“Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t—you’re right.”

—Henry Ford

Introduction

Thought creates reality, and reality influences thought.

This is the natural cycle of the law of cause and effect, where everything that sentient beings perform in the cosmos ricochets back into themselves.

This is the law of manifestation, where every emotion, thought, intention, or belief that we have actualizes as an action in the physical plane. Thoughts are the language of the spirit, but actions are the language of the physical realm.

When we harbor a spiteful thought or emotion of anger, wrath, resentment, or jealousy, that becomes manifested in the physical reality. They become actions embroiled in deep hatred, justifying many acts of violence and even massacres against someone or an entire people.

When these effects take form, then per the law of connectivity, they affect the whole. The entire society becomes influenced by these harmful and destructive habits, continuing the cycle of hatred and anger.

Hence, many crusades and conflicts may continue. Many wars and forms of militarism persist. Many fear-based institutions that perpetuate ignorance, suffering, dogma, and division, such as racism or caste systems, continue.

These then return to people’s minds, reinforcing the tendency and resulting in collective negative karma.

This can happen to all kinds of intentions, thoughts, or emotions.

To break the cycle, one needs only to introspect and unravel the reasons it continues.

It largely stems from ignorance or the ego. When the soul is young and naïve, it mindlessly accepts indoctrination or yields to the body’s instincts, with little self-awareness.

But once the soul replaces it with higher consciousness, the cycle may be broken, replaced with something more positive.

Just as there are negative cycles, there are also positive and constructive ones.

A soul that harbors a loving feeling towards others may manifest it through altruistic acts. This may involve compassionate listening, charitable deeds, or alms to the poor and troubled.

When enough people perform such actions, the individual action becomes collective. It manifests as institutions or policies that positively affect the whole. Entire countries may revamp their policies to favor socialism, benefiting the whole rather than the few.

And when such fruitful karmas return to the soul, it reinforces the positive habits of love and peace, completing the cycle.

This cycle is the manifestation of intelligent beings and shows how much power we all have.

When we perpetuate cycles founded on love, peace, harmony, tolerance, and authenticity, the Earth’s civilizations become whole and healthy again.

Tetris as an Analogy

The law of manifestation is easy to illustrate using Tetris.

Imagine yourself harboring initial arrogance and ignorance as a beginner player in Tetris.

You genuinely believe yourself to be a high-level player when you are merely beginning. Thus, you deliberately play without acknowledging your inadequacies.

Your arrogance then leads you to manifest poor gameplay habits, such as the following:

Diagram Set 9-1
1	2

Terrible stacking with 2 I dependencies on the left and right.

The player is forced to place incoming pieces dirtily.

Here, the beginner player stacks riskily, creating many piece dependencies. The left and right sides of the field need vertical I pieces to fill.

Because the I pieces never arrive, the player is forced to place pieces dirtily.

Here is another example:

Diagram Set 9-2
1	2

Terrible stacking with two J dependencies.

While waiting for two Js, the player is forced to overstack the incoming pieces in this manner.

The player creates two J dependencies, resulting in the same dangerous overstacking effect.

This dangerous cycle continues, leading to the karmic effect of many lost games until the player is frustrated enough to confess their arrogance.

Hence, upon acknowledging one’s ignorance, the player will break the cycle by switching their strategy like this:

Diagram Set 9-3
1	2

Fill the two piece dependencies with J pieces.

This makes stacking follow-ups safer and smoother.

The player no longer stacks dangerously with many piece dependencies. Here, the player fills the J dependencies first, resulting in safer and proper aftermath stacking.

This then continues the cycle, leading to the fruits of positive karma, including increased win rates.

Ultimately, the player’s arrogance is dispelled, replaced by humility and an eagerness to learn. This then accelerates their Tetris progress.

Personal Applications

As for all cycles, they can be positive or negative.

Here is how to break out of a negative karmic cycle, using a concrete example:

1. A person is prone to binge eating to cope with her lack of self-image and fear of being judged negatively by others.
2. She continues this cycle, becoming obese and negatively affecting her self-image.
3. She sees an existential therapist, who helps her realize, through introspection, that there are two aspects of her: the external self, shaped by cultural validation, and her true spiritual self, which is simply who she is.
4. The therapist helps her realize that the former, external self is an artificially constructed self that has no precedence in spirit. This allows her to de-center and no longer identify with this false personality.
5. She trains herself not to care about being judged by others.
6. Hence, she no longer binge eats as much because the triggering causes have been reduced.
7. This then breaks her cycle, and she loses weight, improving her self-image. This creates a positive reinforcement cycle, where praise from others makes her wish to lose weight even more.

Hence, the cycle is broken through an elevation in self-awareness through introspection.

This is why I emphasize self-awareness in my teaching. Many problems have a psychological root that can only be resolved by facing what is within.

Without doing so, any treatment will only address the symptoms, not the roots.

Social and Global Applications

Social and global cycles are far more challenging to resolve. However, the similarity with individual ones is the same: they begin with immense self-reflection and heightened self- and social awareness.

Here is an example to illustrate:

1. A rich food outlet corporation offers its services in 200 countries, delivering food to customers’ homes faster than any competitor.
2. However, the management desires to make more profits for the sake of it, out of greed.
3. They then reduce wages or work conditions and prevent trade unionization.
4. Because it is a monopoly, it continues to raise prices, leading to inflation.
5. People around the world are increasingly complaining about this, but the cycle continues.
6. One day, the upper management had had enough of these complaints. It replaces its CEO with someone more humanistic.
7. This person then decides that the company should move towards caring for others, in an act of pure altruism.
8. He dismantles the way the company treats workers by providing them with more benefits and wages, better working conditions, and the right to form trade unions.
9. He then lowers prices and makes the company more accountable by delivering higher-quality products.
10. Over many decades, his country has seen that this system works and has adopted it for many corporations, becoming a socialist nation.
11. The country now reaps the rewards of a fairer, more beneficial system that leads to greater wealth equality and greater fulfillment in workers’ lives.
12. This inspires more leaders in other industries to do the same.
13. Soon, this spreads institutionally across the entire country and the globe.

Hence, a single visionary with the right mindset can lead to vast improvements in the social system.

This highlights the importance of the law of manifestation at the global level, as we transition our planet into a new Earth.