Manifest Revolution Live Truth.

I'll be the first to admit I have as many problems with new age philosophy as I do with the traditional -- more, actually. It's not that I think they're completely off the rails like some people do; it's just that I don't think they've solved any of the problems of traditional philosophies except the packaging. The majority of new age authors that I am familiar with are drawing primarily from either Eastern spiritual philosophy or skimming the magical cream off more esoteric ideas -- be it psychicism, angels, energy or plain old self talk. And I'm perfectly comfortable with each of those components within a broader context. But the disconnect I see is that they often rely upon the validity claims of traditional epistemologies which are not compatible with formal rational methods. Meaning that there is no stable foundation for continuity into an evolutionary trans-rational stage of development.

The changes we see in the world today are intellectual, moral, physical in their ideal and intention: the spiritual revolution waits for its hour and throws up, meanwhile, its waves here and there. Until it comes, the sense of the others cannot be understood, and till then all interpretations of present happenings and forecast of man's future are vain things. For its nature, power, event are that which will determine the next cycle of our humanity.

Sri Aurobindo

There are a lot of approaches to personal growth, but most of them seem to fall into the same category. They are focused on altering the outward expressions of the self one by one rather than allowing the inward self greater freedom to express itself through the outward being. They teach us how to change things about ourselves rather than to reorient our perspective in order to allow change to happen according to the expression of our most authentic self. Essentially, they rest on the belief that change occurs slowly and through hard work. But with so much attention being given to the law of attraction for changing one's life, I wonder why we are still teaching the same methods for changing one's self?

Have you ever wondered why it is that sometimes we seem stalwartly capable of making decisions and acting in perfect harmony with our intentions and desires, yet at other times it seems completely outside of nature to do so? This question gets to the heart of spiritual practice, personal growth and happiness itself; all of these are driven by the decisions we make and the states in which we exist. When our mindset and choices are aligned with our true nature and intentions things just seem to work out. Our joy in life expands and we life the life we most deeply desire to live. But when they are not, it's almost as if we can feel the dissonance; things don't feel right, they don't go right, and we recognize this. But yet, even seeing this, we can still feel powerless to turn it around. People say happiness is a choice -- and it most definitely is -- but it is not a choice we are always able to make. So how is it that we relate to things so differently from moment to moment?

With Oprah featuring The Secret on her show this week, I've been thinking about how my own view and approach to the law of attraction has evolved in the months since I was first introduced to it.

I'm coming from a different perspective than most people I read who talk about the law of attraction. While they appeal to quantum physics and brain scan studies to support LoA, they still teach it according to the practice of traditionalistic faith. The three requirements of this approach is ask, believe and receive. The rest is in the hands of...God, the universe, energy fields, or whatever you choose to name. I don't have any problem with what they are teaching. In fact, I think it's necessary to have this type of teaching available in order to teach Attraction to people who are coming from a faith-based perception of the world.