What's Your Story?

What you think you become.

(Buddha)

We are a story in the making; a product of our own belief-sets. Everyone carries some of the collective experience as a baseline life-hypothesis and adds the personal perspective, and idiosyncratic lessons learned: we carry mental memes around such as, "my family supports me"; "my boss is challenging"; or, "I am overweight", or "I am good at my work". And as the years go by, dependent on how successful and how devoted we are in certain areas of our lives, we are willing to revise the narrative a bit. So we celebrate little success stories such as, "I always was pretty shy, but now I find it easier dealing with people", and will revise our belief-sets accordingly.

If you are willing to step back a little, you could question whether all limits are self-imposed. Someone with years of practice at work may have evolved from being in the "also run category" to mastery, which is a nice accomplishment; someone else might have gotten fired and needs time to rebuild this professional confidence. I salute the Law of Attraction folks for being open to experimenting with the thought and belief matrix that we all seem to operate within. "The Secret" is a philosophy of sorts. There is only one way to find out whether it works for you personally, you just have to try it!

It takes years to build the story one truly believes in. As we change our belief-sets, the world we operate in changes with us, but this adjustment is a process and requires time and patience. The boss who was once perceived as challenging may change his attitude towards us, or may be replaced by someone who has more of an interest in what we are doing. Or we might be changing professions ourselves. It takes time to adjust the characters in our movie for the reason that it takes a lot of time and persistence to change subconscious belief-set. 

We spiritual travelers are different from the Law of Attraction folks in that we believe in the GUIDANCE of a higher authority. We also believe that there is a purpose to our life that gets communicated to us - a mission of sorts. GOD is writing the story with us, so to speak. Just as Lord Krishna reminds Arjun that each of us has some dharma to live through: 

"It is better to do your own duty badly, than to perfectly do another’s; you are safe from harm when you do what you should be doing." (Bhagavad Gita)

Interact with life and grasp this passion and purpose that life has in store just for you and do it to the best of your abilities. Your feelings, your intuition, your insights and the signs of the WAY will lead you to your life story. When you truly believe in your mission, your subconscious belief-sets and life's events will follow you. Yes, you are that powerful!  Once you have discovered purpose and passion, follow it with all you got. Make your story a good one and share it with the rest of us. 

 

The Secret Along the Way

But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Matthew (6:33)

There is no wrong or right, there is only your way. If your soul is hungry, go out and get them tiger; the success, the sex, the beauty, the partner of your dreams, the wealth, the power, the status, the creativity and connection. We all need meaning in our life so find whatever is meaningful to you. In the end though, nothing can really satisfy you unless you are experiencing God's love. And unless you travel God's path there will always be a primal fear in the background that you simply can't shake no matter how good you are at manifesting things and events.

The Law of Attraction is one side of the coin, your spiritual path the other. Both sides matter and both necessitate each other. If you try to find love, peace and joy by searching for God but your soul is still hungry, the restlessness will not leave you either. You can meditate, sign up for spiritual retreats and yoga classes, yet, somehow you always feel that something is missing. Yet, life has an answer in hand for you no matter what your starting point: the Secret will sooner or later lead you to God, while your spiritual path will sooner or later show you what repressed desires you still have to work off.

You deserve to live in abundance and you deserve to feel God's love and peace every step of the Way. The Secret is a life philosophy that shows us that we shall be as Gods, yet it is an empty promise unless we walk next to Her. Abundance and love go hand in hand. Discover Matthew's Secret for yourself and please share it with whoever is ready to receive it.

Jesus versus the Secret

There are hundreds of paths up the mountain, all leading to the same place, so it doesn't matter which path you take. The only person wasting time is the one who runs around the mountain telling everyone that his or her path is wrong. (Hindu proverb)


Jesus once said, find your Father first and all that will be given to you. He certainly discovered a path to God and I consider myself a living example of that insight. Yet, there was also Sri Ramakrishna's observation - the enlightened mystic of 19th century India - who once remarked that religion is not for the poor. People first have to eat before they can look for God. 

Most of us are well-fed today, but there may still be a dimension in our life where we feel dissatisfied. Why don't we find abundance first before we intensify our spiritual mission? Everyone has this power. The Secret is out; we can manifest whatever we wish with the help of the Law of Attraction. So maybe the Way is to overcome once's notion of scarcity first and then find God amidst all the abundance. There is no wrong or right, many paths lead to Rome. Let's find the one that works for you!

