Recently there has been a lot of focus on the Law of
Attraction especially since the book ‘ The Secret’ was published. The basic
tenet of this philosophy is simple – you manifest in your reality that what you
think about most. In other words humans have the power to create the reality of
their lives just by thinking about it. This usually causes great alarm to the
religiously inclined, because what it means is that the power lies within
humans rather than an external force i.e. God and that of course is heresy.
However Law of Attraction is not actually about thinking and
manifesting, it is about thinking (stating a desire) and then allowing it in
our lives and the bulk of our work is in the allowance not the thinking aspect
of this law. But still the question remains, is it contrary to our religious
beliefs? When I first started to study the Law of Attraction, like most people
I too had many questions and concerns. Over time as I studied it more in-depth,
I found that religion actually provided a medium for this law and rather than
being at cross purposes, they complimented each other.
The first big question that emerges in everyone’s mind is if
all we have to do is think then where does prayer come in? My counter question
to that is why do we pray? It is of course to ask God for something – be it a
material desire, salvation or just a state of protection. In fact whenever we
pray we fulfill the first step of the Law of Attraction i.e. stating our desire
– we let the Universe know what it is that we want. The act of praying or asking God is of no use
whatsoever unless you really and truly believe in God. It is our belief that
gives strength to the prayer. When we pray in essence we hand over our requests
to God knowing that He will somehow make them true for us.
This process of letting go or handing it over to the
Universe is critical for desire manifestation according to the Law of
Attraction. As I mentioned earlier the bulk of our work is to allow our desires
to manifest. To the novice this may seem like the easiest thing in the world
but to the initiated it is the most difficult aspect of LOA. You see the
Universe does not respond to our words but to our emotions. In other words we
don’t attract things in our lives by thinking about them rather we attract circumstances,
things, events which closely match our predominant feeling. The most important aspect
of allowance is to feel predominantly happy, optimistic or joyous. The longer
we are able to maintain this state of joy, the quicker the manifestations will
be. Vividly imagining as if your desires have already manifested and seeing
yourself enjoying them also helps but on the flip side constantly thinking of when they will materialize actually
delays the manifestations because the predominant feeling is that of waiting
and the attention is on the absence of what you desire. Waiting and focusing on
the lacking will generate more waiting and lack.
Now let’s get back to religion. You see the whole point of
praying is to let go of things and let God take care of them. If our belief is
truly strong then the act of praying should bring us relief from all negative
emotions and make us content in the knowledge that our prayers are being
answered. However, most people are never able to cross this line of faith. They
constantly worry about when and if their prayers will be answered thus actually
delaying the allowance and then wondering why God does not answer their
prayers. He will if you move out of the way! If you don’t really trust Him then
why go through the motions?
Every religion has a set of rituals designed to bring
contentment, peace and joy. Being a
Muslim the act of Salaat 5 times a day for me is Allah’s way of ensuring that
we not only take stress busting breaks but also that we completely forget our
worries during that time and enter into a state of bliss. After all if your
faith in God and your rituals do not make you happy then there is something
very wrong in your personal belief system – I said personal belief system because
religions cannot be wrong, people who follow them usually are.
If you truly practice religion the way it was meant to be
then you use the Law of Attraction to your advantage if not the Law of
Attraction will keep working against you. Just look at the state of our country
and the Ummah as well. We spend most of our time in blaming, being angry,
hating, and being generally unhappy and what are we manifesting as a result? We
are attracting and manifesting circumstances which make us angrier, more
miserable and helpless.
Of course even for those who are masters of the Law of
Attraction sometimes seemingly random events occur in their lives or they are
faced with unforeseen challenges. The avid LOA fan will tell you that at some
level of your sub-conscious you attracted these things in your life. However my
take is slightly different. I believe that God puts us in these situations so that
not only does our resolve and character strengthen, but that our desires grow
as well. Life would be pretty boring if we all had the same level of desires,
usually a tragedy in our lives provides the spring board for noble and grand
desires. Therefore these events are what
is sometimes described as ‘ contrast’ or situations where we can come to a
decision as to what we want next in our lives.
It is easy to discard any idea without the slightest
investigation, usually because when we are faced with two seemingly contradicting
philosophies we become extremely uncomfortable emotionally. The easier route to
take is just negate the one that is causing the turmoil. The more difficult and
noble approach is to go through this discomfort, examine your own beliefs, find
the truth behind both ideas and then build a bridge.
