Ask and It Is Given

[AlexBaranosky]

Have any of you out there read this book? Ask and It Is Given

This is a very interesting book that you can probably find in the New Age section of your local Barnes and Nobles. At one point in my life I would read almost any book, no matter how OUT THERE it was, and when I first read Sifu Wong's books they were truly out there for me. So that's how I came about finding this book and the other books written by this author!

Ask and It Is Given is a channeled book, which means that the authors Esther Hicks lets a group of discarnate beings speak or write through her. This group of beings calls itself Abraham, and discusses what they would call the Laws of the Universe. The main law is called the Law of Attraction which essentially says that whatever you focus on you ultimately get in your life. Also, they would say that you have a internal guidance system in life to know if your current focus is tending to make your life better or worse and this is your emotions/intuition/heart. If you feel good then you are creating in a good direction, if you feel bad it's the reverse. The more joyful you feel in your everyday life, then the more you are creating a beautiful, fulfilling, good life for yourself. To Abraham the Universe is innately good. Our natural state is health and happiness and having enough. This all seems kinda, who cares that is obvious and everyone knows that, BUT it also includes more "magical" possibilities, more "miraculous" and "divine intervention-like" expereinces. Certainly there is more to explain about this, but this is a decent overview.

Generally new age stuff is poop. But this book has caused weird occurences to happen in my life to support the thesises that they put forth. Also, much like Sifu Wong says they always say not to believe them but to try it for yourself and see the results.

Here's their homepage: http://www.abraham-teachings.com/

Let me know what you think, if anything, or if you have any questions, or any crossovers with teachings in Shaolin Wahnam, etc etc...

All the Best,

Alex

[AlexBaranosky]

*bump*

[Piers]

My problem with this type of philosophy occurs when I think about people in different times and situations. I mean, for relatively affluent people maybe it’s true that you can imagine something (like a better job) and you’ll get it (although I don’t believe I’ll sprout wings, say, or solve world poverty within a year, however hard I imagine it).

But what about starving peasants in mid 19th century Ireland? What about refugees in contemporary Sudan? What about people shipped to the Gulags in Stalin’s Soviet Union? Were they free to choose new avenues for their joy? I mean, if this stuff is true, then it's eternally true, right, not just true for wealthy Americans?

That web page says:
‘However, you are also free to choose bondage or pain... but everything anyone chooses is only because they believe it will help them feel better.’

I have come across this idea before – the idea that you choose whatever happenes to you. It can sound plausible when you think of people you know who somehow seem to bring bad things upon them by their negative attitude. Many of us on this forum have found that when our attitudes changed our lives started changing too. I'm sure there's a lot of truth in that. It's good to take responsibility for your own life, but then it's also good to understand political and economic circumstances and how those led to the Irish potato famine, rather than blaming the spiritual choices of the peasants.

My impression is that there’s a shallowness and a glibness to this philosophy. Maybe it’s the way it’s written on this web page. There’s something about that high-sheen American new age stuff that turns me off – even though I do fundamentally suspect that ‘You are loved. All is well’ is actually true!

This is more thinking out loud - questions rather than conclusions. Anyone else got thoughts?

piers

[AlexBaranosky]

Thanks for the reply Piers!

To start I'd like to say that I see your points, and can see how you could have those questions. I myself have not thought philosophically about these things too much. What I HAVE done is test the things out that they say and I have to tell you that the things they said would help me HAVE helped me, and helped me in the specific ways they said would help me!

Through that experience perhaps I can deduce a few things about the Irish people mentioned or the Sudanese etc. Some thoughts:

*In bad times not everyone is in a bad situation, some people benefit from it, others use the situation to make a much needed change in their life, some move out of Ireland before there is a serious problem.

*Also, generally your ability to conceive of and believe in a better future depends on where you are at right now. The array of conceivable futures for a 19th century Irishman is not the same as a 21st century inner city kid, or a 1950's middle class 25 year old.

Listen to this: We as humans are flow-ers of energy, with our minds intent we direct that energy and our lives are created by that. With our hearts we know what is right for US, if we follow our hearts and enjoy our lives we can't go wrong. (That's an Abe way of seeing things.)

Now compare to our chi-kung: we as humans have chi flowing into and through and around us. Our mind leads the chi. Smile from the heart. When practicing, let-go, enjoy your practice, and allow the chi to do what is best naturally for us. [Visualization is used sometimes.]

A few things I remember Sifu has said it in his Q&A:
*anything you sincerely pray for you will get
*positivity is important
*Enjoy your life
*in one a looong time ago (dont know the link...) someone wrote in about how things were happening to him like trains arriving just when he wanted and synchonistic timings etc and he said that thoughts changing our life-situations is actually a normal thing for humans
*when he explains what creates karma Sifu says thoughts, words, then actions

Piers, thanks for the discussion, I love this subject,

All the Best

Alex

[AlexBaranosky]

Piers,

Did you miss my reply?
I really wanted to discuss this a bit.

I had one other thought/question. Does it mean that Christianity is a selfish religion because it clearly states that: "Bible Ask, and it shall be given you; seek; and you shall find; knock and it shall be opened unto you." Duh. Of course not. I have tried it: in fact knowing that every request is answered tends to make a person very UnSelfish, because why hoard for oneself when you can have anything? And why have a lot of the things you imagined you wanted (to get you to happiness) when you could just have happiness? When that nagging feeling of anxiety about your life goes away you tend to be more joyful, fresh, sharing, and caring.

