This Film is Highly Recommended...

Every once in a while I come across a gem that really needs to be shared.  When this one appeared in my Christmas stocking (literally), I didn't pay much attention at first... just got around to watching it last week, in fact.

It's a documentary called The Living Matrix: A Film on the New Science of Healing.  At first I assumed it was probably a low budget take-off on What the Bleep Do We Know - and I could not have been more wrong!

This 85 minute documentary came out in 2009 and despite anything you may read comparing it to What the Bleep or worse, The Secret, it's much different than either of those.
 

Just have a look at the trailer:






What makes it so different?  First, unlike What the Bleep, it's a pure documentary with no competing story line to get in the way.  Moreover, The Living Matrix really sticks to the science of the matter and features many of the world's top authorities on the biology and physics behind the new medicine - people like Dr. Bruce Lipton (author of "The Biology of Belief"), Lynn McTaggart (author of "The Field"), Dr. Rupert Sheldrake (best known for his theory of morphic fields) and many others.  And at the same time it stays away from some of the more questionable new age crowd that like to spout theories without proof.  

And unlike The Secret, The Living Matrix is not a film about the Law of Attraction, even if some of the findings of the new medicine could be interpreted in that sense.  By sticking to the theme of healing, this film wins on every front - it's highly educational and entertaining at the same time.  

So if you're interested in what really makes you tick - physically, mentally, emotionally and even spiritually - you'll really enjoy this film.  

~ Dr. Symeon Rodger 

Does God Really Want You to Be Healthy and Wealthy?

Hi all,


This great question just came in from one of our members:


"The pentecostal 'health and wealth' gospel emphasizes the idea that God wants us to be healthy and wealthy. Does God actually want us to be healthy and wealthy, or is this based on some flawed presuppositions?" - Jason C.


When it comes to the Law of Attraction (LOA), you have some pretty sharp disagreements out there - I suspect most Christian groups would denounce it as a demonic fabrication, whereas at least some Protestants and lots of people with New Age inclinations claim it's true.


However, the truth here may be more complex than either of those groups believes:



In my book, The 5 Pillars of Life, I introduced you to "Authentic Ancient Traditions" (AATs), spiritual traditions that can prove they get the results they claim. The original Christian tradition, preserved in the East, and several other traditions worldwide fit the criteria of Authentic Ancient Traditions.


One thing AATs have in common is they see the whole purpose of human life as "self-transformation" - a total transformation of mind, body and spirit that goes beyond anything we can imagine in our current state, a transformation that is itself union with God, with the "Absolute Reality" behind our visible universe.


In fact, everything they teach has only one purpose - to bring about this transformation.


A logical corollary of this is the teaching that in our current, untransformed state, we're not "normal" at all. Quite the opposite; we're suffering from serious delusions about the nature of reality based on a chronic self-aborption and ego-centrism.


Since this is the case, it would be ludicrous to believe that God, the Absolute, wants us to get what we want all the time, since many of our wants are going to be self-destructive in the long run, no matter how good they would make us feel right now.


All these AATs teach from their own experience that love and compassion are fundamental to the very fabric of reality. It doesn't take a genius to realize that if the Absolute IS love, then giving us what we "want" all the time would not be a loving act. We don't do that for our own kids and parents who do this are actually harming their children.


So contrary to what certain Christian and New Age authors will tell you, "what God wants" is not necessarily identical to what you "want" at any given moment and certainly isn't restricted to a particular idea like wanting everyone all the time to be healthy and wealthy. If the real purpose of human life is self-transformation, then what people need at any given moment is what leads them in that direction.


Obviously, health or wealth could be spiritually helpful to some people at certain stages of their spiritual development and spiritually harmful to others. Like nearly everything in human life, health and wealth are neutral - the use we make of them determines whether they help us or harm us.


The GOOD news here, though, is that God doesn't have an agenda to keep you sick, miserable and impoverished either. And that's really important to know, since some Christians think a pious Christian life has to be sick, broke and miserable and that suffering is somehow the purpose of human life. There's a whole mistaken theology behind this I won't get into now.



Now, the Flip Side...


Does the LOA actually exist? Well, everyday experience suggests it does. So without getting into the latest discoveries of quantum physics and all that, we can definitely say this: anyone with any experience in counselling people will come to the ironclad conviction that how we think about ourself and our life determines what our reality looks like.


We are all the victims or beneficiaries of deeply ingrained belief systems from early in life. Some of these beliefs propel us to our greatest successes while others make us miserable. What examples can you come up with from your own life?


So, not surprisingly, AATs put a huge emphasis on faith, on believing in the reality of your spiritual work so that it has the intended effect. This is not "faith" as in an abstract belief in the invisible that you can only confirm when you die. No, this is faith as in trusting in the Absolute until you come to a genuine and irrefutable experience of It.


If you look at some of the ancient spiritual teachings on prayer and meditiation from various traditions, you'll be struck by how similar they look to the LOA. Take these words on prayer by St. John of Kronstadt from late 19th century Russia:

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"The main thing in prayer is a lively and clear faith in the Lord. See him vividly before you and in you, and then ask Jesus Christ in the Holy Spirit for whatever you desire and you will obtain it. Ask simply, without the slightest doubt, then God will be everything to you, instantly accomplishing great and marvelous things."


"When we pray, we must believe in the power of the words of the prayer, so as not to separate the words from the deeds they express. We must believe the deeds follow the words as surely as a shadow follows a body, for the word and the deed of the Lord are indivisible: 'He commanded and they were created.' And likewise, you must believe that what you ask for in prayer will be done."


