is growing more in the current 10 year period than it did in the last 50 years. More and more folks are trying Network Marketing, and more and more are succeeding. Big time recommendations for the industry are now coming from folks like Robert Kiyosaki and Donald Trump. This industry gives a person 100% control of their paycheck, for good or bad.

8. There seem to be more and more natural disasters occurring than there were before. Some would blame Global Warming. Whether that is a real thing or not, there is much more to this than what Global Warming could explain.

9. There is an increasing interest in books and movies like The Secret. Once thought of as "new age religion", now the ideas presented in the movie are reaching millions of people who are not new age followers.

10. There is an increasing interest in what we can collectively call the "dark arts", such as witchcraft and other related things.

11. There is a Wellness revolution going on in the world. More and more people are looking for products that will make them more healthy and will help them live longer.

12. The medical/hospital/drug industry is doing record business that is increasing all the time. A funny thing to consider when you understand that no one really wants to be a customer of this industry. In the US more than 1/7 of the entire economy is health care and related expenses. Currently this is more than one trillion dollars!

13. On national standardized tests, more people are scoring higher than in past years. Perfect scores on the SAT and the ACT were seldom heard of twenty years ago but are happening more often now. Some people are getting smarter and smarter all the time.

14. General test scores for the entire population are decreasing and the numbers of dropouts is increasing to levels not ever seem before.

15. Courtesy of the Internet, there is now more information at anyone's fingertips than ever before in human history.

16. The general ignorance level of society seems to be on the rise, despite the fact that the information is more available than ever before.

17. The amounts of layoffs that are occurring in the corporate world is increasing, and the number of people leaving jobs because they have found better jobs is also increasing. The amount of time on average that someone spends in a specific job is decreasing.

18. The number of jobs to do and business opportunities that are out there is greatly increasing, but the number of people who are willing to do these jobs and take risks on a new business is decreasing.

19. The amount of time that people spend watching television is increasing, along with the numbers of channels available. The amount of good information that can be learned from the television is steadily decreasing, even on the so called "news" channels.

20. The Democratic party is moving to the left, and the Republican party is moving to the right, and there seems to be less and less room in the center. Also in the United States, there seems to be about a 50/50 split between Democrats and Republicans, judging by recent national elections.

So, it appears that everything is being pushed to the extremes, or to the poles.

WHY ??

Because the Vibration of the entire Earth is INCREASING.

What does that mean? It means that the Earth's energy field is moving with an increased vibration, and as a result, the Law of Attraction is working faster.

Those who attract wealth are getting more all the time. Those who attract financial struggle are getting more and more of that. The middle class is disappearing because as the vibration increases, they will be forced into attracting riches or attracting struggle, the middle ground will disappear.

The righteous attract more righteousness. The wicked attract more wickedness. The fence sitters and the neutrals will be bumped in one direction or the other, because the middle ground is disappearing. Depending on how far this goes, we may find that we are either moving mountains with our faith, or fighting against God. Events will continue to happen that push us off the fence.

Notice how the common theme in everything else that I described is the disappearence of the middle ground. In the higher vibrational future we will either be really smart or really not.

So what do we want to do with this information?

Take a second to make sure you know which direction you are going.

Because the higher vibrartion of the Earth is going to push you there faster than you expected to get there, for good or bad.

So where are you headed?

Joseph

What is the best thing that you can do ??

For yourself or for another . . . What is the best thing that you can do?

Consider the following from the DVD movie The Secret from Joe Vitale (Also Book P. 37):

"It's really important that you feel good, because this feeling good is what goes out as a signal into the Universe and starts to attract more fo itself to you. So the more you can feel good, the more you will attract the things that will help you feel good, and are able to keep bringing you up higher and higher."

This is one of the facets of The Secret that is so simple, I am convinced that many completely ignore it. How could just feeling good help anything, and how can we feel good when we have this thing and that thing and life keeps happening to us?

Well, this is reactive mode, and it is the way that we have generally been taught to approach life. Wait for something to happen and then react to it. Learn something first and then do it. Look for someone who is nice and then be nice back. Do something, so that you can Be something.

I would argue that The Secret teaches us to live life in Proactive mode. Decide what we will feel and then feel it. Do something in order to learn it. Be nice first with no particular concern about the response. Be something, so that you can Do something.

Other aspects taught in the movie help this one. Feeling Gratitude is feeling good, there is no separation. Visualizing what we want should feel good, and if it does not then we need to do it differently so that it does feel good. Taking inspired action really feels good, because it is taken with the knowledge that the Universe is behind us every step of the way.

Asking should feel good. Truly believing feels really good, and if it does not then we are not truly believing. Unbelief is a real stopper. It must be smashed. Receiving feels great!

