My spiritual blog & articles - My Spiritual Coach

Is the law of attraction/manifestation simply a way for people to just believe in themselves, and therefore take action, or is it more than that?

1/25/2021

The Law of Attraction, which is “like attracts like,” makes a lot of sense when we see it in nature. Geese don’t hang out with skunks, they attract other geese. It is also about the energy that we put out there. It is invisible, but is comes back to us as we magnetically attract it.

However, I take issue with people thinking that they can sit on their sofa all day long and pet their cat and all the goodies they ever wanted in life will magically appear. My experience is that you have to meet the Universe at least half way, through action, to manifest anything you want in your life.

It is the lazy way out to think that you can lose weight, for example, by just thinking thoughts that you are thinner. You have to put in the work and the discipline. You must take some form of action. That is what sets the whole Universal ball rolling. If you just sit there and indulge in magical thinking that just because you are a good person and think nice thoughts everything good will come to you, I’m sorry, it won’t work.

Unfortunately, the Law of Attraction has been so commercialized, it has lost its original meaning. It is all about the energy forces of the Universe, which are unseen but can be harnessed by our own energy fields. It is not about brining in all the stuff money can buy and everyone lives happily ever after.

The physical plane is not easy and we a driven by the media to believe we need so many things to be happy. The Law of Attraction appeals to people who want lots of things. And therefore, it has become tarnished from misuse. We believe all these things lead to a happy, successful life. But they don’t. Inner peace, joy, love, bliss—our minds need to be all of those first things to attract them.

But we cannot be a huge SUV, a McMansion, a $1,000 pizza, and those things all go away or get digested and turn to excrement or dust. So, using the Law of Attraction for such things may be amusing, but it is not fulfilling and often doesn’t work. We are coming from an energy level of need and want, rather than fulfillment and that is the flaw. Law of attraction, without the necessary energetic work to supplement it, will not work.

Is the pursuit of enlightenment less of a thing for women?

1/25/2021

Enlightenment has been the center of my life since I was a small child. And I am a woman. At a young age, I also became aware that some religions don’t believe that women can achieve enlightenment or even be allowed into sections of an all-male heaven. I was perplexed.

Are you going to tell me that I won’t be allowed into the boys club of enlightened beings because I have been blessed with certain physical attributes or a certain distribution of hormones in my system?

Whether we have testosterone running through our veins or estrogen has nothing whatsoever to do with our Soul’s path. Those things belong to the body and determine whether we are male or female strictly for reproductive purposes.

From an enlightened point of view, we are not our bodies. They are the vehicles through which our Souls experience physical existence as part of their karmic journeys. It’s absurd to think that a male, regardless of how he behaved in this life, has a better chance of going to heaven than a female who has led a life of caring and spiritual pursuits.

One example is Digambar Jains. I am generally a big fan of Jains except on this one point. They believe that women are not capable of being enlightened. Svetambar Jains have opposite beliefs, believing that women are capable of enlightened and can become religious role models. But women, especially among Svetambar Jains, are believed to be deceitful. They believe that deceit is the foundation of their character. The reason they were reborn as a woman is because they were deceitful in a former life.

One of their sacred texts states:

“As the result of manifesting deception, a man in this world becomes a woman. As a woman, if her heart is pure, she becomes a man in this world.”

And men aren’t deceitful? That is my question. What does gender have to do with it? According to the Federal Bureau of Prisons, 93.% of the population in prisons are males and 6.7% are females. Is it not deceit to steal peoples lives through murder, theft, racketeering, con artistry, and other crimes? So please don’t tell me how holy the male population is, based on their criminal behavior.

According to a study entitled: Women in the Afterlife: The Islamic View as Seen from Quran and Tradition by Jane I. Smith and Yvonne Y. Haddad:

“The most basic relationship in Islamic society is not between a man and a woman but between a man and God: It is definitely not between woman and God.

. . .men, have, upon occasion, apparently used the assurance of their own place in eternity as a tool of control and of dominance.”
Yet other religious systems based on the Goddess, instead of a patriarchal punitive God, have deemed women as the leaders in enlightenment.

Heaven, (which I have experienced as enlightenment here on earth) is not a physical place of luxury where women take a subservient role as they wait upon men. This is fun fantasy for the male ego. This fairytale is not based on spirituality or any of my own deeply-held experiences of enlightenment. It looks like a pride-based and greedy imaginary man-made creation, based on physical dominance, very similar to life on earth.

What does it mean to find your “inner truth”, and have you found yours?

12/22/2020

So much of what we think is the truth is just received knowledge that we assimilated when we were too young to resist. We wanted to fit in when we were children. We wanted our parents to love us and to care for us. Therefore, it would not have been in our best interest to buck the system, even if we were capable of resisting.

Then we went to school. We had to learn what the teachers in our culture were teaching. It was considered to be the truth at the time, until we find out that history can be re-written according to cultural biases.

