One of the most popular ideas in personal development in the last century is the idea that we can manifest our desires magically, via the power of the subconscious mind, through what is currently called “the law of attraction” (LOA). From Napoleon Hill’s classic, Think and Grow Rich, to Rhonda Byrne’s book, The Secret, we are told that if we just ask, the universe will give to us.

The idea that the universe is just waiting for you to make a wish so that it can fulfill it for you is hopeful—but overly romantic. The universe is not a genie in a lamp, just waiting for you to rub it and ask for what you want. Rather, manifestation is more like a cosmic force that you can learn to evoke, manage, and direct—if you know how.

As a serious practitioner of meditation and mantras, I firmly believe that our mind can deeply affect our reality, even in ways beyond the scope of our physical actions. Many spiritual traditions teach that matter comes out of consciousness, that our thoughts do shape our reality, and that events that seem miraculous are actually expressions of laws of nature not yet appreciated by mainstream science.

The principle of mind-over-matter is an expression of deep spiritual truths. However, the way to understand this universal law, and effectively apply it, has not been properly captured by LOA advocates.

In fact, John Assaraf, an LOA influencer who has appeared in many documentaries and is generally recognized as a leading voice on the subject, said in one of his YouTube videos that only 0.1% of people succeed in manifesting with the LOA.

In this article I’ll explore how, from the point of view of traditional Yogic and hermetic teachings, the LOA system is incomplete and, to a certain extent, misleading. These are two wisdom traditions I have studied in depth for several years, but there are also others who touch on the same subject. This article critiques the pop-spiritual version of manifestation, not the original mystical insights found by the ancient masters.

The personal development authors who explored this topic were, directly or indirectly, drinking from the wisdom of the ancient traditions on it—and yet, a lot got lost in translation. Some essential elements got left behind. Read on to learn more.

Now, if you are skeptical about the mind-over-matter topic or about spirituality, this article may not resonate—yet you can still benefit from 95% of my other material, which requires no particular beliefs.

On the other hand, if something in you knows that our mind has the power to shape our reality and make things happen, and you want to dive deeper into what is involved, then you are in the right place.

In this article I share, for the first time, this topic that is very close to my heart, but also very much “out there” for most folks. Consider it the esoteric branch of the Higher Mind System—something I typically only share with some of my coaching clients.

Understanding and applying these principles have made a tremendous difference in my life—in the areas of career, relationships, finances, and spiritual growth. My intention here is to give you a 30,000-foot view of them, knowing that if you have the will to learn and practice them, you will be able to greatly accelerate your journey toward your aspirations.

Principle #1: Sow Above to Reap Below

Many traditions recognize that there are several “subtler worlds” above ours. The LOA only explains this loosely, while the concept is greatly detailed in the ancient spiritual literature, where Yogic masters have mapped reality into a seven-layer model.

For the purposes of this short, introductory article, let’s use the simplified three-layer model:

• Physical World
• Astral World
• Spiritual World

This is the basic premise, without which there is no talk of manifestation, LOA, or mind-over-matter. It’s the idea that the physical reality that we can perceive with our senses, and measure with our scientific devices, is only one of the several planes of existence, and is shaped by the planes that are above it, and subtler than it.

If you think of building a house, the initial impulse and high-level vision for building a house would be the movement on the spiritual plane; the blueprint for the house would be what happens in the astral plane; and the actual building of the house happens in the physical plane. This is not a perfect metaphor, but it will serve our purposes.

The Astral World is the world of the mind. There, our thoughts and emotions are actually things. Thinking and feeling, in that plane, is equivalent to taking action in the physical plane—it’s what creates things and makes them move.

When a certain thought of yours has gathered enough energy, for a given period of time, it gains a life of its own, and it works to materialize the vision of its creator, you, in the physical world. It affects the thoughts of other beings, creates serendipity, gives you the right type of ideas, and begins to align the randomness of life in favor of your aspiration. Without the knowledge of how this actually works, we just call it “luck”.

The physical world/plane/realm is a manifestation of the astral world; the astral world, in turn, is a manifestation of the spiritual world. The chain of causation, therefore, is Spiritual → Astral → Physical.

So the general idea of manifestation is that it is more efficient to create things in the spiritual and astral worlds first, than in the physical. As Yogi Gupta used to say, the physical world is, after all, the world of effects, not of causes.

People who manifest something in the physical plane by apparently working only in the physical plane are also, to some extent, unknowingly activating the astral plane. They would be able to do that much more efficiently if they knew how to do it consciously.

In broad terms, both LOA and the Yogis agree on this. One important distinction, though, is that much of the LOA literature suggests that we don’t need to take action, only ask, believe, receive.

