Lilou Macé – Hello Rhonda

Rhonda – Hi Lilou

Lilou – So happy to interview you again.

Rhonda – Yes, it’s very nice, twice.

Lilou – Yes last time we had a great time obviously like many people, and I had said it this last time but in 2007, 2006 I should say with The Secret I was totally blown away by the law of attraction and start applying it in my own life, and millions of people starting apply… Started back then to apply it. You have produced it, this this great movie and this book, (The Secret Book) that was sold to millions and millions, in different languages all around the world and it was a big success. So before going into your latest co-creation let’s say, which is the manifestation cards (The Secret Manifestation Cards) with Beyond Words and that is also actually in France, hence this interview that will be translated in French.

Rhonda – Yes, yes.

 

Lilou – We’ll go into details with the cards but first I just want to get the overview for the people that don’t know the law of attraction or that might have a misunderstanding about it, could you just say how you view the law of attraction, or how it even has evolved for you since?

 

Rhonda – Yes. I would be happy to do that. Whenever I describe it it’s always in a different way every single time.

 

Lilou – Good.

 

Rhonda – First of all, we create our reality, we create our life, actually moment by moment through the law of attraction. We create it through our thoughts, and through our thoughts only. Our emotions play a part in it because our emotions have a lot of energy and they energize our thoughts, accelerate our thoughts to manifest, but what we think is what we will experience in our life. So instead of thinking about the things that you don’t want, you just need to start to train your mind to think about the things you do want which is thinking positively. Right? Negatively is thinking about what you don’t want and then your life will completely change. Yes, go ahead.

 

Lilou – Yeah, no, no. I think we’ll go into even greater detail with the different cards because there’s this deck of cards that just came out that allows us to be in this motion and be in this energy of manifesting and remembering, remind ourselves of all those principles, so I think it’s great that you have done that. So, we’ll go even in greater details later thoughts are energy you’re saying and there’s three steps to manifesting. Can you remind us, what are those three steps?

 

Rhonda – Oh good for you. The three steps that we give in The Secret are, ‘ask’ which is getting clear about what you want, ‘believe’ that you already have what you want.

 

Lilou – That’s a big one.

 

Rhonda – Yeah, it’s the big one, it’s the main one. And when you believe that you already have it, you will ‘receive’ it. So it’s ‘ask’, ‘believe’, ‘receive’. The moment that you fully believe you already have it, it will manifest. It’s just that simple, so then you have to play kind of games, to have yourself… make yourself believe that you have it already. And why

do we have to believe that we have it already? The reason that we do is because for the law of attraction there’s no time. There’s no time for any law actually, all of the laws of physics they’re operating now, now, now, you know not in the past not the future.

 

Lilou – So it’s like, you would say that past, present, future, are coexisting.

 

Rhonda – Yes exactly. And if we, for example this is how sensitive law of attraction is, if we are wanting to manifest, I don’t know, pair of sneakers that we really want to get, and so where we are thinking about those sneakers as something we’re going to have in the future then we will attract always having to have the sneakers in the future. Right?

 

Lilou – They’ll never come.

 

Rhonda – Yeah, we have to see it as now, because the law of attraction does not care one bit whether it is real or imagined.

 

Lilou – So how do you explain, sorry. How do you explain then that sometimes it’s even better than what we have thought… when it manifests?

 

Rhonda – Yeah, it often is that way. It has been for me, most certainly, but I always make sure that when I want to manifest something that I always say, or more. I always add the words. We tend to limit our lives down to like the size of a pea when we are the most powerful beings in the Universe.  I am always breaking limitations so if I think that I might need x amount of time for something, not to manifest, but x amount of time for something then I will say or less. You know. Or if I’m wanting to manifest… if somebody wanted to manifest money I would never say, I would never like visualize, I want to manifest $10,000. That is so limiting, you have to say or more, or more. Yeah.

 

Lilou – So let’s go straight into one of these cards. I mean the third step, I don’t know if you mention it, but it’s receiving.

 

Rhonda – Receiving and that is… that’s when it manifests. It’s receiving, and for receiving, I mean for receiving you need to feel good. Because something isn’t going to manifest when you’re feeling bad. It’s going to manifest when you’re feeling good.

 

Lilou – Okay.

 

Rhonda – I can go into that but that’s kind of frequencies.

 

Lilou – Yeah. So, you were mentioning… We’re going to go more into, I mean into this topic obviously with the cards. I think it’s because I’m excited with those cards. ‘YOU WERE BORN A CREATOR’, that’s one of them.

 

Rhonda – Yeah.

 

Lilou – Can you comment on that? You were starting to speak about that, the global picture of who we really are, and we don’t even know yet. I mean we’re just starting to discover.

 

Rhonda – We’re just starting, yeah. I mean we’re appearing as an individual person, but that is the smallest part of us. We’re actually never born. The consciousness of us was never born and never dies, it’s completely eternal. Certainly, the body is born and the body ends, but we are far greater than that. It’s that power that we are, there is actually no other power in the Universe than the power that we are. No other. There’s just one power, and that’s us and so that’s why we can manifest things when we have focus, and we believe that we have it, is because the ‘all power’ that we are, is manifesting that.

 

Lilou – You’re saying like another card is, YOU ARE AN ETERNAL BEING, so basically that’s related to that.

 

Rhonda – That’s related to that, yeah. Never born and never die and that applies to every, I want to say not only every human being that appears, but every living being, everything, our pets, our everything. There’s no… and we already know that energy can’t be created or destroyed. If we look at it from an energetic level it can’t be created or destroyed it just transforms. There’s just no death in existence.

 

Lilou – And we are afraid of dying.

 

Rhonda – I know, right? It’s crazy.

