I stumbled across your article in a search on who it was again that came up with the famous “I think, therefor I am” and I must say, you are so right. Life is as you look at it. Objectively speaking, life is a miserable as it is beautiful. There’s a negative side and a positive side to every situation and in every person. You can choose for yourself on which to focus and by that you can choose the way you experience life.

I changed my outlook on life quite a bit over the years and it has done nothing but good for me. I feel more love, I see more beauty and I have more ‘luck’.

I am not so sure it’s the Universe that picks up my positivity though, because to me that’s a little bit too vague. For now I’ll just leave the Universe to be one big empty vacuum. With lots of shiny stars in it. :o)

No, I like to think it’s closer to home than that. I feel it has something to do with our shared subconcious. I like to see this as a powerful force field that, as everything else, containes both negativity and positivity. It’s existence could never be scientifically proven but for instance meditation (or hallucinogens) make(s) it possible to be consiously aware of it. I feel it is this force that we influence by changing our outlook on life and it would seem to me that it can influence us by amplifying what we put in it. Like tapping into either it’s positive power by love or into it’s negative power by fear. I could even go as far as to say that perhaps that is what we like to call ‘God’ AND ‘Devil’…

Also, or because of this, we should not underestimate the power of our own minds. We only use about ten percent of our brain and yet we have so many powers - telepathy, intuition, even poltergeists, to randomly name a few - that one can only start to imagine what life would look like if we’d be able to use all of it. For starters, we’d be one. And I think our instinct still tells us we should all be connected to each other - so we created the internet - while all the time we already are but just not powerful enough to actually notice, let alone use it. But maybe I’m getting a bit carried away here.. :o)

Anyway, it doesn’t matter what you believe because we will never be able to comprehend it anyway. The only importance is that believing it makes it work for you. Whether you’re a Christian, a Muslim, a New Age-y kind of person or just someone with a positive outlook on life. Having said that, I think having faith in a God - or indeed the Universe - makes it easier for people to accept and appreciate the presence of a positive force, even though I clearly have my own ideas on how things might work.

About the quote that got me here in the first place, it is simply not true. I realised this the first time I reached a state of trance through meditation. One can reach this state only by shutting off the otherwise ongoing stream of thoughts - either by actively banning every single thought from your head or just by concentrating on absolutely nothing. The very moment the last thought leaves your mind you enter your own Universe. You fly, you can heal your own body and mind, you can do anything, but you don’t think. Really, at this point you just ‘are’. Now I guess that would mean “I think not, therefor I am” or “I think, therefor I am not”, but proving that quote to be right or wrong is pretty much useless, because it’s an irrelevant statement anyway.

To me, “I want, therfor I can” is what gives me the power to achieve anything I want. I am at a point where it is becoming more and more clear to me what it is that I actually want - and I know that that is the only reason I will be able to achieve it. This would never be possible if I still thought I couldn’t.

Life cannot be planned though, and you might never get where you want the way you thought you would, but I do realise now that the power of positivity is limitless. It has the power to help you overcome any obstacle life throws at you - with a smile on your face and love in your heart.

Thank you for inspiring me to give words to my feelings, allowing me one small step closer to ‘getting it’. You know, the meaning of life… and such.

With warmest regards,

Emiel Zwaneveld, The Netherlands.
[gewoon_emiel@yahoo.com]

P.S.

There is nothing to fear but fear itself.