Is there really a Secret?
May 21st, 2009 by Bill
Children’s Story (from the Buddhist tradition)
Rainy Day, Sunny Day
Mrs. Smith always seemed to be crying. She cried so much that her neighbours referred to her, rather unkindly, as ‘the crying woman’. The reason was simple. She was constantly worried about one or other of her two sons. They were shopkeepers. The elder son sold umbrellas, and the younger son sold ice cream. On sunny days she would worry about the elder son: ‘Oh, just look at the weather!’ she would say. ‘No sign of rain today. My poor son won’t sell a single umbrella!’ And she would break down in floods of tears and her weeping would last the whole day.
On rainy days she would worry about her younger son. ‘The weather is so bad today,’ she would lament. ‘Nobody wants ice cream on a rainy day. My poor son won’t do any business.’ And this thought would make her weep uncontrollably.
One day she was visited by her cousin, Mrs. Jones. They hadn’t seen each other for years and Mrs. Jones was surprised to find her cousin looking so glum. ‘What’s the matter with you?’ she asked. ‘When we were younger you were quite jolly, but now you seem so sad.’
Mrs. Smith explained her problem. ‘I can’t stop worrying about my sons. On rainy days I worry about my son trying to sell ice cream, and when it’s sunny I worry about the son who’s trying to sell umbrellas. There always seems to be a reason for me to cry.’
Mrs. Jones thought for a moment and then she smiled. ‘The answer to your problem is very simple,’ she said. ‘On sunny days, don’t worry about the son selling umbrellas, think instead about the good business that the ice cream seller will be doing. And on rainy days, don’t worry about the ice cream seller, just be glad for the son selling umbrellas!’
Mrs. Smith followed her cousin’s instructions and pretty soon she stopped her crying. She realized that one of her sons would be doing good business, whatever the weather was like. And it wasn’t too long before the neighbours started to call her, ‘the smiling woman’!
Every now and then a ‘religious’ or ‘spiritual’ book is published which seems to capture the attention of the general public. In recent years we have had Conversations with God, The Celestine Prophecy, numerous books by Deepak Chopra, Paolo Coelho’s The Alchemist, and, the one that seemed to start the trend a few decades ago, Jonathan Livingstone Seagull. Currently, the book that everyone is buying is The Secret, by Rhonda Byrne, which has been the best-selling hardback in Ireland for some months. It’s expensively produced on glossy paper, and every attempt has been made to give it the appearance of an old document – archaic script here and there, arcane symbols, representations of wax seals and so on – reinforcing the idea that the reader is going to be introduced to information which has been locked away for centuries and is only now coming to light. And this is precisely the intention, because the book suggests that there is an ancient secret of living life fully and happily which was known to the seers of old, and which is now being presented to the world so that we can all share its life-transforming power.
And what is the secret? The author uses the words of Bob Procter to explain it:
One Law. It’s attraction! The Secret is the law of attraction!
Do you get what’s being said here? If you are poor it’s not because of misfortune or fecklessness, it’s because you are thinking poverty. If you are overweight it’s not because you eat too much, it’s because you are thinking fat. If you are single it’s not because you are unattractive or inept, it’s because you are thinking lonely. (Notice how the three preoccupations of the people who might buy this book are used as examples of the process.) Thoughts are things, says Rhonda. Thoughts have power. Whatever thoughts you send out to the Universe will come back to you with unfailing regularity. Change your thinking, she says, and you change your life.
The rest of the book shows you how to do it. There are three simple steps: Act, believe, and receive. First you have to be clear about what it is that you want. Be precise about this, be bold, and be positive – that is, don’t dwell on what it is that you don’t want. One way to do this is to write your request down. Concentrate on this. Make images of it in your mind. If you want a particular car, then find some pictures of it and stick them around the house. Go and take a test drive. Imagine yourself behind the wheel. Imagine putting it in the garage. Imagine the envious eyes of your friends and neighbours.
The second step is to believe that you already have it. ‘Believing,’ says Rhonda, ‘involves acting, speaking, and thinking as though you have already received what you’ve asked for. When you emit the frequency of having received it, the law of attraction moves people, events, and circumstances for you to receive.’ (page 68) One woman, who asked the Universe to provide a perfect mate for her, was unsuccessful until she realised that she wasn’t behaving as if she already had what she wanted. She was still parking her car in the middle of a two-car garage and sleeping in the middle of a double-bed. So she changed her habits. She cleared the garage and started parking on one side, leaving room for a second car. She began to sleep on ‘her’ side of the bed, leaving ‘his’ side empty. And, hey presto, pretty soon along came the man of her dreams!
The third step is to receive; to be thankful – before you have obtained whatever it is you have requested. ‘Giving thanks for what you want in advance turbo-charges your desires and sends a more powerful signal out into the Universe’ (page 93).
This is how Rhonda explains how we can attract money into our life:
You have to emit a new signal with your thoughts, and those thoughts should be that you currently have more than enough. You really do need to call your imagination into play, and make believe you already have the money you want. And it is so much fun to do! You will notice as you pretend and play games of having wealth that you feel instantly better about money, and as you feel better about it, it will begin to flow into your life.
….The Secret team has created a blank check available as a free download on The Secret website. This blank check is for you, and it is from the Bank of the Universe. You fill in your name, the amount, and details, and place it in a prominent place where you will see it every day. When you look at the check, feel the feelings of having that money now. Imagine spending that money, all the things you will buy and the things you will do. Feel how wonderful that is! Know it is yours, because when you ask, it is…. (pages 98-9).
