Do you know The Secret?

There''s a film that''s been making the rounds and changing people''s lives. It stars big names, names like Jack Canfield, Bob Proctor, John Gray, and Neale Donald Walsch. And it''s not fiction. In fact, it''s declaring itself to be reality.

I first found out about it through online ads on self-improvement websites I frequent. Then, I caught the buzz in the blogosphere. People I idolized were talking about it-people whose lives I admired, and wanted to use as a benchmark for my own. I started hunting for a DVD copy-and I found it only on Ebay.ph.

There''s a book version now-it''s available in all major bookstores-so The Secret is not so much a secret anymore. Then again, it never was. When Oprah Winfrey talked about The Secret on her show, she said that she had been practicing "the secret" all her life, but that she didn''t realize it was a "secret." And again, it''s not. It''s just that people don''t realize how powerful their thoughts can be.

The Secret is about The Law of Attraction. Over twenty "teachers" -practitioners of varied professions, really-talk about the same principle that has manifested a lot of success in their lives. These people do not necessarily know each other. I don''t think all of them have even met. Their fields are so varied: spirituality, marketing, publishing, medicine, and even quantum physics. But they talk about The Law of Attraction, and their experiences with it are consistent with each other.

Basically, what The Secret says is "Thoughts become things." What you think about manifests in your life. It sounds so simple-and it is-but simplicity doesn''t always get a lot of following. People expect life to be so complicated, when in fact, it isn''t. Again, thoughts become things-and it''s really as simple as that. One sample case cited in the movie was that of a gay man who wanted to be a stand-up comedian, but he had to deal with a lot of bullying from his colleagues and neighbors. He kept trying to be a stand-up comedian, but the audience would always boo him off the stage. He attributed all these to his being gay, and he emailed his life coach, one of the "teachers" featured in The Secret, and he whined about his life. The life coach said something like, "Read your email-these things are at what you''re focusing your thoughts on, and true enough these things are what you''re getting."

The man started thinking of what he wanted his life to be-and he started visualizing it. Soon after, his life turned around completely. The people who were bullying him either moved to different departments or just stopped bothering him completely. Then during his stand-up comedy acts, he started getting standing ovations. Shortly after he started imagining he was living his dream life, he started living his dream life. One of my favorite quotes featured in the film is from Albert Einstein: "Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life''s coming attractions."

I''ve personally taken the message of The Secret to heart and put it in practice. A lot of things have already started manifesting in my life-but that''s a story that''s still unfolding, and will have to wait for another column piece to tell.

Find out more about The Secret in www.thesecret.tv. Email your comments to [email protected]. Or you may SMS me at +63.920.273.7087.