The Power of Action: The 7 Tenets of Transformation

A common misconception regarding manifestation and the law of attraction is that no action is needed. That is, many people misunderstand this approach to mean that if you only just think deeply enough and raise your vibration high enough, fortunes will simply fall in place.

That is not how it works. The law of attraction and the act of manifestation are deeply connected to action.

We must remember that we are interacting with the universe. One of the prerequisites for evolving and changing society is that we must change our individual selves before we expect the collective to change, just as for a body to be healthy, it must be built of healthy cells. Individual humans are the cells of society. To make real change, we need to transform ourselves joyfully by the following 7 steps:

1. To make a change, we must get out of the old self. We must allow ourselves to create a new self-story!
   

2. We should not live as programmed robots, because we are able to act out of free will, with consciousness. We must awaken to our power of choice!
   

3. We need to examine every choice we make and ask the questions, “How does my choice affect me and the people around me? And how does my choice help me grow joyfully?” Then we must incorporate our answers into our subsequent choice-making!
   

4. To grow, we need to learn, find information, reflect upon it, and change what we have been doing. We need to get out of a box or mindset that is not working for us. We must release that which does not serve our transformation!
   

5. We need to examine our lifestyle critically, including diet, sleep, exercise, and entertainment. What we do becomes who we are. We must establish habits that align with and support who we want to be!
   

6. We need to take full responsibility to change ourselves and help our families change. We must feel brave to speak out and act with confidence to help those around us understand the value of living with awareness!
   

7. Many factors affect our awareness, including fear, ego, and attachment to adopted beliefs from childhood. We must be aware that our perceptions can lead us away from new truths and discoveries!

These seven steps can help take you from where you are now to where you want to be, and who you want to become. Here's wishing you the best on your personal transformation journey. May we all work together to change the world!

Your Vibe Attracts Your Tribe

We are more than just ourselves. As individuals, through our actions we represent entire categories or groups of people. Consider the police: if one officer makes a grievous error in judgment in the line of duty, is this not often said to reflect poorly on the force as a whole? On the flip side, do we not have resource officers stationed in public schools in part to encourage children to view the police as accessible and kindly community helpers? How we behave, whether on or off the job, gives observers an impression of the profession or community we represent. As such, we must be determined to not only behave in accordance with the utmost standards of professionalism and high moral character, but we must also take care to surround ourselves with others dedicated to a similar goal. Otherwise, we risk tainting outsiders’ impressions of the groups we represent (be them professional, religious, social, or otherwise), and we also risk absorbing negative influence that detracts us from making progress in our development towards higher states of being.

Have you ever been a teenager, or raised a teenager? Consider the parental advice to mind the company you keep. My mother used to tell me, “tell me who your friends are, and I’ll tell you who you are.” What social environment would you prefer for yourself or your children: one defined by laziness, disrespect, dishonesty, and self-absorption, or one that fosters industrious responsibility, compassion and loyalty, generosity and integrity? Surrounding ourselves with high-quality people helps ensure that we remain on-track to be and become high-quality people ourselves. Then, our social environment will enhance the resonance of our intentions.

Regardless of your milieu, of course, the most important work you can do to ensure your spiritual success is to work on your own self, on your own being level. Once you dedicate your heart to purifying yourself of ego’s natural pull towards fear, selfishness, greed, anger, and so on, and set the feet of your spirit on a straight path towards harmony with the universe, you will be able to “do the right thing” automatically. Nothing will be able to distract you from your mission to live in a pure state of the highest order, and “submit in peaceful submission” to this ordered flow of the universe (see Chapter al-Ahzab, verse 56). As physicist and consciousness researcher Tom Campbell puts it, we must “lower our entropy," a sentiment echoed in the core teaching of Qur'an to "establish order." Reducing the chaos within ourselves purifies our being and our actions, which then leads our existence to have a purifying effect in our community.

When we are well, we act well. When we act well, our example (perhaps in addition to our direct guidance) encourages those around us to behave in a similar way. Others observe our collective beautiful presence, and cultivate a positive impression of the communities we represent. So whether you are a soccer player, an engineer, a dentist, a housewife, a student, a musician, a person of faith, an employee in any field–no matter your individual identities, strive to be a high-order individual, and surround yourself with a high-quality community to amplify your efforts. We will all be better for it.

Women Are Not Nisa’ !

Studying the Qur’an is my life-long hobby. From a young age I attended study circles and memorized the Qur’an, and have always been passionate about exploring and learning from it. So I wonder, why has it taken me fifty years to realize something so critical for understanding this globally known text?

It all started with my Exploring the Qur’an class. We were going to discuss family and relationships in society, so naturally I turned to Surat al-Nisa’, which I had always been taught focused on women (al-nisa’ in modern Arabic). To my surprise, careful examination of only the first six verses opened my eyes to a new possibility: nisa’ does not mean women!

This should not have been such a big surprise–a lot of common understanding of the Quf’an is based on misinterpretation of key words, such as “Shaytan, nafs, ‘adhab” (شيطان، نفس، عذاب). But seeing that such a “basic” word like “women” had been inaccurately translated was a significant discovery–it “hit different,” as my students say.

As it turns out, nisa’ is not “women,” but refers to those who are behind in society. Verses 1-6 of Surat al-Nisa’, then, discuss how to promote balance and social justice:

• Verse 1 announces that this call is to all people, and explains that while Allah created everyone, some are more advanced than others, whether in terms of age and experience, or degree of wealth or social standing.

• Verse 2 continues addressing all people, and gives special instructions on how to handle the wealth or property of orphans given into another person’s trust.

• Verse 3 proposes different degrees for caring for orphans, from effectively adopting them, to supporting just one, to not taking responsibility for any and instead focusing on one’s own domestic obligations, in the case that someone does not feel they could do justice to one orphan.

• Verse 4 instructs people to give charity to support the less fortunate.

• Verses 5 and 6 are directed at anyone in charge of managing an orphan’s affairs; they specify that underage orphans must be cared for prudently without wasting their own wealth, and that once they reach the age of being able to make contracts, that the orphans under care should receive their own independent wealth.

Notably, verse 3 is typically used as a justification for polygamy in Islam. As we can see here, with a fresh understanding of the topic, this is no longer the case! What an outstanding repositioning of the message of the Qur’an. It is an honor to be among the elite researchers of today releasing the Qur’an from centuries of politically- and culturally-dominated interpretation. May we all maintain open minds and hearts ready to receive new guidance, consider new possibilities, and accept new directions in life that bring us closer to harmony with the universe and with each other.