How The Law of Attraction and Non-Duality Relate

now david hello hi rupert can you hear me okay i can hear you very well yes hey nice to meet you and see if your retreat over the weekend was wonderful okay good good where are you calling from david at berkeley i was just i was hoping you can come back to berkeley soon has this i'm coming back to berkeley in um i think in march yes oh great yeah i feel like they usually were in march it was just before the pandemic or right then yes i'm i'm hoping to be there again in march

thanks um so i listened to your podcast with rhonda byrne from last year and i know this you're full of your area of memories and it's not really mine but i'm just starting to think like how can you talk about how like the secret and laws of attraction and manifestation relate to the nodule teaching because typically in that approach you know or in our approach in the non-dual path we kind of i'm sorry i'm just reading this out we watch positive and negative thoughts go by in a netty netty kind of way rather than working

with them to practically create some kind of level of reality or we understand that whatever king lear in your metaphor for example was meant to experience has already been decided so perhaps i can frame the question uh this way so could one say that the law of attraction is part of the tantric path of engaging with the world and that we know our true creative nature or is it the path of bhakti surrender and prayer instead of yana and so also given that king lear and jane and mary's dreaming mind aren't actually independent can they

change anything can they uh can john smith or mary intervene or what one last quote from rhonda's book which i actually really liked things aren't happening to you they're happening for you which is kind of a nice way of reframing that question david i'm not sure that i've understood your question but i i don't um i don't actually speak very much of the law of attraction and i was speaking again because i was having a conversation with with ronda and that's one of her at that point i was curious like i was surprised to hear

you talking with her no i was talking with her um because uh she her her latest book the greatest secret she included me in it and in many places and and we've become kind of friends as a result of that so so we were having a a conversation um and i read it i really enjoyed it and she didn't actually talk too much about the law of attraction in there exactly because she sort of moved on from that really um so and and and didn't mention it in in her new book the greatest secret um

i think it's a question the law of attraction it's really let me say this much i don't it's not it's not really a part of the non tool i'm saying at least not the way i speak of it but it's based on one valuable idea is that um it's based on the idea of abundance and the the unlimited nature of reality so at the level of so reality god's infinite being or pure consciousness is is unlimited it is we as apparently separate self that due to our the narrowness of our vision impose limits on reality

and then react to those limits as if they were real in their own right in this way we create limitations for ourselves we limit ourself and then we think and feel of ourself as this limited being and we was and we're surprised then when the universe reflects or mirrors this felt sep sense of limitation back to us it's not really the universe that is doing it to us it is we who are doing it to the universe so this is the this is the understanding that underlies the law of attraction that that that the reality

is unlimited and therefore abundant i think that's why i was asking about whether it's kind of the uh the tantric path because it's like we kind of tap into that abundance maybe kind of bring it out just as as god yes i refer to the when i use that the term tantric path it refers to anything that is inclusive of manifestation rather than the vedantic or inward facing path which tends to turn away from from manifestation so yes yes to the extent that that the law of attraction is part of the the broad spiritual understanding

it would be part of the tantric approach yes okay all right yeah i know it's not it's not a super clear question in my head because i've just been playing with this for a couple of months now but it's actually helping me deepen my prayer practice and kind of just feeling that sense of oneness and it brought up a lot of stuff from over the weekend to the sufi david the way i would the way i think of it is this because the law of attraction is it's never it's never really attracted me as an

idea but what what does attract me is that what does interest me is this is the distinction between a personal desire and an impersonal desire personal desire comes from the felt sense of being a separate self and our desire arises on behalf of that that self or that fragment and it's very difficult for the universe to fulfill a personal desire because the desire is at odds with the reality of the universe and that's why personal desires even if they seem to be fulfilled in the short term tend not to lead to a deep sense of

fulfillment or satisfaction however an impersonal desire is one that comes from our true nature from joy from peace from love and seeks to express itself in the world so it still manifests as a desire but it's a desire that rises on behalf of the whole it's or that or we should i could say it's a desire that arises on behalf of peace of love of truth of beauty and such a desire is in line with and an expression of the reality of the universe and therefore it's very easy for the universe to fulfill these desires

i think this is a a less personal way of thinking of the law of attraction that that if we find personal desires arising in us rather than seeking to fulfillment fulfill them we should seek the person or the self on whose behalf they arise but if we find an impersonal desire arising in us that is a desire that arises from love truth peace beauty justice and so on then we should feel free to go out into the world and fulfill it because it will not only bring joy to ourselves it will bring joy to others

as well okay okay well thank you very much i really appreciate it i'm looking forward to seeing you again soon i hope so nice to meet you david you