Every path is only a starting point, a higher Power will take you to your desired destination from there. The Secret by itself won't make you happy. True happiness, peace and power can only be found outside of the ego realm. Yet, the spiritual path without the Secret may entail a repression of authentic desires that always haunts you at a later stage. As said, there is no right or wrong; there is only the Way - you decide on the first steps, the higher Power will do the rest for you.

What Should We Strive For?

What do we want to accomplish as spiritual travelers? Sure, we want to experience God, but there is probably little we can do about besides meditating regularly and cutting interferences out to the best of our abilities. 

Should we strive for manifesting everything our heart desires the way the Law of Attraction folks encourage us to? Well, we can try to but having everything our heart desires is unlikely to make us happy either. We cannot visualize the missing God connection; we don't know what peace truly is and are thus unable to manifest it.

What we can do instead is to live life as a Tao master; that is, welcoming life moment by moment. Like an artist we can discover divinity in everything life presents to us. Like a mother we can recognize love wherever we are. God is next to us every step of the Way; all we have to strive for is to be open to the next moment and we can see Her.

Life's Spiritual Wisdom

I am hardly a spiritual master but I am an expert in something; I know a lot about my human side. I certainly have experienced the greed in me and have faced my fears on countless of occasions. I also could write volumes about lust. And I know how egotistic I can be, not to mention my insecurities and jealousies.

A spiritual journey encourages you to be aware of everything that happens beneath the hood. Actually, the trick to deal with them is awareness, not repression and not confrontation. If you battle your jealousy, lust, greed or egotism, if you condemn your nature, you are really starting a war inside. It is a merry-go-around game that the voice in your head plays with itself. Actually, it is not so merry at all; it is quite destructive and cancerous. The only way you can be in harmony with your human drives is being aware of what is going on. Observe everything without getting involved; even when you hear the righteous voice in your head that feels superior to the "darker" emotions. You will realize that even this voice is the ego talking to itself.

Buddha once said, you can't think yourself into Heaven. So just being mindful of the stuff that happens inside doesn't make you a spiritual master. Yet there is an all-knowing master who is available to you any time and completely free of charge. This master is called life! When you are mindful it is not hard to figure out what life is all about. Everything that you attract, every interaction, all the so-called successes or disappointments, everything is just a reflection of your inner frame of mind. Life wraps itself around you and puts you through this virtual reality show. And while you are running after what is meaningful to you, life in fact sends you on a subconscious journey Home. We spiritual travelers encourage you to make this journey a conscious one.

The Law of Attraction folks have figured out that with the right mindset you can steer yourself in the direction of your liking. That is certainly true! In a way, the Law of Attraction insight could be compared to lucid dreamers. They have realized that you can master the art of waking up within a dream and start manipulating the dream to your advantage. That is certainly a nice power to have but we spiritual travelers want more. Why should we wake up within a dream if we can wake up period. Life is designed to bring us Home and all we have to do is to open up to it and discover its spiritual wisdom.

If you think that a spiritual path entitles you to peace, love and happiness every step of the way, you most likely will be disappointed. A spiritual journey is about gaining insights, about struggling; it is about transcending and letting go. "Not this, not that" becomes your way to proceed. A spiritual path is about de-masking the illusion. Heaven on earth is what remains once you see love shine through behind every choice.

There is no book that you can read, no master who can tell you what to do - it is your journey Home. You have to stumble through insecurities and righteousness, arrogance and humility. But after a while you realize that no matter what happens, no matter what path you might have taken last time around, life always wraps itself around you and offers you the same choice again and again: "choose love", it says. Often it whispers and sometimes it screams. There is incredible wisdom in the choices life presents. If you get lost in it, if you just follow that simple road-map life offers to you, you do not need to be wary of your human dimension at all. All distractions melt away in the busyness, loveliness and joy of living and all that remains along the Way is pure love.      

Make it Happen

How do you feel about your life?  Do you feel that there is something missing right now? What exactly is it?  How important is it for you and do you think achieving it will make you happier?

