Many people will of heard of 'The Secret' that began as a film and is now being produced in all forms of media, including downloadable audio book.

The opening sequence suggests that major contributors in the past; Einstein, Beethoven, Lincoln to name a few, knew this secret and it was this that allowed them to have the influence that they did.

The whole of the film can be summed up with well-known phrases such as 'you are what you think you are', 'you create your own environment by your thoughts'.

Now I am a great believer in positive thinking, it seems odd to me that we all spend so much time thinking about ANYTHING unpleasant but we do. However the fact that I cannot get to grips with is the fact that they are just giving us one version of how the mind works.

They are showing how 'thoughts' can work; now something has to create these thoughts. They are saying you and I, Einstein or whoever is creator of these thoughts, I say this is just a thought.

I believe the REAL SECRET is the facilitator of these thoughts, now this secret is a real one, it can and never will be 'known'.

In the examples e.g. Einstein, it was acknowledged by themselves that a lot of their ideas 'just appeared' to them without any effort to create a thought.

My preferred metaphor is 'there is more to the world than meets the eye' and my preferred reading is 'Busting loose from the money game' by Robert Scheinfeld. In this book Robert suggests we all have an individual personality that moves from a single source.

Simply put, this single source 'plays' a game of 'forgetting' that it is one and moves away in the world of creation, believing it to be full of many and all sorts of things; good/bad, rich/poor etc... At some stage in the game the single source starts to remember the unity behind everything and questions the validity of the mass of creations it has made. Now it starts to return 'home', releasing the power of the world in the return journey (some of what I believe 'The Secret' to be about).

The main difference I see between the two is the use of the mind as a creative tool. B.L. certainly agrees that you create your own world, but not a world that is real, more of a playground, which is observed. I fear that T.S. is just heading further out from the source (not intentionally maybe) by making YOUR world very much YOU. For example the way the law of attraction has been working to date: - people want more and more stuff, this comes in the form of energy (fossil fuels, people to work). Now the people that want more attract the people or things that are going to give theirs up (we often seem to overlook that nearly everything that is enjoyed or attracted by the 'wealthy' is produced by those apparently without - a large proportion of the world population). Perfect law of attraction but very pleasant world?

This is just a personal addition (which probably highlights something I need to give up!) but I listed the occupations of the very wealthy people in T.S. film - Authors, Metaphysician, Philosopher, Visionary, Entrepreneur - how many of these actually produce anything?

In ancient Indian philosophy, the mind (therefore thoughts) is said to be one of the sheaths that hide our true Self. My belief is that you can create more pleasant situations with you mind, in fact just how you interpret any situation will be done by the mind. However this is not who you are and never will be, as I mentioned before this is how I see the real Secret.