Law of Attraction Classics: The Link Between Creation and Desire - Thomas Troward
The Law of Attraction is a powerful force, yet many people still don't understand it. This excerpt from The Creative Process in Mental Things, or the Law of Attraction in operation shows how our thoughts create our reality.
The link between creation and desire is a fundamental one and was early recognised by the ancient Greeks. Epictetus for instance said: "We are always either making evil or good out of what we imagine". Plato put this principle into practice when he asked his pupils to hold any thought which they wished, even if it had not yet been actualised in their lives but then to turn away their minds from that thought as quickly as possible because the concentration on the thought would have created its own reality.
The great masters of India and China had the same experience. The Hindus believed that the law of Karma, which is also the law of attraction, could be activated through meditation. The Buddhists taught their followers to concentrate on the thought that would bring about a particular result in their lives such as wealth or a happy marriage. The Christians believed God could be prayed for and sought to trust that He would answer prayer.
Even these simple concepts required more to be said about them than was known at the time. So it became necessary for man to discover more about this subject until finally in 1873 Louisa Rhine observed what might have been anticipated in her time: if you focus your mind on a particular thing you create it by thought.
The subject was then in the hands of many thinkers but not one of them had obtained all the knowledge which they required to produce a comprehensive picture. Consequently there could be no clear and concise statement, as might be said in science, of what the law is.
There are many different statements about this subject with very wide differences on their interpretation and application. Some would seek to deny that there is anything in thinks at all, others that thoughts have no effect on others, and still others that only will can produce a particular circumstance. These statements are often made without full knowledge of what the subject is, so they would say that just because such thoughts are possible in their minds it means they may come true and that there might be others who thought similarly and succeeded.
This is a wrong view to take of this matter because man only thinks from his own experience with whatever he may have found out. In other words if you have thought something in the past, you must either know about it or find out about it for yourself before you can state that it is true. If we have no idea about it, then we cannot even think about it. Therefore our conclusions about the truth of any matter should be based on what we know and not on what might be possible. If we only postedulate the thought of something, we cannot say whether it is true or not.
The law of attraction should be so clearly defined that everyone would be able to understand what it is. It must also be shown in a way that makes it understandable as a practical technique which can be used consciously at will.
Fortunately there are now sufficient records and statements to provide this information. The first of these are recorded in the books of the Buddha and were written down as "The Four Noble Truths" which were later translated into English as "The Doctrine of Suffering". In the doctrine are recorded:
- The law of cause and effect.
- The law of karma.
- The law of thought.
These four laws relate to how things came into existence, how they last long and their influence on us. We will discuss them in detail in our immediate subject today, which is: what is the effect on us when we concentrate our thoughts on something? A study of this subject will make it clear that thoughts do have a certain power over us and produce certain conditions. But what is this power and how does it work?
A thought has a certain power if it is intended as a truth, if nothing prevents you believing that it is true and nothing else interferes with the mind's acceptance of its truth. How can this be when there are many opinions of truth in the world? One opinion cannot be correct while another is not. What should we believe?
The answer to this question is quite simple, because there are only two ways to find out what can be considered as right or wrong with any matter. Either we know about it for ourselves, or we accept someone else's word for what they say about it. When we do not know about something, we can only base our belief upon the opinion of someone else's opinion. This is the logical conclusion because of the two things we can know: what is true and what is false.
It should be clear that when a person states that something which he has claimed as a truth should be accepted as such by other people in his acquaintance, he is stating an opinion. It must be an opinion he personally considers to be true because if it is not, how could it be considered right to submit another's opinion as right? This form of expression is called "analogy". Things which are analogies are often stated as facts and therefore accepted without question. The person who accepts the analogy without having any knowledge of the matter should be clear in his mind that he is accepting the analogy as a fact. For example:
"All men are mortal." This is an analogy. We can be sure that it is true, but we cannot say that it is true with absolute certainty because we have not seen or heard of every man being mortal. The truth here must be, "Most men are mortal. There may be exceptions." But this is not a fact, it is an opinion that can be accepted as true.
"All men have red hair." Again, no one has seen every man with red hair and even if we do see some men with this characteristic, we cannot say for certain whether they are all men or not. We cannot make a statement that "There is only one man in the world with red hair" because we do not know if he is mortal or not. All such statements must be considered as opinions until we know about them for ourselves.
The only way to know about them for ourselves is through personal experience and knowledge gained from what others have said or written about them.
It is important to know what the law of attraction is before we discuss its effects. If there was no law in the universe, we would never be able to see any results because there would be nothing that could produce them. It would not be possible for us to live unless some power were acting upon our minds and bodies so that they are affected by these thoughts. Who can know what this power is? Who can give an account of any power without knowing it? When people say that they have a particular power or knowledge, they do so because of the influence which their words may have on others and therefore they are admitting later on that their words were wrong.
Conclusion: Our thoughts do have a certain power over us and produce certain conditions.
The Law of Attraction can be defined as follows: The law that everything in the universe attracts everything else to it. This is the main definition of this law and must be true because if it is not, nothing could cause anything in the universe to exist.
The next question we must ask is, "How does this law function?" For this we must look at what forces are necessary to make things happen when they are used as means for producing results. Forces are always used to push things from beyond ourselves in order to make them happen within ourselves.