In case you feel something is missing in your life, please don’t feel frustrated. Why don't you consider it an opportunity to manifest your desires instead. We create all the time, though a lot of it happens subconsciously. So why don't you make it a conscious choice to master the art of creating instead. It is a marvelous feeling when you create something from scratch!

We are not here just to experience peace. We are here to do something creative with our life. To create a great story, to write a beautiful symphony, to start a business project or whatever it is that you want to launch, the trick is to channel frustrations and pain into greatness and creativity. Every great artist know it is the tension that propels the orgasmic break-through; every great script writer knows a good story needs highs and lows. So is our life. It is full of colors, only we have to merge them on the canvass. Make it happen and actively engage in the creative process!

Most successful people find the opening door while the ordinary folks complain about the closing ones. If you set your heart and soul on getting something there is simply nothing that can stop you. Perhaps you have noticed before that we are magnets; we attract what is meaningful to us. So if there is an area in your life that is underdeveloped, try to cut out all conflicts that have prevented you from achieving it in the past. More than that, use these conflicts and tensions to de-clutter and re-focus your life. If every fiber of your being is pointed in the same direction, your imagination and creation will make it happen!

By Christian and Su Zhen

Freud and Spirituality

The great question that has never been answered, and which I have not yet been able to answer, despite my thirty years of research into the femine soul, is "What does a woman want."
(Sigmund Freud)

I was reading a book about the unconscious by Antony Easthope and can't say much about its quality given that I have no training in psychology. I thought it was interesting and well written; one thing I would say though, I find it sad to see that Freud - just because he was so smart during his days - still obsesses our experts. Is is really that hard to see that Freud was a classic male voice of the 19th century? Try today's female perspective instead - not one that has been trained by the male-dominated psychology discipline - but one who thinks about love, happiness, social connections and what we really want with a fresh set of eyes. Well, I guess we already have it, it is called spirituality :)

My spiritual journey started a few years back when I observed that you not only send yourself subconscious messages, other people do too. Say you think of something and someone comes along and reacts to your thoughts. Once you start looking for it you will find this inter-connectedness everywhere. We are one, as they say, and you can very much experiment with that concept. It is a lot of fun really.

Think of the Tao - as we always call it - as a giant virtual reality show that mirrors your own belief system back to you. Believe in greed and competition and you will find it, in scarcity and sin, and you will find it too. Believe in abundance, peace and love and this too is something you can attract for yourself. Sure, you can try to "game" the system and attract whatever it is your heart desires the way the Law of Attraction folks recommend. But there will always remain an element of fear and restlessness because you are not taking the core spiritual issue by the horns: we are here to realize that we are not an ego.

                            Tao                  ego


Tao                    Divine                Matrix

subconscious    Holy Now          Freud


In the diagram above I have tried to show the interaction of the Tao, the ego and the subconscious. Once the Way starts interacting with the ego you have a glimpse of the Matrix that mirrors back to you whatever it is you aspire. When the Way meets the subconscious you are left with the holy Now. The consciousness melts in the holy Now while the subconscious receives everything it desires.

The scientifically correct - though quite narrow - world of studying the ego in its interaction with the subconscious in isolation of the spiritual world is the environment Freud started exploring. You can study it and will certainly learn a lot of important things about yourself. Don't get lost there though. It is lonely, it is dark and love is unfortunately not experienced in this world.

By Zeitgeist

PostScript: When I deposited this note I found an interesting Freudian slip, the auto-correction of Apple changed the word feminine of the above Freud quote into famine. I am sure it says something about my own attitude about what women really want given that my type is exactly the same analytical, mind-driven male perspective that Freud represents. So what! You find the mistake, you override it and you apologize in a post-script. That is what a spiritual path is all about. You decide on a direction, you take the journey, sometimes it is uphill, while often it is downhill. Don't be afraid of your subconscious. There is incredible wisdom hidden beneath. Sure there are some dark corners but after a little cleaning and after opening a couple of windows, all you find is love there :)

Everything is Perfect as Is

I read a joke the other day in a spiritual blog which is worth passing on. A New Ager died and ascended to Heaven. When he arrived he saw two signs, one said "To God" and the other, "Seminar on How to Proceed to God." Still trapped by his previous life experience he automatically signed up for the seminar.