The Yogis and Hermeticists, on the other hand, teach that in most cases you will also need to take physical action. In other words, just practicing an affirmation and expecting that the universe will give you what you want, without any effort on your part, is not realistic.

In the legend of the Mahabharata, the great warrior Arjuna had the help of the god Krishna. Therefore, he was destined to win the war—but he still had to shoot the arrows. Likewise, if you apply the principles of manifestation properly, the targets may be mysteriously aligned before you, and the wind may suddenly favor you—but you will still need to shoot the arrow.

You will still need to:

• Start the business
• Go through the health treatment
• Prepare for the interview
• Work on your marriage
• Work on yourself

The difference is that now you are much more likely to succeed, because you have tapped into much deeper resources. You are playing a bigger game.

If your beliefs are not confirmed through your actions, they are not real—and they will not be realized. So in reality it’s not, “ask, belief, receive” but “align yourself spiritually with your goal, generate a powerful thought current in the astral, and take disciplined action in the physical”.

I know, that formula is less enticing, and won’t sell as many books. But it’s the real secret.

Principle #2: Create a Powerful Thought-Current

Now, with principle number two, the difference between LOA and the original teachings begins to grow wider.

LOA advocates seem to teach that, in order to make manifestation happen in the physical plane, all you need to do is “ask and believe”. This is problematic for two main reasons:

• First, simply believing is not enough to create a thought current in the astral that is strong enough to affect the physical.
• Second, the deeper spiritual implications of “ask and believe” are not very bright. By thinking in this manner, we are behaving like entitled children who are convinced they don’t need to do anything to deserve what they are asking—that’s it’s enough to just ask.

In contrast, the teachings of the Yogic and Hermetic traditions on this emphasize just the opposite:

• First, to create a powerful thought current in the astral, you need not only belief, but concentration, willpower, and prana (life force).
• Second, the universe owes you nothing. It gave you your body and your mind, your awareness and your will—now you must work for what you want, embody your cosmic role as a co-creator of worlds, and become worthy of what you aspire.

Yes, our thoughts have the potential to manifest themselves, but only if they are empowered with our attention, intention, and energy. Here is a excerpt from my book Wise Confidence on this topic:

Many spiritual traditions have taught over the centuries that if you hold on to a thought for long enough, it has to materialize. But that doesn’t mean that all our thoughts become something. The mind of the average person is busy, distracted, and undisciplined. The power of such a mind is diluted between thousands of different thoughts and desires, some of which even contradict each other. It’s quite possible that no thought gets enough energy to make anything happen. The result of this? A sense of frustration and powerlessness.

Compare that with the disciplined person who knows what they want, focuses continuously on the same goals, remembers them daily, and takes consistent action on them with full conviction. Such intentions are much more likely to materialize not only because of the consistent action taken in the physical world but also because of the constant charging of that intention in the subtle world. Concentration and willpower are the missing elements for you to tap into your innate powers.

To create a powerful thought current, you need to follow these three steps:

• Visualize with great clarity that which you want to manifest
• Breathe life into it
• Make your sacrifice

1. Visualize with Clarity

The first part of the equation is about using your imagination.

Imagination is a faculty of your higher mind and the core instrument for manifestation. Imagination immediately creates, in the astral world, the events and forms that you are imagining—especially when you infuse feeling into the process.

The challenge is that in the next moment you get distracted by something else; you begin thinking another thought. So that new reality that you were conceiving gets dissolved back into space. This means that you simply had a thought; you didn’t create a thought-current. Your thought or wish didn’t gather enough energy to make anything happen.

And that’s why we have the next part of the equation: breathe life into it.

2. Breath Life into It

If your thought-current is filled with prana (life-force), and sustained in your consciousness for long enough to consolidate, then it gains a life of its own and works to help fulfill your purpose. It will keep doing that for as long as you keep it energized. Once its fuel is gone, it dies off—just like a fire that has run out of wood.

How do we fill our thought-current with prana? By continuously fueling it with our attention, our intention, our emotions, and our belief. In other words: through concentration, willpower, faith, and feeling.

• Concentration means giving your new creation, your thought-current, sustained attention. Think about it with full focus daily, ideally a few minutes every morning and evening, without getting distracted by other things. Needless to say, meditation practice is a powerful training to allow you to do that.
• Willpower means infusing your thought with your intention and determination. When you make a resolution that your thought is your new reality, and that it must manifest, you charge your thought with life force. It’s not just another thought anymore—it’s now a thought with a mission, with a clear focus. It gains more weight. It gains more power to influence not only your other thoughts and decisions, but also the physical reality around you.
• Faith means wholeheartedly believing in what you are creating, without any hesitations, without any doubts. If doubts or negative thoughts arise, you offer them to the fire of your aspiration, transforming them into fuel for your manifestation.
• Feeling means integrating your emotional energies into the thought-current you are creating. The emotions, my Guru used to say, bring an edge to the prana. So as you are doing your affirmation and visualization practice, tap into the full energy of the strongest emotion behind it—be it desire, fear, love, or anger. (Yes, you can tap into existing negative emotions to fuel your manifestation, provided that the end result is good and the intention noble.)

