law

each one of us has the ability to play thegame of life with balance, harmony and joy, but we need to knowthe rules and the principles. what we want to do here is to work on recognizing, remembering, and using the principles to impove the quality of our lives. life works according to principle and physicallaw. if it didn't, youcouldn't fly an airplane, because there would be no gravity, there wouldbe no such thing as electricity, and one-plus-one would not equal two. the laws of the universe must be totally dependable. universal law is not only dependable, butalso unchangeable.

you can depend on it, and it will work everytime. in essence, theuniverse will never let you down. it doesn't care how old you are, howyoung you are, how short, how fat, how skinny, your religion, yournationality or whether you are a male or a female. the power, theforce, or the energy is neutral, and we direct it through our own ideasand beliefs. what we are saying is that your word is thelaw in the universe. but you need to know these laws.

without an understanding of the laws,through ignorance, you cannot create what you want. the fundamental law to which all other lawsconform is the law of cause and effect. the law of cause and effect says that theeffect or result of any situation must be equal tothe cause. the cause isalways an idea or belief. another way of describing the law of causeand effect is the example of sowing and reaping, or action and reaction.

or, put in a modern-day context - my ideasare created into my results. the law of cause and effect is impersonal,just like sunshine. ifyou are standing in the sun, you receive the warmth and healingbenefits of the sun's rays. if you are standing in the shade, it seemslike the sun isn't shining on you. but who moved you into the shade? whomoved you into the darkness? the truth is we are in darkness becauseof our ignorance.

i repeat, the law of cause and effect is impersonal. this is whywe can see so many people who are basically good have so manyproblems and disasters in their lives. somewhere in their life that personhas misused or misunderstood the law. it doesn't mean the he or she isbad. it doesn't mean the he or she isn't a lovingperson. it means thatthrough ignorance or misunderstanding, that person has misused thelaw. this can be applied to any natural law.

for instance, aerodynamicsor gravity will not kill you, but a misunderstanding of its function will,even if you are a kind, loving, positive person. the universe is like a river. the river keeps on flowing. it doesn'tcare whether you are happy or sad, good or bad; it just keeps flowing. some people go down to the river and theycry. some people go downto the river and they are happy, but the river doesn't care; it just keepsflowing.

we can use it and enjoy it, or we can jumpin and drown. theriver just keeps flowing because it is impersonal. and so it is with theuniverse. the universe that we live in can support usor destroy us. it'sour interpretation and use of the laws that determine our effects orresults. we can only receive what our minds are capableof accepting. we can go to the river of life with a teaspoon,and someone else may go with a cup.

someone else may go with a bucket, and yetanother person may go with a barrel. but the abundance of the river is always thereand waiting. our consciousness, our ideas, our frame ofreference and our belief system determine whether we go to theriver of life with a teaspoon, a cup, a bucket or a barrel. if we are impoverished in our thinking andhave gone to the river of life with only a teaspoon, we may cursethe little we have in our

teaspoon. we may curse others who have more than wedo. butremember, - whatever we curse will curse us. the river is there, and it'soverflowing with abundance. we can come to the river of life with ateaspoon, a bucket or a barrel anytime we want to. what we take fromthe river of life is up to us. the only limitation is in our mind. the truth iswe can have anything we want if we'll give

up the belief that we can'thave it. it's as simple as that. all our experiences have led us to believecertain things about ourselves. whether these beliefs are true or not reallydoesn't matter because if we accept them as true, then theyare true for us. if we speakour word long enough, it becomes law in the universe. pronounce yourlimitations vigorously enough and they're

yours. whether your beliefsare true or totally insane, if you accept them, then that's what your lifewill be about. once we have accepted an idea, it's and ideawhose time has come and there is nothing that can stop it. if we have accepted an ideaof lack and limitation, it is an idea whose time has come for us. there isnothing that we can do about it except to change our mind.

if you plant aseed, it is going to grow. if you plant a tomato, you will have a tomato. the tomato won't change its mind and becomea cucumber because it thinks a cucumber is better for you. the soil will give you tomatoes aslong as you keep planting them, even if you are allergic to tomatoes. look at the beliefs that form the groundworkof your life. we arefull of beliefs that we have collected over the years - attitudes, ideas,opinions and conditioning.

