The Secret: L.A. Times VS Oprah

haha. again, i think your analysis is right on the money. love your Mom's comment too.

the ”Law of Attraction” has been milked too many times already. from the days of the positive thinking movement (e.g. Think and Grow Rich). like i said, (and like Oprah said), the Secret is not really a secret. the genius is in the re-packaging.

what i think is happening is that the concept of The Secret (e.g. LOA)  is plugged in to some enduring truth (e.g. you attract what you think, most of the time). and at the same time, it taps into the our magical thinking meme. note that this meme does not go away as we age. it's always there waiting to be triggered with the right Life Condition (in spiral dynamics lingo that is).

my question is, what do you think is the Life Condition right now (at least in the U.S.) that gives room to The Secret phenomenon? is it lack of authentic spirituality? is it because of falling aways from traditional religion? is it because of a drive to find more meaning after 9/11? or maybe it's just the usual narcissistic tendency geared towards abundance?

but anyway, i'm sure you'd be glad to know that today's topic on Oprah is about mediums (yep, people who talk to the dead). so get your trans-rational thinking cap on :)

~C

Thank you Julian. This is a superb post about spirituality in the service of resistance to the natural transformative maturation process and spirituality for transformation.

My teacher says, “Remember when science thought the earth was the center of the universe and everything revolved around it? We think that all life revolves around us in the same way.” Unfortunately, this self identification typically gets in the way  of embarking on the investigation, the great mythic journey that turns out to be more vertical than horizontal, of what we really are, and what Life really is.

If there is any synchronicity at all, it's all synchronicity and especially when it doesn't go Evelyn's way. I find that the whole of Life has its own way and it's the only thing going on.

I suppose I veered away from religion/spirituality at an early age sometime after I realized that Santa Claus didn't really come down the chimney and it wasn't him that left  well-behaving children gifts from the North Pole. The way God was portrayed, at least to this little kid, sounded awfully suspiciously close to Santa: pray and if you are good….

In some ways, The Secret seems go down the same road except now one concentrates on good thoughts instead of being good.

Whether The Secret scores us the new Bentley Azure (uh, that's my manifestation item, parking spots are child's play) it still does us a disservice. We tend to live in waiting until the next list item is crossed off. I just don't see how The Secret gets us off the merry-go-round of seeking for whatever the next high, the next peak, the next ___ is. While we're seekers, contentment with what is happening doesn't occur because contentment isn't about here and now, it's around the other bend when I get  the ____.

A lot of folks that know me wonder what I have to 'show' for six years of  intense spiritual search (and one can certainly fall into trap of having enlightenment itself be the ultimate manifestation list goodie; the grand prize). They'll send me links to prosperity  sites and The Secret.  (I have seen the movie.)

If there was one positive out of it it's been imperturbability. Once Krishnamurti told an audience of his most devoted that his secret was: “I don't mind what happens.” I'm not sure that they were very pleased with this answer though. It doesn't make for good TV. I suppose it's what is also called the peace that surpasses all understanding. It's not about getting 'my' way as much as getting out of the way. Plus I've regained a childlike wonder and contentment with the mystery of life however it unfolds.

I love what your mom said. The question that drove me after surviving the tsunami was: “What is deathless?” All else comes and goes, comes and goes like watching a lava lamp's contents twist and flow into different shapes. What is deathless? So although The Secret skips tuning into that question, thank you for bringing in mortality, authenticity, honesty, myth, the unconscious, grace and grit.

Namaste, e

Julian, you rock. And, to be honest. I absolutely agree with you. Forgive me if my comments are repetitive of others in this dialogue on Zaadz. I've read quite a bit, but I'm just going to jump in here.

Perhaps the “Secret” mentality is something that will lead to a more nuanced way of thinking and understanding certain spiritual principles, but I don't see that. The best I see, is that it helps people approach the world with a more positive outlook, which is valuable and something I have cultivated quite a bit. But, often enough, this positive outlook also takes the form of “giddiness,” which is neither grounded nor clear. It seems to arise out of a manufactured positivity based in the idea that you now have “the answer” and it's oh so simple. It also arises from the well-fed ego that has found just the right diet pill to get whatever it wants and feel enlightened about it. Whew, that sounds pretty negative.

But, really, I have no problem with manufacturing positivity to be more functional in life, to better serve, to accomplish things, etc. States are malleable and are often a product of patterns, so I think it's fine and good to witness and cultivate certain states and impact the energy with which you resonate.  But, that is not really spiritual. Getting what you want by trying to manipulate energy is not spiritual. It's just energetic. It is not causal, it's just subtle, and sometimes, it's gross. My point it, that it's just material level stuff, and really not that impressive. It's good to be aware of the power if intention and where we put our thoughts, but it's only part of the puzzle.