Doubt and Fear, or anything else on the bad side of the Emotional guidance scale, never feel good. Nor do negative thoughts, but The Secret is not about preventing those from slipping in, it's about how to show them the exit.

So you have a friend who is not where they want to be perhaps. The best thing that they could do would be to feel good. Perhaps the best thing that could be said to them is "Get a better feeling", but if they are unfamiliar with The Secret they will not likely understand that.

What is the best thing for us if we perceive we are not where we want to be?

Get a better feeling, and do it in the NOW.

Joseph

How Much Does Enlightenment Cost?

I will be on a tightrope for this one, because there are some fine lines here.

I once went to an investment seminar that cost about a thousand dollars. Using the tools I was taught at that seminar, and believing that I was a pro because of attending that seminar, I proceeded to lose several thousand dollars in the stock market. I do not play the market anymore. I learned one thing for my thousands of dollars lost and spent: The market is controlled by fear and greed. The truth of the matter is that no one knows which way the market will go tomorrow, but everyone can tell you why it did what it did today.

You know what? People who were friends of mine had tried to tell me that, but I did not believe them. That unbelief cost me thousands of dollars. I would have to say that the one thousand dollar seminar was not a good value.

There was one thing said at the seminar that did impress me however. One of the presenters asked the crowd if they were suddenly given $20,000.00 to invest, how much of that would they spend on their financial education, and how much would they invest directly?

The presenter said that he would spend 15 of 20 thousand on his financial education, and I remember being impressed by that.

So here is something I found that was a great value . . . The DVD movie The Secret. For just over $30.00 (shipping included) one can have this DVD that presents the Law of Attraction, and does a great job explaining it! The book The Secret, at a similar price, is also a great value.

There are many other books that talk about these topics, several by the teachers in the movie. These are all fairly inexpensive, and the several I have read have all been very good.

Even I got into the act! I wrote a 30 page eBook around The Secret DVD that goes more in depth into the history, some of the subliminal things in the movie, trivia pieces, and a whole lot more. All of that can be had for less than the cost of the movie as well. Do you know which teacher got the most time in each edition? Read my eBook and find out!

But what about the two thousand dollar seminar that purports to reveal all of the "secrets that were left out of the secret" ??

You will undoubtedly get some great information out of such a seminar, but at that price point, it is pretty difficult to see the value it would provide, because your earning power would have to change fairly drastically and quickly to make up for that much money out the door. One would really need to compare and see if they would not make more money by placing that 2000 dollars in a safe investment that returned money to them.

There is the aspect that someone will take it more seriously if they spend so much money on it. Everyone has to decide for themself if this is true for them. I say: Would it not be easier to train ourself to take something seriously without having to put that much money down?

My concern is mostly for those who are new to all of the ideas in The Secret, and who will plop down a large amount of money in the hopes that this will save them from having to do their own research and come to their own understanding.

So I offer a humble suggestion. Set a percentage of your income that you will spend on your own personal development. There is not a better thing in the world to spend money on, except for buying assets that put money in your pocket every month. If you can, start a business in a area where you have talent and enjoying doing it and set aside a percentage of those profits as well for your personal development.

In the beginning with this plan you would have to start out small. Buy a couple of books, or get them at the library. Put what you learn into production and see if it brings you increased income or increased enjoyment which will lead to increased income. Use the books to grow your business. Do not forget the books on Sales and Marketing.

As your business grows, or you income increases as a result of doing this, you will have more to spend and will graduate to buying more expensive things.

But here is a critical point . . . .

If you business does not grow, and your income or your enjoyment have not increased, then it means that there are some basic elements of The Secret which you have not understood yet in their entirety. If you have not yet fully understood and proven the basics, then spending more money will not typically help you. It would be like taking calculus before understanding algebra. You will learn some neat things, but it will not help you.

Is this a failure if we go this way? Only in the sense that everyone's ultimate path to success is built on what they have learned from previous failures. Avoiding failure is a 100% known way to never reach a big success.

So stick to the plan. There is enough in the initial book or DVD to get someone started in the right direction. There is enough additional information for free on the Internet to keep us busy at first. Let's make sure we understand the basics via proving it with increased income and increased enjoyment. It is a staircase to success, not a high jump.

Joseph

God and The Secret

Those of you who have watched the movie The Secret or read the book know that they reveal some amazing things, many of which seem like spiritual truths.

And yet they are not doing it from the point of view of any specific religion. In fact the concept of God is barely mentioned; and never discussed.

Add to that the quote by Neale Donald Walsch about "no one will stand in judgement of it, now or forever", and it is not a surprise that some start to wonder if the truths taught in The Secret can be reconciled with their religious beliefs. And what about all the money? Materialism?