All the Best,

Alex

[Piers]

Alex, I think probably the reason I didn’t reply was I liked your answers, and the way you wrote them, and I didn’t really end up with disagreeing with them. But sorry for suddenly going quiet.

Actually, more and more I seem to be finding that I can create an intention or a goal or ask for something, and it does seem to come true. Or if it doesn’t I seem to be able to see why.

So really my question is more of an honest dilemma about this idea. I remember reading recently about someone who was riding a bike and crashed into a car and was paralysed from (I think) the chest downwards as a result. He wrote about how a new age healer friend came and talked to him for a while and actually told him that he had chosen this to happen – that he wanted it to happen. And he said that seemed like the most cruel thing to say, and drove him into a pit of despair. In the end, this guy came through his pain and self-pity and depression and rediscovered joy. It happened partly through an experience in which he was reading a book by a theologian called Martin Buber, which was relating the story that Chuang Tzu told about awaking from dreaming he had been a butterfly and wondering if he’s a butterfly dreaming he’s a man or vice versa – and at the exact moment this paralysed guy was reading this, a butterfly landed on the page, and not just on the page but on the exact words he’d just read.

That moment seemed to awaken him from his grief and pain and anger. In fact, having reread his account, it was remembering that moment (which had happened a few years earlier) that pulled him out of his pain. Here’s the account if you’re interested (in a great archive of scientists’ transcendental experiences):

https://www.issc-taste.org/arc/dbo.cgi?set=expom&id=00012&ss=1

A bit of a digression, but one point is that it can seem very cruel to believe we all choose our circumstances, and that was the point I was making. Terrible things do happen to people, and have happened throughout history, and I am wary of blaming everyone who (say) got caught up in a famine as somehow choosing it.

In some deeper way, though, it could be true! And certainly we are free to choose how we react to things. And maybe the man who was paralysed did somehow choose it. I hope and believe that in the end all is happening as it should be (quite hard to believe sometimes) so perhaps for reasons hard to understand in this life it was of immense blessing to him (and others) that he had his accident.

That butterfly though – that’s another indication that life is meaningful and not random. Whether we exactly choose what happens to us I don’t know, but I do know that if we open our hearts and let go then things start happening as they should do.

piers

PS No I don't think it's a message of selfishness, that quote from Jesus. We are responsible for our own lives, and the idea that it's selfish to care for ourselves and make the best of ourselves is just silly. You have to start by loving yourself, or you can't love your neighbour as yourself!

[Andy]

I am usually extremely wary when it comes to anything 'New Age' but someone told me about the Abraham stuff before and I find it quite interesting.

However, I have not read the book or looked into it properly enough to form an opinion yet...and some metaphysical issues, like karma for example, can too easily be misconstrued by discussion at a superficial level...so I'll refrain from this discussion until I get round to reading it.........

However I will say that I have been introduced to the concept of attractive forces in the universe and of the ability to create your own reality through thoughts many times and in many different guises (not necessarily in 'out there' publications, some in i.e. otherwise completely conventional business-development type books).

Also, Im not sure in which of his writings (may have been the Question-Answer series) I read it but to paraphrase Sifu horribly he does say something along the lines of

"...this is a basic law of reality..."

when discussing the reasons for meeting people or events (or something , I cant remember properly at all!).

Andy

PS Does anyone else know this quote or am I imagining things?

[Andy]

This is not the quote I was meaning but its the best I could do:

http://shaolin.org/answers/ans04a/jan04-1.html

[AlexBaranosky]

Just a quick reply for now, then a long one later.

I too remember a REALLY odd Q&A series a long time ago maybe the year 2001/2002. Someone commented about how all these htings in his life were liing up perfectly, such as subway trains coming just when he wanted them to, and Sifu said something along the lines of: "your thoughts 'happening' is a natural thing for humans"... Ooohh I got myself felling like wading through hundreds of Q&A's to find this one

All the Best,

Alex

[AlexBaranosky]

I have looked through SOOOO many of these Q&A's and can't find it! This would be very frustrating if I ever allowed myself to get frustrated

If anyone knows the one I am talking about PLEASE post it. I though it was posted around 2001 MAYBE 2002, but I couldn't find it...

All the Best,

Alex

[Andy]

Found it

I believe that the "Laws of Attraction and Intentional Creation" discussed in this book are describing pretty much the same things as Sifu talks about in this thread:

http://shaolin.org/answers/ans03b/aug03-3.html

[Sifu Stier]

"Ask...and it shall be given unto you"....unless you're Jewish, of course!

Shalom Y'All!

Doc

[Andrew]

"Ask...and it shall be given unto you"....unless you're Jewish, of course!

Please explain --- I think some of our members may take offense.

Andrew

[Luo Lang]

Dear Sifu Stier,
Please don't use such jokes. I know that it's not meant as a joke.

Respectfully,

Roland

[AlexBaranosky]

Hey Sifu Stier :-)

Do you have anything more elaborate to say about the subject? Have you ever heard of this book? What are your thoughts on intention creating your life? ETC...!

All the Best,

Alex