The Secret Secret behind "The Secret"

The great thing, and the bad thing, about me is that when I am "into" something, I'm all in. I talk about it, write about it, and probably bore people stiff with my unending enthusiasm. Nevertheless, as Popeye would say, "I yam what I yam."

This is the prelude to my talking about my latest discovery, a wonderful book called The Greatest Manifestation Principle in the World by Carnelian Sage. (Thanks to Perry Penny for giving me the book.)

This is one of those tiny books with a title that seems to promise yet another cure-all for everything you've ever want to cure. Ho-hum, right? That's what I was thinking. As someone who has followed, or at least looked into, every self-help device for success that there is, this sounded like just another one.

On the front it says "The missing secret behind the Law of Attraction that will enable you to finally manifest your desires." Oh, right. The secret Secret to The Secret.

It starts by debunking the theory postulated in The Secret that all you have to do is focus on what you want, instead of what you don't want, and you will get it. If you don't get it, then clearly you are not doing it right and you need to focus even more on what you want. Etc. However, Sage says that the success rate from using The Secret is actually about .1%, which is pretty dismal. (I had wondered, for one thing, how simply by focusing on eternal youth, we could instantly stop the aging process. And chastised myself for not achieving that result, no doubt due to my lack of positive thinking.)

But the problem with the whole Secret thing is that it makes you think there is a cosmic kitchen that you simply order from and it's served up. Voila! I've found that it really doesn't work like that. There is more to a successful life than just satisfying our individual material desires.

I am not going to retell the entire book here, even tiny as it is. But I will reveal that the so-called secret to the secret, is not a secret at all! It is the realization that we are love. Sage says that, when we are being love, we are in the energy field in which all manifestation occurs. She says (and I love this) that God already knows what we want. We don't need to focus until we're cross-eyed on the new sports car that we want, or the prosperity, or the abundant health, like a little kid who tells his parents 5,000 times what he wants for Christmas.

God knows. (God is God, for Heaven's sake!) All we need to do is be in the energy field and what we want (or something even better) will naturally manifest. We do that by being love. There is an exercise in the book called Love's Pathway, in which you take a series of steps that help you focus on feelings of love, which you then expand to the world, and beyond.

We are all in the Field together, although we don't realize it. In each interaction, if we ask, "How can I bring love to this interaction?" we will see miracles. This is not about acting loving. It is about being love. (Think Mother Theresa.) There is a big difference.

My goal here is to write enough to make you curious about the book, so that you will want to get it and see for yourself. I don't pretend to be able to summarize in a few paragraphs what took Sage 130 pages to explain.

I will say that, since I have begun to focus on being love, and realizing that I am love, my days are joyful. And when I begin to worry, or fear, as I inevitably do, I simply say "I surrender my fear to love." And then I repeat the little affirmation that Sage recommends: "I am the full expression of God's love. Just as God is love, so am I. I am love."

I truly believe that if every one on the planet begun doing the Love's Pathway exercise, our current maladies would transform into something wonderful beyond what we can imagine. And even if all we "got" was a lot more joy and fun in our day, wouldn't it be worth it?