And, I really love this: “You see, we don't always know what we want or why we are sabotaging ourselves.” I think that is an extremely important point. Taoism uses the concept of wu wei versus yao wei. Wu wei is often translated as non-action or effortless effort, and it really refers to action that is in line with Tao, clear naturally and effortlessly in line with the utmost wisdom. That kind of action is the product of intensive cultivation. The Buddhist Heart Sutra begins: “after intensive practice of the prajna paramita (wisdom practices), Bodhisattva Avalokita, has developed such transcendental light of wisdom.” The Bodhisattva, in this case puts his/her energy into the wisdom practice, the discipline. The Secret seems to propagate a mentality that skips this step and puts all the effort into the minor actions and obtaining in the material world. The concept of “yao wei” refers to effort, to control, to manipulation, and is the antithesis of wu wei. Sometimes, we have to be yao wei to get to wu wei, like when we create a practice and dharma to develop more clarity. But, the Secret is advocating being yao wei and controlling as and both the means and the end, indicating that harnessing the law of attraction is what will make you powerful and in line with the universe. But, without focusing our efforts on some kind of discipline we are not going to obtain the wisdom to know what we want and why, if it's beneficial or harmful, if it matters at all or not, and from where and why it came to us.

And, the Secret talks a lot about getting what you want materially. There is certainly a benefit to breaking through patterns of limitation, poverty consciousness and mental blocks on possibility. It's great to have abundance. I'm all for that. Wealth can be wonderful. But, that work can also be much more nuanced. Some of the tools in the Secret can help alter your perceptions about what's possible. That is useful. But, it falls short of what that means and why you would even want success, or a huge house, or to sell you book, or a new bike. We all want stuff right? But, why? Where does that get us? Does that tell us who we are? Does that alter what we think of our own worth? Who cares if you manifested a new bike? Does that mean you're powerful? All it means, is that you got what you wanted. It does not mean that what you want is good or that you have really learned much.

Okay, that's all I got for now. Thanks for the blog Julian.

I like C4's question. I think many people are sensing something within which is incessantly knocking and so it's an authentic innate impulse - but seeing how most of society in USA is geared toward 'orange' (SDi) that urge is often filtered through the 'orange' objectives of material prosperity and achievement.

“My wish is your command” as The Secret trailer above ends is well understood and respected by orange. It's quite another leap into a perpetual beginner's mind to get to ”Your command is my wish.”

However, thinking about Julian's ”night sea journey” and Joseph Campbell and the hero's journey, I see that it was what my teacher calls spiritual 'failure' that I came to realize that ”I don't know” wasn't failure (although it's certainly deemed to be especially in 'orange' society) but authenticity and truth.

Who knows what it takes? Maybe not getting the mansion and the jet and the Brady Bunch family life even though the visualization was perfect is what sends one into the dark night of the soul. Although more often than not it's been my wealthy friends that did get precisely what they thought they wanted (this is it?!) that went head first into the descent  and, eventually although it can be a long way, came out the other side.

Julian - Interesting post, continuing down the line of critical thinking visavis The (not) Secret. I agree entirely that the popularity of this movie is, at least on the surface, a pathological manifestation of a culture in decline and crisis. As far as “The American Dream,” the walls are closing in on us as the era when the American people benefit from the largesse of the world economic system and from those who “think they” control it is drawing to its end and we gravitate toward the Third World. The middle class is being gutted, we are cut off from connection to the natural world, we are experiencing ratcheting powerlessness and in general don't even have good information about the situation we face, even if we had the stomach for it.

So, different sectors of society, different personality types, are presented with psychological release valves to “help us cope” with the dismal picture and our sense of helplessness and inadequacy. The unmotivated and fearful get “pie in the sky when U die,” coming right up in the wake of Armageddon…, the more clever, cynical and resourceful get the idea that they are in control, and can create a beautiful dream in the world of illusion (That's alright, we told you what to dream).

I was involved for a few years with a “New Thought” Christian Church in Silicon Valley, and was chronically disturbed that so much attention was constantly given to “manifestation” without recognition that accepting the power of our body/minds to affect the dream begs the questions of just what we actually hope to reify, of what IS real in the first place before we go at it with hammer and tongs.

There is no question that at the moment there is palpable desperation abroad in the land. Of course, people want the quick fix. Of course, in grasping for something that will cover the gnawing fears people will go for a tawdry, threadbare vision of “the good life,” just around the corner if we only think lovely thoughts.

