Think Peace

I may be obsessing over The Secret, and if you cannot abide yet another blog on this topic please skip this entry, but as the Iraq War enters its fifth year, as over sixty human beings were murdered in Baghdad car bombings this morning, as President Bush promotes his “First We Take Baghdad, Then We Take Teheran” strategy, I cannot help but wonder why Rhonda Byrne and The Secret’s millions of followers don’t think us into peace.

I don’t mean to be facetious. Yes, I disagree with The Secret’s premise that whatever comes into our lives does so because we attract it with out thoughts, but, I could be wrong. The Secret could be true, and if it is and we don’t use it for peace but only to feed our desire for personal perfection, what does that say about us? So, just for a moment, let’s imagine that The Secret is true, that we can think our way to peace?

Imagine millions of Oprah viewers who saw her two segments on The Secret plus millions more who have purchased the book and DVD, deciding to Think Peace. Imagine millions of The Secret fans converging on Washington and London to Think Peace. Imagine millions more flying to Kabul and Teheran to do the same. This would be world changing!

I’m serious. I may have missed it, but I don’t recall peace and an end to the Iraq War ever coming up in either Oprah segment. And in the chapter in the book entitled The Secret to the World, Iraq is never mentioned, and peace is almost a footnote.

Part of this may be that to mention such things would be to put energy into the negative and thus make matters worse. I understand that and why The Secret suggests we focus on peace rather than the negative energy-attracting notion of anti-war. But all I found in the book was Rhonda’s admission that she doesn’t watch television or read newspapers because she doesn’t want to think about (and hence add to) the injustice, violence, and evil in the world. But by avoiding the real evil in the world, she is doing us all a terrible disservice. There must be a way to acknowledge war even as we think peace. If we do not admit to evil, how can we stop it? After all we are willing to admit to personal poverty, illness, and relationship problems as a first step to thinking these around, why not war? Why not evil?

The Secret is a worldwide phenomenon, and The Secret team of motivational speakers has a tremendous opportunity to transform the world not simply by selling books and DVDs, but by organizing global Think Peace initiatives.

I know I called The Secret new age boomer narcissism. I know I said it was all about feeding greed and avoiding guilt. Prove me wrong. This isn’t a challenge, but a heartfelt plea. What could be a better use of The Secret than this?