The Secret Protects Itself
By Dr. Stewart Bitkoff
The sight of someone eating will not appease your hunger.
The spiritual experiences of others cannot satisfy your yearning.
-Traditional
Q: Daily, I pray, regularly give to charity, do good works and always try to be a good person, yet spiritual experience eludes me. O I am so frustrated. Please, how do I go about having spiritual experiences?
Additionally, I feel unless I have these, I will remain incomplete. O how I yearn to draw closer to God. I thought by following my birth religion and the Path, spiritual experience would be natural outcomes?
A: The answer to this question, like so many others on the spiritual path cannot be thought out or answered by ordinary reasoning (ego). The answers must be experienced or perceived through another mode of consciousness; intuition or Higher Knowledge must provide a personal answer. The Secret Protects Itself.
In this situation, mind questions so heart might respond. Or stated another way;
Imagination blocks you like a bolt on a door,
Burn that bar.
– Rumi
Substitute for the word imagination, expectations, ordinary thoughts, emotions and comparison with others.
The task of the spiritual traveler is to learn to ask the question in one mode of thought, and listen too or experience the answer in another. Like pre-setting the stations on your radio; Station #1 presents the inquiry-where are my spiritual experiences? Click to Station #2, spiritual awareness; which answers the question: spiritual experiences are natural outgrowths of a higher state of consciousness. They present at their own time. This higher state of consciousness is Love of God and a heart that is empty of all else. Again, The Secret Protects Itself.
Remember while the every day consciousness (ego) may be filled with all kinds of concerns, the traveler must learn to still them, for a time, so the heart- that burns for God- might come forward.
In this example, presetting the device for spiritual awareness, often with the help of a teacher, facilitates the change of station.
You must learn to listen to the quiet whisperings of your heart to perceive these answers and have these experiences. Often this training is supplied through right study, with right people, and in the right place. It usually involves freeing oneself of expectations and strong emotions.
Second, seeking spiritual experience is different than seeking God. Our teacher used to say: ‘When you come to me, come to me about God. Do not come here for anything else.’ Often this deception, in the spiritual search, about outcome is buried so deep that it requires continual work to offset its effect. The Secret Protects Itself.
Expectations & Emotions
Each spiritual traveler is born into a world of expectation. Daily behaviors and societal standards are presented by family, friends, co-workers, country, religion and self.
Overtime, these expectations form our operating system and world view. We want to go and do based upon what we have been taught and what we desire for self and others; expectations set standards for behavior that have attached to them a whole series of emotions. For example, joy at accomplishing our goal or sadness as we fail.
This set of personal expectation or goals, in time, can entrap and bind- yet serves an essential function for society as a whole; and is often the basis for our daily behaviors.
For the spiritual traveler, these are the chains that must be temporarily broken- for the Higher Consciousness to work. Cognitively and emotionally they are a door that blocks the inner awareness.
As indicated above, attached to expectations are emotions: both enrich our lives and help make us human. However, in a spiritual quest, they fill our consciousness and must be stilled temporarily so the Higher Impulse can be perceived and heard. Emotions and expectations are ‘a noise’ in our consciousness: blocking other things from happening.
In a spiritual quest, typical expectation sets run something like this. Many times, spiritual travelers are unaware, because these expectations are hidden, that it is precisely these sub-conscious thoughts, along with their emotional attachments, that are blocking spiritual progress.
• I have been meditating for five years and surely something should have happened by now. Or I cannot meditate for more than 2 minutes and surely this inability must be holding me back.
• Everyone knows, ‘we have been given enough for the journey;’ therefore I can pick and choose what I like from different paths. This technique has worked for me in so many areas of my life (i.e., picking a vocation, car and companion).
• When performing spiritual exercises, praying, or doing good works we all have an expectation about how we will be rewarded; for example, this activity will make me a good person, I will gain in good works and I feel good helping others. When the spiritual traveler has these often hidden feelings; these feelings become their reward and they do not travel further. This mind set is a form of ‘spiritual greed’ and must be disarmed by a neutral mental posture.
• When I reach a high level of spirituality, my life will be perfect and complete. Spiritual knowledge is one aspect of a healthy life; spiritual awareness serves as a catalyst to enable other things to happen.
• I love to meditate and pray; it makes me feel so peaceful and I am one with everything. Or I feel so good when I work at the soup kitchen, helping the homeless. Think about the emotional attachment.
In order to maximize spiritual potential, the traveler must learn to recognize when their expectation set is operating. Also the traveler must learn to differentiate between an emotional and a spiritual experience. While expectations and emotions are an important part of healthy living, for many, because they have not been disarmed- both become an obstacle to spiritual experience. The Secret Protects Itself.
We are the means of reaching the goal. It is necessary that seekers should cut themselves away from us and think only of the goal.
