One of the most unfortunate things I witness with many of today's Christians are their gross ignorance of higher, Universal, cosmic law; ignoring it solely for faith in Jesus who himself clearly understood the importance of Universal law and clearly taught it to his disciples.
 Many Christians rejected 2006's The Secret (DVD) because for many of them it conflicted with previous religious programming. Many confused the Law of Attraction as taking the place of God or Jesus, which it didn't of course, but you see, even if a person doesn't believe in God they are still subject to Universal law. No man or woman is exempt from the law or laws. No man or woman is above the law or laws and no religious belief can make any person immune to the effects of these laws.
The Law of Attraction does not replace God. It was set into motion by God.
For example, take an atheist and a believer who both jump into a lake of water - perhaps to save their lives. If the atheist can swim he or she will survive whereas if the believer doesn't know how to swim, he or she will drown and die. There is no favor received on the believer over the atheist by mere virtue of belief. The only thing that matters in this scenario is who can swim. Belief in God will not make up for not knowing how to swim.
All the belief in the world cannot alter the Law of Gravity. You can believe in God which is great, but when you jump off the top of the Empire State Building, you've jumped into a law that doesn't care what your religious belief may be; and while under the Law of Gravity you are subject to it and belief can't or won't alter it and the proof is when the body hits the ground of the streets surrounding the Empire State Building. This is law, People!
The person who believes in angels and knows how to call on them will fare better than the strict believer in God who does not know how to swim or who doesn't call on his or her guardian angels, especially in times of need.
Miracles can and do happen but they are more so the exception to the rule rather than the rule and miracles do not violate law but occur within them.
Belief is great, but knowledge strengthens and enhances belief!
You are not strictly upon Earth to simply believe in God. You must want or desire something, be it tangible or intangible. All creation begins with desire.
You must want something tangible, be it a house, car, clothes, food, a job or position, jewelry, a person, sexual intercourse, furniture, personal hygiene products, money, or a flat screen television to name just a few things. The foregoing is true especially if you reside in the Western world of the Matrix, i.e. United States. But as a law, as humans in the flesh, we require material things and it's nothing wrong with it. Not at all!
Now on the flip side, you must also desire things intangible, like things pertaining to feelings, i.e. peace, prosperity, abundance, affluence, silence or quietude, love, respect, tranquility, serenity, bliss, euphoria, security, etc.
Desire is part of the lesson here on Earth, a material planet. The problem we may encounter is if we become linear in our scope and only desire material things and at the expense of our spiritual side or self and the spiritual values of life. This happens to a lot of people, especially here in the Western world.
You also have cases where you have people who cultivate their spiritual self and side and desire and achieve the spiritual values of life but at the expense of the material side and self and the material values of life which also creates an imbalance; the same kind of imbalance created by the people who achieved material success at the expense of negating their spiritual side or self and the spiritual values of life. It's the same thing! Two sides of the same coin!
Jesus acknowledged that people will desire things and Jesus even explained the way to obtaining the things desired, using prayer as a vehicle and incorporating belief in the process.
In Mark 11:24, Jesus is attributed as saying:
"Therefore I say unto, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them."
Let's break Mark 11:24 into elements the same way we would break a statute or code into elements.
First we have "What things so ever you desire." Next we have, "When you pray." Third, we have "Believe that you will receive them." And fourth and lastly we have, "And you shall have them."
The first three things: desire, prayer, and belief give us or lead us to the result of the fourth thing, which is receiving or reception.
Basically, prayer serves as a vehicle for things desired, whatever the thing or things may be. Joseph Murphy says prayer itself is desire!
 I will say this though: if you desire for things that serve you and the greater good of others, you tend to get those things quicker. The Universe simply supports positivity more so than negativity. This is why a positive thought is 100 times more powerful than a negative one as Rev. Michael Beckwith stated in The Secret. Rev. Beckwith is correct!
So you must first have a desire for something. Desire is totally natural and it must be mastered and perfected before you can even think about giving up or losing desire, a precept of certain Eastern philosophies.
In the Eastern world, many of their lessons require giving up desire whereas in the Western world our lessons involve acknowledging, using, learning how to control and mastering desire. Only after we get here can we seriously begin to think in terms of giving it up to live a meditative life. You see: in order to meditate one must lose desire. The mind must become clear and where there is desire the mind is not clear.
You cannot be here in the material Western world and not desire. It's part of the soul lesson here. Desire helps us to create! If you want to give up on desire or lose your desire then you'd fare better in the Eastern world where life is different and you don't have to worry about the daily necessities of life like you do here in the West. You really need your mind here in the Western world.
Easterners can lose desire because they don't have to worry about paying mortgages, rent, utility bills, credit card bills, various insurances (life, health, medical, dental, automobile, and home), or taxes - at least to the degree that we do here in the West; and especially those Easterners who don't reside in the cities or developed areas.
So you must first have a desire for something. Desire is totally natural and it must be mastered and perfected before you can even think about giving up or losing desire.
Desire. Noun. "A strong feeling of wanting to have something or wishing for something to happen."
You must know what you want; what you desire. This is first.
Next, you must pray.
Pray. verb. "Address a solemn request or expression of thanks to a deity or other object of worship, 2. wish or hope strongly for a particular outcome or situation."
It is important to note that there is a correct way of praying and even Jesus' taught this.
In Matthew 6:6-7 it reads:
"But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to the Father which is in secret; and the Father which seeth in secret shall reward the openly. But when ye pray, use not vain repetition..."
When praying and being mindful of Universal law, one must remember that all you have to do is ask (pray) one time. Just one time only! When you pray twice for the same thing (desire), it's called "praying twice." The danger of "praying twice" is that you cancel out the prayer. "Praying twice" or constant praying of the same thing is what Jesus calls "vain repetition."
Praying to the Father in secret represents your mind, the hidden aspect- the inner (inner world). Being rewarded by the Father openly represents the material or physical, the outer or outward - manifesting. What you pray for in secret is rewarded openly. Basically, the hidden things of the mind are made manifest openly. Law of Attraction taught right in the Bible! Again, Law of Attraction does not cancel out Jesus. Jesus clearly espoused it according to scripture.
While praying and after prayer, you must believe:
Believe. Verb. "Accept (something) as true; feel sure of the truth of."
You must accept as true that what you asked for is already yours and it will ultimately physically manifest. It's just a matter of time, however, the thing is already yours. You must accept this as true and never doubt, as doubt is the subconscious will to fail. Doubt diminishes the intensity of the desire and creates a blockage to your receiving the desire. Doubt slows down the arrival of the manifestation of the desire but can also outright prevent the desire from manifesting.
Joseph Murphy states the following in relation to belief as mentioned in Mark 11:24:
"The inspired writer tells us to believe and accept as true the fact that our desire has already been accomplished and fulfilled, that it is already completed, and that its realization will follow as a thing in the future. The success of this technique depends on the confident conviction that the thought, the idea, and the picture is already a fact in the mind; and in order for anything to have substance in the realm of the mind, it must be thought of as actually existing there. Here in a few cryptic words is a concise and specific direction for making use of the creative power of thought by impressing upon the subconscious the particular thing that we desire. Your thought, idea, plan, or purpose is as real on its own plane as your hand or your heart. In following the Bible technique, you completely eliminate from your mind all consideration of conditions, circumstances, or anything that might imply adverse contingencies. You are planting a seed (concept) in the mind, which if you leave undisturbed, will infallibly germinate into external fruition."
Truncated and excerpted from "The Mental Science Manual" (e-book) available in E-Books section (on-line store)
|
