The Law of Attraction Primer

This is not going to be a lengthy post.  The purpose for it is to introduce to my blog a concept that has been floating around widely in popular culture for the past couple of years (“The Law of Attraction”), and in order for me to use it in later posts, I think it would be a pretty good idea to define it in my terms.

So, exactly what is this “Law of Attraction”? The law of attraction is an ancient idea based on something that Buddha said. In a nutshell it is that you create your own reality through the energy (intention) you emanate.   Another way to say it is that you get in life what you’re looking for.

Some say that the idea that we create our reality is “preposterous”.  Others say that it cannot be proven.

I respectfully disagree.  The nature of my disagreement with such naysayers may split hairs, but they are important hairs to split.

We create our reality every moment of every day by the choices we make.  If I choose to act on one thing and not act on another, I’m taking steps that will have a direct (and potentially dramatic) impact on my life.  For example, if I choose to ignore a stop sign or red traffic light when I’m driving my car, I am creating a “high-probability” chance of a different reality from the alternate reality of coming to a full stop at the appropriate place.

Now, if I make an intention (an intention is nothing more than a pre-made set of choices), and if I take actions consistent with that intention I am creating a reality for myself.

At the level of the brain, we have what is called the reticular cortex.  The reticular cortex is our attention getter AND it is programmable.  For example, your reticular cortex is programmed to respond when it identifies that someone is calling you by name.  So, when you’re at a party and there’s lots of ambient noise.  You could be shouting through the din in an attempt to make conversation.  But if someone in the room whispers your name, your reticular cortex will have you up and looking around in an attempt to figure out who called you.  Your conscious mind may wonder, “Did I just hear something?” but you have already responded to it before that question was formed.

The cool thing about this is the programmable feature.  Have you ever noticed that when you decide that you want to buy a new car, say a SmartCar, you suddenly see them all over the place?  Or when you learn a new word, like “crepuscular”, suddenly you’ll hear it in two or three places.  That’s the newly programmed reticular cortex.  It’s not that the SmartCar or “crepuscular” weren’t there before, it’s that you hadn’t programmed yourself to respond to them.

SO… this means that once you’ve added a new pattern to your programmable reticular cortex, it’s going to be looking for things that match the pattern. Thus, if you want to improve your spiritual growth, or your relationships, or your money situation, or your family life, you drop it into your reticular cortex, and you’ll be seeing things that might have been there all along, but that you weren’t attuned to.

In the New Testament, in the 11th Chapter of Luke, Jesus says, “ask and you will receive; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.”  Sure sounds like programming the reticular cortex to me.