 

Lilou – It’s crazy. Yes, so let’s go into the next one. ‘BE AWARE OF YOUR POWER’. So, this is owning it, knowing it, feeling it, how would you describe it? So that because we can’t even cope with it intellectually, so how can we be aware of our power? Are there practices, or what would you recommend so that we get a glimpse of it even?

 

Rhonda – I think it’s always if somebody is beginning, I think it’s always good to start manifesting something small. When they’re manifesting something small then that will help their belief factor. They will begin to see the power that they have, and it’s a really good idea to choose something that when it manifests you absolutely know without a doubt that you created that. I remember we got a story from a guy, and he wanted to manifest this particular feather which he made up in his mind, the colors, blue and all these dots, and all of this kind of thing. He flew to New York for a business meeting, and he was walking into this high-rise building, and he just happened to look down on the ground and there was the feather. Exactly as he imagined it. So of course, he knew without a doubt that he had manifested that. I think to choose something you know that you know for sure, that you did it. Starting with smaller things, car parks, cup of coffee, all of those kinds of things. Even like   what the currency with Euros, but you know X amount of Euro, a note of Euro that you want to manifest.

 

Lilou – How do you know like, you said earlier past present future are coexisting, so how do we know that we’re not getting that thought of that manifestation that we want because it already exists on some levels, you know, it seems like the more we practice the more we kind of fine tuning more easily between all those different temporal lines.

 

Rhonda – Well it’s really interesting that you… no one’s ever noticed that before but when I said before, nothing can be created or destroyed, right? Nothing can be created that means everything already exists. It already exists. So that means every thought already exists.

 

Lilou – That means every possibility exists.

 

Rhonda – Every possibility…

 

Lilou – We might as well claim it.

 

Rhonda – Exactly right. And we get this, we think that oh it’s going to be hard to manifest for example a car. It’s a big deal it costs a lot of money you know that’s going to take a long time to manifest that. But it already exists, otherwise you wouldn’t have the thought of it. It already exists so you’re right, claim it. You know drive the car in your mind, be in the car and do all of those things, and feel the car, and I mean it’s that easy. I would say the difference between now and when I first discovered The Secret is that manifesting is way easier even than when…

 

Lilou – What still gets on your way, is there something, have you discovered something that most human, are you it gets on your way for not manifesting instantly?

 

Rhonda – I think for a lot of people they have beliefs like they don’t deserve it. They didn’t work hard enough for it. One of the things for example that I think so many people have, and if I mention this then the people listening or watching will be able to let this belief go. Most people have the belief that the only way that money can come to them is through their work, through their job. And you know the minute that you believe that you stop the Universe from delivering money to you in all kinds of ways. There are unlimited ways that money can come into each of our lives but if we think the only way that money can come to us, is if it is through our job then, you know, we used the Genie, ‘Your Wish is My Command’, you know. Whatever you think, ‘your wish is my command’. Whatever you think ‘your wish is my command’ We need to break those beliefs that don’t serve us and

instead believe that money can come to us in unlimited unexpected ways.

 

Lilou – Yes. Actually, since everything is coexisting at the same time there is just unlimited amount of money, we might as well claim it again.

 

Rhonda – Exactly.

 

Lilou – ‘CHANGE YOUR THOUGHTS, CHANGE THE FUTURE’. So, this is as you were saying earlier. I’m showing the card, another one.

 

Rhonda – Yes.

 

Lilou – At the end of every day before you go to sleep think through the events of the day, if any events or moment didn’t go the way you want replay them in your mind the way you want them to go. Tell us more about that?

 

Rhonda – I really love this.  I discovered this through a teacher Neville Goddard, and he called it ‘the pruning shears of revision’. I really love it and because you just take something in the day that didn’t go the way that you wanted. Well, the difficulty is if it didn’t go the way that you wanted and you didn’t let it go, you know, completely let it go emotionally and mentally, then we we’ve stored it in our subconscious and it’s going to attract a similar situation. We need to we need to let that energy go out of our body so by going back over the day and seeing something that didn’t go the way that we wanted, and then we replay it, not only are we preventing it from happening again in the future we are actually giving law of attraction something that we want. It’s really fantastic thing, it’s a really fantastic practice to do, really, really great.

 

Lilou – We can do that with our past since its existing right now.

 

Rhonda – Yeah, yeah.

 

Lilou – So impacting our future and our present. There is only really the present then.

 

Rhonda – There is. There’s no past and there’s no future and how do we know that there’s no past and no future well for a start you can’t even get a little toe into the past. Like we can’t step into the past, oh excuse me, I’ll just go back to yesterday, and likewise we absolutely cannot step into the future. And all that ever exists is right now, and I think that is also one of the tricky things for human beings because they’re living in the future in their mind but the problem with that with law of attraction, they will keep attracting the same thing in the future that never exists, and it won’t ever come into their life now.

 

Lilou – I have a manifestation question since it’s called manifestation cards (The Secret Manifestation Cards). Is there any other better way than after actually having done some work on ourselves, liberating some old belief, liberating some trauma, start to sit in the space of nothingness, let’s say, and just let the manifestation come to us instead of imposing them mentally, you know what I mean? Like we have a tendency to want to

fix things, and we want to manifest sometimes for the wrong reason. Whereas there is something really even more effortless that seems to come from the source for us?

 

Rhonda – There is yes… and which is what I do these days rather than… I just feel that the Universe and life will give it to me with way more bows and whistles if I don’t get in

the way of it. That’s because our imagination and our mind is actually limited, except consciousness and the Universe. Consciousness or the Universe is completely unlimited and so we can just by feeling good, just by appreciating, being grateful, and living our life like that, living our life in the present and not believing negative thoughts and getting caught up in anything like that. I mean, oh my gosh, life will be an avalanche of goodness and riches in life. And riches in every area, you know. Riches in health, and relationships, and not just financial. I was talking to a man yesterday and he was actually featured in one of the books HERO and he’s a multi multi-billionaire and he gave away a billion dollars you know. He was telling me yesterday he gave away a billion dollars. Do you know he contacted me when The

Secret came out, and a lot of people did, but just I don’t know for some reason I just responded to him, and he wanted to tell me that this is how he had been successful. He did he did everything that I talked about in The Secret Book, and so we’ve stayed in contact ever since. He does gratitude every single day, his life, he just describes his life, is just incredible. His life is so beautiful when he’s on the phone with me he’s always talking about how beautiful the sunset is that he’s seeing, and I mean he’s just…

 

Lilou – Raising his frequency.

