Just being aware of the power of these laws can change our lives dramatically. Many of the books that we recommend base their content upon the existence of such laws and many more besides. Understanding how they work gives a greater understanding of how life works - it is this knowledge that will enable us to create the health and happiness that we seek. Law 1: Like Attracts Like This law dictates that what we pay most attention to in life we get. We have already explained in this book how much power our emotions contain. This law of attraction will inevitably manifest anything that we really put great emotion into - unfortunately this goes for negative things as well as positive things. It is through this process that we are able to create dis-ease out of a single thought. It is through this process that we are able to create great happiness out of what was also once a single thought. The key to using our emotions to attract the right things instead of the wrong things comes down to the correct use of our thought process. This process is not as complicated as we may consider it to be. What most of us tend to do when we are thinking about something that we really want - such as perfect health, or a fulfilling relationship, or a lovely house - is put our attention on the fear of not getting those things. Instead of repeatedly saying to ourselves 'I want perfect health', or 'I want enough money to buy...', we tend to slide into 'I"m scared of not getting better', or 'what if I don't get enough money'. By doing this, our greatest emotion is one of fear; fear of not getting better or not having enough money. This emotion is so strong that it attracts like towards itself - in this case continuing ill-health or poverty. Once we get into the 'fear of not' state of mind, we tend to attract even more of those things to us that we do not want. How many of us for instance have got into debt only to find even more bills and charges appearing as if from nowhere? However low or high our morale, very few of us consciously put the right accent on our thought process. Just by shifting the emphasis on to what we want and away from what we fear not getting, we will start to reap the rewards as we work in conjunction with the most powerful Universal Law of all. If we can just stop worrying about not getting better, better health will start to come. As we continue to focus only on having and wanting to have perfect health, so our health will start to improve and as long as we continue in this frame of mind we will continue to attract improved health. Whenever we are knocked back by dis-ease we need only remind ourselves of this Universal Law "Like Attracts Like" to know where we must put our thoughts, our emotions. It is worth remembering that the regular practice of meditation will help us to clarify our thoughts and enable us to focus attention on the areas that we want to. Law 2: What Goes Around, Comes Around What we give out, we invariably get back. We can see this from the previous law, and we can also see it in a great number of other ways which will enable us to focus our attention in the right place. If we imagine our emotions are like a boomerang, we can begin to understand how this works. Every time we give out a strong emotion or an action which has strong emotion attached to it, we will find, just like a boomerang, that it will try and come back to us. So how can we use this to aid our physical recovery and to reach the cause of dis-ease? Again , the answer is quite simple. In our progress of removing dis-ease, we need to learn to give out only those things that we would wish to come back to us. If we study our lists of intention, we will be aware of the areas in which we would like to see change. If, for instance, we wish to receive more love from those close to us, we need to give more love to those close to us. If we want to stop our children hitting us or other children, we will find that they will stop if we stop hitting, or threatening to hit, them. The same is also true of children who often shout. If we stop shouting at them, then they will stop shouting at other people. If we want more money to come to us, we need to give more money out - even if we only start with small donations or personal treats . If we want our ideas and beliefs to be more understood and accepted by our friends, we need to make extra efforts to understand and accept their ideas and beliefs. There is however something very important to bear in mind with this. It is not just what we give out that is important. It is also how we give it. Each of the above examples, and any others that may be appropriate, need to be carried out with strong positive emotion. Giving anything - love - money or even information - has to be without conditions if it is to come back into our lives in the way that will benefit us most at that time. We cannot say "O.K., I'll pay more attention to my family provided they promise to leave me alone when I need my space" and expect to receive what we want, for we are making our love conditional upon their behaviour. We are therefore placing the onus on them to create our life as we want it instead of taking full responsibility ourselves. The reason that it is so important to give these things out without conditions attached is that we have no absolute knowledge now as to how we may need these things returned in the future. Nature