Today I want to talk about a topic that a lot of people struggle with, which is doubt in the law of attraction as a practical thing. Because of the difficulty people face with this, even if they at first were excited about the idea, they soon start asking themselves, "Does The Law of Attraction Work?", fearing that they might just be deluding themselves with it.
The problem is that the law of attraction relies on a basic metaphysical idea that is hard to accept, because it feels like a dangerous, insane idea. The idea is this: consciousness is the real substance of the universe and objects are merely expressions of consciousness.
We, as observers, are an extension and fragment of the creative power of God, in which all things exist. The chair you are sitting in does exist, objectively, but it exists within your own consciousness and not outside of it. You wouldn't ask "Does the law of attraction work if you are God?", would you? You are not an object in a world made up of other objects interacting with each other but the center of consciousness around which your entire world revolves. Even though this may feel like a detour from practical application, it is very useful to realize just how widespread and deeply ingrained this idea really is in the world.
Does the law of attraction work? - A little history
Its origin is ancient. In Genesis, the story is told of God creating Adam (man) in his own image and breathing life into him. What is the image of God? It certainly isn't that of an animal resembling a monkey! The image of God is "consciousness", a formless creative observer.
In the story God then puts Adam to sleep and in this sleep, he creates out of Adam, Eve. Eve is created as a companion to Adam and the word means "life". In other words, God puts man to sleep so he could dream himself a life. At one point Eve, who represents the dream of life, decides to offer Adam the forbidden fruit of knowledge of good and evil. Adam accepts the offer, he eats that which Eve gave him and because of it they are thrown out of Paradise.
The eating of the fruit represents man's uncritical acceptance of what his life offers him. Every time you accept negative circumstances and allow them to guide your feelings, you are eating from the forbidden fruit. As punishment, Adam is condemned to work the earth and Eve is condemned to suffer the pain of bearing Adam's children, which simply means your life is under the obligation of expressing you, of bringing the invisible creations of your consciousness into visible form as external objects and this includes all the limitations and hardships you encounter.
Following this the Bible tells for the first time the story of the two brothers, Cain and Abel. This is a very important myth and if you study it, you'll see that it forms the basis of popular media, from the "Shawshank Redemption" to "Toy Story" to "Drake and Josh". The story basically goes like this: Abel works as a shepherd so he offers God the blood of his animals as sacrifice. Cain works as a farmer and he offers God the fruits of the earth as sacrifice. God is pleased with Abel but not Cain, and in jealousy Cain murders Abel. For this he is condemned to walk the earth forever in misery and never die.
What does that mean? The two brothers exist within you in a perpetual struggle for dominance. As a shepherd, Abel represents a man who has tamed the movements of his mind and guides them gently; his sacrifice of blood represents the offering of the life-energy of his thoughts. In contrast to this we have Cain who represents the man who struggles with the earth hoping to get something out of it, and his sacrifice represents the offering of his labor, of his pain, of the fruits of effort.
God, who doesn't just represent a dude with arbitrary preferences, but the cause, father, master, creator of all, is pleased with and favors Abel, while despising Cain's offering. Instead of learning the lesson and changing his ways, Cain murders Abel out of jealousy. For this Cain is condemned. The only way to please God, which means the only way to do things in a way that will generate a pleasing result, is to follow the example of Abel and be a shepherd of one's own mind. You may try to "murder" that part of you and focus on struggle, but all you'll accomplish is a life of pain, moving from one circumstance to another as a nomad, but in internal misery.
"Okay", you say, "but is this actually true? Does the law of attraction work in the real world?". This is something you must find out by an honest observation of the relationship between your inner and outer life. If things are not going your way in the world and you feel tempted to think this is nonsense, ask yourself in complete honesty if these circumstances don't represent your habitual inner life; not the positive thoughts you have once in a while but your dominant perspective, the feeling you continually go back to and the beliefs from which you think. If you are honest with yourself you'll see how the law is working already in your life, even though you don't like the results of it.
People often have a secret pleasure for pain. It works like this: they think that if they don't go through bad things in their mind, they are ignoring their own suffering. It is like they have an inner baby inside that cries out because of bad circumstances and they need to comfort their crying otherwise they are "neglecting" the inner baby's pain. There is no inner baby. You can safely ignore the crying of your own soul and focus your attention on joy instead of pain.
"What if I don't believe this? Does the law of attraction work when I have beliefs that go against what you are talking about?"
The law of attraction is the law of consciousness, it is how the mind works and arranges the flow of experience. If your beliefs are that it doesn't work, it will attract experiences in harmony with this. If your beliefs are that "maybe it works, but I am more certain of other things" it will attract experiences that are in harmony with that, so sometimes it will seem to work and sometimes not and the stronger belief will prevail. If you believe you need to struggle a lot to catch a break once in a while, you will. The idea is not that people are punished by bad thoughts, it's simply that their outer experience reflects their inner experience.
At the end of it all even though the Law of Attraction may seem insane, there is nothing you can lose by it. If the truth is that you really are just an object in the universe, who happens to be self-aware (some of the time), there is no way you can escape from death, which means no way of thinking or living is any more or less dangerous than another. It all just leads to the same place in a different way. So use this fact as motivation to sincerely test the law and you might be pleasantly surprised to find out there is more to life than most people think.
Does the law of attraction work? Definitely!
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