 

Rhonda – …honestly. He’s like the perfect example of living The Secret, absolutely perfect example. His life is incredible he puts no limitations on anything.

 

Lilou – There’s one of the cards. I don’t think I have it here from the selected, but it’s called Gratitude is the riches.

 

Rhonda – Yes. GRATITUDE IS RICHES. What is poverty…

 

Lilou – There several other ones that I have here…

 

Rhonda – Gratitude is riches complaint is poverty. Yeah, that’s one of the things.

 

Lilou – GRATITUDE IS THE GREAT MULTIPLIER. Let’s talk about that one for a second.

 

Rhonda – Yeah okay so in terms of law of attraction, remembering that for law of attraction it is seizing every thought, and it doesn’t care whether that thought is here, or whether that’s a real thought, or whether you’re fabricating, it doesn’t care, it will fulfill. That’s what it will do. It’s just like a giant photocopy machine and it will send what you’re thinking back into your life, as the circumstances of your life. With gratitude if you’re

being grateful for just what you have even if it’s not much, will, just by the law of attraction is automatically set free for the forces to bring you more. It’s the way that it happens, and I just think it’s the easiest way to see law of attraction. Because for a start, when you do gratitude, you feel really, the more that you do it you feel really good. Your heart kind of melts, the mind stops going crazy, and then already, you’re in the most incredible manifesting place because the way to manifest fast is through joy, the highest frequency there is. Then you’re just going to manifest almost instantaneously because you’re in joy and so gratitude has you let go of resistance, and law of attraction will just multiply whatever you’re being grateful. So, you can be grateful for things you don’t have.

 

Lilou – Yeah. There’s another card, HAPPINESS ATTRACTS HAPPINESS. So, this is what we’re talking about, more of that.  the more we emit that the more we receive that.

 

Rhonda – Yes. So every moment each one of us is… we’re vibrating energy and we’re vibrating at a frequency, and how do we know what frequency we’re vibrating at, we can tell by how we’re feeling. For example, if we’re feeling sad, well sadness attracts more sadness, and anger attracts more anger, and we know that. Something goes wrong in the day, and we get angry, and then more things go wrong, and so anger attracts more anger,

happiness attracts more happiness, joy attracts more joy.

 

Lilou – A lot of people talk about how powerful the sound is and the Universe is being created through sound, is there such a sound for you that works great, to to be in those frequency is it maybe, sacred mantras, or maybe it’s songs, or type of music that you personally listen to, to bring you to higher vibration, and switch maybe sometimes to bigger joy?

 

Rhonda – Definitely use music to feel amazing. These days I feel pretty incredible most of the time. I’ve kind of stabilized at a higher level of Happiness earlier I was a little bit like a roller coaster. But just by persisting with it and letting go all the time, and not letting emotions bother me, you kind of sit at joy, but now I forgot your question.

 

Lilou – Whether, like what kind of music would you listen to, your sound to bring your frequency higher? Like examples?

 

Rhonda – Yes, I do. I will listen to music, and I often give that advice to people, if there is a song or a piece of music that you cannot stay still. Like it just fills your body and affects every cell in your body then if you’re feeling low, or you’ve woken up a bit grumpy, or whatever, listen to that song and let that song lift your frequency so you don’t go out into the day grumpy. Because you go out into the day grumpy, guess what you got ahead?

 

Lilou – You’re going to attract grumpy people and grumpy reasons to be grumpy.

 

Rhonda – Yeah rude people.

 

Lilou – (French conversation behind the camera that Lilou must attend to)

 

Rhonda – Is she okay?

 

Lilou – Yes. She is, she was, she’s hungry that’s her way to get attention right now.

Let’s talk about this card, YOUR HEART IS THE SEAT OF YOUR POWER.

 

Rhonda – Oh I know that you just asked me a question, is there a word I use… by the way, and there is a word that I use.

 

Lilou – Yeah

 

Rhonda – And the word is LOVE.

 

Lilou – Love.

 

Rhonda – I will chant that word.

 

Lilou – Love in English or in another language?

 

Rhonda – In English. It doesn’t matter which language, as long as you know what that feels like, but that’s the word that means so much to me, and that’s the word that I feel the frequency of that when we create something new. I really send that into everything we create.

 

Lilou – Wonderful. YOUR HEART IS THE SEAT OF YOUR POWER. So, this is it, you’re talking about love right now in the world, love you’re connecting to the love. To greater love, I guess to the love that there is Source, the Divine love, the Agape love maybe even?

 

 

Rhonda – Yes true. What do I say on that card? Because I can’t remember.

 

Lilou – You say, ‘YOUR HEART IS THE SEAT OF POWER.  Here’s a way to instantly stop a downward negative spiral: Focus on your heart. Breathe in deeply, keeping your focus on your heart, and concentrate on feeling love in your heart. Breathe out while keeping your focus and feeling the love in your heart. Repeat this a total of seven times.

 

 

Rhonda – Yes okay. So, heart breathing is a really big deal. Like I’ve, through heart breathing, I’ve stopped a dog from having a stroke. It takes a little bit of practice to get the feeling. So, we’re just like looking at this central area to feel our heart and the way that I learned to do it was to imagine breathing in and breathing out, that my breath was going in through the heart and out through the heart. I close my eyes and I would breathe in, and then I would breathe out, and just be focusing on the heart. And you can get to a point where you just feel like, all of this tingling joy all through your heart. Then I focus on love and then sending that out. That was something that I did every single day when we were making The Secret and I was having my morning coffee, and I would do that and I would just send it out to the world.

