thesoulpurposedotorg

There has been much attention to The Secret on Oprah and other talk shows. I have yet to read or see it. The little I have gleaned causes me to pause for consideration. Much of it seems like newly packaged power of positive thinking. Some of it seems like wishful thinking. Some of it seems dangerous to me. I found the following discussion with Deb Ford and Jean Huston especially instructive about these dangers.
http://www.passalongwebsites.com/secretcall/jeandebbie/
This danger is to me the fundamental danger of what is broadly known as New Age, particularly the “law of attraction.” The ancient traditions that come to us through the writings of Christian, Hindu, Sufi and other mystics, speak of the importance of paying attention to what you think about. Each say something like: “What you focus on grows.” In my own experience, I have found the thinking of Carl Jung who first spoke of our inner world creating our outer reality, to be true in my own life experience.
However, one must be very caretul to not flip this thought. In other words, not all that is in our life is of our own making. The person who has cancer or any other life threatening illness almost always asks “Why did this happen to me? What did I do wrong to cause this?” And the answer, more often than not is “Nothing. This isn’t personal.” Or basically, Sh** happens! This too is truth. Jesus was often asked why this person was blind or that group of people were crushed to death in an earthquake. Jesus answer was that such consequences happen because we live in a sinful world (i.e. delusional, imperfect, temporary). His followers wanted to believe that each was caused by the victims sin. And so do we. And so do we. We want to think that everything is under our own control because then we can control our lives and make them in our own image.
It is not so. We live in a karmic soup – everthing that happens happens within a much broader context than our own thoughts or the consequences of our own behavior. None of us lives independently of the consequences of others behaviors or of past generations behavior or of our family heredity. Cause and effect is not so simple as the New Agers would have us think. Would that it was so.