The Tao traveler knows that everything is perfect as is. The Law of Attraction is correct, but that doesn't mean you have to do anything. Don't bother to manifest anything.  Everything is perfect as is. Your soul is already well taken care of, just keep on doing what you have been doing and let Her bring you home. Do not interfere with the Tao and She will deliver everything your heart desires."It is as it is, and as is, is good" is yours to discover. Wherever She walks is love and happiness. Just hold Her hand and enjoy the stroll.

The Secret of the Tao

I remember the time when I first read "The Secret", the book that claims that the universe is your oyster as long as you believe that it is. I had some reservations about the message. While I knew that the Law of Attraction is correct, I also felt our spiritual mission should first of all be about finding God. The words of the New Testament were ringing in my ears:  "But seek first His Kingdom and righteousness and all that will be given to you as well." (Matthew 6:33)

Today I would say that The Law of Attraction is just another esoteric way of living. If you feel that the Law of Attraction is your starting point, experiment with it as much as you like, and the more power to you if you are able to mentally bend the laws of the universe with your positive thinking. Actually, I am amazed how many scientific authors beat up on "The Secret" and their authors and dismiss the whole thing as nothing but nonsense. "The Secret" is true. The world you see is nothing but a function of your belief set.  The New Testament also says, "Verily, verily I say onto you, if you have faith as little as this mustard seed, you can say to this mountain remove yourself and it will. Nothing will be impossible if you have faith." (Matthew 17:20)

No matter what your starting point, I venture to say that eventually you will stumble on the Tao - the holy and magnificent interaction of the "I" and the world. You can only find meaning when you manage to merge with something that transcends the "I", and there is magic in this encounter. The Tao is the lesson plan brings you home to the Source. Along the Tao you are very much encouraged to practice your positive thinking. You see the signs that tell you to part the waters like Moses did, just as you sometimes see the signs that tell you to walk away. In short, you become Her instrument. Walking the Tao is the realization that life is so creative and just perfect as is if you don't let the "I" get in the way. But in all that, the "I" will always be perfectly happy as it melts away.

 So don't give up your big aspirations even if not all of your manifestation experiments work out. "The Secret" is true. Be open to the Tao and learn to be a true magician, the one who is here to manifest love wherever she walks. The beauty is, once love becomes the focus of your life you might as well put your magic wand safely away. Along the Tao there is love no matter where you look. No positive thinking is required; just observing the beauty of what is.

Energy Boost

I remember reading the story of a professor, named Bob, who always managed to energize everybody who met with him. This was at a time when I struggled a little at work and it somehow seemed that everybody who worked for me experienced the opposite effect. The work I needed to get done was so technical that it just didn't evoke any excitement at all; if anything, I felt like I was draining people's energy. After reading the story of professor Bob I decided that I would turn this around and I am happy to report that - some 3 to 5 years later - I have!

Traveling the Tao will make you so much more sensitive to what other people are interested in; you will realize what drives them and what makes them tick. You will also learn that even though their interests are so different from yours, somehow, what they do and what they say is really connected and important for what you are doing at this moment. Often I listen to wonderful people at work and even if I am not completely connected to what they have to say, I will always be tuned in with their energy flow. Sometimes I just view my role as being an energy lift for people who need a little boost. When people now enter my office I see their faces lightening up; that is exactly what Professor Bob must have experienced as well.

The Law of Attraction works; every conscious change you want to implement you can. Just give the Universe a little time to adjust. Of course, you could get what you want immediately, just understand that it is most importantly you who has to internationalize these changes and that takes time. You will find that people enter and leave your world as your mind set changes. You will also find that the people you interact with start changing their attitude in accordance with your newfound perspective. It certainly takes a little while to experience these changes, but don't worry, the wheels are turning in the background. Be patient and stay positive about this mental experiment and the energy will follow you. Our world is one, as you boost someone else's energy, you really boost your own energy. Try it, it works!

The Secret Behind the Secret

But seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.
(Matthew 6:33)

The Secret folks tell you that you can have whatever your heart aspires. They may be right; try it for yourself. What you should find out in the process is that this world of yours that you perceive as real today is not so real after all. The Law of Attraction states that you are the creator of your movie, with your conscious thoughts and desires, as well as your subconscious drives. Change your thoughts, bring your subconscious drives out in the open to the surface and cut out all the conflicts and see how your life and environment changes in the process.