Notice that just wishing is not enough. You have to feel as though you have what you desire. If you don’t feel it deeply enough, the process won’t work, says Rhonda. (This gives the practitioners a way of explaining your failure: ‘You didn’t feel deeply enough’ they would say.)
No doubt you are thinking a variety of thoughts at this moment. First, I suppose, is, ‘Mm, I think I might give that a try,’ but then your rational mind takes over and you start asking questions. ‘What would happen if everybody started to do this? There wouldn’t be enough to go round.’ Rhonda answers that one. There’s plenty for everyone, she says. The Universe provides abundantly for us all. Everything anyone has ever desired is out there waiting to be requested. Second, we might ask, ‘What about those people who have spent their lives in intolerable conditions – concentration camp inmates, for example? Were they suffering just because they weren’t thinking correctly?’ Rhonda tries to answer this one, too.
Often when people first hear this part of the Secret they recall events in history where masses of lives were lost, and they find it incomprehensible that so many people could have attracted themselves to the event. By the law of attraction, they had to be on the same frequency as the event. It doesn’t necessarily mean they thought of the exact event, but the frequency of their thoughts matched the frequency of the event. If people believe they can be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and they have no control over outward circumstances, those thoughts of fear, separation and powerlessness, if persistent, can attract them to being in the wrong place at the wrong time. (page 28)
I’ll leave you to decide for yourself whether this answer is satisfactory. It doesn’t do it for me. She doesn’t even try to answer another of my questions: What about the child born with multiple physical and mental disadvantages? How have they attracted these circumstances to themselves?
All of this is quite amusing, and harmless in its way. It makes me chuckle to think that millions of people throughout the western world are downloading blank cheques and sticking them on the fridge door, or thinking themselves thin while continuing to eat Chinese take-aways. But there does seem to be something narcissistic, naive, and selfish about the way it is presented, and one wonders what kind of a world we would be creating – even if it were possible to create it in this way – with masses of hedonistic, thin people living in mansions, driving big cars and taking three foreign holidays a year.
Perhaps there’s also something positive in it, whether it works or not. We are conditioned to believe that we are helpless victims of chance and circumstance; that we have precious little control over our lives, and this can have a very dispiriting effect upon the psyche. Rhonda Byrne tells us, however, that we are – or can be – in charge of our own destiny, and this provides a necessary psychological counterweight to the more pessimistic and hopeless philosophies which predominate in our culture. In addition, by encouraging us to think about our goals, to meditate on our lives, to change the way we think about things, she is emphasising the importance of our mental processes in our search for tranquillity and sanity. After all, the Buddhist story I told the children makes the obvious – but important – point that making simple alterations to the way we think can have a profound effect upon our well being.
The most interesting point about the Secret, however, is that it’s been around for a long time and nobody needs to buy Rhonda Byrne’s book to find out about it. A few years ago it was called Cosmic Ordering, and Noel Edmonds says that he got his career back on track by using it. In the early nineties it was called Creative Visualisation. Before that, it was called Prayer! The Bible teaches it. Remember the little episode in the Gospel of Mark which I read earlier? Jesus curses a fig tree, and the next day his apostles find that the tree has withered to the roots. Jesus tells the apostles that they possess the same power:
‘Have faith in God,’ Jesus answered. ‘I tell you the truth; if anyone says to this mountain, “Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart but believes that what he says will happen, it will be done for him. Therefore, I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.’ (Mark 11:22-25)
This is exactly the same principle, isn’t it? But there is a difference, and it is a crucial one. The Gospels do not offer this teaching about the importance and power of the mind in the context of hedonistic materialism. Jesus, who had nowhere to lay his head, has earlier told the rich young man to sell all he has and give it to the poor, hardly encouraging the greedy grabbing for status symbols and luxury that Rhonda Byrne seems to be advocating. Elsewhere, the Gospels tell us that our prayers should always be offered with the caveat ‘thy will be done’ – which we say in the Lord’s Prayer – meaning that we make our request to God, to the Intelligence which guides the universe, in a spirit of caution and humility, always conscious that some of the things we capriciously desire may be detrimental to our true welfare. I was genuinely concerned when I read that one of Rhonda Byrne’s mentors, a man who is considered to be a ‘spiritual teacher’, was boasting that he lives in a four-and-a-half million-dollar mansion, has a wife ‘to die for’ (his words), and vacations in all the fabulous spots of the world (page 40). One wonders just what effect such an opulent lifestyle can have on this man’s spiritual life. While the Gospels do not forbid us from requesting material things, they are more concerned to encourage us to pray for those spiritual gifts which can enhance our lives more profoundly than material things can – and which can cause no harm. After all, and this we all know, how often have we been thankful that our wishes have not been granted?!
The Gospels also teach us how to apply the principle in practice. Persistence in prayer is advocated in Luke’s Gospel. Keep on praying for what you need, and your prayer will bring results. Secondly, praying together is more powerful than praying alone. ‘I tell you again, that if two of you on earth agree about anything you ask for, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven. For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them.’ (Matthew 18:19-20)
So, the secret is not a secret at all. It’s been around since the dawn of time. We’ve just neglected it for a few hundred years. Rhonda Byrne’s book has brought it to our attention again, and for this alone I welcome her efforts, but if we use these techniques simply to fill our beds and our garages, we are, like Esau of old, trading our birthright for a mess of potage.
Bill Darlison
10th August, 2008