The Secret? Law of Attraction? Beware Dr. Feel Good

It seems we human beings never grow tired of easy answers, especially Americans. We want the easy fix, the cheapest way, the short cut, the pain pills. Who wouldn’t want this? But wanting is not living. And living as a true human being requires more of us. More than simply the will to have what we want.

How many people have you heard lately talking about “the secret to life,” the law of attraction,” or the power of “manifesting”? Sure, it all sounds good. But this is just the latest recycled version of the power of positive thinking approach to life that has led so many people astray over the centuries. I’m not against people enjoying life, an optimistic approach to living, or taking responsibility for one’s life. I am suspicious, however, of anything that tempts people to believe that: their individual happiness is the ultimate goal of living; that however they define that happiness or the fulfillment of their needs is fine, as long as they choose it for themselves; that they are fully in charge of their lives and do not need to depend on any other; and that a life worth living is always pleasant and easy.

I Want, I Want, I Want
Most purveyors of the law of attraction (and yes, these people are manifesting making lots of money off people who want to hear this easy talk) encourage people to ask, What do I want to manifest in my life? What we should be asking ourselves is the questions that come before and beneath that question: How can I know what to manifest if I don’t first understand what is illusion and what is true? How does it help me in the long run to manifest my desires if what I desire is as ephemeral and unsatisfying as smoke when what I really need is fire? What have I gained if I become adept at attracting to myself what feels good for an instant but what cannot prove an enduring foundation for the future? A new car? A six-figure income? A romantic partner? All good—perhaps. But should these be the object of our heart’s deepest and purest intention?

I,I,I,I,I
Are these the questions we should be asking ourselves, What do I want? What do I want to attract? What do I want to manifest? I, I, I, I! That’s the second part of why this recycled power of positive thinking talks is so tempting: it focuses not only on desire without asking what is worthy of human being’s deepest desire, but on the “I,” the individual ego. In this age of consumerism and economic fearfulness, of “social” networks that seem not to slake our isolated and alienated selves’ thirst for community but only increase it, we don’t need anyone to coach us to focus on ourselves more. For most genuine paths of salvation in the world, the “secret” of living well is never to focus on the self, but to go beyond the healthy self to recognize that one belongs to something larger and that one has a role to play in that something larger, a role that does not always lead to one’s personal happiness or needs being met in the moment.

It’s common today to bash traditional religions as being external, authoritarian, or the enemy of the spirit’s evolution, and to valorize the “spiritual” movements that focus on the internal individual making free choices. But true religion, whether it is in the form of Hinduism, Judaism, Buddhism, Christianity, Zoroastrianism, Islam, or whatever, has always pointed the self beyond its self. Obviously traditional religion can be corrupted to serve lesser forces. Unfortunately history shows us this over and over again. But so can spirituality be corrupted. Has Ayn Randism brought peace to the world? No, it has brought injustice, violence, and suffering. What will the followers of the law of attraction bring to our world, beyond their one personal desire for their individual happiness.

Beware the Highway Robbers, Find Yourself a Trustworthy Guide
One of the most trustworthy life coaches I know is that doctor of the heart called Ghazali. At the end of his life, after writing countless books of spiritual counsel for theologians, mystics, and other adepts, he wrote a guide for the spiritual life for ordinary persons, The Path of the Worshipful Servant to the Garden of the Lord of All Worlds. He wrote the book because the path is so difficult and “the danger involved so enormous.” He explains why it is so in his introduction:

It is indeed a rugged path and a hard road, fraught with many obstacles, serious hardships, remote distances, enormous difficulties, frequent hindrances and impediments. It is beset with deadly perils and interruptions, abounding in enemies and highway robbers, and offering very few companions and followers. This is exactly how it needs to be, since it is the path of the Garden of Paradise….

Then, in addition to all of that, the servant [of the Lord] is weak, the time is difficult, and religious commitment is subject to retrogression. There is little leisure and much preoccupation. Life is short, and there is incapacity in work. The critic is perceptive, and the appointed term is near. (The Path of the Worshipful Servant to the Garden of the Lord of All Worlds. Tr. Muhtar Holland, Amal Press, p. 2)

Whom would you trust when you set off on a journey to a destination you want to reach before you die? A person who tells you, It's easy, all you have to do is want it and it will be yours? Or the person who has been traveling there a long time and tells you, The way is hard, there will be help all along the way, the destination does not belong to you but you to it, and it is the only place worthy of your travels? Dr. Feel Good? Or a true doctor of the heart?


But first, make sure you know where you’re going.

Why are we so restless?

Lately I've been wondering: What makes us so restless? So restless that we go searching, searching, searching, pursuing what will scratch our itch, feel satisfied, and let us rest at last?

