Unless you’ve been living in a cave on a mountain top for the last couple of years, you have probably heard of The Secret, by Rhonda Byrne. Of course once you’ve read The Secret you realise that you are not bearing witness to a previously coveted truth, but offering readers the key to an age-old wisdom sees books flying off the shelves. When one of my Reiki students first mentioned The Secret, which I had not yet read at the time and explained its premise I was sorely tempted to roll my eyes and breathe a heavy sigh, because there are so many self-help books out there promising the world and failing to deliver. What’s more, these self-help books shouldn’t be offering up the world in the first place, firstly because we are not entitled to it, the world is not our oyster - it does not belong to us, secondly because it steers people away from their true purpose in life and encourages them to hanker after their physical desires rather than pursuing spiritual growth. The truth is, there is no secret, we all just need to listen to our intuition, succumb to the will of the universe and learn to want what we need, rather than pining after things we were never meant to have that won’t enrich our lives anyway. Below I have addressed a couple of points raised in The Secret and explained my own thoughts on the matter.

1) The Secret gives you anything you want: happiness, health and wealth

The Secret aka, The Law of Attraction, postulates that we create our own reality with our thoughts and by having negative thoughts we attract negativity into our lives and by having positive thoughts we attract positivity into our life. This is, of course, no secret and whilst it is true to an extent it is not entirely true. Scientific studies have demonstrated the power of positive thinking, visualisation, intention and even prayer, but there are limitations as to what we can realistically achieve. For instance, if you want to be healthy but sit around on your butt all day quaffing cakes and fast food, all the good intentions in the world are not going to make you healthy unless you actually take the appropriate action to restore your body to health. Wanting something does not mean that you are going to get it, or that you should get it.

Sometimes the experiences we go through are there to teach us a lesson about our lives. It’s only by taking the right action that our lives truly change. In addition, The Secret seems to suggest that we can entirely mould our own reality, but this concept, to me, embodies human arrogance. The universe can take this world away from us in a second and I believe that instead of chasing our physical desires to the detriment of everything else, we should learn to trust in our intuition. Instead of desperately trying to control our lives we should let go to the will of the universe.

Someone may well want a new Mercedes, a villa in the Algarve and a wallet full of cash, but a) it might not be wtihin their remit for their overall journey on earth, b) it won’t bring them spiritual happiness, only fleeting physical happiness and c) they may not deserve it! We need to forget about what we think we want for a second and ask ourselves, “What do we need? How can I contribute to this earth in a positive way instead of constantly taking from it?” This is far more constructive than attending workshops on how to become a billionaire or asking the universe to cough up some material wealth for us.

2) The Secret suggests that the Law of Attraction responds to whatever thoughts you are having and brings you that which you most desire

The universe doesn’t always give you what you most desire. In fact unless you are connected to your intuition and have learned to want what you need and follow your spiritual path, it will probably not give you very much of what you desire at all. If it does, you will have to suffer the consequences of that at some point in your life, depending on what it was that you wanted in the first place. Actions always have consequences and we all pay for making bad choices at some point during our lives. Sure, if you keep thinking, “I am going to die. I am so ill. I am going to be unhealthy for the rest of my life,” then you are setting yourself up for disaster because your body responds to chemical messages in the brain and that negative message is the one being constantly played to your body over and over again. Your cells and immune system will respond accordingly. It’s highly important to have positive thoughts about yourself and send loving messages to your body, and of course to look after and respect yourself. These are the kinds of messages you should be sending yourself. However, as I previously stated, just because you want something it does not mean that you will get it.

Millions of people have read The Secret and I wonder how many of those are now millionaires through reading the book. I doubt that it’s very many. If you want to be wealthy as The Secret promises you have to work damn hard to achieve that wealth and accept the consequences, which may mean working 12 hours or more a day, spending little time with family and friends, and feeling low in energy. Very few people win the lottery! Don’t assume that material wealth will bring your true happiness in itself and it should not be the ultimate goal in anything you do.

