Does the typical 'You create your own reality' belief system have an inherent contradiction?

What I mean by the 'typical' "You create your own reality" belief is the way David Icke explains it. Quoting Icke:

You create your own reality. When you do that consciously, you can create the reality you want. At the moment, you are creating your reality, but you're doing it by allowing your sense of reality to be externally programmed. You can disconnect from that and you can consciously create what you want. Because you are everything!
Who's Controlling You? with David Icke

The contradiction comes in, I believe, in the following (what I consider to be the essential definition of the law of attraction):

David Icke: What you put out is what you get back – the ultimate justice
David Icke: What you put out is what you get back – the ultimate justice

Those two quotes describe the most common explanation of the "You create your own reality" belief system that I've heard in my life. It's basically: "You create your reality BUT you are bound by the law of attraction." The reason I believe the two quotes above contradict is the following:

If the statement "you can create the reality you want" is true then people would not be bound by any rules such as the second quote. Why? The reason is because if you're creating your own reality then you are also creating the rules in that reality (if any).

The above two quotes are like telling someone that they have unlimited power and then telling them about their limitations. That's what I feel is the contradiction here.

Now, here's a thought that I've never read before...

What if the "elite" can create their reality to the point where Icke's second quote doesn't apply to them? After all, if one can create their own reality, one creates the rules for that reality (if any).

If we look at things from that perspective, it may actually explain a question that people ask all the time:

"How can the 'elite' get away with all their atrocities with seemingly no repercussions?"

Well, if they're creating their reality at a level where they can bypass the law of attraction that Icke described in the second quote, it all may make sense.

That's a very frightening idea. But, is it not consistent with the theory that we all create our own reality?

a reply to: Profusion

You could have used quotes from everywhere else except David Icke. Here on ATS, the man does cause some controversy. In any case , on this occasion, the quote is valid.

There is no contradiction between the two quotes. The law of attraction is exactly the same as the first quote, except it requires more will power.

A belief system is like a map.
It has value to the extent that it comes close to reflecting objective reality.
If you try to build a map of the world around your own personal preferences, you end up with a map which won't send you in the right direction when you want to get home.

The cookie crumbles and the crumbs fall as they may. We don't "create" our reality.
We do have control over how we interpret and react to situations and events, but I see no logic in believing we can create that which is with anything other than action.

originally posted by: crowdedskies
a reply to: Profusion
There is no contradiction between the two quotes. The law of attraction is exactly the same as the first quote, except it requires more will power.

I don't agree with that at all. How can you put an arbitrary limitation on what "reality creation" involves and how it's done?

IMHO, once you start putting limitations on the first quote, it becomes meaningless.

You can claim that one must use the law of attraction to "create [their] own reality", but who could be so presumptuous as to put those kinds of limitations on what the process may entail?

Also, even if you believe that the law of attraction is essential in the beginning of the process, how can you say that it can't be done away with later in the process?

Again, if you put those kinds of limitations on creating one's own reality then I don't think you actually believe that one creates their own reality. It would be more accurate to say:

"You create your own reality with limitations."

That would make the whole belief system fall apart IMHO.

originally posted by: skunkape23
The cookie crumbles and the crumbs fall as they may. We don't "create" our reality.

In my opinion this is not the case. The cookie just doesn't crumble wherever it wants.

Sadly, it tends to be the more agressive ,greedy and unscrupulous among us that have more success with the law of attraction. Only because the focus of their will power is sharper and denser.

The rest of us were taught by religion to get rid of passions and turn the other cheek. Hence becomming a bunch of sheep.

a reply to: Profusion

Reality is a son of a bitch to stick a pin, eh? If we had ten people sitting on a train and asked them to describe their experience, they might only agree that they were on a train. The rest of it could be differences in interpretation of weather, the influence of moods and health and their current psychological state. For example, a passenger with hip pain would be on a drawn out, tedious journey and the passenger next to them could be meeting a new love and their journey would be flying by.

My point here is how do we *prove* we're 'creating' reality when it's a tough old task to agree what we're measuring?

Personally, I think we 'create' our own reality within the tiny, subjective sphere of our own influence. I don't think for a moment that we can ask the universe or that 'laws of attraction' have any validity in terms of changing the world.

I always recall the story of a terminal woman crying to her surgeon because she was dying. She had prayed her ass off and wasn't getting any better. She interpreted this as 'failing' to have the faith in her beliefs and worried that, deep down, she didn't love her kids as much as she should do. Surely her asking the universe was noble and 100% committed?

She's one example and yet we see 1000s of contestants failing each year on various X-Factor shows. The bankruptcy courts are full of people whose emphatic will to create wealth in their lives have led to poverty.