However, this doesn't obviate the truth that thought is creative, and that we are, in fact, in the process of manifestation constantly. And when someone, perhaps set afire by seeing The Secret hyped on Oprah, starts to try to “control” their thinking with a view to manifesting some paint-by-numbers dream, they are inevitably on a collision course with what IS real. It's going to get them, perhaps not tomorrow, but soon and for the rest of their (many) lives. They will try this and that, experience frustration and heartbreak, and then, perhaps enter disillusionment, becoming teachable, at least for moments.

Julian said:
“The grounded spiritual journey is one of becoming more conscious of the social, familial, historical forces that have shaped you and finding your way into some kind of bittersweet authentic relationship to the grace and grit of reality as it is. Our difficulties are the doorway into insight, wisdom, compassion and freedom - but all of that has to be earned, like anything else worthwhile.”

The above seems to imply that there is one general correct approach to the truth of what we are. I think this is erroneous, in that we are all in the school, consciously or un, and, ultimately, doomed to success. All judgements we hold about others exist only within our mental interpretations of the One Life. When we surrender to That we enter into seeing with the eyes of Love, knowing that life will provide heartbreaks, opportunities, and direction as appropriate to all. Our difficulties, truly, are the openings to deeper experience of what we are, but nothing is “earned.” As the Prajna Paramita says “There is no wisdom, there is no attainment whatsoever.” When ANYONE, regardless of merit, struggle, dues-paying, seriousness or hard work stops arguing with what is, the truth of their inner nature emerges, immaculate, unblemished, whole, shining. For many, this will come after hard work on the spiritual path and years of struggle, but that's no requirement. That for which all thirst is always already here, waiting for us to attend.

Julian said:
“it comes down to something very simple: part of being an adult is learning to tolerate the difficult facts of the unfair and often painful world in which we live. Effective spiritual practice and philosophy is not a kind of wishful-thinking subversion of this important process - that would be spirituality as defense, which is a whole different game than spirituality as transformative healing/inquiry process.” (emphasis added)

The “difficult facts” of our experience of life are always only thoughts, held in mind as somehow separate from the unmanifested background on which they appear. Pain can be one thing, particularly as it relates to injury of the body or the invasion of our lives physically by others, but suffering only occurs when delusion about our story enters in. Fairness is an entirely useless concept, which obviously rises from holding some thought about how reality should somehow be different than it is. When one is in the resistance implied by seeing the world this way, the way out IS in perhaps not “tolerating,” but in fully accepting the situation as it is. Following that, perhaps I can allow the innate joyfullness that is within me at all times to flow into my already accepted experience. Then, as the pattern of life emerges as I get out of my own way, I can enter into it with enthusiasm as the mystery that I am is revealed to me moment to moment. If we assume that our opinions about the difficulty of spiritual development are truth, then anyone who refuses to punch the tar-baby may seem to be in wishful-thinking subversion of our rules, but the truth is that self-realization is far simpler, and at the same time more rigorously demanding of our complete earnestness to allow what's undying and whole to emerge exactly as it is without regard to our demands or expectations. In the end, no one is transformed, no one is enlightened, nothing is attained, beauty emerges undiminished. We may be living in a mansion with the Bentley Azure, we may be in a shantytown in Rio de Janeiro, but the stark beauty and perfect unfolding of life will be omnipresent. We will discover that, while we can always make any movement that seems appropriate from our only place of power, the present moment,  there was never any self there to try to tweak reality.

hehe. i still haven't seen The Secret. so thanks for manifesting the link to the first 20 minutes of the movie. LOL. as they say in the movie industry, good or bad publicity is still publicity :)

~C

Ai.

Julian? This is a beautiful post.

Do you know how sometimes abused or abandoned children will construct elaborate fantasy worlds for themselves, coming up with kingdoms and castles that they preside over and imagining friends or benevolent creatures who love and care for them?

This is what the whole phenomenon of The Secret reminds me of. Disassociation - which includes creating safe fantasy worlds in which nothing bad ever happens, or in which they have control of their environment  - is one of the most common coping strategies used by abused children. So to me, the cultural popularity of The Secret is a symptom of an damaging culture.