 

Lilou – It seems like the heart is like a portal I mean like each chakra I guess are portals, but this one is quite particular, no?

 

Rhonda – Yes it is. I think so too, it’s a beautiful thing when… I think the Heart Math Association who are here in California called it, when the heart gets all tingly, it’s like a crystallization that’s taking place. Oh my gosh it’s incredible because if you got to that point then what you need to do is think about what you want to manifest, because you’ll manifest it really fast.

 

Lilou – Wow thank you for saying that it’s beautiful. CREATE YOUR TOMORROW TODAY. So some powerful rituals before going to bed you’re saying on this card. Every night, replay the good moments of the day and think about the next day, and intend that it is going to be the best day of your life.

 

Rhonda – Yes it’s really important to…

 

Lilou – that it is going to be the best day of your life, sorry, yes.

 

 

Rhonda – Yes, it’s really important to choose, you know we need to make decisions and we need to choose what we want to happen in our lives. Just to wake up and go into the day and not have made any choice, what happens then is you’re going to experience other people’s choices and they might not be good. Generally, they’re not. So, you need to say, you just need to say, you’re the all power, you can say what kind of day you’re going to have. To do it the night before you know going back over the day and looking for the best thing that happened that day, or the good moments of the day, kind of has your heart melt a bit which then makes you way more powerful for setting intentions for the next day, but everybody, set intentions. Set intentions before you go to the dentist, before you go to the doctor, before you have a test, before you do exams, you know, before you get married, before you go to dinner, you know. Set intentions before you drive the car.

 

Lilou – I love there is something with Access Consciousness and they have this little sentence too that says, ‘how does it get any better than this’. I love it when I manifest something to keep on opening it up, instead of, ‘oh my God’ this is so great that this is how good as it gets, or I don’t know what sentence we put out there at that time.

 

Rhonda – Yeah, yeah.

 

Lilou – Topping it.

 

Rhonda – Yeah topping it exactly, limiting it.

 

Lilou – Ah instead of keeping on opening this beautiful space but then at some point we get a little bit anxious, no? It’s so big and it seems out of control, and we keep on manifesting bigger. Did you fell this already in comfort of ‘oh my God’ this is it, it’s manifesting and all

of a sudden it keeps on opening, opening, opening and all of a sudden, it’s kind of like climaxing to this level where it’s too much?

 

Rhonda – Yes certainly with The Secret, I felt that because it was just so massive. So massive at the time when it went around the world. I never kind of felt it was too much though because, all the only thing that I needed to rein in was the media, you know, because it was just every radio program in the world, every newspaper, every television show wanted me on it and I wasn’t interested in in doing that. I wasn’t interested in having… trying to prove anything. The Secret was sharing what I knew was the absolute truth for those people who wanted it, and I wasn’t out to go proving anything with any journalists, or… So I was very particular but I had a media background so I had good training to just do Oprah, and you know.

 

Lilou – That was a safe one, yeah. That was a good card, Oprah card fine.

 

Rhonda – Exactly.

 

Lilou – There is one here, just few more. EVERYTHING IS ON TRACK – ALWAYS. that’s a good thing to remind ourselves.

 

Rhonda – Yes. It’s one of the questions that if I’m meeting some new people, I can just about guarantee you that they will say, can I ask you a question? ‘Oh my gosh what about the world, the current state of the world, and everything that’s happening.’ And it is really challenging you know, but I’ve listened to recordings of the 1930s where teachers are saying, ‘I know it’s really hard times the world is in a terrible state at the moment’, and so it’s actually no different than it was back then. When something’s happened already, what we need to appreciate and understand and accept, is that that was the way that it was going to happen, because it’s already happened. So everything is on track, and always, always, always and none of us die. That’s the thing you know to understand, right? When you say everything is on track, none of us die, and it is even greater than that, but no one dies.

 

Lilou – See what is even greater than that.

 

Rhonda – Oh okay, that no one is hurt or harmed. Ever. Yeah.

 

Lilou – Ever.

 

Rhonda – Ultimately ever.

 

Lilou – So it’s an illusion we have? There seems to be quite a lot of Illusions we’re having.

 

Rhonda – Oh yeah there’s a lot, and they’re very convincing aren’t they.

 

Lilou – They are, they feel real.

 

Rhonda – They’re so convincing but I just think certainly every single one of us will have times in our life of suffering, but through that suffering we come out the other end and we have learned a lot, we’re wiser, we’re way better for it, we’re far more compassionate…

 

Lilou – Yes

 

Rhonda – … to other people than we were before it occurred. Like if you have… if you lose somebody very close to you from that moment on you will be a strength to other people that are going through that. All of those things help to shape us and let us experience. I remember my mentor, a mentor of mine from Canary Island said to me when I was going

through really challenging event, and he said to me, ‘God never gives us anything that we don’t have the ability to overcome’. And he said, ‘you’ve been given this because you can overcome it’. And it was just like…

 

Lilou – Breathe into that. Haha!

 

Rhonda – Haha!

 

Lilou – Yes. There’s this other one, PROSPERITY IS YOUR BIRTHRIGHT, and everyday think thoughts of abundance, be happy now, be grateful. I mean I feel we have already spoken about that one, but this is a good one to pick up here and there.

 

Rhonda – Everything like… We if we look at it from a Consciousness level, we own everything in the world. We’re incredibly wealthy because everything is ours. There is on a spiritual level, there’s only one. One being so that means that absolutely everything belongs to us but aside from that on the earth level and on the physical level prosperity is ours and it is naturally ours. Everybody would be prosperous and there’s no limit to that prosperity it’s not as though only some people can have it, like it currently is, and others can’t. No there’s absolutely no limit to it and so why isn’t everybody prosperous, because the majority of

people are thinking about a lack of money rather than prosperity, right?

