I never intended for this blog to become a billboard for numerous other resources but I am willing to admit that all I have learned has come from various sources from which I glean what I find to be beneficial. I could very well log on and start spouting what I think and believe as if it spontaneously came to me, but I like being more honest than that.
Speaking of honesty, many of the newly sprouted, "Law of Attraction", human development gurus never give an ounce of credit to the origins of these beliefs. We could go back to the Bible with quotes such as "as a man thinketh, so shall he be", "ask and you shall receive, seek and you shall find, knock and it shall be opened unto you", and even "greater works than this shall you do." I am nowhere near a Bible authority, but anyone who does not acknowledge the biblical roots of the Law of Attraction is either being naive or disingenuous.
We could also point to the Buddhist concept of karma as espoused in the "Four Noble Truths". These are:
1. Suffering exists in life
2. Suffering is caused by craving.
3. To eliminate suffering, eliminate craving.
4. To eliminate craving follow the Eightfold Path.
In actuality, karma is the inverse of the Law of Attraction, that the object of life is not to create the things that we want, but to stop wanting (on a grand scale) in order to escape the cycle of suffering. Some try to assimilate the notion of escaping karma by espousing the idea that there should be some emotional detachment when visualizing the things we want to manifest in order to avoid the negative feelings of not having the objects of our desire now. My belief is that it is the allowing of our cravings to comsume us that gets in the way of our happiness. We should have the finer things, the cars, the clothes, the houses, without allowing them to control us. We need to avoid having our identity dominated by either our physical possessions or our station in this life.
Examples of such identity confusion are stars who have all the fame and money most of us can imagine but who habitually engage in self-destructive behavior (suffering) because their false identity as a star does not bring them happiness.
Before you think I am denegrating wealth, let me clarify. There are excellent examples of people whose wealth has very little affect on their identity. For me, Bill Gates and Warren Buffet both come to mind. To be two of the richest men in the history of the world, it is fairly obvious when studying either that their sense of self-worth has little to do with their net worth. In 2006, Buffet's salary as chairman of Berkshire Hathaway was a whopping $100,000, roughly the amount that a Project Director at AT&T would be paid. By the way, 2006 was also the year that Buffet gave away an estimated 2/3 of his fortune to charity, namely the Bill and Linda Gates foundation.
That's right, the world's second richest man is turning to the world's richest to give his money away. Coincidentally, 2006 was the same year that Bill Gates decided to give up operational control of Microsoft in order to focus on his charity work. I don't mean to deify these two men, but a study of their attitudes toward wealth (not just how they got rich), will go a long way in serving the would-be wealth manifestor in developing an attractive mindset.
Its a delicate balancing act, creating wealth while not craving wealth, but when the balance is achieved, the rewards are tremendous...physically, mentally and spiritually.
Please feeling free to write me or comment here with your thoughts on these and other ideas. Thanks!
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