By following your spiritual path, you may find that you find material wealth somewhere along the line but it should be a by-product of what you are doing, never the ultimate goal. Never assume that material wealth will fill the spiritual void in your life, because like sex, drugs, rock ‘n’ roll and every other physical desire you can think of, it won’t. All these things bring temporary and fleeting pleasure but they will not quench that nagging feeling inside of you that says, “Surely there is more to life than this. What the hell am I here for?” Almost everyone poses these questions at some time during their life and genuine happiness comes from discovering what that ‘more to life’ is and understanding the universe and your own place in this universe.

Like so many other self-help books out there, I feel that The Secret is peddling easy answers, but the truth is that easy answers are not really answers at all. Be prepared to put hard work into discovering your spiritual purpose, finding yourself and attaining true happiness, because the effort we put in teaches us valuable lessons in life. I learned Reiki and it helped me to discover my purpose much faster than would have been the case had I not learned this healing art, but I had to dedicate myself to my path, to self-heal everyday, to give up many of my physical desires, to make bold moves in my life that I would never even have contemplated prior to discovering my spiritual purpose, and you too, have to be prepared to put in the hard work. Truly, there is no reward greater in this or any other life than choosing to follow your spiritual path, because nothing on this earth will bring you such peace, happiness and joy. No drugs, alcohol, sex, material possessions and conditional human love can compare to the unconditional love of your soul and the universe, or God, believe me I have experienced most of them. Even if you don’t believe in a higher power, you can still find happiness by learning to trust in your intuition and following your intuition implicitly. The key is hard work, letting go to the will of the universe and trusting in your intuition. The Secret? I don’t think so.

Passage to Freedom is now available to pre-order at Amazon, cut from £9.99 to £6.59 (publication date 29th February 2008, O Books.) Having undertaken some lectures around the UK, the response has been very positive. If you decide to buy the book please leave me a customer review on Amazon. Below you will find an interview with myself about Passage to Freedom, why I wrote the book and what makes it different from all the other spiritual and self-help books on the market.

Q: What made you want to write a book about enlightenment?

D: I actually did not start off writing a book, I was writing some articles with various meditation based exercises and tips on becoming more intuitive. As I started to write, it got longer and longer and in the end I decided to write an entire book. In the work I do as a Reiki practitioner and teacher I am helping people all the time and on the courses my partner and I run we often help people with their spiritual growth. Learning Reiki and using it everyday is one way to eventually attain enlightenment. I wanted to write something that would be available to everyone, not just those who were going to undertake a Reiki course. My life has transformed so much since learning Reiki. I never knew the meaning of real happiness until I started to heal myself everyday. There are so many people out there who could benefit from fostering their spiritual growth. Writing a book was a way to reach more people and not just the ones who are typically considered to be ’spiritual.’

Q: Do you consider yourself to be enlightened?

D: I consider myself to be a spiritual person and I am enlightened as I need to be for where I currently am on my spiritual path. I have not reached complete enlightenment. I still have much to learn and I do so everyday.

Q: What life experiences had you undergone that have helped you to write this book?

D: It was not necessarily my life experiences per se that helped me write the book. I lived very irresponsibly in my past and did many things that I am not at all proud of. Through learning Reiki and self-healing I was able to become far more intuitive, trust in my inner knowledge and become more myself. The past feels like a bad dream really. However, I accept that my past has helped me to learn some very valuable lessons and I am able to empathise with other people’s experiences.People might say, “oh she is only twenty-six, what can she have learned in that time?” but you can be one hundred years old and have learned nothing from all your life experiences, or you can be fifteen years old and have learned more in that short time than an older person has learned in an entire lifetime. Age is not necessarily a reflection on wisdom. I have had a lot of difficult and challenging times in my life and I think that helps me to understand other people more effectively. In terms of my spiritual knowledge, that comes from my intuition. You can have been through the mill a million times and learned nothing spiritually. Spiritual wisdom comes from a profound connection with your soul and constantly adhering to your intuitive guidance. This is the only way you can ever hope to work towards enlightenment.

Q: What makes your book any different to all the other self-help books?