and we are so full of what we know thatwhen challenged, we dig in our heels and often think, "don't tell meanything new. i have my beliefs together and how dare youtry to change them. this is what i've based my whole life on. now you aretelling me i could be wrong. i don't want to hear that." so we live with aset of beliefs called religion, a set of beliefs called politics, a set ofbeliefs about ourselves, a set of beliefs

about the kind of people that welike or don't like and a set of beliefs about everything else. many of the things that we believe - garneredfrom past experience, groups of people and individuals- are not true, but they are the things that we have imagined to be trueout of our need to survive. because the will to survive and the desirefor certainty are strong, we create rules about the nature of life andhow it unfolds, and these rules become beliefs. unfortunately those beliefs can also becomelimitations.

the fact of the matter is we can only be successfulto the degree that we are willing to shed our mistaken beliefs. when we experiencesickness, failure, or lack, it is often because of the limitations in our ownmind. the sad thing is that, even though we knowour lives aren't working in certain areas, we are still afraidto change. we are lockedinto our comfort zone, no matter how self-destructive it may be. yet, theonly way to get out of our comfort zone and

to be free of our problemsand limitations is to get uncomfortable. we can only experience freedomin direct proportion to the amount of truth that we are willing to acceptwithout running way. we must stop kidding ourselves, stop blamingothers, and stop avoiding unpleasant decisions and start facingthe truth that we may have accepted unworkable beliefs that arethe direct cause of the events in our lives. it is not a question of going from negativethinking to positive thinking.

it is a matter of moving toward “right thinking”,which means moving toward knowing the absolute truthabout who we are and our relationship to life. right thinking, which is based in truth andnot illusion is the foundation that determines the solidity ofall other thinking. positivethinking and negative thinking are both filtered through our beliefsystem. right thinking comes from being aware of thetruth or the reality of any situation.

always seek to know the truth about any situationin which you are involved. look behind your present belief system andask your higher self "what is the truth about this?" your higher self will alwaysreveal the truth to you if you are ready to hear it. when you act uponthat truth, you are using right thinking. it's not a matter of being positiveor negative, but of simply being yourself. and when you are yourself,which means you are allowing your higher self

to reveal the truth, everysituation you are involved in will resolve itself perfectly. this might soundmagical, but it is only the law of cause and effect in action. the aim of all great teachers since the beginningof time was to awaken us to the fact that we create our ownreality. more importantly,that we are responsible for everything that happens in our lives. thisincludes the good, the bad and the ugly.

if we believe that someone or something outsideof ourselves is the cause of our problem we will always lookoutside of ourselves for the solution. in order to find the true answers to our problems,we must begin by looking at ourselves in a new way,which will cause us to see people and events in a new way. the outer world is in many ways areproduction of our inner world. you must realize this. how manytroubled people do you know who have not given

the slightest attentionto this fact? no amount of determination, no amount of willpower,inspiration or motivation will solve our problems if we look outside ofourselves for the answer. everything comes to us by the most elementallaw of physics – like attracts like! this is called the law of attraction. the law of attraction, like all natural laws,operates with mathematical exactitude. it is impartial and impersonal, which meansit

works when you want it to and when you don’twant it to. it has nothing to do with your personality,your religious beliefs, being a “good” or a “bad” person oranything else. no one lives beyondthis law. it is an irrefutable law as real as the lawof gravity. before the law of gravity was identified nobodyknew it existed, and yet everyone was still affected by it. such is the case with the lawof attraction. most people are unaware of the mechanics ofhow it works

and yet everyone is still affected by it. you don’t need to know the mechanics ofhow the law of gravity works to keep yourself from floating off intospace. you also do not needto know the mechanics of how the law of attraction works for it tofunction in your life. you may not have realized it until now, buteverything you experience in your life is invited, attractedand created by you. there areno exceptions. that may not be good news if your life isnot going the

way you want it to. and since most of us are not too happy withwhat we have created in our lives, we have becomehighly gifted masters at attracting an overabundance of circumstancesthat we would rather not have. the mind attracts whatever is familiar toitself. the frightened mindattracts frightening experiences. a confused mind attracts moreconfusion. the abundant mind attracts more abundance.