The LOA recognizes the role of faith, but not that of concentration and willpower. These two important elements are of the essence in the original spiritual teachings around manifestation; and they were also present in several of the first works in personal development around this topic, beginning from the New Thought movement. But, because they require mental training, and that is a “big ask” for most people, many modern authors have left them behind.

The Yogic tradition also states that you can increase the amount of prana that you have available through many other means, the main ones being:

• specific breathing exercises (pranayama)
• spiritual practices such as meditation, chanting, rituals, prayer, silence, etc.
• good diet
• getting some sun
• leading a well-regulated lifestyle
• avoiding sensory overstimulation
• avoiding overthinking
• cultivating positive thoughts and emotions

These are all things that work on increasing our level of prana and mental power in general, giving us a higher baseline to work on manifesting what we aspire.

3. Make Your Sacrifice

The final key for empowering our thought-current is sacrifice, one of the most powerful ways of breathing life into your vision. Depending on how much energy you need to generate for your manifestation to happen, you might need to make a sacrifice, so that you generate enough prana.

To sacrifice is to let go of something you value, to gain or create something of higher value. Sacrifice is not something bad, but it always feels difficult, because of our attachments. To make a sacrifice, then, is an act of courage, faith, and commitment. According to the etymology of the word, to make a sacrifice is to make something sacred.

When you let go of something that you like, or willingly go through something you don’t like, you are tapping into your willpower and generating a lot of energy. Since the purpose of your sacrifice is to achieve your higher goal, the energy that is generated from your offering is then channeled into the thought-current that you are creating.

Devoting your time, money, energy, and attention to something—all of these are forms of sacrifice. The greater your sacrifice, the greater the amount of energy you have at your disposal, to make things happen. There is a reason why all great people in history have made great sacrifices. It generates a powerful inner heat, which the Yogis called tapas.

In sum, to manifest your goal or your wish into a reality, you will need to create a powerful thought-current in the astral world. Your thought current will need to be fed with your attention, intention, faith, and feeling until it gets filled with prana to the point where it gains a life of its own, and begins to work for you. You can accelerate this process by making sacrifices along the way, and by following practices that increase your level of prana in general.

Now that you know the secret of The Secret, how will you implement these insights to help you live a more empowered life?

The Next Principles

In the next article in this series, I cover the next principles of manifestation as per the original spiritual teachings on the topic. I discuss the role of karma, timing, invisible obstacles, and the use of more advanced tools.

You will then understand why sometimes your manifestation practice just doesn’t work, even though you might have put in a lot of energy into it.

And if you want step-by-step guidance in this path, check out my Sankalpa Coaching program.

Law of Attraction vs. Ancient Teachings on Manifestation

Manifesting your thoughts into reality is a faculty of your higher mind—which is why I wrote this article. The more you cultivate your higher mind via the seven disciplines, the more ready you will be for this work. This work itself can be considered a part of the seventh discipline: Accelerate. You can look at it as the esoteric branch of the Higher Mind System: optional, but powerful for those who share the worldview behind it.

The modern LOA is a practice based on ancient spiritual teachings around manifestation. However, it leaves behind essential ingredients such as concentration, willpower, disciplined action, and other elements that we will explore later. Doing that has helped it become much more popular—as it makes a bigger promise while asking less from you. Yet the results are severely compromised, which explains its low success rate.

The LOA as popularly taught (e.g., in The Secret) is an oversimplified, passive, and ego-centered version of true manifestation. Real manifestation is a disciplined, sacred, and soul-aligned process that requires the cultivation of your higher mind. It is an invitation for you to step into your sacred role as a co-creator of worlds.

Resorting to the LOA without training the mind, and without disciplined action, in hopes for a shortcut, will lead to disappointment—it is wishful thinking. But resorting to the time-tested spiritual principles of manifestation, as an aid to your journey—that’s a powerful accelerator.

If you want to think like an entitled child of the universe, expecting that you have the right to receive just because you’ve asked, then you can ignore this article. But if you want to grow into your higher spiritual potential, using your desires as the stepping stones along the way, then you are ready to embrace the original practice of manifestation as taught by the ancient masters.

You will be required to commit, to focus, to apply your will and take consistent action. You will be called to cultivate your higher mind, and make sacrifices for that which you pursue. You will be asked more, but you will get more, too. The goals you achieve along the way will feel like nothing compared to the universe of possibilities and meaning you will have unlocked.

Ready to continue? Read Part 2 now.