7.8.2007 Christian Reflections on The Secret #3 How To Use The Secret
WESTMINSTER PULPIT
The Rev. Dr. David Thompson
July 7, 2007 “Christian Reflections on The Secret” #3 How To Use The Secret
Text: I tell you therefore everything you ask and pray for, believe that you have it already, and it will be yours. And when you stand in prayer, forgive whatever you have against anybody, so that your Heavenly Father may forgive your failings too. Mark 11: 24, 25
Is there anything to the law of attraction really? How does it actually work? What basis is there in fact for this?
We live in a very wonderful age of science and knowledge. We know things that our ancestors never even dreamed about. About every five years or so the knowledge we have now gets turned on its head. Consider for a moment the field of Quantum Physics where the Newtonian world seems not to work.
Below the atom there are quirks and quarks, force fields, random particles and incredible complexities. It even looks now that the theory that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light is “old hat”. Now we believe that particles can be linked and that they will react at the same time wherever they may be in the universe no matter what the distance. We know that our minds can affect the movement of random particles, something thought impossible a few years ago. There is also information coming from other disciplines that relate to the research into the Quantum field.
For instance a number of years ago the brilliant brain surgeon and student of the brain Wilder Penfield argued that the mind was separate from the brain. In fact for Penfield the mind hovered over the brain, it was not the brain itself although it was connected to it somehow. Cardiologist Pim Van Lommel did a monumental study of near death experiences published in the famous medical journal The Lancet. According to Van Lommel, near death experiences can only be explained if you assume that consciousness, along with all our experiences and memories is located outside the brain. He says; “I suspect that there is a dimension where this information is stored—a kind of collective consciousness we tune into to gain access to our identity and our memories. By means of this collective information field we are not only connected to our own information, but also that of others and even the information from the past and future. He suspects that this is how déjà vu works. How does the brain know what information to tune into? Van Lommel says: “DNA. Primarily the so called junk DNA which accounts for 95% of the total whose function we don’t understand.” He thinks this DNA is a receptor mechanism, the brain a transmitter. There is simultaneous translation between the information fields and the organism. Thus a heart from a donor is attuned to the original person’s consciousness field. When transferred to another person it takes that part of the consciousness field with it. Thus a ballet dancer with a transplanted heart suddenly wants to drive a motorcycle and eat junk food!
Van Lommel says; “No one gets to avoid the consequences of their thoughts. That is very confrontational. Some people discover that there is something that they can never put right. Others come back from near death and immediately start calling people to apologize for something they did twenty years ago.”
Van Lommel says: It is almost scary to realize that every thought has a consequence. If you let that sink in…every thought we have, positive and negative, has an impact on us, each other and nature. After studying the near death experience in depth Van Lommel says: “I now see that everything stems from consciousness. I better understand that you create your own reality based on the consciousness you have and the intention from which you live.”
In Lynne McTaggart’s book The Field it ends rather sadly I think. She talks throughout the book of these brilliant scientists who do impeccable research but their research is rejected because new ideas are always considered heretical. But for scientific rigor, their work is unparalleled. And they are in agreement that our thoughts have a frequency, that they impact reality; that healers by thought alone can heal at a distance; that there is a zero point field out there similar to Van Lommel’s speculations on consciousness where thought resides. Our intentions are powerful. They can create our reality and makes things happen. Meditation “powers up” the intention’s reach. This may well be why a prayer chain is a good idea. McTaggart has a worldwide experiment going on at the moment called the Intention Experiment. She thinks as a science reporter that we can change the world through our intentions. You can look it up on theintentionexperiment.com.
If you find yourself doubting the power of intention from a scientific point of view have a look at McTaggart’s work and try some experiments yourself. See chapter 14 in her book The Intention Experiment and try some of them yourself. This is a great deal of fun. You can also get on her website and try along with others to influence through intention. They are doing plants at the moment making their leaves “grow and glow” with significant measurable results backed up by photographs.…
I think then what The Secret is tapping into is the Power of Intention. It is perhaps the zero point field that is responding or what Van Lommel describes as the field of consciousness. Intention seems to affect matter. Meditation seems to “power up” intention’s affect. Thoughts are never lost.