 

Lilou – Yes

 

Rhonda – They’re focusing on not enough, what they don’t have, you know, that they don’t deserve something, if they didn’t, you know, nearly kill themselves working to get it. So all of those kinds of beliefs prevent the prosperity from naturally pouring in. I mean we are the ones that’s stopping it.

 

Lilou – Right and prosperity is not an end in itself neither.

 

Rhonda – No it’s not. No it’s not, like I think the answer for anybody and I say it in The Secret Book and it’s just like so simple, is if you could just choose to be happy now no matter what, you do your best to be happy each day, set an intention, ‘I’m going to be as happy as I can be tomorrow’ and you get yourself stabilized on that high frequency, honestly you do not have to visualize or imagine anything. It’ll just all come.

 

Lilou – So just pick, pick a card, pick a card every day, every morning, that’s the ritual that you propose to us every day pick a card and put it there, set it there, and focus on that the whole day.

 

Rhonda – Exactly. Exactly. Because that will stop our mind from taking us down a track that sabotages our life and instead will put us on a track that enhances our life.

 

Lilou – Beautiful. Well thank you so much Rhonda. So exciting to have you today, thank you so much for being available, and shining your love and light as always.

 

Rhonda – Thank you, thank you, thank you Lilou. Much love.

 

Lilou – Thank you and yes. Please share this video if you liked it. Obviously, it’s in French too so we can go all around the world to many, many countries. Sending you much love and see you later. Bye!

 

Rhonda – Bye!

Podcaster, Kelly Noonan Gores, hosts creator and author of The Secret, Rhonda Byrne on the HEAL podcast, as they talk about The Secret’s influence on global consciousness, the worldwide movement it sparked, and Rhonda’s latest creation: The Secret Manifestation Cards.

Click below to watch the video or scroll down for a full transcript of the conversation.

Kelly Noonan Gores – Hey everyone and welcome to the HEAL podcast. I am beyond over the moon thrilled with my guest today. Miss Rhonda Byrne, Creator and the Executive Producer of The Secret, and the book The Secret which has just taken the world by storm, and was on the New York Times bestseller list for I think for over 200 weeks, the top of the bestseller list. I mean she’s just sold 34millions copies and her work, your work Rhonda has changed my life, and was a big precursor honestly to me making HEAL so it is a long time coming but I just really appreciate you coming on the show and telling us about The Secret.

Rhonda – Oh wow thank you so much and that makes me really happy if it inspired you because HEAL is fantastic. I just think the more people that can get out there and talk about the truth the world will be way better for it. It’s such a joy to be here so thank you for having me.

 

Kelly – Thank you, such a joy. So yes, The Secret, I watched The Secret in, I think 2007 and I started to apply the gratitude journaling, you know obviously I shifted my perception of life, I was like, whoa! We aren’t victims of life we are co-creators and that was so empowering and the practice that I put into right away was gratitude journaling because I’ve always been a writer so I was writing ‘as if’ I had the thing that I desired, and in three months I manifested this job that I didn’t even know existed and all of a sudden I was making the money and getting, you know, the things that I was dreaming about, and giving thanks for in my journal, I was able to access now with this new job. It was wild so, I became a believer, and you know my life was proof that it works, you know.

 

Rhonda – Yeah, I was a believer, boy. I’m a believer, big time. And even if I think about to go back to when we first made The Secret and when we were making the documentary, we were at the very same time practicing it. So, making mistakes and then getting it right, and all of those kinds of things, but if I think back to then, and then think about my journey from then to now and how much more that I’ve come to understand, it’s just, it’s way more. You know, now I don’t believe now, I know, it is absolutely it. If you want to have a really good life and just do and be and have all the things you want to have, it is all based on mental and emotions, it’s that, you know, it’s not hard it’s that easy and somehow people kind of sabotage themselves. Every day more people become freer and that’s what I dream about.

Kelly – Well I’d like to go back to the very beginning, I think it was, you know, as I was taking notes it was September 9^th at like 9 o’clock or the Great Awakening 999.

 

Rhonda – yep.

 

Kelly – I’d love for you to tell that story of the awakening to The Secret and then knowing you had to share it and then I have some questions because I am in awe of how just, with that, I want to know more about the awakening, and then how the conviction that you had, in spite of having no evidence to believe that at the time.

Rhonda – Yeah true. Okay so let’s go the story first and then we can go to the conviction. So 2004 was a really rough year for me. It kind of began with my father dying suddenly on the 1^st of March and my parents just had the greatest love affair I’ve ever seen. It was devasting to wake up one day and just like that he was gone. My mother was in such grief and that year I was…. I have a production company and that year we were making documentaries, well actually no they were more like kind of films, but on unsolved murders, of all things…

 

Kelly – Yeah.

