The Law of Attraction and Spiritual Practice

In recent years there has been a lot of focus on what is called the ‘law of attraction’. It has been mainly used to act as some kind of a ‘wish-fulfilling action’ that one undertakes by focusing on specific affirmations or visualizing results which then are ‘attracted’ to your focus and create the result you are seeking. This is, however, a very limited application of a much more general action of the universal consciousness of oneness.

What we frequently fail to appreciate, however, is that this ‘law of attraction’ operates mostly without our conscious intervention through the vibratory patterns that we radiate out and the corresponding response we receive from the external creation. People frequently remark how they suddenly thought of someone they had not heard from in a long time and then, contact took place shortly thereafter; or they find out that they had a dream about some relative dying and later determine that the individual died just at that time! We hear people speak about inexplicable ‘synchronicity’ between what they were thinking about and what came into their presence. Of particular note is the role of a strong emotion, such as fear, to bring the feared object or event upon one.

For the spiritual seeker, this synchronicity or ‘law of attraction’ works to highlight the higher aspiration that brings forth the aid and in many cases manifests the teacher at the time the student needs that help. Paramahansa Yogananda describes, in his Autobiography of a Yogi, the spiritual aid and solace he received at various times of crisis, as well as the appearance of his Guru at the right stage to further his spiritual progress.

This same function of attraction also brings the spiritual seeker very clear indications of needed progress by placing in front of him circumstances, events and situations that highlight the ongoing operation of the old external being and its reactions. This provides the seeker the opportunity, if he takes these things in the right spirit, to recognise the weakness and the limitation that he is called upon to address at that time to make the next stage of progress in his spiritual path.

Sri Aurobindo writes: “… what we have within us creates the circumstances outside us. … When one does sadhana it is constantly seen that so long as there is an important defect somewhere, circumstances so happen that the occasion comes for the defect to rise until it is thrown out of the being. If one can take the coming of these circumstances clairvoyantly as a call and an opportunity for conquiering the defect, then one can progress very quickly.”

“When the soul is meant to go forward and there is an external weakness…, circumstances do come… to help the external being against itself… there must be a truly sincere aspiration behind; otherwise it does not happen.”

“When someone is destined for the Path, all circumstances through all the deviations of mind and life help in one way or another to lead him to it. It is his own psychic being within him and Divine Power above that use to that end the vicissitudes both of mind and outward circumstance.”

The Mother notes: “Always circumstances come to reveal the hidden weaknesses that have to be overcome.”

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, Looking from Within, Chapter 1, Looking at Life and Circumstances, pp. 20-21