dan millman
December 2008 
The Secret, What the Bleep, Integral Peeps, Let's Get It On!
Posted on Jan 19th, 2007
by 
~C4Chaos
~C4Chaos
The Secret
There are some lively threads going on right now on Zaadz blogs. It was sparked by Dan Millman's and Julian Walker's critical analysis of the movie The Secret, along with What The Bleep? which naturally progressed to a criticism of New Age mentality in general.
Here are the rabbit holes:
Brian's Blog: The Secret: Spiritual Cinema?
Brian's Blog: Dan Millman's Thoughts On The Secret
Julian's Blog: The Secret: Spiritual Cinema?
Julian's Blog: The Secret: Part Two - Wilber, Gebser, and New Age Pathology
~Matthew's Blog: Julian Takes on The Secret
Siona's Blog: new age thinking - part 1
Siona's Blog: new age thinking - part 2
what the bleep trailer
My take: Although I've moved on from the so-called New Age mentality, I still like to look at it as one of the many baby steps to get to a more inclusive view of reality. Well, at least it was for me.
My position can be summarized by these quotes from Dan Millman:
"I also like the message that what we bring into our lives begins with a vision, a longed-for aspiration — a good reminder for those of us who haven’t yet stretched the wings of possibility and allowed ourselves to embrace higher possibilities. If The Secret opens the way to expanded dreams, it serves a useful purpose."
...
"In any case, this “Law of Attraction,” as taught many decades ago by metaphysicians like Catherine Ponder and others, is certainly a positive and expansive idea. But dreams, desires and visions are only the beginning — they must be followed by focused effort over time – something barely mentioned in the “Secret” production."
...
"So if you wish to be successful, dream big, but start small — then connect the dots. In other words, start with a vision, then take baby steps. Neither dreaming nor wishing nor magical secrets get the laundry done."
The ironic thing is, some people think of Ken Wilber as New Agey, even if the integral approach is content-free.
For some reason, I can imagine Richard Dawkins laughing his ass off on these threads, thinking how deluded we all are. Ah well :)
~C (for Content-free)
Access: Public
Sweet. I posted a comment on Dan’s blog but I haven’t checked to see if it was approved yet
well, it was already approved. too bad there's no permalink to the comment. but it's there. very funny, Jake. but i like your response. very fluffy :)
so allow me to repost your comment here:
I think the appeal of 'The Secret' is that it may help some of the micro-managers in the world let go of the fretting and the worrying and begin to trust a little more in the universe. Of course it takes action and effort - I totally agree with you there - but there are people that just try to overthink and cover every base and never have the energy required to 'go halfway'… they just get stuck in the details and the feeling of stuckness and lack.
I like 'The Secret' because it says 'ok, step back. breathe deeply. What do you want?' … and at least for some people learning to begin to trust creates that energy within them to move toward and spring into action toward what's really important to them.
I feel as if it's that willingness to enjoy now, what we have and are, to relinquish the feeling that we can completely control our surroundings, and to move forward from a new perspective of already being happy that creates and manifests incredible new things in our lives… I know my own experience over the past 2 years has been nothing short of amazing to me, and yet the amount of 'hard work' I've put in to achieve what I have now? Negligible when it comes to what I've received, where I work (Zaadz) and the incredible lessons I've learned.
Thank you, by the way, for sharing yours :)Totally Cool! I can see your blog C4. This one looks interesting. Now that I downloaded firefox again and Adobe Flashplayer………….I can see the light…….I mean the blogs!!
Hope I am not countin my chickens before they hatch………..but so far so good :-)
Now to go back and check out ur blog ;-)
Heidi
I think Millman was gently pointing out the faults of the movie but I don't see how he is saying really anything positive about it after re-reading the quote.
~C
I appreciate this collective post, and that I think that you truly show a compassionate heart as well as an open and enlightened mind.
I have fought the urge to chime in here with my non-academic 2 cents worth…and I seriously fought the urge for over 24 hours now….and I'm here posting with trembling fingers….
But here's what I would like to contribute to this discussion as an attempt to “let it go”…
Here's some of the points that just didn't sit well with me:
I am confused by Julian, and aware that his samskara may be the cause for his angered judgmental spew.
I was suprised by the comments that followed from many of the Zaadzsters with the exception of a few, as they did not seem to come at all from ideals set forth in the Zaadz Plan, particulary the second paragraph -
”Our Plan. Ours involves Conscious Capitalism infused with Spirituality and a healthy dose of Enthusiasm, Love, Service, Inspiration, Passion, Humor and Teamwork. People CRAZY enough to think they can change the world, Courageous enough to do something about it, AND Committed enough to stick to it when they feel like giving up.