since we attract what we think about, it makesgood sense to become aware of the subconscious thought patternsthat control our lives. the primary function of the subconscious mindis to follow the instructions of the conscious mind. it does this by “proving” thatwhatever the conscious mind believes is true. in other words, the job ofthe subconscious mind is to prove the conscious mind is always “right.” so, if you consciously believe that you can'tbe, do, or have

something, the subconscious will create thecircumstances and find the people to prove that you are “right.” the subconscious functions like theautomatic pilot of an airplane. if the autopilot is set to go east, you canmanually override the controls and go north. but as soon as you let go,the automatic pilot, which has been programmed to go east will controlthe plane, and you will fly east. your subconscious does not change the realityof the world around you. it just filters the information that you presentto it in order to

support your beliefs or the picture that youhold in your mind. forexample; if you believe that business is bad, or that there are no newopportunities for your business, your subconscious will ignore newopportunities to improve your business. instead, it will only point outproblems that support your belief that things are bad, or that there areno new opportunities. your subconscious cannot think for itself. it will draw to you onlythose things that are consistent with your deepest inner beliefs, nothingmore, nothing less.

if you do not know this as a truth, and donot realize that you create your reality out of your ideas,you will feel powerless to change your life for the better. instead you will feel that you are thevictim of people, circumstances and conditions. if you accept yourself as powerless you willlook to something or someone outside of yourself to fulfill yourdesires. when you come tothe understanding that everything that you want can be created throughyour mind, through the use of right thinking, which is simply clearthinking, you come to the realization that

only you can give yourselfwhat you want. to create what you want, you have to trustthe power within you. now, when you are told to trust the powerwithin you, immediately you could say: "look at the starvation. look at the sickness, the war and thecrime in the world. you are telling me to trust the power? if this powerexisted, why would it allow this to happen?" well, the truth is, it doesn't allow anythingto happen. remember, we said the power is neutral.

it is simply the power ofcreation. it is the impersonal force of life. we can use this power, or lifeforce, to create anything that we want in our lives. even if we choosefrom ignorance, it doesn't matter. it will support us in our ignorance untilwe learn from it. the effect will always be equal to the cause. if we're ina ditch, it means that the power is supporting us in being in a ditch.

ifour life is immensely successful, it means that the power supports us inour success. it all comes out of our ideas. we said earlier that our ideas are createdinto our results. to putit another way, it is done unto you as you believe, not as you want, butas you believe. there is a vast difference between the two. when youthink - the universe moves. this means that when you put an idea outinto the universe, people, places and things

come into your life to fulfillthat idea. when we think, we actually cause things tohappen. look at what this power has done in the universe. look allaround you and see all the marvelous creations, infinite in number. thebest news of all is that same power is within you. and, the more open,responsive and receptive you are to this power the more fulfilling andmagnificent your life will be.

if this is true, then how does the powerwork? you and i are indirect users of the power. let me explain. when you started your car today, what didyou have to do? well,you had to turn your key, which turned a small starting motor, which inturn started the engine. the starter motor was powered by electricity. now, what was the direct source of that electricity? was it the battery?

no, it wasn't. a battery is not an independent source. it has to becharged up. your higher self is essentially a batterywithin that receives its’ source of power or energy from theuniverse. it then stores thatpower for you to use for the purpose of creation. in science there is a formula known as ohm'slaw, which states that c equals e divided by r (c=e/r). c equals the amount of electricalenergy that is available for your appliance

at the place where you'regoing to plug it in. for example, c equals the amount of electricityto run your toaster. the power to run the appliance is the resultof e, which is the direct power source, divided by r, whichis the resistance the power meets while getting there. now, suppose the main power line cominginto the building where you live is 750,000 volts, but it comes into yourhouse at 110 to 220 volts to run your appliances. to do this,transformers are used on the power line to

reduce the power cominginto your house to make it safe for application. this is just like the power available to you. you have theultimate power of the universe available to you, but it also has infinitewisdom, which might be referred to as a transformer. while our higherself is plugged into the ultimate power of the universe, this power alsohas enough wisdom to put some transformers in between to insulate itso we don't get too much before we are ready for it and burn ourselvesout. now, if you wanted to bring in more power,what would you do?

you would have to create less resistance,and you would have to change the wiring to accommodate the additionalflow of power. this power is like the water in our earlierexample in the sense that a larger container is needed to carrygreater quantities. you cannotexpect that just because your higher self is plugged into the ultimatepower, intelligence and wisdom of the universe, that you can just turn iton, because if you did you would blow yourself right out. so in order toget our lives to work, and take greater advantage

of this energy, wehave to build a bigger channel for creative intelligence to flow through. to enlarge this channel we have to expandour consciousness. expanding our consciousness involves expandingour ideas and beliefs regarding ourselves and our relationship tothis power. and as we dothis, we begin to experience more of this ultimate power, and our abilityto create greatly increases. you and i are creative beings, and we alwayshave the capacity to create more.