St. Augustine is not everyone's favorite these days, just as he wasn't in his own day in North Africa. People tehn and now take him to task for his denial of free will, his association of lust and sin, coupling of sex and original sin, his suspiciousness almost fear of beauty. The list of his "sins" against our enlightened minds is practically endless. But beyond all the Neo-Platonic-inspired Chrisitan resolutions he discovered for his restlessness, this Augustine still knew a thing or two about seeking God and losing the way. He was a true mystic, one whose journey teaches us more perhaps than his arriving, as it does with all mystics, seekers; for true seekers never arrive--they arrive only to set off again. Augustine the passionate seeker, in his spiritual autobiograrphy, Confessions, wrote this: "Our hearts are restless until they find their rest in Thee."

Look around you. Look at yourself. Look within. What do you see? People desperately seeking something that will cure their restlessness. Work. Accomplishments. Fame. Acquiring money, things, connections, knowledge. Romantic relationships. Family obligations. Exercise. TV. Surfing the Internet. Video games. Food. Alcohol. Marijuana. Prescription painkillers. Heroin. Xanax. They feel that restlessness inside, that urge that they can't ever quite quiet, the urge to get up and do soemthing, seek something, find something,something,anything, that will let them rest.

The restlessness, the urging toward something we know not what, is good. That is the human condition. It is our willingness to settle too quickly for that which cannot truly satisfy that urging that trips us up time and again. Our eagerness to believe that what is finite can soothe our restless hearts yearning for the infinite. So we go seeking and finding, seeking and finding, while our restlessness only grows and begins to tear at our spirits, tear us apart, which drives us to seek more desperately.

What can we do? Being born restless and needing to seek? Sit still and ask oursaelves if what we have found, what we are still looking for, still chasing, can cure that restlessness or if it will only exacerbate it and drive us to disappointment and despair?

Seeking is good; it is what we are meant for. But be careful of what you find. Far better to be found than to find.

Four Cs that can change your life

I don't like lists of rules. They make me squirm and want to argue. But there is one brief list of guidelines for cohabitating the earth that I keep on my refrigerator, keep reminding myself of, and keep finding myself offering to friends and strangers because it is so brief, so simple, and so radical in its power to reorient one toward greater openness and love--the four Cs often heard where Sufis gather. Just four simple tasks. So easy and so difficult. To follow the first one alone, truly follow it in one's life, lifts one's spirit and redirects it immeasurably.

1. Don't complain.
2. Don't compare.
3. Don't criticize.
4. Don't condemn.

There is a reason why these are express4ed in the negative--to call our attention to them and powerfully break out proclivity toward them.

But it's interesting to think of what their positive coorelates would be. Here's one set of possibilities:

1. Give thanks for everything, walking humbly on the earth.
2. See everything as a new creation and see that it is good.
3. Act justly, toward justice, bringing greater integrity into the world around you.
4. Act in mercy and compassion toward your neighbor, who is like you.

That's my list of positive correlates, drawn of course from the prophet Micah's (6:8) summary of the law:

He has shown you, O earth creature, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.

What's your short list that keeps you on track?

Change, change, change...change of fools

Dramatic and enduring change is hard. You have to be a bit of a holy fool to believe it can be done and that you, even you, can do it. Being inspired by other holy fools who have taken the leap, cast off all that weighed them down, and flown into a new way of being helps. They are the cloud of witnesses that sings to you in your despair, "Jump. Jump. It's not inevitable that you'll crash and burn. How else will you learn to fly? Cast off your fear and jump."

People Don’t Change?

“People don’t change.” I was surprised recently to discover how many people believe this. Or at least how many people who post online dating profiles profess to believe this. These three words are one of most the common nostrums that appear when people summarize what they’ve learned from relationships. This disturbs me. Because it belies the reality of profound change that I have witnessed in many people’s lives. This view of human nature seems a great disrespect, for I have known so many incredibly courageous people who have transformed their lives from victims to survivors, turning from fear, insecurity, and self-loathing to love, joy, and self-confidence; from violence against the vulnerable to protectors of the vulnerable. They are ordinary people who, in taking the trauma and suffering that life dealt them or that they dealt to themselves and transforming it into life-giving love, became heroes of their own lives. Schooled by circumstances for death and destructiveness, they chose life and worked hard to become fully alive. I could name so many people who have done this, who have worked so hard all their lives to overcome destructive patterns they inherited or developed in order to become more and more alive, more and more loving. But most of these ordinary heroes remain invisible to the wider world, their profiles of courage known only to their intimate circle. They may or may not have degrees or other accomplishments or money or nice houses or high positions, but these are the people whom I respect most in life. They bear witness every day in their lives that no matter how low or dark or enslaved we find ourselves, we can change.

People do change. They change so radically they surprise themselves and others. Why close your heart to this possibility in another? Or in yourself? Why be so pessimistic about human nature? Yes, we get stuck in ruts. Yes, we keep making the mistakes over and over again. Yes, genuine change is difficult and it takes a long, long time and it requires trust and great courage and infusions of love and grace. But people do change. Instead of giving people the message that changing their selves or their lives is impossible, we should honor and celebrate the changes people have made and hold those up as encouragement.