If you have had any of that conflict within you, then I salute you. The truths taught in this movie are very powerful, and yet it is a good thing for us to be careful at first with any new information until we can apply the "test of truth" to it.

And what is the "test of truth"? That is the question now isn't it! For those who follow the Christian scriptures, the answer is given by the Lord Himself: "By their fruits ye shall know them". In other scripture we read that "all that is good cometh from God".

Things that are good invite, entice, and persuade all men to do good. The movie makes the delicate point that you must think good before you can really do good. All of their efforts to help us "think good" are for one sole purpose, and that is so that we might do more good, provide more value, enhance more lives, including our own. The movie is making the point that we must enhance our own life before we can clearly enhance another, and this is in line with the messages from Robert Collier and Wallace Wattles upon whom much of this work is based.

So the question becomes: Does the movie and the book do the things that we just described?

Everyone must answer this question for themselves, I would never presume to do it for you.

But if you come to the answer that it is good, and as such ultimately from God, then comes the part of fitting it in with what you already believe about God.

This need not be an arduous exercise. I cannot spell out how every belief fits in because there is a very wide variety of religious beliefs, but I can state a few things that may help. Obtaining clarity of mind and singleness of purpose will bring the required inspiration for the rest.

1. Why is God mentioned so little in the movie?
A: I make a guess, because I was not involved in the production of the movie, but I am pretty sure it was done in order to make the movie acceptable to as wide an audience as possible. If any hint of the movie leaning towards any specific religion appeared, then a great many people who were not of that faith might feel less welcomed. This was done because it had to be done to reach as wide of an audience as it has reached.

2. What does the Neale Donald Walsch quote mean about no one standing in judgement?
A: Neale can correct me if I am wrong, but I believe that he is referring to what we decide to do with our life, i.e. our career or our choice of what to do with our free time. There are some who believe that God wills them to a certain career, which in some cases is a career that they do not enjoy. The movie says "Follow Your Bliss". He is saying that God will not adversely judge those that do so. The scriptures say that man should, of his own free will and choice, bring to pass much righteousness, and be anxiously engaged in a good cause; and following one's bliss will always lead to a career or a business that will provide great value to others, and bring much good to the world. Compare this to slaving away at a job we do not like ??

3. They talk so much about money and lots of it, but isn't it more spiritual to be poor? I mean, when the Lord was here, he did not seek for riches.
A: 100% the truth! The Lord did not seek Himself for riches, although the temptor tried to use them to entice Him once. When you have the command of the Natural Laws of the Universe as He did, and can manifest food and other things at any time, then there would be little need to ever worry about money or how much of it you had.
But for the rest of us, the scripture says this: By the sweat of your face shall you eat your bread all the days of your life . . .

The world runs by money. Those breadwinners who do not attempt to earn some are not doing what they should. The scripture says that it is the love of money that is the root of all evil, and others have said that it is the lack of money that is the root of all evil.

But it is the love of people that is the root of all good, independent of any amount of money.

There is one case and one case only where it is more spiritual to be poor . . . it is the case of someone who loves something else, possibly money, more than people. The poverty that is faced will often help the person to humble themselves, and seek for God. Those who humble themselves and seek for God will of a surety find Him. Once they find Him, then the way will be made clear for them to love their fellow man.

A prophet once said to a group of the poverty stricken: I behold that your poverty hath humbled you, and in your humility you have sought the Lord and been blessed. But more blessed are those who humble themselves without being compelled to be humble; those who remember the Lord and love people in their prosperity. Those who give thanks in all things.

Unto such will more prosperity be given, because they use it to bring value and good to the world, and thus the vibration is strengthened.

So is it more spiritual to be poor? Only in the case described above. If we love people, and are providing value to the world, then having more money will only mean one thing:

We will have more resources with which to love people, and bring more value to the world.

And we will ultimately conquer lack thinking, which has been programmed into most of us for years and years and for generations and generations. I personally see this as one of the great awakenings of this life; the chance to conquer lack thinking once and for all.

Because where we are going, it will not serve us. Greater enlightenment is now coming to the world, not moving away from it.

Those who are grateful for the enlightenment that they have will recieve more, yea even an hundred fold.

Joseph

The Emerald Tablet

In the very first part of the movie The Secret, we see Rhonda reading the book A History of Egypt. Soon after that, we are shown a depiction of "The Emerald Tablet". Have you ever wondered what said tablet says? Well here you go, with commentary. This translation is by Sir Isaac Newton himself.

1. Tis true without lying, certain & most true.
-- A lot of "truth" there. No lies to ultimately get us to the truth.

2. That which is below is like that which is above & that which is above is like that which is below to do the miracles of one only thing.
-- As Above, so below.
-- This is a powerful statement designed to help us understand the relationship between us and God/The Universe. We tend to think that us vs. God = Two VERY different things, but this suggests otherwise. And what are the "miracles of the one only thing"?
-- We call them manifestations . . . or the results of the Law of Attraction.