D: I am of course biased, but I would say that there is a lot more honesty and sincerity in my work. I am not going to spoon feed people and tell them that life is suddenly going to become perfect because they read a book about spirituality. Throughout the book I point out that personal and spiritual growth require dedication and commitment. The techniques in the book have to be used frequently to work and the reader has to make conscious changes in their life. I am frank about the state of the world, to the point where some would probably consider me to be very pessimistic, but I would say I am just being realistic. The world is crumbling as far as I can see and I am not an advocater of one person trying to heal the world. We can help ourselves and those we are meant to be helping, but we cannot help everyone.In essence I do not provide easy answers. Anything worthwhile in life requires hard work and perserverance. This is how we learn and grow. Even with Reiki, you have to self-heal everyday for your life to transform for the better. In the Western world we often look for the easy way out, but the consequences that prevail are far from easy. It is better for us to put in the hard work and thus generate more positive consequences, even if the endeavour was not easy.

Q: Did you learn anything by writing the book?

D: I learned a lot by writing the book. I wrote from intuition and it made me consider a lot of things that I may not have even thought about had I not been writing a book. The answers just came to me, which is the wonderful thing about intuition. When you have that connection you always get the answers you need, when you need them. You will not always get the answers you want, because they may not be right for you at that time, but you get what you need. Eventually you come to only want the answers that you need, which is great!Writing Passage To Freedom was not cathartic because I use Reiki to heal my emotional traumas, but it helped me to trust in what I already knew and gave me a greater level of confidence in my awareness.

Q: What do you hope people will get from the book?

D: I hope that Passage To Freedom will help people to trust in their intuition and follow their intuitive guidance, above and beyond all else. I also hope that it will encourage people to question their own lives and lifestyles and to make positive changes.I believe that to progress spiritually we need to adhere at all times to two fundamental principles, right thinking and right living. Hopefully the book will encourage people to step onto their spiritual paths, find their true purposes in life and stick to these two principles. If everyone did this, the world would be a better place. Everyone won’t of course, but some will and this book is for those people who are prepared to make the necessary changes.

Q: Who do you think will benefit from the book?

D: Everyone! In reality Passage To Freedom will benefit the people who are at the right point in their lives to start becoming more aware and trusting in their intuition. If someone is not prepared to graft then they will not gain anything, because great results require great actions.This book is not only for the people who say they are spiritual, it is for the people who do not even know they are spiritual. Some of those people are more spiritual than they could ever possibly conceive of, if they would just break free from their conditioning and listen to the voices of their souls. It does not matter what walk of life people are in. Anyone can take steps in the right direction with some considered effort.

Q: What do you like to do when you are not writing?

D: Many people would probably think I am quite boring because I do not go to to pubs, clubs, restaurants and such like. I am happy just sitting indoors doing some self-healing and relaxing. I used to drink alcohol, but I gave it up after learning Reiki. If someone needs to have their senses dulled to have a good time then they have some emotional issues that need addressing. We should be able to enjoy ourselves without the opiate effect of alcohol or drugs. These substances are just ways to avoid reality and the truth.Apart from self-healing with Reiki I also enjoy exercising, weight-training, Qi-Gong, web designing and playing my guitar and singing very badly, when I get the chance. I also like watching some really unspiritual television programmes, when I am not doing all the other stuff! I especially like South Park, it’s hysterical.

My third book, You Can Only Achieve What Is Possible, will be coming out on 27th July 2008. Tired of all the self-help books that provide so-called easy answers I developed my own self-help ‘antidote’ to our self-help culture, presenting a more long term approach, where you don’t just beg the Universe for a brand new Ferrari and hey presto, there it is, or isn’t as the case may be! I have only found happiness and achieved anything in life by relinquishing control to the Universe and letting myself be guided, rather than trying to bend the Universe to my own personal will.

I used to want to do so many things when I was younger but I never had the confidence to achieve them. Learning and using Reiki transformed my life and the way I look at myself and the Universe. I stopped chasing my physical desires and focused on helping people with Reiki.

