Message from Pan Lord of the Wilderness: Following, please find an excerpt from When We Were Gods. While writing the book, I was awakened in the night and, for the first and only time in my life, received channeled information.
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Happy Earth Day! Here’s a photo showing the giant sunflowers that grew the year I was writing When We Were Gods. The nature god, Pan, Lord of the Wilderness, had appeared while I was writing the book and asked me to include a chapter about nature and nature spirits in the book, which I did. Pan wanted readers to know that nature could clean up the earth if we would just show more appreciation for the natural world.
Sunflowers grew over 14 feet tall–I’m 5 feet, 3 inches tall–after I included Pan’s message in When We Were Gods.
After I included the chapter in the book, I had a phenomenal garden. I felt that Pan was showing me and the world an example of what nature could do when appreciated.
I was just talking with the young woman whose experiences with the 40-day Manifestation Prayer I wrote about in Have Your Heart’s Desire. The 40-day Manifestation Prayer is based on the Law of Attraction and uses repetition over 40 days to retrain the subconscious.
This is the young woman who, when she was in college, wanted to be asked out on a date. After she finished her 40-day Manifestation Prayer, a young man she found attractive, who was in one of her classes, came up to her and said, “Hi.” However, she was so shy, that she couldn’t say “Hi” in reply. Then she realized she needed to do another 40-day Manifestation Prayer and ask for the ability to respond when an attractive young man approached her. After her second 40-day Manifestation Prayer, she did go out on a date with someone she liked.
When we talked yesterday, she told me that it had actually taken her years of doing the 40-day Manifestation Prayer to finally find the love she wanted in her life. She has now been married for a year and a half.
She said during this process of doing many 40-day Manifestation Prayers one after another, at first, a stray cat had turned up that she could love. Next, she got involved in a fan club for a particular sport she loves. And on and on–step by step accepting more love in her life until she found the relationship love she wanted. In her opinion, it took so long, because the changes had to come from within her, and this took a long time.
So, I wanted to pass this on to you just in case you need some encouragement with holding a positive thought so you can to continue going step-by-step in your changes toward a happier, more fulfilling life.
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Law of Attraction Quote: The “Yes, Buts” and tail-enders of killing your dreams.” ~ Sherry Winn
Sherry Winn knows about the power of the Law of Attraction. A former elite athlete competing at the Olympic Games of 1984 and 1988, she contracted chronic pain at the age of 33 and was told by 17 medical practitioners that there was no help for her. Learning from seminars, mentors, books, and meditation, she used positive thinking to help herself.
In an online article on the Elevated Existence website, Sherry says:
. . . most of us want something but we don’t think we can have it, or we want it but we don’t see how we can get it. Our doubts interfere with the conviction behind the thought. We tend to use the “Yes, but” statements.
I know what she means. I might get enthusiastic about, say, cleaning the house. It is time for Spring Cleaning, right? So, I might visualize my lovely, glowing clean house and how good I feel welcoming friends and family to my spacious, beautiful home. However, all I have to do is look around and see all that needs to be done, and right away, I’m susceptible to a “Yes, But” statement such as:
“Yes, I love that my home is so beautiful, spacious, and clean, but there’s so much work to be done I don’t know how I’ll ever do it and get my work done too.”
There you have it: My “Yes, But” statement that attracts something I don’t want.
Sherry suggests meditating and asking yourself: Why? Why do you have what you want?
For example, I could ask, “Why is my house so beautiful, spacious, and clean?” And, my answer is, because I hired someone to clean it for me. Or, because I’ve set aside 30 minutes every day to clean it. Now, my positive thought can create what I want. Thanks, Sherry.
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“Sometimes the most ordinary things could be made extraordinary, simply by doing them with the right people”
~Nicholas Sparks
Lessons Learned In Life
Yesterday, I felt really happy to receive a comment from Marsha about a post I made on April 3, 2011, about a hauntingly lovely poet, The Shell. Marsha also remembered it from learning it in high school.
It begins with:
AND then I pressed the shell
Close to my ear
And listened well,
And straightway like a bell
Came low and clear
The slow, sad murmur of the distant seas,
Whipped by an icy breeze
Upon a shore
Wind-swept and desolate.