– Bahauddin NaqshbandIf love manifests itself within you, it has its origin in beauty. You are nothing but a mirror in which beauty is reflected. Because beauty and its reflection are both from that one source, it is both treasure and treasure-house.
– Jami
About the author:
Read my book: Beyond The River’s Gate. Book is available on Amazon.com in paperback, Kindle format or local bookstore.
To Order Your Copy Visit Amazon: http://bit.ly/bitkoffriver.
To contact author go to: www.stewartbitkoff.com.
How Gratitude and Visualization Made Me a Bestseller
Bestselling Author Kim Staflund’s Story featured on TheSecret.Tv in November 2015
by Kim Staflund
When Australian television producer Rhonda Byrne released The Secret in 2006, it inspired millions of people all across the world from all walks of life. I was one of them.
I read Rhonda’s books then I researched others who had success, and those who didn’t. I wanted to know why visualization worked for some, but came up short for others. A pivotal moment came for me when I saw a video clip of Oprah Winfrey interviewing Jim Carrey in the late 1990s about how he made his own dreams come true using these techniques. Oprah made the comment, ‘Visualization works if you work hard,’ to which Jim agreed, ‘You can’t just visualize and then go eat a sandwich.’ That interview really resonated.
I’ve always believed in the power of love and gratitude; now, I have first-hand experience with the power of visualization and I want to pay it forward. This technique worked for me. It’s not magic. It’s a system of believing. I put my heart and soul into it and two months later, I saw my name on a bestseller list as detailed in my Secret Story of the Week.
Here’s how to make it work for you:
- You need to feel gratitude for where you are in your life right now. Really feel it. Yes, we all have a road we want to travel tomorrow—but we also have to appreciate where we’re standing today. Give thanks to all you have.
- Visualize what you love and where you want to go.
- Once you have that vision, work toward it on a daily basis. This can’t be a random, when-you-feel-like-it approach to life. When you want something badly enough, you work toward it. Don’t lose sight of your intended horizon.
- Practice gratitude and visualization each day. I intensified mine in the weeks leading up to my greatest milestone—seeing my name on a bestseller list. I practiced sessions twice daily—first thing in the morning and last thing at night. It certainly did the trick.
As an author, I’m also an entrepreneur. Holding your career in your own hands can be overwhelming, and there are actions each author must take in order to make their dreams come true. But when you have the right perspective—when you know the secret—you can enjoy the journey.
About Kim Staflund
Kim Staflund is the founder and publisher at Polished Publishing Group (PPG) and author of the newly released Successful Selling Tips for Introverted Authors. She is also author of How to Publish a Bestselling Book…and Sell it Worldwide Based on Value, Not Price! released in 2014.
In addition to her book publishing background, Staflund has a substantial sales and sales management history that includes new business development, account and personnel management and leadership experience. Connect with Kim Staflund on Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, and Facebook.
Kim’s books are available in both paperback and ebook format through choice booksellers all around the world. Booksellers can order them in via Ingram Content Group.
The Subconscious, the Supernatural and the Self-Help Industry
by E.G. Harne
I am both a practioner and student of psychic communications. It is my belief that telepathy, poltergeists, remote viewing, astral projection, etc., have the subconscious as their nexus. The subconscious, in turn, allows us to communicate via the psychic currents that surround us. If we understand how these currents operate and then navigate them successfully, we can optimize our interactions with psychic phenomena and enrich our lives in the process. Oddly enough, one of the greatest proponents of the subconscious as a communications tool with the supernatural is the self-help industry.
Let me begin by throwing down the gauntlet and stating that there is really nothing new in the self-help industry – hasn’t been for ages. It’s just that every decade or so, someone repackages old ideas, foists them upon the public as the next new life changing philosophy and makes a bundle in the process. Now that’s not necessarily a bad thing, because I also believe that if people were to apply the suggestions outlined in many of these philosophies, they would attain some measure of success. What is most interesting about the self-help industry, however, is its reliance on what many would define as the supernatural in order to make our dreams come true.
One of the earliest self-help phrases originates from The Bible, the book of Proverbs, Chapter 23, verse 7, “As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.” Now, lest someone call me out on a technicality, let me state for the record that I am well aware that it is a bit of misquote and taken out of context. The fact remains, rightly or wrongly, that it has been used by many religious leaders and self-help gurus as an example of the conscious mind influencing the subconscious in either a negative or positive fashion.
In 1937 author Napoleon Hill’s seminal work, Think and Grow Rich, was published. A book that continues to be a bestseller was instrumental in identifying the supernatural and success as a cause and effect relationship. Hill proffered the following:
“Here is a most significant fact – the subconscious mind takes any orders given it in a spirit of absolute faith, and acts upon those orders, although the orders often have to be presented over and over again, through repetition, before they are interpreted by the subconscious mind.”