 

Rhonda – …of all things. So we have six of those going and I had heaps of crews and edit suites, and we really prided ourselves on the fact that we had amazing teams of people, and the production values of everything we made and how we treated our staff, except with this everything that could go wrong went wrong. I mean I was on a frequency of grief, and you know if I think about it, I probably was the cause of all of it. Everything that could have gone wrong went wrong. I was sleeping on edit suite floors, I wasn’t seeing my family, I wasn’t seeing my friends, health was in a really bad way, and then on the 9^th of September I got a phone call from my accountant saying, ‘you are going to lose everything in 30 days because you’ve gone over budget, $2million over.’ It makes it sound like a had millions of dollars around me, I didn’t. How could we be $2million in debt? He said you are going to lose everything. I was just like, I fixed everything my whole life. You know if there had been a problem, yeah, I’ll fix it. This was just overwhelming, like your whole life flashes before you. I hung up the phone and it was a hard line at the time, oh gosh. I hung up the phone and as I hung up it rang again, immediately, and so I thought it was him back, and it was my mother, but I couldn’t even recognize her voice, she was so grief stricken. She said she can’t go on. Oh gosh. So, I talked to her for a while, she lived a long way away from me and I told her I’d be there in the morning, and I talked her through until I felt she was good, and then I hung from her. Here I had two things that I just couldn’t fix. Like, how could I fix these things? I remember I was in an apartment, and I stepped out onto the balcony, and I just went into absolute despair. I’ve thought about that moment so many times because I think what I did was I completely and utterly surrendered. It was too much you know; it was all too much, and I was weeping, weeping and my daughter saw me and came out and said, ‘what’s wrong?’ I didn’t really want to go into it though, and I just said, some things have gone wrong. What would she have been, a teenager, early 20s or something like that, and anyway she just shrugged her shoulders, disappeared, and came back with this crumpled up photocopied lump of paper with a bulldog clip on it, and said, ‘here read this, it will help.’ I mean, bizarre, bizarre, right? And what’s more I went inside, I sat on the… I staggered to the edge of the sofa, and I started reading it. My tears were hitting the paper, and the ink was running and everything, and I’m reading this in 1 1/2 hours my life totally changed. Everything that I believed was true was, I knew was not, and that book everybody’s thinking what was it that she read? We have it to download, and it is a book from 1910 by Wallace Wattles, and it was ‘The Science of Getting Rich’ which was about getting rich in life. When I finished that book, I understood way more than what was in that book, way more. I knew so much, but anyway, that was the beginning, and basically what I did from there was I read every one of Wallace Wattles’ books, I then looked to see who his mentor was. Then I read every book of his mentor, and then I look to see who that person’s mentor was, and I read every book of theirs and I went back through history mentor, mentor, mentor, mentor until I got to… well I went all the way back to the Emerald tablet which was thousands of years BC.

 

Kelly – Pretty far, yeah.

 

Rhonda – I just kept going back through history. That was what I did first, I didn’t talk to anybody about it. Then I just kept researching and it was amazing because wherever I looked, I saw it. You know, in all religions and all teachings and I could see it was everywhere, but if you didn’t know what you were looking for, or you didn’t know what it was, you would completely miss it. I thought about all the people that I knew, and I looked out at the world and so few people know this, no one knows this, no one knows this. I was determined that I would share it with the world. I mean I had a production company, so I did have a way of doing that. So, the first thing I did was that I went to my accountant that said I was going to lose everything in 30 days, and I said to him, ‘we’re about to make something that is going to change the world. I don’t know what you’re going to do but you have to keep me afloat so I can make this.’ You know to this day I really don’t even know where the money came from. When we needed money to pay the team, I would suddenly get a check from a UK show that we made and they’d done repeats or something, and it was enough to pay the team. That was the beginning of the most exciting incredible journey of my life. And everything that happened in the making of it, could make the best ever movie.

 

Kelly – Oh I bet. Please make that movie. It’s so interesting because I know a lot of people that resonated with The Secret but then tried to apply it and got stuck, and I think for me, just in researching having you come on, because The Secret was such a huge part. I watched it. It changed my life, and then I was like when I started learning about co-creation, and how it had to do with health and epigenetics, and we’re not victims of our genes. I literally was like everybody has to know this, and I read Anita Moorjani’s story of the near-death experience and how her physical body was as far gone is it could possibly be and with the shifting consciousness, she came through it and healed, so that so much more is possible. Like you, I just have to make this film, everybody needs to know this. I applied it to my life but then I feel that I forget. Like I know how powerful it is and I’ve manifested an amazing incredible life, but then I’ve had like one of the toughest years of my life. I’ve gotten derailed and just in the last days leading up to this just getting back and absorbed into your work and getting out your manifestation deck, and pulling cards, I was like, oh my god it is so easy, but then this morning happened, and something happened. Last night I was so inspired, and I was my gosh, all knowing, and as you were talking about it, it’s almost like a remembrance, I was remembering her we really are, and remembering how it really works.

 

So I got so excited last night and felt so empowered and then I woke up in the morning and it’s been happening with every interview, like something derails me to teach me the exact lesson, to go talk about it in the interview. I just got knocked off by this intense conversation this morning, and then I went to tennis, and I couldn’t get it out of my head, so I played bad tennis, and I’m thinking of you, and okay, how do I get back to the positive side? I was just consciously being aware but then still struggling on how to get back to positivity and wanting to feel good. And then on the way to this interview something, a work issue came up, that was total mercury retrograde and I was like, this stress was coming. How do we not forget this? When life throws you something that sends you into fear or terror, how do we pull ourselves out of it? I think that people struggle with the… people struggle with the belief because they get caught in the how, Like, how is this going to happen? How is this going to get better? How is this going to go good?

 

Rhonda – I think… There are various levels and The Secret I think it the very first step to absolute freedom, and there is a level beyond that as well which is, we can talk about that, or not, but with The Secret, you’re dealing with the mind, and the mind is a slippery little sucker, because it will… I don’t know it thwarts every single person, everyone has a mind, and everyone has that chatter going on, and on, and on, and so when something, when something really tricky comes along or something challenging comes along, I mean the mind just loves that energy, loves that emotional energy, loves the stress and the mind is also bringing the emotion. It is our thoughts and emotions, so it’s bringing all of that and you can just feel everything in your body, like every cell in your body is feeling stressed and the way to get around that is to be practising every day. Because if you’re practising every day you’re retraining your mind to be picking out the positive instead of the negative. You’re also changing your frequency, going up, up, up because the kinds of things you’re talking about they’re just all on that really stressful frequency, so when you had one thing wrong and you went down with that, then on that frequency are all the all of those other things…

 

Kelly – right.