has a way of providing us with what we need at just the time that we most badly need it. If we have given out gifts, love and advice without expecting anything back we will find that those things will return to us in a way and at a time that will be most beneficial. If however we give out these things with strings attached, either with conditions or even just begrudgingly, we will find that we will be bound by similar restrictive conditions when they come back. Money that has been given by us without great joy, will fail to bring us great happiness when we later acquire it. Love that has been given by us conditionally will return to us with more conditions attached. We cannot hope to lead happy and healthy lives if we spend our time making either ourselves, or other people, stressed and unhappy. This leads us to a very important point in tracing the cause of dis-ease. As we have already started to indicate through the lists of intention, many of us fail to acknowledge fully our real wants and needs. Whilst some of these may be merely fanciful notions, there will be other aspects which are vital to our progress. By ignoring these wants, whether through lack of belief in our self-worth, or fear of being selfish, we are failing to attract back into our lives the very things that can help us to heal. By focusing on these wants and by giving of ourselves in a completely unconditional way, we are enabling the natural process to take place. The more we give, the more we get - both in thought and in matter. Remember the important part of this is the emotion that is attached to the giving - if we give things with great joy and love, even if they are only compliments, they will come back to us in bountiful supply and bring us great happiness. Law 3: Non-Attachment It is a fact of life that we all tend to form attachments to certain outcomes in life. On the face of it there seems to be little difference between wanting to achieve a specific goal and having an attachment to reaching a specific goal - in fact the difference is vast. Let us assume that we have a cold that we would like to get rid of. If we have found the ideas contained in this book useful, then we would probably do some extra meditation, rest a bit more and possibly seek some holistic treatment. Whether we are attached to the outcome or not, these steps would probably be the same. The big difference comes in the emotion again with which we approach the cold. The non-attached person would do all of the above, possibly even using the ideas given in the last chapter, on the basis that he or she is completely accepting and trusting what is going on and has therefore no expectations of the future. All of their energy is going into focusing correctly in the present moment. This non-attachment to an outcome produces no fight, no friction and wastes no energy. As a result the cold is allowed to leave the body in its own way, as effortlessly as possible for the individual involved. Whilst he or she is wanting perfect health to be restored, there is no pressure being placed on a time. The cold is being accepted unconditionally. The attached person, although also wanting to have perfect health, is emotionally imbalanced by the attachment to having to have perfect health by a specific date, an interview for example or a meeting. This attachment, expressed through their need to get rid of the cold by a certain time, creates in itself a negative emotion that is very powerful; the fear of not getting rid of it by this deadline. As a result, the fear of not getting rid of the cold is the strongest emotion, created out of their attachment to their deadline. Instead of focusing on the present moment, that person is focusing their attention on a future need. They therefore waste their energy worrying about their future health, instead of accepting and trusting their present health. The cold therefore lingers, disrupting the sufferer's life to a much greater degree than the person who just accepted their cold and focused entirely upon perfect health in the present without any attachment to when the cold had to leave. Non-attachment works with health, relationships, money - in fact any aspect of life. It is one thing to want more money, better relationships, better health, but it is something else altogether to having to have any or all of these things. By saying to ourselves that we have to have them, we are saying that our lives are not acceptable without them. This not only means we are focusing on the future instead of in the present; it also leads us back to the vicious circle, mentioned earlier in the book, of thinking that life is not fair, that we have somehow been unlucky because we do not yet have those things that we think we must have to bring us happiness. Attachment to a future outcome makes us unhappy with our present circumstances and unhappiness is no basis for self-healing. By accepting exactly where we are right now, by focusing on what we want and by accepting those things that come to us, whether colds or cash, we will enable the Universal Laws to work for us and to provide us with whatever it is in our best interests to have. Because of our acceptance, the right things will come to us with seemingly little effort at times that are best suited to our needs. Losing our attachment to any outcome, good or bad, is another vital step on the path to our goal.