Now to the summary of Chapter Three of The Secret:
According to The Secret’s author we create what we want in three simple steps: ask, believe, and receive. It is important they say to get clear about what we want. As we get clear in our mind we have asked. Believing involves acting and speaking and thinking as though we have already received what we have asked for. When we emit the frequency of having received it, the law of attraction moves people, events and circumstances for us to receive. Receiving involves feeling the way you will feel once your desire has manifested. Feeling good now puts you on the frequency of what you want. To lose weight, don’t focus on losing weight. Instead focus on your perfect weight. Feel the feelings of your perfect weight and you will summon it to you. They say it is as easy for the universe to manifest one dollar as it is to manifest one million dollars. The problem comes when we can’t figure out how that is going to happen and that affects our intention, weakening it. But they say that the “hows” are the domain of the universe. They counsel us to forget about the hows and have instead unwavering faith. Starting with something small like a cup of coffee or a parking space is an easy way to begin to experience the law of attraction in action. Powerfully intend to attract something small. As you experience the power you have to attract, you will move on to creating much bigger things. Create your day in advance and you will create your life intentionally.
Looking at this chapter from aChristian point of view I am reminded of Robert Schuller’s caution. He says when we begin to dream begin with God. It is often said; Be careful what you ask for, You just might get it. The Bible, in the Ten Commandments, asks us to love God with all your heart and mind and strength and our neighbor as ourselves. This is all about intention. So what is our intention?
As Christians we need to go within, in prayer and meditation to get clear about what we want to achieve. As Christians we are to vet our desires with God. Are they loving to God, to neighbor and to self? What are our dreams? Do they honor God? If not, what are we doing, but living unexamined lives that can end up in selfishness and disaster? So step one for the Christian is to vet the things we want with God.
What do we think abou ask, believe, and receive? This is just what Jesus taught in the New Testament and the writers of The Secret acknowledge that. Ask, Receive, Believe is right from the main body of teaching of the historical Jesus.
Jesus said: “Ask and it shall be given to you. For the one who asks always receives. If you, who are evil, know how to give your children what is good, how much more will your Heavenly Father give good things to those who ask Him?” Note here that Jesus says God is involved in this process, something The Secret does not stress because it is designed for a wide audience not necessarily Christian at all. But it is interesting to me that the heart of the Secret methodology is an insight from Christ that works in the field of consciousness or the Quantum field or whatever we want to call this mystery, and it is this: Everything you ask and pray for, believe that you have it ALREADY, and it will be yours!
Why is that necessary? The Secret authors say “When you feel as though you have it now, and the feeling is so real that it is like you have it already, you believe that you have received, and you will receive.” Michael Beckwith says, “This is a feeling universe. If you intellectually believe something, but you have no corresponding feeling underneath that, you don’t necessarily have enough power to manifest what you want in your life. You have to feel it.”
When a man brought his epileptic son to Jesus, the father had first brought the boy to the disciples and they could not do anything. Jesus said, “You faithless generation…bring him to me.” The father brought the boy to Jesus and Jesus asked the father for the boy’s history with the complaint. The father said that he had been like this from childhood and asked Jesus, “If you can do anything, have pity and help us.” “If I can do anything?” retorted Jesus. “Everything is possible for anyone who has faith.” Immediately the father of the boy cried out: “I do have faith. Help the little faith I have.” Jesus healed the boy. Afterwards the disciples asked: “Why couldn’t we heal him?’ And Jesus said, “This is the kind that can only be driven out by prayer. We find out what kind of prayer when he says in the same Gospel “I tell you therefore: everything you ask and pray for, believe that you have it already, and it will be yours.”
I think something is happening here in Scripture that we might have missed. Jesus apparently separates just straight asking from the universe, from prayer to the Author of the universe. Perhaps he is teaching us that it is possible using our intentions to manifest most of what we want from the quantum field using the law of attraction. This would be part of our own abilities that we have to make things happen in the world. When we work we are able to achieve certain things. This is part of our “imago Dei” to create things in the world. But as C. S. Lewis argues there are two ways to make things happen in the world: work and prayer. But prayer, if I am reading Jesus right in his reply to the disciples over the epilepsy, is a higher form of causation than we are able to manifest alone. The disciples said: “Why were we unable to cast it out?” “This is the kind” he answered, “that can only be driven out by prayer.”