 

Rhonda – …and you just get them one after the other, after the other, and so that you’re not down on that frequency, if your practising every day if you’re doing like gratitude every day or whether you’re writing it down, or whether you’re reciting it, whether you are doing affirmations, visualisation, when we are working from the mental plan it’s so important to maintain it, because if we don’t maintain it, then we will slip and we will have trouble with something that comes along. The way to avoid all of that is to be practising. It’s kind of cumulative so you don’t have to be sitting down doing gratitude every morning, but in the beginning you do, and in the beginning, I would say absolutely. What I used to do when we were making The Secret was not get out of bed until I had tears of gratitude in my eyes.

I would go through all the gratitude of all the people that I’m grateful for, and everything that I’m grateful for, and then when I had tears in my eyes, because I knew then I had really released all resistance, and that I had a complete meltdown and that my frequency was incredible to go ahead and make The Secret. That was what I did, and I did it every day. I don’t do it these days, but I do say thank you as I walk to the bathroom, and if something goes a little pear-shaped in my life, immediately I do gratitude. Immediately. When we are working from the mind, it’s just a program, that is all it is. When we are working from the mind, we really need to be putting the positivity in and then you just won’t have the same reaction when something comes along. It won’t affect you the same way you won’t say it is such a big problem. It will just be water off your back and the one thing is for sure you won’t have all the other things that follow. It just won’t be the same severity. I was so aware of my frequency and that I needed to feel good to make The Secret that if I woke up and I was sort of a bit, you know wasn’t feeling good, I didn’t look at my emails and I didn’t answer my phone. Because I knew that on that frequency things can come in and I did not want them and so I would just sit down and I would do gratitude or do whatever until I felt really good then I would look at my emails, then I would answer my phone.

 

Kelly – That is so great because with the power to be a co-creator in life that comes with responsibility so you’re taking full responsibility for what frequency you are on, and that takes practice, especially if you’re starting later in life, to develop those habits and practice the awareness and know what you’re feeling, to know when you’re triggered, to know what you’re thinking, and when your thoughts get like a train barrelling down the track of negativity. So, it’s so great to have that responsibility because if you are on that frequency and then you open an email and it’s spiralling the wrong way, you’re blaming other people and then you’re going to talk about blame and how of a sudden whatever you’re projecting onto someone else you’re manifesting for yourself.

 

Rhonda – You sure are. Yeah, because if you’re blaming someone else you’ve just ordered up some blame for you.

 

Kelly – Right.

 

Rhonda – Because the law of attraction or whatever you want to call that mechanism that is in place with our mind and thoughts, there’s only one, it’s only operating through the thoughts that are coming through you, but through that person too. But for law of attraction there’s just this one, just this one, and so blame brings blame. Joy brings joy. Sadness brings sadness. I mean it’s tricky when you get in those low frequencies to try and get yourself up and out of them. There’s two ways to do that, one is to do gratitude, or think about all the things that will sort of gradually lift you up, and the other one is to make friends with the emotion, and to totally accept it, and completely put your arms around it, and it will dissolve.

 

Kelly – Yeah, which our tendency is to resist.

 

Rhonda – That’s right, yeah.

 

Kelly – Sort of be okay with it.

 

Rhonda – The resistance is what accelerates it. The resistance intensifies it, so resistance guarantees it’s going to come back through another circumstance. It is so interesting.

 

Kelly – The same with we get stuck in victimhood which then takes us out of the power position of co-creator with life and giving our power away to someone other than us. I think it’s so, to get out of that we really have to believe that the universe is the benevolent intelligence and is for us, and all of our circumstances, however painful, or challenging, or traumatic, all was meant to be to lead us to this moment. And I know you talk about that for people that are stuck in battling a disease, or in financial ruin, how do we remind them, or how do we remember that everything is truly happening… on track. Everything is on track always. This is one of your cards, your beautiful The Secret Manifestation Cards. How do we believe that in the moment?

 

Rhonda – I know it can be really challenging. It can be challenging for the mind. The mind probably isn’t going to believe it, but the greater part of us knows it is the absolute truth. For a start for me I know there’s no such thing as death. I knew that when I read that book. I know there’s no death, most certainly the body ends but consciousness never does. We are eternal, and so we are in it for a long, long, long haul. So even with a diagnosis, we all have to drop this body at some time or another, but it isn’t the end, as you know very well, with Anita Moorjani, her story was incredible. There’s an easing in there already, but when we get all tense and we’re resisting life and we’re saying no, no, no, we are making it worse. That is the tricky part about it. We need to be able to shift ourselves and just feel better, and I’ve had heaps and heaps of things that were super, super, challenging and I had to shift myself and I have to move myself off the frequency that I was on. And even to a point like there was one when my daughter was very unwell, and I just had so many scary thoughts that took me right down and into depression, really fast. When I hit there, I knew where I was, and so I started to try and think better thoughts to get myself up and off that frequency. I am and I knew when I was on it. I knew. Oh, I’m here for a reason, because there’s something in here that’s going to help people. I tried using thoughts and what I found when I was there that the thoughts were really weak. They don’t have the same kind of power and that’s like a self-protection mechanism because we don’t have good thoughts when we are down that low. So, what I did was, I just love that depression. I really put my arms around it, and loved it, and that was hard to do because when I went to do it, it would intensify just for like a second, just a second but enough for you to go whoa. But it dissolved, it absolutely dissolved, and then there I was, full of light, no dark cloud and after a couple of hours it came back a little bit, but nothing like it was. I just did the same thing dissolved again, and so in a couple of days it was totally gone. Totally. That taught me another way to deal with really difficult situations. If we just understand that resisting will make it worse, and saying no, and why did this happen, resisting and fighting and all of those kinds of things are making it worse, and love will completely dissolve it. And gratitude of course is really a form of love. Love, gratitude, appreciation. I used to do all of these things where I’d do these love rampages, and I would just start off by, I love it when the sky is blue like this, I love it when the mornings are fresh, I absolutely love California, I love all the palm trees in California, and I would just go on, on, on, and after 17 seconds law of attraction kicks in and gives you way more thoughts. I would just do this rampage and then I would feel incredible. Like for a few minutes and then I would feel amazing. I came up with so many tricks, things to do to get myself out of the funk because I knew that when I could do that my life would change. And I had heaps of fearful events, and all kinds of things that I went through, but I was just determined that I wouldn’t sink with a ship. That I would just lift myself up because all we have to do is change here and everything out there will change. Like if we have to change the world, how hard would that be? You know try and change the world.

