The Financial Crisis and the Law of Attraction

We dug our way in and we can dig our way out. If the Law of Attraction is true, we just have to dig the right direction.

It is only natural today that our financial crisis is a dominant theme in the blogosphere. Thankfully, there are some who want to reassure us, or give us some kind of perspective that shows us opportunities in the current situation that the news media almost seem to go out of their way to ignore.



Billy Joel – “Pressure”

If you do an internet search, you will find a veritable hoard of blog articles by personal development and new age bloggers that are going a step beyond this, and are attempting to turn this landfill of lemons into lemonade by invoking the subject of the Law of Attraction.

And here I am, wanting to urge us to consider this message.

I can hear the voices of mocking skeptics, and am reminded of the lyrics to Billy Joel’s “Pressure”: I’m sure you’ll have some cosmic rationale / But here you are with your faith / And your Peter Pan advice / There are no scars on your face / And you can not handle pressure.

“Peter Pan advice.”

Ouch.

What Does the Law of Attraction Really Mean?

For the sake of discussion let’s say the Law of Attraction folks are right. Let’s say we not only can but do create whatever we want, just as the premise states.

This is a two-edged sword. This means there can’t be any cop-outs, we can’t have any scapegoats, there is no one to blame but ourselves.

I feel comfortable in suggesting that many skeptics mock the concept because they are incapable of buying into the idea they are responsible that their own personal worlds are a mess and they want someone or something else to blame for it.

How far should we take the idea that we’re completely responsible?

Joe Vitale went on record during an installment of The Larry King Show back in March of 2007, with the statement that Jessica Lunsford, a little girl who was raped and killed in Florida and whose murderer had been found guilty the prior day, attracted that to herself.

The actual transcript, available in its entirety here, says this:

KING: Let’s take a call. St. Louis, hello.

CALLER: Hi. This is Mary.

KING: Go ahead.

CALLER: I’m just curious, where does God come into the whole “Secrets.”

KING: Good question.

VITALE: God is all of us. God is the secret and everything about it. This is a law from God. I heard some people talking earlier this might be a principle, may be exceptions to [it.] I say the law of attraction is like the other three — three great laws in the world. Law of gravity, there is the law of everybody loving Italian food and the law of attraction. These are all from God. This is not separate this is all one. And we are part of it.

KING: But do you attract — the young girl who was killed in Florida, her killer was found guilty yesterday, did she attract that?

VITALE: We are attracting everything to ourselves. There is no exception. I hear previous people talking about there is luck, there is some exceptions here. No. We attract everything. But we’re doing it on unconscious level, Larry. That’s what is going on. We have to awaken to our own conscious power.

That’s why this boo[k], this DV[D], my work, all of John’s work, the other people on the panel that are coming here today is so important. We are realizing that we can wake up and create the reality we want.

If we step around “The Law of Everybody Loving Italian Food” being from God (thanks, Joe, that didn’t help at all) we’re left with an unsettling statement: We are attracting everything to ourselves. There is no exception.

	Why would anyone choose to be born in … say … Zimbabwe?

Not a very comfortable idea, is it?

And our dear pasta loving Joe isn’t the first to say this. I remember throwing a Dennis Waitley book across a room many years ago because I ran into just that idea. (I don’t think he delivered it very diplomatically, but that’s beside the point.)

It’s not a new idea, either. Didn’t Ruth Montgomery remind us, back in the 1970s, of the belief common to aboriginal peoples and mystical schools that we choose our parents?

Why would anyone choose to be born to abusive parents?

Why would anyone choose to be born in … say … Zimbabwe?

(There have been times I wondered why would anyone choose to be born on this planet.)

I don’t have an answer I’m confident in for any of these questions, but this would be the logical conclusion of the argument that we create our experience.

I’m willing to consider this because I feel deep down we really aren’t victims of a capricious God or the result of some soulless quantum physical event at the initiation of time. I have faith that our lives are meaningful, and I am convinced that God does not throw dice.

So What’s True?

So is the Law of Attraction true, or is it not?

This is actually the question we all need to ask, and ask specifically of ourselves. I think someone like Zig Ziglar or Earl Nightingale or Steve Pavlina could tell you with personal authority that the Law of Attraction is how the Universe works, but it won’t make a bit of difference to our lives unless we can prove it to ourselves.

The producers of The Secret did not give any attention to the aspect of service.

There are those wonderful words from the Tao Te Ching: Those who know, they do not speak / Those who speak, they do not know. (And here I am, speaking …) However, if it wasn’t for any of those gentlemen, or for that matter, Oprah, or any other popularizer of the subject who has any real traction in terms of credibility, we might not be thinking about this as a culture, and I certainly wouldn’t be writing this article.

I have heard and seen enough personally to consider the possibility of the Law of Attraction. I have had little glimmerings that indicate to me there is some essential truth to this, but I can’t tell you for a fact this is The Way It Is. But I will say it would be foolish for anyone to reject it out of hand.

Assuming there is such a thing as the Law of Attraction, we collectively created the financial mess the world is in right now, because at some level we attracted the conditions for it to happen.

There are critics who, I think understandably, reject the concept of the Law of Attraction because of the greed mentality that seems to surround it. This, however, doesn’t disqualify it from consideration. When I attended the I Can Do It! conference here in Vegas last June, Dr. Wayne Dyer, during his keynote, made an interesting statement. He said he had been involved in the original production of The Secret, but he withdrew his participation because the producers of The Secret did not give any attention to the aspect of service.

(Manifesting service. Manifesting selflessly for the betterment of others.)

(D’oh!)

This is why I wrote this piece, to suggest to you that there may be a tremendous power available to all of us, that we could use to not just make our lives comfortable or exciting, but to make our world right again.

Why would anyone refuse to consider this possibility?

And What’s the Solution?

One more time — is the Law of Attraction the solution to the global financial crisis?

Given the reality of it, we have (inadvertently) produced the results we see today — the Law of Attraction isn’t the cause or the solution, but instead the solution lies in how it is used.

We are the cause, and we are the solution.

I believe as more of us start digging ourselves out — in the right direction — and making our personal lives better and extending what service we can to others, as time goes on there will be a broader impact to the world. I believe if we understand how to use this tool, we will dig ourselves out as a world, and stay dug out this time.

So, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go find my gloves.