When I accepted this as my path, so many other past dreams came into play, because we all have certain talents for a reason. Through this course of action I have become a journalist, features editor, ethical stylist, author, web designer and professional blogger, along with my Reiki work, which is the most important part of my journey on earth. I would encourage others to pursue the route of trusting in and following their intuition. If you do this, some of things you have surrendered will be returned to you in a much more life-affirming way. If you desperately try to control the Universe, it will take from you what you have taken from life.

So, you can’t achieve whatever you want in life, you can only achieve what is possible. Below is some more information about this book. If you would like to be put on a list to be kept updated about this book please email me.

“We are a self-help society and there are materials prolifically available promising ways for us to soothe our stress and radically transform our lives. We are frequently told to reach for our dreams, that nothing is impossible, that our desires can be fully realised. Dawn Mellowship offers a refreshing twist, in sharp contrast, proclaiming that, quite to the contrary, you can only achieve what is possible. What is more, Dawn surmises that it is only when you come to desire what you really need, that you undergo a meaningfully positive life transformation.

Remember, you can only achieve what is possible.”

Out on 27th July 2008, published by O Books.

1) The Lightworker’s Way: Awakening Your Spiritual Power to Know and Heal - Doreen Virtue

If you read this book, you might be led to believe that you are a lightworker and that you can save the entire planet and alter weather systems, merely by re-awakening your dormant gifts. I think many of the concepts in The Lightworker’s Way are more about physical desires than genuine spirituality. It is all a bit flaky for me. Spirituality is about how you live your life and taking the right actions that fall into line with your intuition. The Lightworker’s Way suggests that the world and our physical pain is merely an illusion, that we are perfect, so nothing requires healing. I think this is just a way of avoiding the reality of the world, which we all have to face up to by taking positive and direct action. Doreen Virtue has written many books and although it is not mentioned in this particular one, the idea of angels, elementals, wizards etc that she discusses tends to pander to people’s physical egos rather than encouraging them to embrace spiritual living.

2) The Secret - Rhonda Byrne

The Secret unravels ‘mysteries’ that are not really very mysterious at all. The Law of Attraction, on one hand, slightly entertains me and on the other disturbs me. Again, the idea that people can manifest whatever they desire is very arrogant. I think we need to accept that we are subject to the will of the Universe and we need to be learning to want what we need, rather than chasing our physical desires all the time. Millions of people have read this book and I am pretty sure that they have not all achieved health, wealth and happiness from reading it. The idea that we create our own reality through our thoughts is not a very new one and although I believe we can choose our responses to our own reality and to an extent we can change it, I think it is egotistical to presume that we can get whatever we want, whenever we want it. It is a sad symptom of twenty-first century society that we like to believe we can have what we desire and be spiritual with it.

3) The Cosmic Ordering Service - Barbara Mohr

The universe is not a cosmic ordering service, contrary to the claims in this book. It is not a take-away service. You have to work hard in life to get things (whatever those things may be) and if you are not prepared to put in the hard work, then don’t expect to get anything. We need to learn to be accepting and grateful. If you ask the universe for something enough times, you might find that you get it, but then you have to be prepared to accept the consequences. You might think that a holiday home in the Canary Islands is going to make you happy, but it probably won’t in the long term, because happiness is about so much more than that. A holiday home is just a material possession and means nothing in the grand scheme of things. I think the notion of cosmic ordering is very materialistic and pandering to people’s whims. I think it shows a profound lack of humility to believe that the universe is here to provide us with whatever we desire.

4) The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success: A Practical Guide to the Fulfillment of Your Dreams - Deepak Chopra

Why do ’spiritual’ authors feel the need to create bizarre terms like ‘pure potentiality?’ I presume that Deepak Chopra is referring to our intuition, our souls, in a roundabout and flowery way. Sometimes he makes a valid point, but then manages to somehow turn it into an invalid point that is not grounded in sense or logic. Take ‘The Law of Least Effort’ for instance, Deepak Chopra makes the correct point that nature doesn’t require effort to function the way it does, it simply functions by virtue of its own nature. Then Deepak Chopra goes off an a tangent saying that it is human nature to make our dreams manifest into physical form, easily and effortlessly. If you do less, you accomplish less. Those people whom we perceive as having achieved their dreams, firstly, often haven’t in real terms, if they are only material dreams and secondly, they worked hard to get where they are. I agree that if you trust and follow your intuition, life flows more easily and you are more guided, but there is no state on earth where you do nothing and accomplish everything. This is materialism dressed up as spirituality again.