It’s by by James Stephens. Do you remember this poem? It has stayed with me over the years.
I thought it would be easy to find a photo among all of my 100s, maybe 1000s, of photos to illustrate this post, but it seems I’ve always taken pictures of the beach either in sunlight or with footprints in the sand, so my beach pictures look cheery and with evidence of humanity. Do you have a photo that evokes the desolate mood of The Shell?
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Over the years, I have been invited to speak for groups that hold their events in Unity churches. Therefore, I have always felt a resonance with Unity. As a result, I feel happy to see that Unity’s philosophy is very similar to the Law of Attraction. For example, in an online article in the Westlake/Bay Village Observer, I read an article that said:
Continue readingThe law of attraction is summed up in Unity’s law of mind action: thoughts held in mind, reproduce after their kind, and out-picture on the screen of life as our experience.
Since the Law of Attraction says that “Like attracts Like,” the following Buddhist chant addresses the concept by referring to the Mystic Law of Cause and Effect. I learned about this chant on the Thanking the Spoon blog site, which is about Nichiren Buddhism. I like that the Law of Attraction, which seems to be so new because of the Secret movie and book, is actually quite ancient.
Thanking the Spoon says that:
A deeper and more complete concept of the LOA is in fact at the core of the philosophy of Nichiren Daishonin, who in 13th century Japan first chanted the mantra Nam Myoho Renge Kyo, where the words ‘Myoho Renge’ mean (amongst other things)‘Mystic Law of Cause and Effect’. Nichiren explains: “It is called the Mystic Law because it reveals the principle of the mutually inclusive relationship of a single moment of life and all phenomena.”
OK, what does that mean, you may ask? I love this explanation from the novel The Buddha Geoff and Me, where author Edward Canfor-Dumas eloquently describes this Mystic Law as the “mystical, invisible thread between the churning, inner reality of my life and the great outdoors of the rest of the world.”
The Secret and the Law of Attraction – good stuff but Buddhism says they’re only half the story…
“Easter says you can put truth in a grave but it won’t stay there.” ~ Clarence W. Hall
Another way that Buddhism differs from the Law of Attraction is that Buddhism includes Karma–that difficulties in this lifetime may be the result of actions and decisions in past lives. The colorful image below is a 19th century painting showing the 10 avatars or incarnations of Vishnu, one of which was Buddha. Vishnu is the supreme god in the ancient Hindu Vedic sacred texts.
Vishnu with his 10 avatars (incarnations): Fish, Tortoise, Boar, Man-Lion, Dwarf, Rama with the Ax, King Rama, Krishna, Buddha, and Kalkin. Painting from Jaipur, India, 19th century; in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. This image is in the public domain because its copyright has expired. From Wikipedia Commons
According to the Law of Attraction, as popularized in such books at The Secret by Rhonda S. Byrne and The Key by Joe Vitale, difficulties are supposed to result from wrong thought. If a person sustains positive thoughts and visualizes good results that lead to happiness, the person will attract good things in their life.
Some people say that when the Law of Attraction doesn’t work, it is because the person did not visualize properly, or they did not believe enough, or they were not positive enough. Unfortunately, sometime when people do not get the results they were promised, they feel like they are greater failures than before they tried the Law of Attraction.
On the other hand, Buddhism does not promise quick results. Instead, to quote an excerpt from the Talking Spoon blog site:
In my experience of 28 years as a Buddhist, to become truly and deeply happy is indeed a matter of faith, blood, sweat, patience and tears. Of confronting head-on the harsh realities of daily life and creating value and beauty from them. We call this process ‘Human Revolution’ in Nichiren Buddhism and when you’re changing a really deep aspect of karma (for example mental health, career or relationships) it can feel like every day produces new and bigger obstacles. Nichiren himself said that obstacles are an inevitable sign of progress and that when faced with challenges, “The wise rejoice and the foolish retreat.”
The Secret and the Law of Attraction–good stuff but Buddhism says they’re only half the story…
Now, that sounds encouraging! And, it also makes sense–that it would take more than a positive thought and visualization to change long-standing beliefs, especially those carried forward from previous lives.
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