I am a big fan of life coaching. The idea that you can clean up your preference structure, disentangling your conscious drives from your subconscious brakes and reservations is something that I have experienced for myself. If there is something in your life that you apparently can't get even tough you desire it so much, you should always be able find out what internal conflict is holding you back. Ultimately though, all Manifestors have to become spiritual if they like to perfect their mind game. If you like to realize your life's purpose, you will see how the Universe is rooting for you. Yet, when you try to manifest every whim that your mind comes up with, you will run into resistance. This resistance is coming from you. The ego will undermine you. This world and your perceived 'I' simply don't exist and that is hard for the 'I' to accept. 'I Am' exist and this state of consciousness is perfect. The secret behind the secret is that you have everything, you do not need to aspire anything.

On Faith

Since I am a Numerologist, I took six business cards for a meeting today just because the Number of the Day happens to be 6. When I put them into my suit pocket, I discovered that there already were business cards in it, and when I counted them I realized that exactly 6 were lying inside. The message of the Tao in this case is pretty clear: everything you think you need, you already have. Do not worry about anything!

The Law of Attraction folks tell you the modern version of Jesus' claim 'if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, move from here to there and it will move.' The question of course, how do you get the faith that it does? Maybe it is helpful to turn the story line around. The trick is to find out that this world that looks so real to you simply doesn't exist the way you perceive it. This is something you can experience very much for yourself. I have noticed this in my interactions with others. To my surprise, as I changed my thinking about them, their behavior changed with it. Everything that you experience is an outcome of your belief structure.

'Nothing real can be threatened, nothing unreal exists. Herein lies God's peace', the Course in Miracles claims. Make this thesis your working hypothesis. Everything you see and experience in this world is a perfect opportunity for you to heal. You want something, while others want something else. Find the Path of the Golden Middle - the Tao - that works for everyone. You don't need faith at all to test this hypothesis, just try it. Your thesis is, everything is perfect as is if only I let all the parts interact the way they are supposed to. You can try that anywhere, at home as well as at work. How difficult is it to have faith in something that happens to you over and over again? Take the first step and let the Tao do the rest. Your faith will strengthen along the Way.

Manifesting Your Dreams

You know about The Secret, right? The promise that the world is your oyster as long as you have the faith that it is. I am a scientist by training so my response would be, just try it and see what happens. It is possible to be entirely synchronized in your internal state with your external environment. I remember one time I was flying business class on a flight from Frankfurt to Boston and I was checking in, a thought hit me, "You are flying first class today". Indeed, when I sat down on my assigned seat, a woman came up to me and said, "Oh, you have 13D as well." A moment later a stewardess invited me to join the first class.

If you say that you would like to manifest your dreams, I would first ask you how do you know that your dream is what you really want deep inside. Life's struggles - the frustrations of bumping into constraints - is about finding what you really want. Fact of the matter is that if you exhausted by life's ups and downs, chances are that you are more receptive to your inner voice than if you only experiences ups followed by more ups. Nothing gets your ego more nutrition than success.

When you mentally manifests things, try to aim for stuff that in the end you are indifferent about. On that first class flight the only added convenience I really cared for was a rose for my wife and a sweater for myself with a cool logo on it. It turned out that I had to fight hard to get the rose through customs and the sweater didn't survive the next laundry - I guess it should have been dry-cleaned instead - so the point is that most of the time we don't really need the upgrade we aspire to have. If the ego is rooting for something you can be sure that interferences will be along the way. Manifestations require faith and the ego - the voice that wants to get things - will make sure you have none. The ego is a capricious force as you probably have already found out for yourself. Let the Tao manifest your dreams and you will be sure to find out that what you truly desire you already have.

Mental Manifestations

The other day I had to pick up family from the airport and I left early since I knew that finding a parking spot over there is such a hassle. Indeed, when I arrived I couldn't find anything and I was just circling on end. It started raining heavily and I was preparing myself mentally for a long night ahead. It was then when I heard U2's Beautiful Day on the radio and I thought to myself 'That's odd, after all, it is raining cats and dogs, so why would they play this song right now?' But as I had this positive mental association with this song, I suddenly wondered whether this could mean that I would find a parking spot soon. Indeed, when the last note of the song finished, I had one!


