Doh… somehow, not. Which in itself is a negative thought. Which right there is a crime against the law of positivity, the Law of Attraction even – cardinal sin of the 21^st century, to flout the LoA – which only serves to ensure that whatever I don’t want (lack) will continue to be my fate. Which seems somehow unfair really, when I’m working so hard to get all my vibrations and energies and whatnots in alignment with the Universe.

I jest, of course. No disrespect to these many powerful and eloquent teachers, some of whom, let’s say, I find easier to follow than others. Rikka Zimmerman, bless her heart, left me more than a little bemused (‘I mean, when you judge, do you feel like you?’ Er… yes?). That is one high lady, for damn sure, but I couldn’t remotely hook on to her message. She seems to be saying, as above, that I am everything and everything is me. Which I guess you have to be very high indeed to feel as Truth, because it makes no sense to me at all. I can sort of get why people come to conclude that God is everywhere and in everything, because of the simple connection between Pran, Life Force, Ch’i – the physical force of the universe, call it Love if you like – and the spiritual energy that is the Soul. But to understand my Self as but an ingredient of the Cosmic Soup – if that’s the correct interpretation Rikka, sorry if I’ve missed the point – really doesn’t play with me. Or am I the whole cosmic soup, and is therefore the whole cosmic soup also everybody else and everything else on earth and in heaven, from neutrinos and microbes to rivers of mud to the newly fallen dew to large industrial meat processing installations (for example)? Or are we sort of like meatballs in said Cosmic Soup, with an individual identity yet nevertheless part of the whole recipe? Because surely we have to find a way of understanding our Selves as individual entities? Otherwise how would we have individual karma? If Abundance is me, why aren’t I feeling it? What am I doing wrong or not doing right? Where am I failing? Never mind abundance, this is more like A Bun Dance, or perhaps a Bagel Breakdown. A Pastry Pirouette, perhaps. Nonsense, in other words. And very counter productive.

But I did get a bit of a breakthrough listening to Derek Rydall – who also, of course, it has to be said, is offering his self transformation teaching package via youwealthevolution.com, usually worth $997, for a knockdown deal of only $97. But he makes more sense than I have heard in along while, and what’s more, he speaks with a real understanding of the dramatic power of language, which I respond to every time. His Law is the Law of Emergence. More on that – and much else around this whole abundance thing – to come.

There’s ‘manifesteverythingnow.com’ (‘discover the secrets of effortless manifestation’), on which I have discovered and listened to some really insightful people, or  ‘wealthforwomensummit.com‘, where I met Leela Francis and her idea of the four ‘modes’ of wealth – Spiritual, Emotional, Sensual, Physical, including money –  which seems a very balanced and sensible insight. But we’re still trying to make physical things happen through some sort of spiritual practice, and I’m uneasy about this. If ‘manifesting’ doesn’t work as you’ve been led to believe it should, what are you left with? The danger of being worse off than if you’d never started, is what.

I like the Law of Attraction, I really do. Just look at simple ideas that come up through any religious tradition – do as you would be done by, as you sow so shall you reap etc etc – which express it, in some form or other. But it ain’t a simple matter of thinking about stuff and it will appear, folks. Sorry, but no. Robert Anthony is pretty much on the button when he talks about ‘alignment’. It’s a matter of responding to the universal vibration (sorry for the hippy mumbo jumbo, but it does actually mean something) and experiencing how you as a spiritual/physical organism fit into the macro picture. You are Nature with self awareness, in the midst of beautiful/ugly, kind/cruel, entirely un-self-aware, totally dispassionate, Nature. Develop that sense of your Self – crucially, your True Self as a specific, unique, pinpoint of light that is consciousness, that is silent, profound, Power and Peace – refer to it daily, in or out of your Magic Minute – and everything else slots into place. Don’t court disappointment, screwing yourself up trying to make that magical cheque appear. If you’re Soul Conscious, at least you’ll have the power to conquer worry and anxiety. Then you can get on with doing what you have to do to fix your wealth.

Here’s a knobbly one: how do you think the Law of Attraction and ‘manifesting’ fit together with the Law of Karma? Every action has an equal and opposite reaction, right? It means that sooner or later, over many lives perhaps, you get what you give. Stuff doesn’t just appear in your life without some sort of trail, some meaning, resonance, or implication – usually unfathomable. What the Law of Karma doesn’t mean is that you give up and sit in a cave because there’s no point in acting, since everything is pre-ordained. It means you work for what you want – with every ounce of positive mental attitude you can muster – until what you want begins to come to you. And a whole lot of other things besides, probably. Fix the mind and spirit issues first. That will give you a handle on the wealth ones.