We're in the process of building THE most inspired community of people in the world…social networking with a purpose, a community of seekers and conscious entrepreneurs circulating wisdom and inspiration and wealth and all that good stuff. We're passionate about inspiring and empowering people to bring their dreams to life, learning and growing and getting paid to do what they love, using their greatest gifts in the greatest service to the world. (And having fun in the process!)”
Or how about the “Our Community. You (& Your Friends). Yes, you. You want more than the 9-5, the house and the car, the conditioning. The blah! Life is to be lived - Fully. In spirit. In love. In service. In celebration. (You've already swallowed the red pill, so let's go…)
Us. A community of Leaders, Visionaries, Thinkers, Artists, Writers, Healers, Teachers, Conscious Entrepreneurs, and Many (many!) Others. People of many ages (from 12 to 90), many nationalities, from different countries (over 110!) and different backgrounds. Some already making huge differences in thousands of lives, others working to make a difference starting with themselves.”
That's not what I experienced in those posts. I felt the Judgement, and the lack of open mindedness, not to mention the lack of compassion for someone else's idea of the dream expressed in their own unique way. Not to mention the lack of recognition of the fact that many people are in many different places on the path.
How about this perhaps, how about the “sexy/disheveled aging blonde Australian lady” who's name is Rhonda Byrne, happened upon something profound to her in her own life. Touched by what she read at such a deep level, she felt the need to share this information with others, and so her seed was planted and The Secret was the outcome. Hmmm…sounds like circulating wisdom to me…sounds like a lot of the things described above, when looked at with the eyes of compassion. What makes that different from so many of the seeds that others have sown, that have turned out to be profitable ventures. What bothered so many of you about this to take you to a place of outright judgement.
I really appreciate Dan Millman's viewpoint…is it that he is further along the path than others….is it that he's of the old school like me, if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all….or of the don't shit where you eat philosophy….he certainly seemed to have way more restraint than Julian did in the weilding of his words. Compassion perhaps.
I could just go on and on, but the bottom line is that I just got a totally different perspective of Zaadz through this whole series of blog posts and comments.
And in closing, I just want to say to you ~C that I have a greater appreciation for you with each read of your posts.
Laura. Thank you, deeply, for writing this. I'm so, so glad you spoke.
laura i really apppreciate your words and your commitment to compassion. i too value compassion very much, but i do not feel that it is served by not applying critical thinking.
my original review goes into some detail about why i think the movie perpetuates a worldview that actually limits compassion and encourages a magical view of reality that will cause a lot of suffering.
i would urge you to consider that what you sense as a lack of compasion may be a passionate desire to make strong and healthy distinctions that serve compassion while exposing ideas that actually contaminate and distort it….
me feeling is that the spiritual community needs more critical thinking and serious practice and less of what trungpa rinpoche termed idiot compasssion. and here's pema chodron talking about it…
peace and a little manjsuri-energy to you :O)
~julian
hi Laura, thanks so much for speaking up. feel free to always do so :)
in fairness to Julian, i don't think that he's really angry and intolerant of other people's views. i think he's just expressing his thoughts, and like he said, encouraging critical thinking, using an integral model.
although i pretty much agree with Julian, i felt that i needed to also highlight other perspectives, especially the most oft use of integralese. based on my experience, it took me a while to grasp integral theory, pre-trans fallacy, translation vs. transformation, etc. i also understand that you can't just “preach” to people integral ideas and they would suddenly get it. and not everyone would appreciate integral theory anyway :)
so bottomline: if you're inspired by The Secret to dream up of new possibilities, by all means apply it to your life. share it with your friends. but don't just stop there. dig deeper. and take your idea of spirituality as far as she goes. and most important of all, keep yourself open to new ideas, because learning is a never-ending process.
as the artist Common said in Newsweek: “Preaching turns off people… When you want to deliver the message, let it live through example. Don't beat people over the head with it. It's like eating healthy food—you want it to taste good. You can't just give them a meal with no flavor. You've got to add that sauce.”
as for Zaadz, the fact that we're all here discussing spiritual things without degenerating into name-calling and blatant antagonism, the fact that we have a space where different perspectives are honored and criticized in a more compassionate way, is proof that we're living up to our ideals :)
~C (for Constructive criticisms)