What do you make of 'The Secret', the promise that the world would be your oyster if only you believe that it is? I can't say that I live by it, the path of the Tao is a different one, but stories like my parking lot experience should make us aware that mental attitudes matter a lot in your day-to-day interactions. How easy is it to start on the wrong foot and then have your mind race from one negative outcome to the next until you can't see the sunshine anymore. I think it is possible to accept every situation life presents to you as is, accept the feeling that it causes in you and then ask yourself the question 'So where is the upside from here?' The Power of Positive Thinking is to understand that every cloud has a silver lining. Visualize the next open door no matter what happens and chances are you will find it.

Walking on Water

I had to give a presentation to a pretty intimidating crowd on a pretty intimidating subject and had no time to prepare for it whatsoever. Nevertheless, I did a great job doing it because someone had asked me a week earlier to make s similar speech and I had scribbled a few ideas together and it came out quite well. So on the day when the bar got raised a little higher I just reminded myself that the mental groves would be there to support me and that I would just have the perfect mix of tension, creativity and facts at my disposal.

In American Idol the judges often use the expression 'she could sing the phone book and would still be terrific'. I actually know someone in my line of business who falls in this category. Put him in front of 1000 people and he could give a brilliant 1 hour speech on any subject without preparation. The reason for this, besides the fact that he is really talented the way the singers are in American Idol, is that he believes that he can walk on water. I do the same, but I need something to hold on from time to time. My belief is that the Tao will always offer the support when I need it.

The point is that you are born creative, you only think that you need support. The Tao is here to show you the way. I still get invites to prepare myself for a challenging upcoming tasks, but fewer and fewer crutches are offered along the way while the bar is being raised all the time. Mental groves cut into our creativity, we don't want them. All we want is the insight and believe that we can walk on water. Do not fear, the Tao will get you there.

The Miracle in Newton Massachusetts

Five years ago a tree collapsed in from of our neighbor's house. It was massive and must have rotted inside and when a truck backed up into it it just collapsed. It's weight ripped open our sidewalk and became a security hazard for our children and pedestrians. I called up the City of Newton and asked them to repair the sidewalk but the first time around they only pretended to take my information down as I learned a year later when I called about it. In any case once I registered I also learned that the average turn-around time for a project like this is six years. Well, I did my own contribution for the safety of our children and passersby. I parked my car in front of it and let my bushes extend out onto the side-walk, encouraging people to cross the street instead. I am sure neither action made me very popular in our pristine neighborhood. In any case, this year I decided that I would trim the bush after all and after much labor had cut the massive bush in size. The miracle happened a couple of days later. The City of Newton showed up and repaired the sidewalk out of the blue. Well, these days we call these occurrences 'The Law of Attraction' instead of a miracle, but it was an eye-opener nevertheless.

Actually I thought about writing episode this down but then didn't bother because you would likely call it a pure coincidence. Well, here is the thing. Today I planned putting grass down in my backyard but kept the area where the new asphalt was put to a later date just because the project seemed overwhelming. Well, perhaps you have guessed it, exactly on the day when I was planting the grass the City of Newton workers showed up and planted grass around the construction site. All I had to to was to plant the remaining 50 percent of the side-walk. I can't help feeling connected. I love the Law of Attraction.

In Search of Meaning

Being a Tao traveler means to accept life's waves without any preconceived notions. Clearly, you will have general goals like having creative professional outlets, having certain material standards, having friends, a community you are tied into, a loving family, etc., but otherwise you leave it entirely up to the Tao in which direction you will go. The Tao will shower you with blessings as long as you are open to everything. Living in the Now is easy when moment by moment you are on the look out for a new creative spark.

I sometimes wonder how living the Tao is different from 'The Secret', the promise that the universe is your oyster as long as you believe that it is. Both philosophies are experiments. Embracing the Law of Attraction means that you believe that you can will your notion of Heaven on earth. Try it and see whether it works, what else can I say. A Tao traveler seeks meaning in life instead. We do not impose our will on anything just because we know that we do not know what really is good for us. Let life bring it on. If our experiment is successful, there is magic and happiness in every moment. Just try it!

