How to Attract

You have probably heard and read about the law of attraction. To think about it, almost everyone is working to avoid suffering, they are working towards ever-elusive happiness, trying to attract the positives. No one wants negative people around them or adverse circumstances or calamities. How come they attract such things then? How come you are easily attracting what you do not want, whereas you often have to work so hard for whatever you actually want? How unfair it is! Or is it?

Let me share with you a beautiful story from the Bhagavat Purana, a Hindu scripture narrating the glories of Krishna and his various incarnations. The story is also found in the Mahabharata, another epic.

Shishupala was a king who ruled the State of Chedi. He was also a cousin and a formidable foe of Krishna. Krishna had given a word to Shishupala’s mother that he would pardon one hundred misdeeds of Shishupala, but, beyond that, he would not be able to forgive him for he was destined to be slain by him. Like many other fallen souls of his time, Shishupala hated Krishna; why, he loathed and detested him. Day and night he thought about Krishna and ways of killing him. He desperately wanted Krishna to perish.

Once, during a royal yajna (sacred fire offering ceremony), organized by Yuddhisthra — Krishna’s cousin and the king, Shishupala and Krishna came face to face. He began swearing at Krishna while the latter kept smiling and warned him to stop lest he loved his life no more. Shishupala paid no heed and continued the slurry. As soon as he swore at him a hundred times, Krishna raised his right hand, pointed his index finger upwards, and the legendary discus, twirling in full glory, divine and daunting at once, appeared instantly like a bolt of lightning, a clap of thunder. He launched it, and before Shishupala even realized, his head was severed from his body. His lifeless body lay there next to his haughty head, blood gushing out. A deafening silence and silent dread filled the august assembly.

Much to everyone’s amazement though, what followed was most unusual. All present in the royal court saw Shishupala’s soul merge into Krishna, the Supreme Soul. Obviously, they were dumbstruck. How could that be? Shishupala did not love Krishna, he did not see him as an incarnation of Godhead; why, he despised him. Yudhishthira, still in a state of shock, asked Narada, the divine wandering itinerant, “O Sage! Shishupala was jealous of Krishna. He hated him. So, how come his soul merged into Krishna? It is rare even for the yogins who fervently worship Him with extreme reverence, concentration and devotion. How come he was bestowed with such a rare fortune?”

Narada smiled and said, “O Noble King! Shishupala merged into Krishna because he meditated on Him every moment of his life. Whether you meditate on something out of hatred or love, that is beside the point. Your mind does not distinguish between negative and positive, right and wrong, they are two sides of the same coin, it simply manifests whatever you hold on to. His whole consciousness was directed towards Krishna and that’s the sole reason he merged into Him.”

There is your law of attraction! It is the reason why negative people are able to give you enough examples of their fears actually coming true in their lives. It is why even crooks can be ultra-successful. The nobility of intention is not a concept your mind understands. It is the concentration of thought that matters, the more concentrated a thought, the stronger it is. From the perspective of manifestation, moral purity is not the most important factor, it is the intensity and persistence of the thought. Whatever you focus on resolutely, without any doubts in your mind, starts to manifest in your life. Of course, your actions aid that manifestation.

Working towards a positive goal, you have much doubt. Whereas negativity is always there, present in your subconscious. You are not to be blamed though. It is the result of evolution. Our species has worked hard for its survival. It mostly lived in fear of extinction. The total human population is minuscule compared to animals. Anyway, so the mind tends to cling to the negative; you feel strongly about anything negative.

Whether it is love or hate, they are still emotions. It is when you are indifferent that you do not attract — desirable or otherwise. In a deeply profound and revealing quote by Elie Wiesel, a holocaust survivor and a Nobel Peace Laureate, he states:

The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference.
The opposite of art is not ugliness, it’s indifference.
The opposite of faith is not heresy, it’s indifference.
And the opposite of life is not death, it’s indifference between life and death.

And what is the ingredient to double the strength of a positive thought? Faith. For tripling it? Persistence. How to quadruple it? Purity of the intention. Go figure! Whatever you feel strongly about, you will attract. For anything you have an emotion for, you will attract it in your life. If you hate something strongly, that is all you will get. You love something strongly, that is all you will notice. If you hate people you do not want in your life, time and again, they are the ones you will encounter at every nook and turn of your life. You have as much chance of attracting something you hate as things you love. With negativity, fear comes uninvited. The strength of a negative thought is doubled by fear. It is tripled by self-doubt, and quadrupled by attachment.

Peace.
Swami