It’s good that people are looking for inward ways to make sense of their outward lives. Can’t be a bad thing that more and more people are turning their attention towards a life with at least an element of spirituality. Two things worry me about this spiritual supermarket, though.

1)   The suggestion that these breakthroughs in self transformation, in your spiritual and physical life, happen with ease and without effort.

2)   The inclusion of physical wealth – or for the moment, given that some make a distinction between wealth and money, let’s just say money – in the list of benefits accruing to those who sign up for these teaching packages and practices.

1 I finished yesterday with: ‘Why should we expect reward without effort here, when we don’t anywhere else?’ – purposely because I wanted to examine this idea more closely. With the greatest of love and respect to my American friends and soulmates, it’s a common theme in modern American culture to aim for the reward without the labour. Ads are always telling you that what you’re buying will deliver whatever it is you want without you having to work for it. Weight loss programmes (programs?) are specially good at this. My unease about this is simple; you don’t get a damn thing without somehow working for it. I address this in the Magic Minute idea of Eco-Mentalism, which is designed to get you started on a meditative, spiritual practice because it is so easy and takes so little time. But the truth is, the more time and effort you spend on growing your own Self awareness, the more it grows. Your Magic Minute, likewise, will grow into two, ten, or even 15. Which is a good chunk of meditation time to put into your every day.

2 The money thing. Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to have a £10,000 cheque come through my door for no apparent reason. Or even £100,000. Yes please. I also do genuinely think that one’s attitude to money helps or hinders one’s ability to get it, and for the idea of creating a new relationship with money I am grateful to Morgana Rae. But the really tricky thing about associating the appearance of physical abundance, in the form of money, with spiritual practices such as tapping, opening the chakras or other more straightforward meditations is: what happens to your state of mind when that cheque doesn’t flop on to your doormat? Keep working away at it but your circumstances don’t change? Anxieties still there? H’mm. You must be a failure then. Add disappointment and a reduction in your sense of self worth to your struggle to elevate your consciousness.  No help. You must be doing something wrong. See what I mean? Stop now. More tomorrow.

Is that what they are? Sounds like a high minded search for truth. Mostly it’s just nosing round the web and being drawn towards the multiple and manifold offerings there are out there to change your life – and particularly, create untold wealth – without any effort whatsoever. I’m as much a sucker for this kind of thing as the next man or woman I guess – certainly the idea of being able to create money just by thinking about it is worth a try, right? I’m downloading free e-books here and there, I’m listening to these e-calls from a range of enlightened beings that you connect to through Darius M. Barazandeh’s youwealthrevolution.com, or manifesteverythingnow.com, or loads of other similar sites. (Manifest everything? Is that supposed to mean you can really make all your desires appear before you, as if by magic? What about when it’s my best friend’s wife I happen to desire?) The Ortners, Kim Serafini, Debra Poneman, Rikka Zimmerman, Leela Francis, to name only a handful – all wise people with a lot of good stuff to say. It always seems to boil down to right thinking, the right mental attitude, but I haven’t yet found much about how to drag yourself up by your own mental and spritual bootstraps if  you’re stuck in the wrong mental attitude. Haven’t listened to all the ones in my collection yet – not sure which one to go for next. Which is part of the issue (let’s not call it problem, that’s a negative thought). Is this too much?

There’s a huge industry out there based on the initial freebie – the e-call, the e-book – that then leads you to sign up for a package of DVDs and workbooks, usually offered at the one-time only knockdown price of $197, a massive discount from the (entirely notional) total value of $1275 or whatever it happens to be. And I’m exercised about all this. As I say above, I’m kind of a sucker for it, though I stop short of shelling out $197. Plus it must be the case for a lot of people, and it certainly is for me by now (and that’s only after a few weeks), that I’m getting into what these people call ‘overwhelm’ because there’s too much choice, too many directions. We are so many seekers in need, wandering the aisles of the spiritual supermarket, not really knowing what we’re looking for, trying different things; there’s even software for it (left). Seeking ways to change our minds, change our lives, so many products are on offer, we try this, we try that, the risk of missing the one which is right for me or you is high. And you’ve just dropped another $200.