Hill also indentified the existence of the Infinite Intelligence, which all of us have the capability of tapping into via our subconscious. He stated that:
“…there is a power, or a First Cause, or an Intelligence, which permeates every atom of matter, and embraces every unit of energy perceptible to man – that this Infinite Intelligence converts acorns into oak trees, causes water to flow down hill in response to the law of gravity, follows night with day, and winter with summer, each maintaining its proper place and relationship to the other. This Intelligence may, through the principles of this philosophy, be induced to aid transmuting desires in to concrete or material form.”
In the chapter Thoughts Are Things, Hill emphasizes that they (thoughts) aren’t just nebulous entities; in fact, they have to the ability to become concrete realities provided we introduce them to our subconscious “in the spirit of absolute faith” through the application of autosuggestion or self-hypnosis.
The induction of hypnosis places an individual into a trance state. This in turn, provides a direct unfiltered route to the subconscious. Because the subconscious cannot tell the difference between what is real and what is not, if we offer it an idea, sometimes even an outrageous one, it will act upon it. This is what happens when a stage hypnotist suggests that a person swat imaginary flies or forget his name. With the individual in a trance, he accepts the suggestion given him – provided it is not against his moral code – and acts upon it.
The hypnotic trance, however, has also been documented as a tool for good. Edgar Cayce, also known as the “Sleeping Prophet,” reportedly went into a semi-conscious state and accessed the “Book of Life” (perhaps another phrase for Infinite Intelligence) and brought back cures for the sick. It should be no surprise then why the self-help industry encourages followers to understand the powerful connections between the subconscious, the supernatural and success.
In 1962, the self-help classic, The Power of Your Subconscious Mind, was published. Written by Dr. Joseph Murphy, it built upon Napoleon Hill’s earlier concepts. According to Murphy:
“The infinite intelligence within your subconscious mind can give you everything you need to know about at every moment of time and point of space provided you are open minded and receptive.”
Sound familiar? Murphy provides many success quotes from no less an authority than the Bible. From Mark 9:23:
“If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth.”
And from Matthew 21:22: “Whatsoever ye shall ask for in prayer, believing, ye shall receive.”
I emphasize this point not in a spirit of jest, but to focus on the fact that self-help requires both a belief in our innate psychic abilities and recognizing the importance of communicating with a higher power to succeed.
In the 1980s and 90s, Tony Robbins burst on the self-help scene with two bestselling tomes, Unlimited Power and Awaken the Giant Within. Charismatic and outspoken, Robbins emphasized that change within us could happen immediately. He believed – and demonstrated – that this could be accomplished by the application of Neuro-Linguistic Programming or NLP. This seemed to be departure from earlier self-help programs, but in reality it was not.
NLP had its roots in the teachings of Dr. Milton Erickson. Erickson was a psychiatrist and hypnotist adept at inducing a trance state in his patients via something called conversational hypnosis. He eschewed traditional hypnotic induction methods, believing the subconscious was always listening and that a person could be put into a trance through indirect suggestion. Now my purpose here not to engage in an in-depth discussion about Erickson’s methods, but I think it is important to note that a significant portion of Tony Robbins’ self-help program dealt with hypnosis, trance and suggestion, albeit with a tad more sophistication in its execution.
I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the fact that the supernatural also figured into Robbins’ philosophy. In Awaken the Giant Within he states:
Setting goals is the first step in turning the invisible into the visible – the foundation of all success in life. It’s as if infinite
Intelligence will fill any mold you create using the impression of your intensely emotional thoughts.
Today, the supernatural continues to influence the self-help industry. There are far too many practioners to mention here, but their collective spirit is embodied in the book The Secret, written by Rhonda Byrne. In a nutshell, “the secret” involves The Law of Attraction:
“…like attracts like, so when you think a thought you are also attracting like thoughts to you.
“Thoughts are magnetic, and thoughts have a frequency. As you think thoughts, they are sent out into the Universe, and they magnetically attract all the things that are on the same frequency. Everything sent out returns to the source – you.”
The Secret is more or less a retelling and repackaging of concepts originally introduced by Hill and Murphy. Some of the terminology has changed; the Creative Process has replaced Autosuggestion while the Universal Mind has been substituted for Infinite Intelligence. But the fact remains that the supernatural remains a powerful force in the universe for human change.
It is a rather odd dichotomy that we have within us the ability to tap into an external force that can provide the answer to any question; to see across time and space; to interact with loved ones who have passed over; to help a lost soul find her way to a peaceful and loving place. The answers have been available to us forever. We need to stop looking and start doing. Unfortunately, we continue to run in circles, hoping desperately to locate one last tidbit of information that will unlock all of life’s mysteries.
In The Secret, author Byrne notes in one of her Secret Summaries that “Your thoughts become things.” As I mentioned earlier, over 70 years ago Think and Grow Rich had a chapter entitled “Thoughts are Things.” The more things change the more they remain the same.
E.G. Harne is a metaphysical consultant and writer who is currently researching a book on psychic communications. He can be reached at [email protected]