in fact, we are always creating, consciouslyor unconsciously. by knowing who we are and the process by whichwe can expand the power within, we can beginto move our creation from the unconscious to the conscious. when we create on the conscious level, weare able to make choices. when we create on the unconscious level wecannot make we often hear about how we have the “powerof choice”, but that

is not entirely accurate. it is misleading to say someone chooses adysfunctional relationship, money problems, or any other negativesituation in his or her life. most of the time we are operating in the“default mode” which is based on our past conditioning. choice implies being conscious. however, when you areunconscious, you cannot make conscious choices. you are operating inthe “default mode” or on “automatic pilot”.

the default mode is the survival mode. this is where the mindtakes control without us even being aware of what is happening. choice begins when you stop identifying withyour conditioned patterns of the past. until you reach that point, you are unconscious. this means you are compelled to think, feeland act in certain ways according to the conditioning of your mind. when we can make choices,we're no longer the victim of our unconscious

reactions. if our unconscious negative thinking doesnot support what we want, rather than trying to eliminate it,all we have to do is center on “right thinking”. “right thinking” is a thought patternthat is based on truth. truth by its very nature must always be “right”. your higher self always knows what is bestfor you. all you needto do is to assert that you want something

better than you have rightnow. realize that there is no growth without discontent. while it isimportant to live in the present moment and accept “what is”, it is alsoimportant to grow from where we are. study your dissatisfaction very carefullybecause it will tell you something about yourself. your life is an ever-changing canvas. whatare you going to paint on it? are you going to paint lack and limitation?

because if you do your canvas is going toreflect lack and limitation. have you ever gone to the circus and noticedthat the great big elephants are tied to a wooden stake withjust a thin rope? also thebaby elephants have a big chain around their legs that is tied to a longmetal stake that goes deep into the ground. this happens because thebaby elephants must be chained up when they are very tiny to keepthem from trying to get away. if the stake is driven far enough into theground and the chain is strong enough, the baby elephant won't beable to budge.

eventuallythe day will come when the baby elephant stops tugging and never triesto pull away again. someone then replaces the metal stake witha wooden one, because they know the elephanthas been conditioned to believe that he cannot get away. by creating our own limitation throughour belief system, we do the very same thing. we become limited not byreality, but by reality as we perceive it to be. i once had a cat that seemed to believe thathe couldn't jump

onto high places, so he wouldn't even try. as the cat got older, he grewsenile and simply forgot he didn't know how to jump. one day i camehome and the cat was sitting on the highest shelf on the bookcase. hehad knocked over all the books and art objects. you see, in the cat'ssenility he forgot what he couldn't do! what would happen if we becamesenile in a positive way? we would quite possibly forget all the thingsthat we can't do and just do them.

understand that if your life does not workthe way you want it to, it is because you have accepted false beliefsthat keep you from being all that you can be. unfortunately, the majority of people on thisplanet feel stuck. when we look at the world and see the suffering,misery and impoverishment, when we see so many well-intentionedpeople doing without, the world looks insane. we see people giving up, believing thatthey have to take from others in order to

have anything for themselves. rarely do we look within for the answer tothis confusion. rarelydoes the individual really look to see what the rules of life are. so whathappens is that in our ignorance of ourselves and of life, we hassle, fightand strain to get what we want. and it ends up not working anyway. you see, life is a game. some people play the game of struggle.

some people play the game of sickness. some people play the game ofpoverty. some people play the game of being right allthe time. somepeople play the game of being late. but some people play the game ofhappiness, abundance and health. it just helps to understand that eachindividual plays a game that he or she sets up, and that no one game isnecessarily better than another. if the game were not bringing us somesort of a payoff, we'd stop playing. look at your own life.

try to see the secret satisfaction that youget out of not being fully in charge of your life. what kind of secretsatisfaction could there possibly be in feeling victimized? how couldanyone enjoy feeling weak, or poor or inadequate? the answer is in thepayoff or pay value. for example, if you play the weak game, otherswill have to love you, take care of you and protectyou. it is the ultimate wayto get attention.

if you play the game of being undecided allthe time and let other people decide for you, then youare protected from blame if you make a mistake. in other words, if you keep both hands tiedbehind you, then you can expect someone to take care ofyou. in playing thehelpless routine, you are actually controlling others. the power of"powerless" people is remarkable. they are good at making others playthe part that they have written for them.