For me this is a personal quest, but it’s also by way of being research, because I know the schtick I’m selling and I’m happy with it. What I won’t be selling is a guarantee that Eco-Mentalism will bring you untold wealth (or your money back). What it will bring you is true Self awareness, with which come (as part of the package) true Peace and true Power. And you have to work for it, even if it’s just for a minute a day. Why should we expect reward without effort here, when we don’t anywhere else?

A theme I’m seeing in these and other teachings, some more responsible and reliable, others less so, is the part the body plays in consciousness.  ‘Your body is more powerful than you can imagine… filled with life, energy, and a compelling ability for self-healing,’ says Nick Ortner. Which is all good; we know about the chakras, about Pran or Ch’i or whatever we are calling the Universal Life Force this week. But right here, as in other places on this blog, you will find the cautionary distinction between the strictly spiritual energy of the non-physical Soul, and the subtle physical energy of Pran, Ch’i, the Meridians. The task is to refine our understanding of how the body works, not only on the mind but on the Soul. Not ‘Your Soul’ or ‘My Soul’; Soul is True You, True Me.

Body conscious, in the sense of conscious of the subtle energy and power running through the physical body, is thus OK. We have to deal with – and benefit from –  the way mind, body and spirit interact on each other. Body consciousness, in the sense of my consciousness of my Self as a physical body, is not OK and not true. Big mistake. For today’s Magic Minute, meditate your sense of Self into the metaphysical, that infinitesimal point of light in the forehead, where, guess what, ancient wisdom puts the Third Eye. That’s where it all begins to fall into place.

But it’s been occurring to me lately – and this is directly from my own recent experience – that we can’t be filled with glow, with bliss, with abundance, with contentment, peace and power unless we make room for them first. This may not be true in all cases. Sometimes, and again I know this from experience, you’re lucky enough to be able to take on board an infinite supply of glow – the warmth, light and bliss that is your natural state of being – without having to flush out the crap. The crap just sort of flows out because the beauty is flowing in and pushing it out. The two can’t coexist; not when you’re 100% full, anyway.

But we’re almost never 100% of anything, us imperfect humans. if you’re beset by unruly thought patterns, a set of anxieties or attitudes that you’re finding it difficult to shake – over,  for example, money or work or family or health – it pays to focus on emptying that out first, starting the process of ‘voiding’ so you can draw in the glow. Release, let go, give up, offer up; many ways to express and experience it. The only thing you mustn’t do is force it, because that just makes it stronger and deeper rooted. Let it go. Let it out. Freedom can be found in fullness, fulfilment, fill-fullment; it can also be found in emptiness. Is that where you need to go first?

The force which is Soul (remembering each individual Soul is unique) is something else entirely. Conscious and ‘conscient’ energy, consciousness aware of itself, and able to enquire into and explore the nature of itself. It has tools to do this, superstructures which are there to mediate its relationship with the daily physical world; the mind, the intellect, the emotions, the senses. The trick, as anyone who meditates knows, is that to turn on our true sense of Self, get to the place of peace, power and love that engulfs us in the Bliss of Being, you have to turn those superstructures off. Teach yourself to let go. You can’t force your thoughts to stop; that is in itself a thought. Let it come, let it go, glimpse the clear water beneath, relax and gently bring yourself back to gazing into the still pool. You are the pool. Pure essence. Pure you. Pure Love. But this time, love with conscience. Con-science, self knowing. Nothing cruel about this love.

I’m pointing at the essence, the energy that flows in and through everything, call it life force, call it Pran, call it Ch’i. It’s natural force, the force of nature, the power that pushes the root and stem out of the seed so they reach downwards to collect energy and upwards to express it. Express in two senses; the sense of communicate it, and the sense of channel it out, let it flow.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the lines of demarcation between physical and spiritual energy. Both are love, because in their purest form they are ‘being-ness’, the essence of life with all the surface stuff stripped away. If love wasn’t the essence, then we wouldn’t seek love. May sound twisted, but everything we do is in search of love. Money? Power? Physical expressions of the energy that is love. Love describes what we are, and what that flower is, even that tin can or tractor tyre. Matter is physical energy (ask Einstein), soul is spiritual energy, and when we are clicked in to the flow of either or both, we experience bliss, peace and power, which we know (in an ‘unknowing’ way) are our true nature. Which is Love. Where Nature itself fits in to all this comes next.