The Law of Attraction

I was sitting in my office and was looking up names on our internal directory and wondered why with one particular name, Mark, there appeared to be that amazing height differential. You have some Marks who are towering over me, while there are others who are smaller than me. For some reason I never run into a Mark who has my size. 
While I was contemplating this curious fact and I was clicking in the directory on different names and faces, exactly these Marks passed my office on their trip to the morning coffee. A couple of years ago I would have been floored by this experience, these days I just smile, because occurrences like that hit me daily.

A Tao traveler is in tune with her environment. Life flows through her. She doesn't have a mission any more, just a general direction in which she is headed, but everything else she leaves up to the Tao to decide for her. It is the beginning of the end of your journey because you no longer run after things, you just let your existing drives run their course. On this journey you start to realize that life is not real. All the characters, you and I, are just part of a giant puppet play and we act out our conscious and subconscious missions.

I believe that you can manifest your desires mentally. 'The Secret' folks are probably on to something. After all, once you have realized that life and all the people you interact with are part of a giant connected psychological group exercise, you might as well experiment with this idea and see whether you can get something out of this game. But your mission statement on a spiritual path is a different one. Along the Tao you let go of the steering wheel. You might have to be in a twilight zone for a couple of life times, or you might be home in a couple of hours, in either way, you are going home because life has no longer anything to teach you. 'Not my will but Thine' period.

When I was a teenager I experienced lucid dreaming. The curious fact of gaining consciousness within the dream that one is dreaming. Well, I did what horny teenagers end up doing, I was chasing girls in my dream but to my surprise always woke up just when it got steamy. I haven't experienced lucid dreaming since, but if I did, I am pretty sure that I would just let the mental movie play without intervening. That is really the difference between 'The Secret' and the Tao, a spiritual path traveler just let's everything be, just enjoying the Devine plot through you.

Be careful what you wish for

In psychological experiments people were ask to perform some tests. A group of them was exposed to some hidden money symbols, such as monopoly money displayed on a table in the background or bank notes shown as a screen saver on the computer. In the experiment these people were then tested how helpful they would be to a by-passer who 'accidentally' dropped some pencils on the floor and it turned out that the group that was exposed to the money symbol was less helpful on average. Isn't that result amazing? Just thinking about money, even being subconsciously exposed to it, makes you more selfish!

When I saw this result I was wondering what this implies for our mental manifestations crowd. After all, if we try to visualize and 'feel' the wealth, status or whatever it is we want to create, isn't it likely that we will become more egotistic in the process. Don't get me wrong, of course we have to try to express our desires; as we all know, if we repress them, new monsters will come up to the surface. Yet, in real life, the Tao will force you to make choices along the way to express them. This is your opportunity to choose love by saying no to your desire and really meaning it. In contrast, if you mentally visualize your desired goals you risk super-charging your ego very much like in our scientific experiment. How about the following compromise, you manifest the events that you enjoy, but in the bigger scheme of things you feel pretty agnostic about, like hitting a perfect golf shot on a driving range when no one looks. In contrast, all the things that make your blood boil you leave up to life, the Tao, to sort out for you. What do you think?

The Power of Positive Action

There is quite an overlap between the Law of Attraction and the spiritual path. In both instances you conjecture that the current perspective is nothing but a transition towards a place that you know already exists. You have decided who you really are and, as you act like the person who you know you are, you attract like a magnet the situations that get you there. In the case of 'The Secret', you express your longings for wealth, relationships, career or fame. In the case of a spiritual path traveler, it is the ongoing connection with the 'beyond', the Tao or God that you are after.

The big difference is that with mental manifestations you accept your desires, whereas on your spiritual path you go a step further and decide that you are someone who has transcended your desires. In the LoA example you might be single, but you already purchase the tooth-brush for your partner because you know she is already waiting for you. In the case of the spiritual path traveler, you hear voices in your head that tell you to look out for only yourself, yet, all the choice you make are about choosing love and kindness because you know that in reality you are One with everyone.

The Power of Positive Action says as you do, reflects who you are, and who you are attracts the environment that celebrates who you are. Decide on wealth, relationships, your career and fame if this is what your heart desires, or on your fusion with God if this is what your heart desires. God is everywhere, so don't be shy expressing who you think you are.