3. And as all things have been & arose from one by the meditation of one: so all things have their birth from this one thing by adaptation.
-- As within, so without.
-- All things arose from one by the meditation of one . . . well who was that I wonder? :-)
-- So all other things are born of this one thing. Are we still thinking we are so much different from God now? Yes He is better at manifesting than all of us . . . but what did Jesus mean when he said the following? "The works that I do shall he (they) do also; and greater works than these shall he (they) do, because I go to my Father".

4. The Sun is its father, the moon its mother,
-- Put now into terms of objects that are familiar to us, namely the two biggest things in the sky.

5. The wind hath carried it in its belly, the earth its nurse.
-- We are still talking about the "one thing" here. The manifestations of attraction and vibration.

6. The father of all perfection in the whole world is here.
-- Some are quite sure that he left us to fend for ourselves.

7. Its force or power is entire if it be converted into earth.
-- What is the proof of the Law of Attraction? When your manifestation takes physical form! All things are created Spiritually before they can be created Physically.

7a. Separate thou the earth from the fire, the subtle from the gross sweetly with great industry.
-- Understand that the spiritual creation lives within the physical one.

8. It ascends from the earth to the heaven & again it desends to the earth and receives the force of things superior & inferior.
-- Still talking about the one thing, in this case how our thought energy transcends all time and space to bring us things both superior (what we want) and inferior (what we do not want).

9. By this means you shall have the glory of the whole world & thereby all obscurity shall fly from you.
-- A message for anyone who thinks that any human life should be lived in obscurity!
-- Something to ponder: What is the glory of the whole world?

10. Its force is above all force, for it vanquishes every subtle thing & penetrates every solid thing.
-- Even Physical walls are not as powerful as our manifestations based on our thoughts will be. When we finally allow ourselves to understand this truth, then our power shines forth. Then we really can be "The Light of the World". And the light of the body is the eye . . . therefore if thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light!

11. So was the world created.
-- By the Law of Attraction. A fairly sizable manifestation.

12. From this are & do come admirable adaptations where of the means (or process) is here in this.
-- When so many of us understand our power, and manifest awesome things, the vibration of the entire planet is raised. This in turn helps all of us raise our vibration further. It is a virtuous circle.

13. Hence I am called Hermes Trismegist, having the three parts of the philosophy of the whole world.
-- Note from the author. These are the conclusions of his study of all philosophy.

14. That which I have said of the operation of the Sun is accomplished & ended.
-- So we do not have to wait for any reason, the timing of our manifestation is RIGHT NOW. All things that are needed to be created to support us are here with us, and we with them.

-- Final thought: The message of the Emerald Tablet is alchemy, and is also that there is plenty of power for personal transformation, and that we have been ignoring our power for long enough now.

A glorious work in progress . . .

Joseph

From Whence Cometh Happiness ??

OK, if you were paying very close attention to the scene in The Secret with John Asseref's vision board, the you saw the statement printed thereon: Joy is the best measure of success!

I often hear people say something like the following: When I have _____, then I will be happy.

The statement is born out of a misunderstanding. Happiness is not a destination. Happiness is a journey. What is the difference beteeen happiness and joy? Joy is a feeling, and an emotion. Happiness is a lifestyle.

So what is required for happiness? You could ask anyone who is truly happy. The following ideas are meant to get you thinking about the subject, not to convert you to a certain way of thinking.

Is living in a nice house required to be happy? Yes. But there are *all* kinds of nice houses. Who has to think it is a nice house? Why you, of course.

Is having prosperous circumstances required to be happy? Well, I had to think on this one for a moment, but No, not required. I would like to say it helps, but in some cases it hinders.

Is being grateful for our current conditions required? Yes! 110% Yes.

Is knowing about or trying to live the Law of Attraction required? Sorry guys, but No.

Is the opportunity taken to be of a benefit to others required to be happy? Aye Aye. Yes.

Must we seek for spirituality in order to be happy? Yes, if we want all of it.

Must we drive a luxury car in order to be happy? Only if we think so.

Can we be happy or have joy in any kind of dishonest dealings? Nada. Nothing that lowers our vibration will make us happy.

Can we be a victim and also be happy?

No, not completely.

Can we be happy even if we have bad memories, or memeories of bad things?

Those are all in the past. Happiness and joy are in the now. In the now redefines the future.

Does being forgiving make us happy? A definite Yes. Its not bad for the rest of the world either.

Does uplifting others make us happy? Yes! A proven way to get there.