If there's one Everest of a contradiction, it's how we pick the winners to 'prove' laws of attraction and ignore the overwhelming number of losers.

originally posted by: DISRAELI
A belief system is like a map.
It has value to the extent that it comes close to reflecting objective reality.
If you try to build a map of the world around your own personal preferences, you end up with a map which won't send you in the right direction when you want to get home.

grrr... I picked at this for a bit...

I seem to end up with the same map

a reply to: Profusion

For some , the law of attraction is a given. There is no authoritative system called "The law of attraction". It is just a convenient phrase to use.

We all have desires. They reflect on the astral plane. When the images are loaded with passion/emotions (either voluntarily or not) they become strong and have no option other than reflect on th physical plane. That is universal law.
The two planes must reflect each other. Images which are half-baked for lack of passion and clarity will not manifest.

This is one of the oldest and most basic technique of magic, requiring little training. I am not divulging anything that is not already known by a large group of people.

Life itself is one giant paradox: we continuously strive for survival despite knowing our eventual death is inevitable. Therefore, it is common for many aspects of life to be prone to contraction. The greatest limitation we can place on ourselves is to believe we cannot transcend our own limitations...

a reply to: Akragon
I thought it was a workable analogy.
If your preference is to live in a warm state, it would be nice to have a map showing Alaska on the same latitude as Florida.
Then you try to drive around using the idealised map, and you get lost.

a reply to: Kandinsky

I agree. I also think that perhaps people are fundamentally confused by these principals in large due to how we perceive our reality as we grow.

I feel that for the most part these theorys are actually pretty sound. The problem is the way we apply it. It's all backwards.

We often look to these ideas because of a lack of something. Deep down its often driven by an emptiness or a feeling that some thing is missing. This is the first mistake.

Then we seek the truth, we know that if we get answers that somehow this thing that we are trying to understand will give meaning to it and hopefully we can get some for ourselves too. Second mistake.

Now we are trying to apply this to ourselves and some succeed and many don't. So we think the idea is either wrong, or its sound and the universe doesn't care. Mistake upon mistake.

The universe doesn't care. What we are missing is what we are all born with. Spirit.

That's the thing that diminishes as we become adults. As we grow responsibility, getting an education, work, emotional trauma it all becomes our reality, we don't pay any attention to our spirit and this diminishes it.

By the time we think to do something about it we fail to see the cause because we are too busy treating the symptoms.

IMO.

Tell me how you create your own reality?
So much is busy being created for you by others...

a reply to: Profusion


Wait didn't you do a thread very similar to this like a few days ago? I could be having Deja vu...

We don't create our own reality, we share a collective reality. This "creation" of our own realities is due to the fact that we lack a consensus on the information were exposed to.

Flat Earther's are the best example of this. Their warped perception of information on the curvature is due to their lack of exposure to information to the contrary.

In short it's all a matter of perception to information.

a reply to: Profusion

What you put out is what you get back - the ultimate justice

Of course its a contradiction. The so called law of karma is another deception, there is no such thing. Another controller meme like "sin". It works in so much as the fear it instils into people.

originally posted by: 5StarOracle
Tell me how you create your own reality?
So much is busy being created for you by others...

This should be a call to arms...
We can negate the creation of others.

btw , I like your avatar. Not enough credit given to old Shatner. For me, without Kirk there is no Startrek.

a reply to: DISRAELI

Then you try to drive around using the idealised map, and you get lost

Likewise if you use the same book all your life, you haven't even begun the journey

I am going to create an omelette and a bloody Mary for breakfast.
I'm not working today, so I think I might create a beach to relax on for the day I created.
Good chance I may create a fishing pole and create some fish in the ocean I created to cook for dinner.

originally posted by: Profusion
Does the typical 'You create your own reality' belief system have an inherent contradiction?

It is LOADED with contradictions, irrationalities, vanity, 'beliefs'...
It is the ultimate of vanity and ignorant hypocrisy by one who, allegedly, is supposed to be some Xtian luminosity!!
It ain't gravity waves that hold the Universe together, it irony! *__-

"Nothing is easier than self-deceit. For what each man wishes, that he also believes to be true." - Demosthenes

But if you wished to assert "We create out own (imaginary) Reality by our desires!", I would have to answer;

"All statements are true in some sense, false in some sense, meaningless in some sense, true and false in some sense, true and meaningless in some sense, false and meaningless in some sense, and true and false and meaningless in some sense." -Robert Anton Wilson

"For every Perspective, there is an equal and opposite Perspective!" - The First Law of Soul Dynamics

For this to be a feasible reality...

I would be existing alone in the void and everything else including all of you, would be nothing more than figments of my imagination...