The Dark Side of "The Secret" ~ by T. Sebastian

You’ve met “The Secret” teachers on Oprah. Now take a look at the “dark side” of The Secret.

Really? A Secret?

Not really a big issue, but this understanding has been around for a while - like a few thousand years. The Secret is a basic part of the mystical teachings of Gautama Buddha and Yeshua the Nazarene (Jesus the Christ). It’s simple to find if you really study.

More recently, this teaching has been popularized by Lynn Grabhorn in her Excuse Me, Your Life Is Waiting books. Published about 7 years ago. Lynn Grabhorn attributes most of her insights to a channeled being called Abraham. This is not meant to demean this information in any way. Wisdom finds its way into our consciousness in various and mysterious ways. But how do we use this wisdom properly?

The Dark Side!

Check your motivation. When the sages taught this type of practice, their intention was that you understand how the universe works and that you use this knowledge for spiritual maturation and in other wholesome ways. If you look at what most of the present day teachers talked about on Oprah, you will see them emphasizing that “You can have what you want”... or “You can create the life of your dreams.” There was a lot of talk about wealth and prosperity, getting good jobs, finding a mate etc.

In contrast to that, Yeshua (Jesus) said: “You must die to yourself daily to enter the kingdom.” So, what’s wrong with this picture? Basically two things: Balance and emotional maturity. Think about it this way. Would you give your 6-year-old child 20 bucks and send him into a candy store? Too much power and too little maturity can lead to disaster. Take a look at some of Hollywood’s celebrity train wrecks, or how bout rock & roll stars?

This is the main problem with The Secret. People are emotionally immature. People have desires and needs. These desires and needs are almost always driven by the undeveloped parts of us. In other words, our “needs” arise out of the wounds we contracted during our early development. Should we try to use an advanced spiritual technology and apply it to manifesting these desires and meeting these needs? Isn’t this just a way to satisfy our addictions? Without the balancing aspects of these spiritual technologies, we could be in for trouble.

The Balance

How to balance the teachings of The Secret. The first step is to look at your needs and desires. They are windows into your unhealed parts or wounded child. Before you jump into automatically trying to fulfill your needs and desires, use the power of focus to observe the “needy you” behind them. This needy you needs to be re-parented, not to have a lollipop stuck in its mouth. Sorry if that’s a little harsh. But judging by what I’ve seen, this is a sorely needed “tap on the butt.”

Next, process the pain inside. By focusing on the origin of your “needs” and processing the pain, you begin to heal the needy parts of your soul. This leads to emotional maturity. Continued inner work in this arena leads to Wholeness. A Whole person acts from a place I call “energetic responsibility.” After becoming more mature and responsible, we will have a much better clue as to how to manifest that which is really good for us and for mankind.

Learning the details of how to process your inner pain instead of being driven by it is beyond the scope of this article. You can find excellent information here.

Ultimately, traveling down this path, you will find that Wholeness is a state beyond pain based need. It’s a state where all your neediness has been healed and you become the Source for your own peace, power and joy. You become continuously and permanently connected to all things and the Source of all things. This includes the ability to create or generate inner states like Love anytime you want. When you can directly generate inner states, there is no need to go outside yourself for any type of fulfillment. Only then are you really free or mature enough to manifest in a truly energetically responsible way.

T. Sebastian is an author and integral life coach.
Check out his blog!