Do any of the emotions on the "bad" side of the emotional guidance scale make us happy?

YES.

But only when we realize that they are guidance telling us something, and when we properly understand what the guidance is telling us. That lesson will invariably lead us to happiness and joy, but short of that, NO.

Is there ONE overriding principle; One grand emotion; One mode of thinking that includes all of the others already listed; that is empowering within itself; which all low vibration flees from; which overpowers all negativity; which casteth out all fear; which destroys all doubt; which energizes all who come in contact with it; which has the power to command all other emotions; which raises our vibration to a Heavenly state; which is the best conduit in this lifetime to understand God; which puts us in total 100% command of all aspects of our reality; which shapes our very existence; which transcends all other human emotion ??

Well I am glad that you asked . . .

Because YES there is . . .

What is it ??

You already know,

and you never needed me to tell you.

I just wanted to be there when you fully realized it.

Now that you know . . .

What can you do now?

Love,

Joseph

A Great Example of Follow Your Bliss!

One of the best things, I think, about the popularity of the movie The Secret is the number of people who are now trying to "Follow Their Bliss" to attract greater success into their lives.

The movie does not speak any at all about talent, but what seems to happen is that once someone starts to follow their bliss, then they suddenly discover talents they have that were previously undeveloped or unused.

There was a striking example of this recently on the show Britian's Got Talent, which is similar to the US show American Idol. Paul Potts, a shy mobile phone salesperson from Wales, had often thought of singing for a living. It was something that he enjoyed doing. It was something that he was pretty good at.

But it was not something that he had DONE.

And all of that potential talent was just sitting on the shelf --- gathering dust.

But he finally decided to do something about his dream. The following clip shows his initial performance on the show. No one had ever heard of him, and no one knew what to expect. Watch what happened . . .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9oxTy7KIAaA

(I will let you have just a moment to recover)

. . .

. . .

Well what was future then is history now, and history records that not only did Paul Potts capture everyone's imagination after that first performance, he went on to win the entire competition!

As a result he was set to sing before the Queen, and also is working on, if he has not already released his first CD.

What a great story! Because he was willing to take a risk in front of the whole world, his life has been completely transformed! He followed his bliss, and the Universe opened doors where there had been only walls.

Well that's great for Paul. . .

But what about us?

If we are seeing walls, and not doors, then we should check to see if we are doing what we really want to do. As we develop our talents in those areas, we will become top 1% in the world for what it is that we do. See my previous post on talents for more on this.

May you find the doors that the Universe wants you to find.

Joseph

To Earn, or Not to Spend! That is the Question.

If you are like me, in your past you were taught the following:

You must spend less than you earn.

This statement is of course 100% correct! It is also the worst kind of *lack* thinking. Did you notice that they did not say this once in the movie The Secret ??

Whoa! You say, I learned that from the financial books that I read! --- I know. So did I.

Let me be clear that it is not a sin to think this way. Also 99% of the world thinks this way.

. . . but . . .

God does not think this way. And believing this, we find we now need to pay attention.

Lack thinking will prevent us from living in the magic of life; but we are not required to live in the magic of life, it's only if we want to!

Lack thinking will encourage the Universe to manifest financial issues for us; but we are not required to have financial issues, it's only if we *want* them.

And for those of you who say "but I have financial issues and I do NOT want them!" ----- There you go again, focusing on what you do not want. You are attracting it.

OK, you say, if "spend less than you earn" is lack thinking, what should you say instead?

I am sooooooo glad that you asked!

Are you ready ???

Make more than you spend.

It's really just that simple. Think about it. Focus of statement one is "spend less". Focus of statement two is "make more". Notice the implicit statements as well . . .
1. Spend less than you earn (Your income is limited so you must be sure to not test it).
2. Make more than you spend (Your income is unlimited, you can decide how much you want).

I must thank Robert Kiyosaki for the following, which is further proof of this:
Poor Dad Always Said: I cannot afford it. (Shuts the brain down)
Rich Dad Always Said: How can I afford it? (Gives the brain some creating to do)

Neither had the money to afford it at the beginning. Its not even about whether we have the money at the beginning . . . it's about whether we think lack, or think abundance.

And while that is easy to write, it is a little tougher to do if we have not practiced. The following should help.

We must listen to ourselves. What we speak is powerful. Are we speaking lack? We must stop immediately!

An experiment. Think of a money amount right now that if you had that much in the bank you would be set for life. How does that feel? Now compare: Multiply that amount that you just thought about by 1000, and get a new amount. Now how does it feel having this new amount? If it feels worse, or if you are now in any way afraid, then you have some issues with money that need to be cleared up.

Do not forget yourself! If there was fear in your experiment, was that possibly because you know that having money of that magnitude really enhances who and what you already are, and you are just not 100% sure that who and what you are is where it should be yet?