5) In joint 5th place, Conversations With God - Neale Donald Walsch and The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Fulfillment - Eckhart Tolle

Conversations with God consists of Neale Donald Walsch writing himself a letter and saying that God wrote it. God appears to answer Neale Donald Walsch in the style of and convoluted manner of Neale Donald Walsch. Conversations with God pins down all human actions to either love or fear, which is over simplistic. There are many forms of love, many forms of fear and many forms of many other emotions. Neale Donald Walsch talks of God’s experience of God’s self and God needing to experience God’s self. This sounds like a very human argument and not a divine one. An all knowing, all powerful energy such as God, would not need such a human form of validation. There are many incoherent arguments in this book and the words do not convey the power of God. I do not personally believe that this book is God talking.

In regards to The Power of Now, quite simply, it takes a whole book for Eckhart Tolle to say, live in the present. You could write that on a postage stamp. The Power of Now puts too much emphasis on the present as a means of attaining oneness or enlightenment, at the expense of all the other actions that are required to achieve this state. Whilst I agree that taking action in the present is important I feel that the past and future still have validity. We can have goals and work towards them. Eckhart also devalues our personal responsibility and choices in life by saying that we have a ‘pain-body’ that causes us to behave in certain ways. I think this encourages people to avoid taking responsibility for themselves. I do believe that our emotional traumas affect our actions in life, but we still have free will.

Dawn_Reiki_Teacher

At last we have finished our Reiki book! It is being published by O Books and will be on sale on 30th May 2008. It’s called ‘The Essence of Reiki’ and is a complete resource for anyone interested in Reiki, whether they are already trained and practising, or just curious and looking for information about Reiki.

With our unique and innovative approach, and our method of Active Reiki Healing we take Reiki to a new level. The book is divided into five sections, each section giving in-depth insights and practical advice to give the reader the greatest possible understanding of Reiki. The sections cover: About Reiki, The Reiki Tradition, The Spiritual Path, The Healing Art and The Reiki Path. As well as the factual information, we have included our interpretation where necessary to explain concepts in a more accessible way.

The Essence of Reiki is the only Reiki book that takes Reiki back to its original purpose. With Active Reiki Healing the practitioner can treat any condition directly and effectively. Where others say Reiki is a passive healing method, we say Reiki is an active healing method. Where others say Reiki does not treat conditions, we say Reiki does. Usui Reiki Ryoho was originally a healing system, now with Active Reiki Healing it is again

The Essence of Reiki gives you everything you need to not only truly understand Usui Reiki but to live Reiki.

Andy_Reiki_Teacher

My first book Passage to Freedom is being published on 22nd February 2008 by the wonderful O Books. The blurb for this book is below. I wrote it to help people discover happiness and enlightenment. I discovered happiness through Reiki and not everyone will learn this healing art, so Passage to Freedom offers pearls of wisdom and techniques to make enlightenment more accessible to the general populace. If you would like to register your interest in the book drop an email to info@dawnmellowship.com. I look forward to hearing from you.

Thousands are seeking enlightenment but few achieve this ultimate spiritual goal. Passage To Freedom, A Path To Enlightenment is an inspirational book with practical techniques to help the reader attain true happiness through spiritual growth. Dawn Mellowship’s book provides meditations and healing techniques that work on a physical, emotional and spiritual level, to provide the perfect remedy for finding happiness and spiritual fulfilment. They combine visualisation, intention, affirmations, controlled breathing, universal energy and healing to assist you to manage your anger, release guilt and worry, let go of the past, boost your self-esteem and love yourself and others unconditionally. Learn how to connect to your intuition to make better and healthier choices in life, and ultimately to find inner peace and balance.

Dawn_Reiki_Teacher