November 2009
Hello and welcome to the November 2009 edition of Horizons Magazine. By now everyone has heard of the incident in Sedona, AZ where 19 people became ill and 3 later died at a sweat lodge given by Self-help author James Arthur Ray (who appeared in The Secret) as part of his Spiritual Warrior Retreat. At issue are several factors, disagreement over who constructed the sweat lodge, was 415 square feet large enough for the 55-65 people who were inside, who was in medical charge of the attendees. Why was there no permit, why were medical releases not signed.
But the greater question becomes: how did James Arthur Ray , one of The Secret teachers, attract this? In a 2007 Interview, Ray stated: "The results you have in the third dimension are a reflection of who you are in the spiritual realm. Read that again because it's critical." Ray so clearly knows how crucial it is to realize that the results we have in the real world - the third dimension - are a reflection of who we are in spiritual consciousness, that he says "Read that again because it's critical." Ray goes on to say the law of attraction "guides and creates every single result I produce."
So how did Ray attract a situation like this? I mean, if he knows The Secret and all. As Abraham-Hicks so clearly explains, it's always ever only one reason: Whatever we are experiencing, we experience because we are in vibrational resonance with it. We are vibrationally in tune with it.
And where we are vibrationally attuned can change in every moment with the change of every thought.
And we can train ourselves to keep our thoughts focused on particular things we wish to attract.
And we know when we have tuned in successfully, because we then have that experience.
But what about the things we don't want to experience? James Ray did not want to have that experience at the sweat lodge. He probably never considered it, thought about it, pre-paved it or visualized it. So how did he attract it? Like little kids who die young: they aren't contemplating bad things happening to them, so how do they attract it?
We attract it when we don't have a strong focus on what result we want and where we want to be. We attract it when we get wrapped up in the stories and concerns, real or imagined, of those around us. When you're in a sweat lodge of just a dozen people, you are in the midst of a large vortex of emotional energy. Whether you believe it or not, your own body and mind will tend to go in the direction the majority are going. If there are 60 people in that small a space, everyone's body gets affected. Everyone's mind gets affected. Everyone's emotions get affected. So even people with good intentions, like James Ray likely is, can get caught up in it and lose focus, and attract something he doesn't want.
I went to the James Ray website for the first time yesterday, although I'd seen him in The Secret. I find his site typical hard-core-marketing and hype of the sort I find a turn off. But that style appeals to the masses, and if he has a multi-million dollar empire, it is because he knows how to sell something that people are asking for. And he knows the language that will draw them in and convince them to buy and to attend and to experience.
Booksellers these days have a whole new way of marketing themselves, and that includes getting up front and personal with their readership via workshops and retreats. Establishing an emotional connection with them. That works whether you want to gain someone's trust so you can help them, or so you can gain a steady customer base. But does that make them responsible when one of their students suffers as a result of one of their practices?
Words are powerful. People whose job it is to know how powerful words are have a responsibility to use them wisely. Teachers have a responsibility to correctly assess whether a student is prepared to take their teaching, not just financially able.
Many people who go on spiritual retreats do so out of a sense of desperation, desperate to leave the life they've been living and desperate to find something meaningful. Ray says "Desperation is a self-fulfilling cycle of doom guaranteed to create more of the same." It must be hard to not get caught up in that. Maybe not for a spiritual warrior.
About his Spiritual Warrior Retreat, Ray says its participants will "experience a new technologically-enhanced form of meditation that creates new neurological pathways." I don't know anything about Ray's work so I don't know what his technology is. But I do know that what creates new neurological pathways is thinking a new thought. What creates new neurological pathways is envisioning a better life. What creates new neurological pathways is thinking a new thought with attention to repetition, doing so purposely and mindfully, and training yourself until it is automatically the thought of least resistance. It's called creative visualization and Abraham-Hicks calls it pre-paving.
That's what creates new neurological pathways. That's what transforms your consciousness. That's what makes you resonate vibrationally in tune with something new, and begins the attraction process. It's easy enough to do and just takes some practice to get good at. And no sweat required.
Validation is a 16 minute, award winning video
, a comedic fable about the importance of acknowledgment and validation. You can find it online at www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cbk980jV7Ao. It shows the magic of looking for the best in people. Validation has played at 34 film festivals worldwide and won 17 awards. I want to be like that guy. He knows that just a few words of validation takes just a moment and can make someone's day. Always offer hope, for some it's all they get. I thought today how true that is. People are who you make them think you think they are.
I'm one of those who talks to other people standing in lines. I always have a comment to anyone my elder. Just today in the market I was next to a grandmotherly 80-something and she apologized for being so slow getting her green beans. I joked that I knew what she was up to, taking all the good ones. Her face crinkled into a big smile and I asked how she was going to cook them. I had the best time listening to her tell me some of her favorite recipes. She remarked several times about it being hard to cook for one and I told her I liked it because that meant less cleanup. And that left more time to play in the garden and think happy thoughts and go to the market and pick out all the best green beans. We had the best visit and would say "you again!" when we'd pass in the next aisle.
My morning was made better by listening to her. I saw her as someone who likely had something to teach me and I was right. It seemed as though she may not get often asked for advice. She will see herself a little more through my eyes at least for a few days. I hope it makes her smile. It did me.
We all need a little validation.
PS. Two hours after making a blog post about this video, and a week after writing it, I open Alan Cohen's article for this November Horizons, and in it he talks about the film! Synchronicity.
Enjoy our offering this month.
Hari Om.