Now for the kicker . . . . .

When you think of "money", do you respond with A. Love? or B. Fear?

Maybe you are thinking of the scripture that says "for the love of money is the root of all evil". And because of that, you now have a fear of loving money. Is it any wonder we are all messed up on this one?

May I suggest that having feelings of love around money, and "loving money", are two completely different things? Being evil is the root of all evil. Having money only determines how widespread that evil would be. "Loving money" means not loving people, and THAT is the problem the scripture seeks to address, and it gets progressively worse the more money there is. Sometimes this problem is called "pride". One slays it with Gratitude.

But we must seek to have feelings of love around money; like we feel like we trust it, we can count on it to be there for us, it won't let us down. We can count on it to grow for us and manifest more than we need.

Your bills? All opportunities to express appreciation in the form of money. The balance on your last bank statement? The Past. Put the feelings of love around money, and it will start to show respect to you.

Money loves to come where it is welcomed, and it is welcomed by value. Find a way to provide more.

Joseph

The Big Decisions

I will cover two of them. These topics are hinted at in the movie The Secret, but not addressed directly.

Decision 1: Love or Fear? Sometimes the same question is phrased as Faith or Fear?

When something that you are not expecting manifests. . . Oh what did I do to derserve (or to attract) this ??

Irrelavent. It's here now. It's coming is in the past, it's going is in the future, but your decision is RIGHT NOW.

The scripture says: For perfect love casteth out all fear. Not surprisingly, perfect fear casteth out all love.

How do we feel when we choose love? That's guidance telling us that we are doing the right thing!

How do we feel when we choose fear? That's emotional guidance telling us that we are now acting in a way that is contrary to our true nature. If we were supposed to be fearful beings, then emotional guidance would have us feeling really good about that fear.

We never feel good about False Evidence Appearing Real.

Decision 2: Freedom or Security? Some may feel that these are the same thing. They are not.

In fact the one repels the other. Seeking security reduces freedom, and seeking freedom can seem to reduce security, at least at first.

Who has the most Security? The people in Prison. Very little freedom though (Thank You Robert Kiyosaki for this one :-) ).

Who has the most Freedom? Those who have obtained all three of the three dimensions of success. They are 1. Financial Freedom -- 2. Time Freedom -- 3. Freedom to bring Joy to others. (Thank You Donna Johnson for that).

Those who seek Security seek for a Job. One with benefits and a Secure paycheck. In exchange they give up their time freedom for 40-80 hours a week (counting commuting time).

Those who seek Freedom seek for a Business. One that they can build to the point where they have both financial and time freedom. One with which they can bring Joy to the life of others. One in which they are rewarded according to the value that they provide.

The happy compromise? Keep your day job, and start your own business.

One last thing. The combination of both questions can change your life. Seeking security based on fear will reduce your freedoms. Think: Patriot Act, Domestic Spying. Only a fearful population will consent to giving up these freedoms.

Seeking freedom based on love is the hidden doorway to the magical NOW.

The magic and joy is in the journey, AND the destination.

It is not an exclusive road.

You can drive whatever (business) vehicle you want. . .

See you there.

Joseph

What if a Dawn of a Doom of a Dream

Yes, you recognize the words: e. e. cummings.

This post is about how your dream may not dawn because of doom.

In simpler terms, you desire may not manifest because it is blocked.

There are only two things that can block it, both self inflicted.

1. Fear. The word is an acronym. False Evidence Appearing Real.
2. Doubt. The word is an acronym. Defeat Originality Under Bogus Thoughts.

The movie and book The Secret does not list these two separately, but they are included on the negative emotions list.

If you have perceived a lack of success in some aspect of your life, and you have had a negative emotion that corresponded with that event, let us be clear what this means. . .

I credit Carol Tuttle for this idea from her book Remembering Wholeness. She was also greatly influenced by Louise Hay.

The negative emotion that was associated with the event was a clear indicator that this unsuccessful event was not in alignment with what your life should be.

If you were supposed to be a failure, you would have positive emotions around that failure, indicating that what has happened was representative of the real you.

But I know you did not.

Because I know you.

And you are meant to live an abundant life.

He who has conquered Doubt and Fear has conquered failure, and yet the difference between the successful and the less so is that the former view failure as a stepping stone to success, while the latter view failure as a referendum on their life policies.

No one remembers that Thomas Edison invented 10,000 different ways to make a light bulb that did not work, except for me, but I am a special case. He is generally remembered for inventing one version of the light bulb that did work, after 10,000 unsuccessful tries.

And while it is true that if first you do not succeed, so much for sky-diving . . . we generally find that our failures are steps along the path to our ultimate success.

