Chasing Grace

In the universe there is an immeasurable, indescribable force which shamans call intent, and absolutely everything that exists in the entire cosmos is attahced to intent by a connecting link. ~Carlos Castaneda

I recently finished reading The Secret by Rhonda Byrne.

I found it to be a very nice little book. The message is uplifting and very spiritual. The central theme is based on a universal principle: you create your own reality. To put it very simply, truly believing something will make that ’something’ happen.

From Amazon…

Fragments of a Great Secret have been found in the oral traditions, in literature, in religions and philosophies throughout the centuries. For the first time, all the pieces of The Secret come together in an incredible revelation that will be life-transforming for all who experience it.

This is also the very principle that Dr. Wayne Dyer wrote about in his book The Power of Intention.

From Amazon…

His core teachings speak to tapping into a universal source of energy that can also be called the “power of intention.” He calls people who are consciously co-creating with this energy source “connectors” and describes them as “individuals who have made themselves available for success…They don’t say With my luck things won’t work out. Instead, you’re more likely to hear something like, I intend to create this and I know it will work out.”

Dr. Dyer talks about tapping into this universal energy source that is pure good, or pure God as he also names it, and allowing this good to flow into and influence your life. You must allow no room for negativity or doubt.

I suppose The Secret will be helpful to those who like things dressed up in pretty packages (myself included). The book itself is nicely designed, evoking ancient parchment and wax seals. It is thin, and the text is broken into quick bites that are easily assimilated. So those who may have felt daunted by Wayne Dyer’s many words can find the same simple message here. However, the claim that “[f]or the first time, all the pieces of The Secret come together in an incredible revelation”, can hardly be so. Dr. Dyer’s book was published in 2005, and there have been countless other teachers before him with the same message. It is a basic principle that has been understood for a long time as ‘as above, so below’.

A simplified explanation I found on mystical.org…

This message theorizes that man is the counterpart of God on earth; as God is man’s counterpart in heaven. Therefore, it is a statement of an ancient belief that man’s actions on earth parallel the actions of God in heaven. This pivots on the belief that “all things have their birth from this One Thing by adaptation.”

To the magician the magical act, that of causing a transformation in a thing or things without any physical contact, is accomplished by an imaginative act accompanied by the will that the wanted change will occur. The magical act and imaginative act becomes one and the same. The magician knows with certainty that for the change to occur he must will it to happen and firmly believe it will happen. Here it may be noted that magic and religion are akin: both require belief that a miracle will occur.

So, Wayne Dyer, Rhonda Byrne, Carlos Castaneda and countless other insightful folk have all tapped into a truth that has been around since ancient times. But all these variations on a theme are necessary, for everyone’s mind works differently, everyone understands and learns things differently. There are seemingly as many versions of consciousness as there are stars in the heavens. So for the message to be understood by everyone, there must be many, many teachers to help us understand it.

The Secret is yet one more path that can lead us home.