In some ways it's almost laughably true … I do tend to look at those who run around speaking of the “riches they've manifested” in the same way I'd look at a child having an imaginary tea party or talking about the make-belief castle she lived in, or the army of soldiers he controlled. Our own world of material acquisition and consumer accumulation is no less of an illusion, and after one's basic needs are met, the rest is just an elaborate fantasy we design to keep us distracted or entertained or otherwise preoccupied. What makes The Secret - and our world - different, though, is that unlike the let's-pretend games of a child, we're literally devouring our world. We're fueling our fantasies with natural resources and it's becoming abundantly clear that there's a cost to this unbridled consumption. From global warming to the tragic poverty of our inner cities and the continents to the South, there's a cost to our willful blindness.

Of course, waking up to this is painful, and so we tend to want to escape further into the comfortable world we've dreamed up … while the world around us struggles more and more and more as a result of our being so detached. A healthy planet, a healthy community, a healthy species, and even life itself, is characterized by connectedness, not denial and disassociation. And what's so sad to me is that connectedness - true connectedness - is so much more fulfilling and gratifying and wonderful (for me at least!) than anything The Secret could possibly offer.

Thank you, Julian, for this post, and to everyone else for your thoughts, too. Your mother's comment was wonderful. ~C? I think I've written a little already about the life conditions that lead to The Secret seeming so appealing; on the other hand, I'm less interested in pointing fingers and trying to “fix” people … I think this only leads to more resistance. But I don't want to go into that too much now. Evelyn? I love your posts so, so much; that quote from Krishnamurti was beautiful, and feels, to me, to be so true. And Jessica? I like that you point to the positivity, so thank you for that reminder. Bruce … I applaud your trying to tweak reality with that beautiful, thoughtful comment. Mostly I agree. ;)

Siona, thanks for your comments on the imaginary tea party (heck, at least there is conviviality there!). My wealthiest friends look at money fairly neutrally. It's not a means to ends like fulfillment, happiness and self-worth. They intimately know that money ain't It (and that it's not not It). I love this quote from the wonderful essay by John Perry Barlow, The Pursuit of Emptiness:

”The apparent happiness of Africans, against all horror, seems to derive from a sense of connectedness, or as the Zulu put it, “ubunto.” This word is often translated to mean community, but one of them gave me what I think is a more accurate definition: ”I am because we are; we are because I am.””

Thinking out loud: Well, I think perhaps that The Secret isn't necessarily the film we adore. I'd be curious how many people are interested in creating film and/or video that does speak to the themes we would like to see ripple through the world? You don't need to be a filmmaker nor have a film studio back you with the preponderance of online video sites, et al. In fact, I'm really into the connectedness aspects of social video, myself. Interested? Maybe a new pod? Maybe Zaadz as producer? Hmmm…

evelyn, wonderful wonderful creative idea about “creating film/video that does speak to the themes we would like to see ripple through the world”.

Beautiful.
“Once Krishnamurti told an audience of his most devoted that his secret was: “I don't mind what happens.” I'm not sure that they were very pleased with this answer though. It doesn't make for good TV. I suppose it's what is also called the peace that surpasses all understanding. It's not about getting 'my' way as much as getting out of the way. Plus I've regained a childlike wonder and contentment with the mystery of life however it unfolds.”

I have to ask though wouldn't it be more fun participating in an authentic, compassionate, skillful,  and honest way too instead of just watching from the sidelines?

siona,  nice to hear from your psychology perspective about the secret's popularity.
bruce, I'm with you that eventually people will find themselves in “disillusionment”.

Julian, again thanks for the post and especially the video. I got a bit terrified for a brief moment that this short video is benefitting someone somewhere from my point of view now.
But been there done that, sort of thing and it wasn't pretty or fun.

K: I think Krishnamurti would say that there are no sidelines, and that allowing what happens can be one of the most powerful forms of involvement around.

Siona,  AH. thanks. open space. got it.

I like this saying:” You can not choose what comes to your life,but you can choose your attitude.”And that is non ressistance.Not always easy,but doable.

Oprah does a follow up show on The Secret. resistance is partial :)

~C

In my view and from my begginer studies,attitude towards situation includes also non judgment,non attachment,non personal observation.You take it as it is,but with sort of awarnes.My problem is,that there is such a fine line tu become arrogant.Can somebody help?
I really enjoy Julians blog for opennes and critical thinking.

Hey there, I just wanted to say thank you for re-reminding me of Dark Nights of the Soul, by Thomas Moore. I got it during my lengthy dark night, but actually never read it then. My particular frustration with stuff like The Secret isn't in the magical thinking, but that it is too shallow for a hungry world. Junk food rather than sustenance. In a brute force willpowered propping up of a facade of prosperity and positivity, we miss out on our deep authentic genuine natural self. Anyhow thanks again. Namaste, e