"To God all things are possible and nothing is difficult. So when you pray, be firmly convinced the Lord can do everything you ask in a moment. Do not ascribe your own inability to God."

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Bottom line? Reality is very complex and we simplify it at our peril. On the one hand, the universe is not a cosmic vending machine designed to fulfill your every whim. On the other, the universe will deliver what you think about most of the time, for good or for ill, and it IS set up to look after your long term welfare. And God is most definitely not out to keep you sick, broke and miserable.



So there is far more truth to the LOA than its detractors claim, but much more nuance involved than its proponents are often telling you.



Hope that helps!



- Dr. Symeon Rodger

Why You MUST Think About What You DON'T Want

Please forgive my silence this week – I’ve been on the road all week and the victim of a very poor internet connection at my hotel.

And I won't even go into the flat tire that happened while I was on my way to catch a train yesterday... (made it with10 minutes to spare ;-)

Rest of the trip was great, though!

Today I’d like to address a ‘mindset debate’ that can have a huge impact on your life, and here it is…

You know all those Law of Attraction (LOA) programs that insist you should never think about what you don't want because thinking about it will produce those unwanted results in your life?

If you’ve been trying to use the LOA at all, you’ve probably puzzled about this very question. Should you think about what you don't want as a motivator, to light a fire under your butt, or is it just too risky?

This was Marie’s question too, and here’s what she wrote:

"How does your program mesh with the Law of Attraction teachings? In particular I am talking about focusing on what you don't want. You mentioned in your book that you must have sufficient revulsion to a situation in order to change it. Yet my law of attraction coaches tell me that is resistance and focusing on a "don't want," which I will get more of. Yet I make choices all the time to notice an environment or situation is something I don't want and I move away from it. I get opportunities and people coming my way all the time and I say no to them because they feel like a waste of time and energy. I was unable to vibe my way out of my job until I stopped focussing on the positive aspects of it and realized it was really draining me. So my question to you is how do you reconcile these two concepts?"

In response to Marie’s EXCELLENT question, here’s my answer…


There’s a nasty psychological tendency we humans have that makes it imperative for us to think about what we don’t want in order to break free from it…

And that psychological tendency is our nearly infinite ability to become perversely comfortable with the most monumentally uncomfortable situations. Witness the prison inmate who’s terrified of freedom and would prefer to remain behind bars, despite the violence, ugliness and restrictions of that life.

We may be shocked by the inmate’s refusal of the freedom we all enjoy, but we then turn around and do the very same thing in our own lives. That is, we continually recreate patterns of failure because, no matter how much they hurt, we're as comfortable with them as with a well-worn shoe.

So I’m here to tell you the plain and simple truth – unless you get rid of that feeling of comfort with your lousy finances, your empty relationships or your dismal health, you will NEVER take the action you need to transform the situation.

You won’t change your current situation until you despise it. And for all those who think that anything other than an unending feeling of sweetness and light is bound to wreck your life, I have news for you…

…all Authentic Ancient Traditions have thousands of years of data to say you’re wrong. The recent New Age tendency to go into a cold sweat at the mere mention of emotions like anger is wrong. Ironically, that knee jerk response is perilously close to the very attitudes that led to our mind-body split in the Western world in the first place.

One of the most recent Orthodox Christian holy men went so far as to say that there’s no progress in spiritual life until hatred [for the inner obstacles to that life] reaches its maximum. And millennia of data are there to support his assertion.

Likewise, in any area of your life that you want to transform, you must pick yourself up by the scruff of the neck and shake yourself until you recognize just how much you detest where you are.

You may remember my talking about Napoleon Hill’s statement that you’ll never get what you want until you work yourself into a white heat of desire for it. The opposite is equally true….

…You’ll never get out of what you don’t want until you hate it with all your heart.

Now notice something very important: the quality of thought that goes into obsessively dwelling on what you don’t want is totally different from the quality of thought that goes into despising what you don’t want. Read that sentence again and think about it.

In the first instance, which is what most people do and what causes them to re-create the same destructive patterns in their lives over and over again, the predominant emotion is fear. Fear is a victim’s emotion. It disempowers you, makes your feel defenceless and helpless.

When you despise your situation, on the other hand, the situation is very different. The emotion of despising is the emotion of the predator, not the prey, so you no longer feel helpless, defenceless or disempowered. Instead, you have the initiative.

In other words, so called negative emotions are not entirely negative at all. Yes, they can become very destructive to ourselves and others if and only if we use them inappropriately, but they’re not inherently bad.

And if we don’t leverage the ‘negative’ emotion of hatred to break through our perverse sense of comfort with misery, we’ll stay in misery forever.

I know for a fact that lots of people failed to progress in this or that area of their lives until they detested where they were. And, as far as I can see, this has also been true for Marie.

This approach has the added advantage of keeping the horror of where you’re at very fresh in your mind and of helping you to understand your current reality better.

It also sets in motion the psychological law of contrast – the greater the difference you can see in your mind between your current reality and where you want to be, the greater and more decisive will be your efforts to move toward the latter.

So don’t be a victim of the LOA ‘dogmatists’ who are telling you that any thought of what you don’t want is dangerous. Just the opposite is true.

You’re entirely responsible for the quality of your thoughts, so start now to put some high quality "hate" onto what you don’t want. Just make sure that before you start to do this, however, you also know precisely what you would love to see. And spend at least twice as much time visualizing your desires as you do on your current, lousy situation.

And many thanks again to Marie for this very timely question!

- Dr. Symeon Rodger