look at the value that you are getting outof your payoff. anexample is being sick. look at the value you get out of being sick. youmay be saying, "that is insensitive and cruel. you don't know what i'vebeen through." no, it's not cruel. it's crueler to deny it. what you arereally saying is that your disease has more power than you do to decideyour destiny.

the question here is who is giving the illnesssuch power? if you are experiencing illness, just takea look at it. don’t passany judgment on yourself. just let it tell you something. know that nomatter what is going on in your body, it begins in your mind. illness isthe body’s reaction to your mind. since your body is a feedbackmechanism of your mind, it will always let you know what is going on inyour consciousness and an emotional level.

let your body be yourteacher. it is interesting that in our society it istotally okay to spend $50,000 on a heart attack, but what wouldpeople say if you spent that amount of money on just having fun? they would think you were crazy,and they would probably resent you. it seems we have our prioritiesmixed up. perhaps if we spent $50,000 on having fun,we wouldn't have so many heart attacks! think about it.

having pleasure is abnormal, buthaving pain in normal. why are we waiting to be healthy, to be happy,to be alive, to be wealthy, to start a new business, to fallin love, to communicate, to clear up the relationships we are in? waiting is a trap. we wait for interestrates to go down, for the economy to get better, for a person to change,for the holiday to pass before starting a diet. but there will always be areason to wait.

i knew a beautiful, intelligent young womanwho had everything to live for and yet tried to kill herselfseveral times with alcohol and drugs. do you know why? she always felt something was missing fromher life. she didn't know she could create her lifethe way she wanted to. instead, she was waiting for someone to bringher happiness to her. butthat person never showed up. this desire to have other people provide ourhappiness, or the

belief that we can provide others' happiness,accounts for the endless procession of social schemes and organizeddrives for a better world. our major illusion is that we can build asociety that functions on a higher psychological and spiritual levelthan our present level of awareness. many people urge us to work for a better societyor a better world. this is a great error. since we cannot create anything higher thanour own level of awareness, society as a whole

doesn’t get much better. society’s systems for social change onlyadds a new burden on top of an old burden. our overwhelmed mind has no idea what to dowith all the social schemes thrust upon us. but in our desperation tomake things better, it forces us to try to make sense out of nonsense. the problem is that we trying to “right”the world's “wrongs” from the outside in. we attempt to reform the outside world byforcing outer

conditions to change. unfortunately, this outside-in approach isdoomed to failure because we are dealing with theeffect instead of the cause. we need to remind ourselves, and every individualon this planet, that we can and must change the worldfrom the inside out. wehave overwhelming proof that the outside-in approach does not work. the long-term solution to poverty, lack andlimitation lies in our ability to turn our inner potential into reality.

the only way we can truly heal the world isto heal ourselves first. this is not a new message, but i think weneed to remind ourselves of who we are and what we are capable of. we need to takeresponsibility for everything that has happened to us. through the law ofattraction, we attract either consciously or unconsciously everything thathappens to us. whatever anyone has done to us, we have participatedin it, and are at some level, responsible.

in essence, there are novictims, only volunteers. this is a hard pill to swallow, but unlesswe accept it we cannot change things for thebetter. we have become a culture of blamers. yet, if you wrist watchshows the wrong time, what would you do about it? would you ask yourneighbor to set their watch according to yours, or would you correct yourwatch? unfortunately, we do not make similar correctionswhen our lives

are not working. instead, we insist that reality should conformto our illusion. your unlimited power lies in your abilityto control your thoughts. a confused mind works in the direction ofsickness, poverty, lack and limitation rather than in the direction ofabundance, health and success. if we are not creating our lives the way wewant them to be, we are creating from our unconscious. but since life is consciousness, themost important task we have is the development

of the highest possibleconsciousness. we can do this by looking at the conditionsof our lives and challenging our beliefs, even if our egois threatened. whenever wewant something in our lives, we must let go of anything that is betweenwhat we believe and what we want. in your heart, you know exactly what you want. and if you willlisten to your intuition, it will tell you. your mind will sell you out, but yourintuition never will. you intuition is your connection with theultimate

power. learn to trust it. people can control you through your mind,but they can never control you through your intuition. we imagine we will lose something by followingour intuition. buthave you ever taken a look at what you have lost by not following yourintuition? whatever your intuition is telling you iswhat you need to hear. as you learn to trust it more and more, itwill reveal exactly what you

need to do at any given moment. your life is important. it is important to you, and it is importantto the rest of the people on this planet. i believe that every person on thisplanet arrived here with a mission. if you will listen to your intuition yourpurpose or your mission will be revealed to you.