If we learn from them.

Learn.

Joseph

The Law of Attraction and . . . . . The Lottery ???

Please stick with me on this one, because the point I want to make is going to take a little bit to get there. There are several images of "The Lottery" in the movie The Secret. In my mind those images are just meant to convey the idea of a boat-load of money, but is the movie suggesting that The Lottery is a possible way that we might want to attract money?

Because the laws of mathematics are just as valid as the Law of Attraction, and the Lottery is mathematically designed for millions of people to play and only one to win the big jackpot. This is to say that by design, millions of people will play and lose at every drawing. Now I am not here to say that one person cannot attract the win, but I am here to say that if too many people start attracting the win, then the win will be watered down until it is not worth anything anymore, because the big jackpot is divided by the number of winners.

Let me tell a fictionalized version of a true story. There was a woman, we will call her Laura, who had come to a point where she had hit rock bottom in her life. Her father died suddenly, and her whole life was in turmoil. Little did she know, but our of her greatest despair would come the most wonderful blessing!

She had been introduced to a Great Secret, in the form of a 100 year old book. She grew excited about this and traced The Secret back through history. She could not believe that there were other people alive today that knew this Great Secret, but she was able to find and study them. Based on her studies, she became a very powerful attractor!

She then thought (and here is where the story moves into fiction), "I am a great attractor! I think I will try my hand at The Lottery!" Well sure enough she plays the Lottery and she wins! She wins the big jackpot! All hints of money troubles are over for the rest of her life, because she has also attracted being smart with her money.

Well she moves on with the knowledge that she can attract whatever she wants. She tries to tell all of her friends about this great gift, but she is not able to make them understand, and ultimately they all ascribe her great success to pure dumb luck. She lives happily ever after . . .

But we do not. All the great blessings of the movie and book The Secret never occur.

Because you see, in her focus on how to attract money, she did not also focus on providing any value. The Lottery is the world's number one way to attract money without providing any shred of value in return. Pyramid schemes, legal or illegal, are the number two way to attract money without providing any value in return.

But Laura does learn one important lesson that she could have never otherwise learned . . .

It is lonely at the top.

(Now for the truth of the story)

The truth is that this is not a fictional story, and our hero's name is Rhonda, not Laura. But Rhonda had a great desire to tell others about the great discoveries that she had made. She wanted to share the value that she had found for herself with others.

So instead of attracting a win at the Lottery, she instead took an extremely large risk. She hired a very skilled production company to help her make a movie, and she talked some of the world's foremost experts on the Law of Attraction to be interviewed for a movie at no payment. Millions of dollars where spent to make the production worth watching, and two farms were given away to pay for a teacher named Esther Hicks.

All of this was done with no guarentee whatsoever that anyone would ever buy the movie or be interested in it, or that the original TV station that they had an agreement with would ever air it. In fact the original TV station never did air it as they were supposed to.

But of course the rest of the story is history. The movie was a smashing success, it has inspired literally millions of people the world over, and ALL OF THIS because one person was looking for a way to share value that she had found in her own life with others.

OR NOT. She could have just played the Lottery and attracted the win. Lived happily ever after. The movie and the book The Secret go *poof* into nothingness. This entire Secrets of The Secret blog ceases to exist. The great Secret forum at powerfulintentions.com disappears, along with any wisdom gained by anyone reading it.

So should we look to attract money without providing value in return?

Well its our decision. It's either:

1. Lonely at the top.

- or -

2. Unspeakable joy in every soul that we are able to help.

So decide already.

Joseph

Success as a Second Language

Its either Esther Hicks, or Bob Proctor, or both in the original movie The Secret who talk about the words that we speak, but other than their short phrases, the story goes back to what we are visulaizing, feeling, and thinking.

"We see that those who speak most of prosperity have it". "We see that those who speak most of disease have it".

So the question becomes, how does one "speak" of prosperity?

If we were not brought up in a home where parents spoke of prosperity, and if we have not been in another group where they speak of prosperity, then the words may be foreign to us, and learning to speak them might be something like learning to speak a different language.

As a second language.

I will outline a phased approach. In Phase One, we identify the words that we speak which are anti-prosperity and we eliminate them as possible. We pay very close attention to the words "I Am . . . ", and we are very careful to never let ourselves utter those words followed by anything negative! We begin to understand the power of the words: Are you living well? Yes, I Am.

Phase Two. We have all had multiple success events in our lives. How do we speak when we speak of these? We will learn to speak positively of these if we do not do so already. Our past success is NEVER the result of luck. In phase two we can listen to ourselves as we speak about our own past successes. Why were we successful? What made us stick to it? How did we overcome the odds? How did we manifest that awesome thing? How did we win? Are you remembering well? Yes, I Am.