But maybe those online romance hopefuls who assert “people don’t change” really do believe (or hope) human beings are capable of change and all they mean to say is this: “You can’t change another person.” That statement is true. Radical, life-transforming, enduring and sustainable change has to come from deep inside a person; it can’t come from outside. Anyone who has experience with addictive behavior of any kind knows this. But if that’s what they mean, that’s what they should say. Words matter—especially in relationships with other human beings.

Why I Love the Blues—and Dervishes

Last week, listening to one of my favorite programs on NPR, All Blues with John Kessler, I heard Albert King sing his version of the famous saying “Everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die.”

Everybody wants to laugh,
Ah, but nobody wants to cry.
I say everybody wants to laugh,
But nobody wants to cry.

Everybody wants to go to heaven,
But nobody wants to die.

King reminded me why I love the blues: the blues knows that life is music with an ever-changing rhythm and you have to sing, sing and even dance, the downs along with the ups. The world’s mystics agree. Give thanks for the evil as well as the good, the Hasids and other mystics say. In The Call of the Dervish, Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan says:

The dervish sees this happening in the lives of people—how at some times so much grace is given to them, and at others it is taken away. The person himself is perplexed and wonders why sometimes the sun shines upon him while at other times he seems to be the object of God’s wrath or curse: the dervish sees this as the breath of God, inhaling and exhaling. If people would let themselves be drawn into the solitude of the divine unity when God draws them out of their unfoldment in the manifest, they would realize it as a higher initiation instead of regretting it and considering it to be an injustice of destiny. That is why the dervish accepts every gain as a gift of God and also every loss as a gift of God, like al-Hallaj, who said, “Even when I am deserted by you this isolation is a companion for me. Does not God try those whom God loves?

So the mystic in the world, the dervish, dances in ecstasy, whether because abandoned by the One or drawn close by the One, all in love. “If I can’t dance, what am I?” asks the dervish, according to Pir Vilayat.

This wisdom of the unity and beauty of life is what the blues knows and gives to all who have ears to hear. I once heard in a documentary on gospel music—Say Amen, Somebody, I think it was—that the blues and gospel music came up at the same time and that deep down they carry the same message. They do.

The Writer/Self Steps Aside for the Work—Again

Lately I’ve been lost. Feeling anxious, fearful, an overwhelming sense of the uncertainty of life pulling me away from the center, as if I were spinning in some great centrifuge run amuck, the better parts of me flying off into space and the baser parts coagulating inside, gumming up the machine.

For years, as I writer, I have followed these words of the poet and novelist Edmond Jabès, “The writer steps aside for the work.” To write something beautiful and true one must put aside the ego and surrender to the world of the story. It’s not easy to do, but it’s what I strive toward as a writer.

This morning those words of Jabès came to me not as a writer as a seeker, one struggling to become truly human in this world and who has lost her way. “The writer steps aside for the work. “ To be present to the world, in but not of it, one must de-center the self. How can one see what’s really going beyond all the illusory doings if one is blinded by one’s own needs or concerns? How can one hear what the world is saying, singing, with every breath in and out, if one’s mind is chattering away about what dangers to look out for or what needs to be done? To know what needs to be done, realize what one can do in the moment, any moment, every moment, in order to be a messenger of hope or peace or grace or joy or justice to another, one needs to get out of the way, to return to an empty center of radical trust from which all things radiate in beauty, joy, and love.

Anxiety and insecurity constrict the heart, seal it up in itself, a hardened mass of scar tissue that shuts out the world.

Trust releases the heart so it can soften, open outwards toward the world, infinite in its beauty, in love.

The major turn in life announced by all mystics is that from fear to love; but the turning comes through trust.

How hard, though, to get out of one’s own way and release oneself into the surrender of trust. I may manage for a time, and then, as now, I lose that still center of trust that carries me beyond my little self to the larger world. It happens over and over again. When I lose that center I am tempted to berate myself. How can this happen, I wonder? Why can’t I hold on to the peace, the joy, the calm at every moment, in every season and situation? Am I not trying hard enough? Not advanced enough? Was I fooling myself about trusting so deeply? Often it doesn’t even take an external event to set that centrifuge in motion and get me spinning out of calm and focusing all the me-ness at the center to gum up the works and throw everything off. It just happens. Because with all my efforts I am not as constant as I would like to be.

Then I remind myself that whipping myself is part of that centrifuge run amuck. Begin again. And again. And again. There is no arriving. The Sufi master Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan often quotes his father, Hazrat Inayat Khan, to remind seekers that there is no arriving. As we move forward, Khan says, the horizon recedes and seems to grow even larger. We never arrive. We are always on the way. Always setting out toward the horizon, that larger world beyond our little selves in which our selves find their true place, their true home, their true rest. Always beginning again.

So today, once again,I must give up that moaning and self-loathing of the little, constricted, hermetically sealed self and just get on the way. Today I must travel back toward that empty center of surrender, radical trust, and begin the journey toward the horizon again.