Our religious institutions also have their input into our view of truth. They frighten us with versions of hell at ages when, again, we are too young to resist and are not capable of intellectual argumentation. We are punished if we do not agree and it is much easier just to fit and and not make waves.
And so, most people never get to find their “inner truth.” To do that, we must scrub our consciousness clean of all received views and notions and find out what is so jut for ourselves. This requires going in within and learning about who we really are as Eternal Soul. It is a quiet place, away from all information input and entertainment. It is a place of peace, where you fearlessly discover what you love and what brings the most joy.

Yes, I have found inner truth for me, and it is a place of endless freedom. Most people don’t take the time to discover who they are. It’s much easier to accept outer truth. But, as we have seen through time, what we thought was true (such as the flat earth or that the earth is the center of the universe) is false. Inner truth is never false, because it is based on Soul, which can’t be incorrect.

How does being attached to the material world impact us?

12/22/2020

Being attached to the material world turns us into grasping, frightened beings. It is obvious to any thinking person, that all material items have an invisible time stamp on them. They are all going to go away one day. They will rot, rust, decay, die, get stolen, eroded, or perish in other ways. Anyone who observes the material world can attest to this.

Yet we fool ourselves, and delude ourselves, in a kind of mass hypnosis into valuing and seeking these things and more things to cope with our fear and boredom. We want to display these things to bolster our egos in front of others and make ourselves feel that we have “made it.” We want others to envy us, admire us, and want what we have. We entertain ourselves with shopping and adding even more to our storehouse of things that are never going to last. And so we waste the beautiful life we are here to experience. We are chasing after and placing value on something that can be easily taken away from us.

When enough people want to grasp all the material goods for themselves, our planet will not recover from this level of greed. Tearing down rain forests, overfishing and polluting our waters, paving over nature and creating fake scenarios to pamper our fantasies, does not bring inner peace, joy, or beauty. We must go within and discover our Eternal Soul, which never goes away and cannot die. All else, although entertaining and challenging, is a waste of time and creates more problems than solutions.

What did Echkart Tolle mean by saying problems are illusions, or fear is an illusion?

8/4/2020

When Eckhart Tolle says that problems are illusions, or that fear is an illusion, he is not making light of the pain and suffering we go through as humans. He knows very well the unhappiness and fear that so many people live in, regardless of their external circumstances.

Instead, he is referring to how we create problems and fear in our lives. We assume people are out to get us, that the Universe is playing tricks with us, and that we are helpless victims. Tolle’s approach to problems is threefold:

Leave them
Change them
Accept them

. . . anything else is craziness.

If we have a clear view of these solutions, the problems no longer remain problems because we have walked away, changed the situation, or accepted that the situation is not going to change so we might as well be happy and get on with our lives. Therefore, they are no longer problems, they are decisions we have a to make.

Fear is also an illusion. We cannot touch fear and we cannot make it stand still. It is a part of our thinking patterns that are influenced by so many things, including our brains’ hard-wiring for fear as a survival tactic. Tolle cites the example of sleeping in a safe, warm bed at night. The ego-mind will start conjuring up all kinds of things to be afraid of: Financial ruin, ill health, and even dying.

Meanwhile, we are snug and secure in our warm bed creating mental strife for ourselves. There is nothing to be afraid of and we are tied in knots of fear and dread. That is why Eckhart Tolle describes fear as an illusion. And like problems, fear disappears when we understand the reality of our existence as Eternal Souls.

Do we have a monkey mind?

7/20/2020

The term “monkey mind” is an old buddhist description of how our ego minds jump from topic to topic from the moment we wake up to the moment we go to sleep. You might say, “We don’t have a monkey mind, it has us.” In other words it is so pervasive, repetitive, and non-stop that unless we are meditating or asleep, it has us. It runs us and causes our emotions to go up and down all day long and sometimes into our dreams.

Even it we “have” a monkey mind, it doesn’t mean we actually are this monkey mind. It is just a tool we can use to accomplish our goals. But if we let it run our lives with its restless chatter, then it does indeed, have us. It needs to be disciplined and put in its place. It is not who we are, for we are much more than this conglomeration of neural transmitters. It is merely an instrument in this body that helps us navigate through the physical world.

The monkey mind is responsible for all the unrest, neurosis, violence, and upset in the world of human interactions. It keeps us awake at night and causes us to seek substances to subdue it. We are addicted to the monkey mind and its antics and then seek out other forms of addiction to quell it. And so, if we do not acknowledge this monkey mind and begin to tame it, it will, indeed, have us. And until we realize we are The Eternal Soul, we will experience its rambunctious behavior.

What motivates someone that has attained Eckhart Tolle's state of presence to do anything?