Phase Three. Given that we are the exact same person who just spoke about all those wonderful success stories, we begin to know that the thoughts we thought, and the feelings we felt, and the talents we used, and the actions we took, brought us to those past success stories; and will lead us to the future ones, which can be awesomely bigger. Are you Believing Well? Yes, I Am.

Now we will remember the same language we used to describe our past success, and use it again to describe our future success. Eventually we will be able to talk of our future success as if it had already happened in a way that makes sense. Our speech will become inspiring to us and perhaps also to others. Are you speaking well? Yes, I Am.

Now we have learned the language, so we will know all the passwords.

Speak and Grow Rich

Joseph

Is it harder to attract Positive than Negative?

If you want to get really technical I think you would have to say that neither one is "hard" to do.

We may have a lot more experience with one than we do with the other.

In the movie The Secret, Dr Beckwith says that an affirmative thought is hundreds of times more powerful that a negative thought, adding that this fact has been proven scientifically.

Does it follow that a positive attraction is hundreds of times more powerful? Does the fact that the natural state of the entire Universe is prosperity and wonder mean that it should be easier to attract those things?

Some people put a lot of mental effort attracting negative circumstances into their lives. Does that sound crazy? People do it all the time. Of course much, if not all, of that is the subconscious doing the attracting; but that subconscious program was written based on thoughts and experiences that came down from the conscious mind.

So for any who seem to be still attracting a lot of negative things I say the following . . .

Take a Break.

Look at the grass. It does not struggle to grow, it is just an intelligent design. The wind blows whithersoever it will. The same designer who created these things created us. Feel gratitude for the grass, the wind, the sun, and the thousands of other little blessings occurring in our lives that we pay no attention to and thus express no appreciation for. Express verbal appreciation at every opportunity.

The first step in manifesting the positive is to stop working so hard manifesting the negative.

Do it!

Joseph

The Truths Hidden in the Fairy Tales

For the initial idea covered in this post I credit David Maestas. He is a regular poster on the official Secret forums and has great ideas that he shares with everyone.

Consider this quote form Rhonda Bryne, the creater of The Secret:

"The greatest teachers and Avatars have shared the creative process through their wondrous work, in a myriad of forms. Some great teachers created stories to demonstrate how the universe works. The wisdom of their stories has been handed down through the centuries and has become legendary. Many people living today do not realize that the essence of these stories is the very truth of life."

Just like the story of Aladdin shared in the movie. Isn't it just like our lack an limitation society, that the story was changed over time to allow for only three wishes; when originally the wishes were unlimited? For someone who understands the Law of Attraction and lives in the "magic of life", the wishes truly are unlimited.

More than just a process of understanding, it is really a matter of remembering. We sometimes think in terms of education, meaning that we learn something that we did not previously know. However if you trace the word back you will find that it comes from the Latin word Educo. The word Educo means to "bring out from within", or "to remember".

As the poet Wordsworth once wrote: Our birth is but a sleep, and a forgetting.

To find the magic of life we must remember.

The poet continues:

The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting, And cometh from afar:
Not in entire forgetfulness, And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home.

You see, the reason that it is a remembering is because . . . .

We knew it all before!

And we are meant to find it all again. And we will.

Joseph

The Best Measure of Success

Ask someone what they think the best measure of success would be for a new business venture, and they will likely reply with an answer centered around money; as in: has the venture made any money, or how much money has the venture made?

And while the money is certainly a critical componant, the movie The Secret is trying to teach us something a little bit different than that. So what is the best measure of success?

The answer to the question flys by so quickly in the movie that you probably missed it. The answer is on a card taped to John Asseref's vision board. No one in the movie actually says these words, but the card says "Joy is the best measure of success". Profound!

Now the business venture must ultimately be profitable; because joy will not last if the venture that is what we want to do is not able to surplant the current income we have, which is earned from what we may like to do and what we are doing currently.

Joy comes from using our talents to serve others. Some believe that serving others is designed to be a non-profit business. Many churches teach that service does not count if you are actually paid for it; then it's not service, its a business.

I would agree with that sentiment except for one small problem, that problem being that we were placed here on Earth (generally) without an endless supply of cash already given. As a result, we have to do something that earns us money. I think that some of these churches would say that we earn a living with drudgery, and then find joy in the volunteer service of others.

Why do they have to be separate? If we can arrange a way to be paid for the service that we render that gives us joy, then is that not what we should do? It does not mean that we cannot contribute time to volunteer causes (or money), but it gives us permission to make money doing what we love to do.

The joy and the magic of life will not be fully realized until we are able to spend all of our time doing what brings us joy, and being paid enough doing it to provide financial freedom, however we may define that.

Joseph