Jesus is teaching that the feeling of already having what we want intensifies faith. The father of the epileptic boy desperately wanted his son to be healed but didn’t have enough faith. He did not feel that he had the healing already. He had been with his sick son for a very long time. He wanted more faith but couldn’t get there. The way forward in that situation according to Jesus was to stimulate faith by believing that we already have the benefit asked for. Why is faith important?
Jesus connects faith to healing all the time. One of his favorite expressions was, “Your faith has healed you.” In Luke’s Gospel Jesus heals a woman who had suffered from a hemorrhage for 12 years saying to her “Your faith has restored you to health. Go in peace.” She had an intention: She, with unwavering faith, believed she would be healed if she were only to touch him, even just touch his clothes. She put that intention out to the universe. And when she touched his clothes even in a crowd where he was being jostled around, Jesus felt power going out from him as a healer. He was surprised and spun around and asked “Who touched me?”
Before the woman touched Jesus, the ruler of the Synagogue Jairus pled with Jesus to come and heal his dying daughter. Jesus agreed and started out but constantly got waylaid by the crowds. Suddenly the news came that Jesus should not be troubled further because the daughter had died, but when Jesus heard it he said “Fear not, believe only, and she shall be made whole.” He goes to the home where they are all weeping and wailing in mourning for the dead girl and takes on the thesis that she is dead. He disagrees with that thesis. For Jesus she is not dead. He prefers to think of her as asleep. He then takes the child by the hand and commands her to get up. And Scripture says her spirit returned and she got up at once. Her parents were astonished…
Let me make this very clear. Christ’s teaching ask, believe you have it already and you will receive it, needs qualification. There are things Jesus asked for and did not receive. In Gethsemane he wanted to avoid the suffering of the cross. That was denied. As he said, “Not as I will but thy will be done.” That is a superb “add on” to the teaching of Jesus. St. Paul pleaded with God to be delivered from his “thorn in the flesh.” The answer he got was, “My Grace is sufficient for you.” That was a no. King David asked for the life of his sick son. That was denied to him. In other words when we pray we do not always receive what we want. God is a player and it is not automatic. We Co-Create!
What do we want to manifest? Do we need a new car because the old one is inadequate? Does our having a new car serve God and neighbor and ourselves and the planet? Do we need a new house because where we live now is not good? Do these material things serve God, neighbor and self and the planet in a loving way? What do we want
and why do we want it? After we have vetted the idea with God, then try The Secret methodology…
The Secret says, “Do anything that will get you into the feeling of having it now. Go test drive that car, get into the house with a real estate agent and feel the feeling. If we do this we will attract someone, a circumstance or an inspired action that will help this to happen for us. Have unwavering faith. Experiencing it in the now will attract what we need to fulfill the dream.”
I think that we are able to do this because in God’s plan of the universe we are creators. BUT, there are some things that only prayer can bring about according to Jesus. If we combine prayer with the feeling of having it now we are able to increase our power of creation because we Co-Create with God. However not everything we want is good. Sometimes we have to learn that, by having what we want. (Be careful what you ask for you just might get it.) But if we are Co-Creating with God, sometimes God will say no, or slow or go! Humility before God, centering ourselves before God in prayer, seeking God’s will in our lives can bring us what we really want, because God knows best. About the material things that we need or run after Jesus said; “Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and all these things that you are running after like clothes, food etc. shall be added unto you.” There is a priority here. What is the most loving thing to do all things considered for God for neighbor for self and the planet? What is the most loving thing to do for the children of all species for all time?
Vet the dream with God. Then Ask. Believe that you have already received it. Focus your intention through prayer. When praying take Christ’s advice and forgive whatever you have against anyone so that your Heavenly Father can forgive you. I think that forgiveness and gratitude put us on the right wavelength to receive.
Then receive if it is the will of God. Then return thanks to God in gratitude!
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