7/1/2020

The only thing that motivates someone who has attained Eckhart Tolle’s state of presence to do anything is the sheer joy of doing it. Why does Eckart Tolle travel around the world speaking to large audiences? Because he loves to do it. It is what gives his life meaning. It brings him joy and not doing it wouldn’t feel as good.

Only people who don’t understand the state of presence do things for other reasons that relate to the future or the past. “I hate this job but I gotta pay the bills I incurred last year. But soon it’s quitting time and I can get out of here.” If we live in the present moment we understand that we only want to do things that bring more happiness and growth.
And if there are necessary jobs we don’t like to do, such as cleaning the toilet, we find ways to make that experience more enjoyable.

Eckhart Tolle does not advocate sitting around in squalor while we contemplate the glories of the present moment. Part of living in the present moment is applying the talents and abilities we brought to this planet. This includes “cleaning up the mess we made.” This includes living in a beautiful and natural environment. All of that takes work, which is what we came here to do—not escape into a fantasy world because we cannot control the antics of the ego-mind and give up all activity.

Is Eckhart Tolle's idea of presence a state of happiness?

7/1/2020

If we define happiness as a state of inner peace regardless of outer circumstances, then, yes, Eckhart Tolle’s idea of presence is a state of happiness. Happiness does not always mean constant ecstatic bliss. It can be a state of underlying joy regardless of how our ego-minds rush forward into the future or obsess about the past. Even if we are in prison or being tortured, we can maintain a state of presence that diminishes the suffering.

This means that we are able to be clearly here and now. This is a very difficult state for the ego-mind, which relies on fear for its nourishment. But when there is fear, happiness cannot exist. They cannot be in the same space. Fear is what amplifies our pain and increases our suffering. Happiness and suffering are mutually exclusive.

The only place we can find happiness is in the present moment. As Eckhart Tolle points out, the past no longer exists and the future does not exist either. We only have the present moment, regardless of how our ego-minds kick and scream. There is nothing else. Realizing this allows for a clarity of vision that is not clouded by illusions that there is something better than right now.

We cannot control our outer circumstances. There will always be global disasters and interpersonal strife. The only thing we have control over is how present we can be. If we are not in control, the ego-mind will take us down a painful and meaningless path. The Eternal Now is all we have ever had. And if we cannot recognize this, no matter how much wealth we accumulate or worldly honors, we will never be happy.

Can studying philosophy lead to a happier and more peaceful existence?

6/11/2020

Many philosophical systems, such as Stoicism, may lead to a happier and more peaceful life. But just studying them misses the point. We must find what is true for us in our lives. Marcus Aurelius makes many observations and statements that could turn the light on inside the reader or listener and lead to the way out of anxiety and stress:

“You have power over your mind - not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.”

“Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars, and see yourself running with them.”

“Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.”

“Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one.”

“When you arise in the morning think of what a privilege it is to be alive, to think, to enjoy, to love ...”

Marcus Aurelius is just one of may brilliant philosophers who contemplated how to avoid the upsets and troubles of life and be emotionally free. Yet, as we know, Marcus Aurelius and others came many centuries before us, and the world, as a whole, has not paid much attention.

The world is still engaged in behaviors that do not lead to peace or happiness. However, everyone can benefit from the great thinkers in their daily lives for they have shown us the way. Their words have helped many individuals and that is why they have survived to this day.

Why have concentration, discipline, harmony, and clarity of mind not been as big of a thing in Western philosophy as it has been in Eastern?

3/29/2020

Western Philosophy, with some exceptions, is a temple to the rational mind. Reasoning and figuring out why things are the way they are, are the main focus. For example, the Philosopher Kant, formulated reasons for why we need to behave altruistically towards others. Even Descartes, with his, “I think, therefore I am,” emphasizes the rational mind. He does not say: “I feel therefore I am,” or “I witness, therefore I am.”

Eastern philosophy is more concerned with going within to find who we are as an Eternal reflection of cosmic consciousness. To do this, we must bypass the rational mind and forget about the “why’s” of things. They are the way they are and no matter how bright we are, we will never get to the bottom of it all—but Who and What is it that wants to understand?

To find out who we are, behind the labels, masks, and conditioning, we must not be distracted by the constant stream of thoughts that swirl through the mind. It takes discipline to rise above this whirlpool. It takes training to recognize the tricks of the mind. This is what Eastern philosophy aims to do. And it offers pointers to how to move away from the collector’s search for never-ending knowledge.

In general, Western philosophy is about knowing. Eastern philosophy is about finding our unity with an underlying structure of reality that never dies and never changes. It presumes we can never fully know, but we can still unite in peace with All That Is, because, at base, this is who we really are anyway. All knowledge passes away, but the Soul, in its union with the Universe, is eternal.

We can collect as much knowledge as we want, but it does not bring peace or comfort. But once we go within, with a truly quiet mind, all the harmony of the Universe is revealed.