Letters to the Editor
-
Oprah's Wonderful Secret
i am personally a great fan of Oprah and truly beleive that she has more than most on the planet to bring awareness into the living rooms of ordinary people about all manner of subjects - domestic violence, sexual abuse, racism, poverty, you name it...all those things that were swept under the carpet, she has helped bring out into the open, and for the betterment of society.
Clearly the author of this article did not understand The Secret. In no way does it blame anyone for their sad circumstances. Clearly the author was already biased or had an emotional reaction owing to stuff going in in their own life.
Many people writing letter about this topic keep on mentioning visualisation. Well, the The Secret is NOT just about visualisation and it places heavy emphasis on how we feel about ourselves. If we feel bad about ourselves we can visualise all we want and nothing will change. The Secret has a much more ocmplex message than the auhtor has understood.
I thik that anything that can assist any individual to create any change for the better is a good thing.
-
Great, more silly Western people playing with Eastern religion ...
If you came into the world at a disadvantage, you did so directing yourself from the spiritual rhealm to be born that way (OR you are subject to Karma, you decide).
Ahem.
That's not how karma works.
You don't accrue bad karma by attuning to higher or lower vibrations. You accrue bad karma through sin, through attachment (materialism is attachment big time), and through neglecting your dharma, or your duties in this world.
A lazy, narcissistic yogi will get worse karma than a conscientious street sweeper, no matter how hard the priest sits around attuning his vibrations. It's about playing your hand *well* and being the best darn street sweeper you can be.
In Hinduism, that's pretty much that (though in the highest castes you are not so much rich and powerful as holy and educated Brahmins. Not for nothing are merchants and kings lower caste than priests.
In Buddhism you might direct yourself to be reborn on purpose ... but only because you've dedicated yourself to walk in this world until every sentient being ... which means you're not so much meditating on your new BMW anyway.
-
thanks
thanks for alerting me to whats in the book. i wonder if her new academy in south africa will use this book. it is a fairyland place for girls who sleep on expensive pillows and have everything they want. but the problem is that oprah is the real thing. she started with nothing, not even attractive in the byonce way of certain black women, and she made it huge. that secret seems to be hers and is believable. enough with the auschwitz survivors. we all know our history. but for ordinary people in these competitive times, there is nothing wrong with a little positive feel good stuff to ponder. salon seems like such a grouch. lighten up. perhaps we should all give up out computers for lent as well.
-
Love the Skin
Can you please point any of us toward any empirical evidence of your claims of stuff working?
And right, we should just pretend that "amazing" stuff is going on, defying natural law (i.e. what happens every other time), and ignore all the stuff we don't like about the real world, like they show on CNN.
I think, sadly, what this makes clear is that people use this magical thinking as an antidepressant. The world is tough and horrible place. There's a part of me which says that if it makes you feel better to fantasize then go ahead. But then there's the other part which realizes that people make real life decisions based on a set of causes and effects which just aren't so. And that can have very bad results.
-
to Anna
I agree that Westerners are pretty liberal when appropriating Eastern religion. What I meant was, LOA people are not in agreement why someone would accept a bad hand....some beleive in Karma and some in choice for the experience.
I am not a Karma fan myself (nor an LOA fan for that matter) but I have been new agey for years so have alot of exposure to this line of thought.
-
To "putting head down on desk"
Empirical evidence? I got it for you in one word: PLACEBOS. Doctors prescribe them all the time and they work. Why? because of the power of the mind and the power of thought. There's been many studies...google them.
You'd have to have actually watched the film to get this, but dwelling on what is NOT working in the world does NOT make it a better place. Look at all the bitching we all participated in leading up to the last election. Did it change anything? NO, because we were focusing on being anti-Bush rather than being pro-Kerry (the "anyone but Bush" bumper stickers, ect.) The film directly addresses how we can improve the world, not through denial, which is an unconscious process, but by consciously envisioning the changes we want to see happening now. We are not irresponsible people who don't care about the world, we are the exact opposite. We are doing as Gandhi said, BEING the change we want to see in the world.
-
Goethe was right
"Against stupidity, the gods themselves contend in vain."
As dozens of previous posters have already pointed out, this "philosophy" is nothing new. We've seen it before, and it's sad to acknowledge that we'll see it again in the future, repackaged & remade for another generation of people who want easy, simplistic answers that demand nothing of them but unwavering, self-satisfied belief.
So why should the rest of us care? If it helps some people deal with a painful & troubling world, where's the harm?
The harm is in settling for the lowest common denominator -- no, striving for it -- and dumbing down society in the process. The pro-Secret posters here seem quite sincere, and they actually seem to believe that they've discovered some deep philosophical & scientific truth, rather than the same old bunkum that hucksters have been pitching for centuries. They have all the eager verve of a teenager who's just stumbled onto Ayn Rand & thinks her work actually has depth & complexity, of all things.
I know people like this, and for the most part, they're honest & compassionate people ... up to a point. But sooner or later, a certain condescension comes out, a superior tone of pity for the rest of us, an inability to understand why we don't see things exactly as they do -- "It's all so simple!"
Sadly, that's precisely what it is: simple. All too simple, all too easy, like any substitute for rigorous thought & genuine depth of feeling. "If only you could understand ..." What they don't realize is that we DO understand, just as we understand creationism, or any other pseudo-science.