A distinction I find helpful in my work is the difference between creating our reality and awakening to our true nature. The Law of Attraction works at the relative level of our experience in which thoughts create our physical experience.
Sometimes when people have been practising the Law of Attraction for some time, there can be a sense of wanting to go deeper on their journey and to realise their true nature. Awakening goes beyond the relative level of our experience to the universal, pre-thought level, to that which is sometimes described as a state of ‘centrelessness’. In the state of centrelessness the experience of being a separate ‘me, I, self’ dissolves and there is simply the direct experience of whatever is arising.
In the Buddhist tradition, this direct experience is explained in the statement ‘in what is seen, there is only what is seen, in what is heard, there is only what is heard, in what is sensed, there is only what is sensed, in what is cognised, there is only what is cognised’. This describes that in the awakened state that there is the direct sensory experience without mental proliferation and interpretation about the experience.
It is taught in the Buddhist tradition that awakening happens through observing the three aspects of conditioned reality which are: impermanence, unsatisfactoriness and non-self. To enhance the effectiveness of meditation, we can bring in the observation of these characteristics. For example if we are doing a body awareness meditation in which we are observing sensations in different parts of the body, we can be aware that the sensations are constantly changing and we are thereby noticing impermanence. Even if there is a seemingly solidified sensation, it is made up of constantly fluctuating subtle sensations. In meditation as we observe that things in our conditioned experience are constantly changing, are not ultimately satisfying or who we really are, the mind can start to see through the illusion of being a separate self and awaken to its true nature.
In the coaching and events that I offer, I bring together these two aspects of the spiritual path, sharing the Law of Attraction practices to help increase well-being and to create a happy life which feels meaningful, in addition to sharing practices to assist with awakening to a more unified experience of who we really are.