Elaine Grundy: looking for Urban Enlightenment

The Answer by John Assaraf & Murray Smith

I picked up this book last weekend and read it in about 2 sittings.  It was a REALLY interesting read and I especially liked the way Assaraf used his knowledge of the science of the brain to bring together the esoteric ‘Secret of the Law of Attraction’ and how the brain actually functions.

Of course I especially liked it because it’s what I’ve been saying for years

“You’ve heard the old expression “I’ll believe it when I see it.” But that’s not really how it is.  The truth is more like this: You’ll see it when you believe it.  In a very real, concrete sense, your beliefs don’t simply reflect your reality, they create your reality.”

He then goes on to very convincingly tell you exactly why the Law of Attraction is so real, and so effective.  But what I liked most was the continual call to ACTION.  I like this because I’ve seen this so many times with people looking to achieve their goals and dreams – a whole lot of day-dreaming, not a lot of action.  People come to Reiki and they are so happy because it’s such an easy thing to learn, but then so unhappy because they have to spend an hour a day, so they don’t do anything, and they wonder why they get zero results.

For me, in Reiki and in anything you want to achieve in life – the first and foremost action is to DREAM big and extend your dreaming above and beyond yourself – what my brother Roger calls the Law of Expansion.  From this very real yet imaginary world view you then need to take daily and consistent ACTION on a physical level.    It’s a bit like a mountaineer – you ask any top climber and they will tell you they have climbed the mountain 1,000 times in their dreams, going through the visioning every day until it becomes so real it’s as if they’ve already done it.  But the reality is – they HAVEN’T done it, of course you know that.  They actually have to go out and put one foot in front of the other, AND they have to train daily on and off the mountain.  Attraction and Action, hand in hand.

I also loved the FIVE MUSTS of major success; very very true:

1. You must find something that stirs your soul.
2. You must become excellent at it.
3. You must recondition your mind to believe you can have it and achieve it.
4. You must understand how to make money at it.

You must take daily action When I look at this list I have to agree whole heartedly – if anyone was doing all these things, there is no way they WOULDN’T be successful.  To me it would be a foregone conclusion because I truly believe whatever we can dream, we can achieve.

Dr John Demartini on Values

Dr. Demartini is probably best known for his apperance on 'The Secret' and was in town for a talk and workshop.  While I didn't make the workshop, I was very pleased to be at the talk.  Its not so much that the things he was saying were earth shatteringly new, but his way of articulating an old and wise message was refreshing, namely:

 

Do what you love to do.

 

Such a simply message, yet how many of us actually do it?  He recounted a story of a mother who had brought her son to one of his workshops and wanted Demartini to 'change' him because he was a 'problem child'.  As Demartini told the story, it became clear that this boy was extremely talented in one thing - gameboy!  In Demartini's philosophy, this was the boy's gift and his passion - as a result, turning the boy's academic focus around was not a matter of pushing him harder to do something he found boring or pointless, but allowing the boy to see how his studies would help him become better at his passion, ie becoming even better at gameboy!

 

It was a great story as it highlighted not only society's prejudices ie. studying = good, gameboy = bad, but also our love of labelling people because they do not see the same value in the things we see value in.  A child who doesn't see the value in studying does not want to study - pretty obvious!  But in shifting the perception for the child, and aligning it to his passion, now he can become self-motivating and now change can happen.

 

I also loved his other main message which was this - we ALL have unique and wonderful talents, but we can't ALL be millionaries or CEOs of top 100 companies (and do we really want that anyway?).  Rose Kennedy's vision for herself was "I dedicate my life to raising a family of world leaders".

 

I love that!