 

Kelly – Yeah.

 

Rhonda – Fight the world. All we have to do with changing here, it’s so simple really.

 

Kelly – Yeah, oh my gosh. You say that on the frequency of joy you’ve got everything that you want. I quoted you on that in a little story I posted this morning. You talk about it if you’re in joy you manifest quickly. I’d love for you to talk a little bit about timing because I know people are like, I’ve been doing this, and nothing is working. Is there ever a time where you’re desiring something, and you’re feeling as if, you’re doing what you think is right is there ever a time where you like? Maybe it’s just not meant for me, and you change course, or is it more that you think a factor of deep down, we don’t believe we’re worthy of receiving?

 

Rhonda – Yes. I think that’s mostly it. I think it’s mostly it for people that are visualising. I mean if they believe they have it, you believe, it will manifest, as simple as that. You believe it will manifest. You can’t stop it. It’s going to manifest, so if it hasn’t manifested then, it’s not… there’s not the full belief. We could feel like we are believing, but there could be another belief from our childhood or from earlier in our life, that is one that where I don’t deserve it. Because all of those things you have to work hard and struggle you know, nothing comes for free, like all of those kinds of things which are so not true.

 

Kelly – Yeah.

 

Rhonda – Everything goods comes for free. So, you have all of those things that have been fed into us and take up their positioning in the subconscious mind, so the thing about manifesting is the more you visualise and the more you feel that you have it, the more that you’re going to push that unworthy belief down lower and your belief will rise above it and it will manifest.

 

Kelly – Amazing, and then, just because you’re so in practice and enlightened and aware and remember much more regularly than most of us, how do you explain… What is your view of can everybody, if everybody woke up to your knowing, is the end goal of life like utopian or where everyone’s manifesting, or is there always going to be a balance of negative frequency and negative manifesting that puts the pressure on us to grow? You know what I’m saying? You know what I mean? Why would God allow wars and a lot of suffering, to a point of the suffering and the challenges make us who we are, but is there some balance that it always has to be in existence on earth of light and dark?

 

Rhonda – Well we are in a duality. There’s up and there’s down, so we have the appearance of two of everything. You know good and bad, positive and negative, so we are in duality, and we do have that experience and that’s why you see all of these things happening around the world, and I guess it’s just humanity’s journey, but in the end, yes, it is utopia, for every single being, not one is excluded. It is knowing that you’re completely free, knowing the divinity that you really are, and that you are 100% joy love clarity, freedom, all of those things, beauty, like every single one of us, innocence is what we are, beauty, freedom, joy, so we don’t experience that here but for some darn reason we wanted to have this experience. We wanted to experience what it was like to get hurt, or to feel sad, because we’re all the time in joy. So, we are having this experience but for me, for my journey, there is according to the teachings, no one hurts, or no one harms. So, no one dies, and no one hurts or harms and sure I can think of heaps of experiences where I’ve felt hurt, but ultimately, is what the teachings say, ultimately no one is hurt or harmed because it’s really just like a dream. And in a dream, we’re not hurt or harmed right, where it feels like we are, but we’re not. Yes, it’s probably a long way away.

 

Kelly – Yeah.

 

Rhonda – It’s probably some years away, it’s probably some years away, but I want people to know that they can have heaven on Earth now, they can. This is what I think is so incredible about this time now, because in our history there are just a very small amount of human beings that found that heaven on Earth. Now there are a lot more, and the way to begin is to control the mind. That’s the first step. I truly believe, that was my first step, and I am convinced it was so easy. I felt it was so easy to do, put on a piece of music, do anything to feel better. Just do anything to feel better, know it’s the most important thing and do anything you can to feel better. I’m not saying deny anything that’s happening because that’s no good either, to deny anything that’s happening, but when you feel… You know what it’s like, if you have a problem and you have a problem when you go to bed, you can’t sleep, and you toss and turn and then you get to sleep and you wake up in the morning and it doesn’t even seem nearly as bad as I did the night before. That just shows you that the different perspective that we can have just in a few hours.

 

Kelly – Yes.

 

Rhonda – You can go through life and things will happen, but they just don’t affect you in the same way, like the way that those things affected you like the phone call affected you, and sort of threw you off. To go through life where nothing affects you like that. You’re just not affected, no emotions come up, nothing bothers you anymore, and really the way to do that is to first of all train your mind to have control of the mind, and then you control the world. When you do that and then you can move on to the next stage after that, which is not resisting any emotions or any anything that appears that you think is negative, and not resisting it. Being okay with it because I think it was Byron Katie that said, ‘if you fight life, you will lose every single time.’

 

Kelly – Totally

 

Rhonda – We’re always trying to fight things that have already happened, right? It’s already happened but if you have control of your mind, you can take something that’s already happened, and you can totally turn it around. On a mental level you can totally turn it around.

 

Kelly – Yeah.

 

Rhonda – You’ve got to think about what you want. What do I want? What do I want? What do I want? And the minds going, I don’t want this. I don’t want this, and you have to be, I want and think about what you want. Think about what you want. Think about what you want.

 

Kelly – And know that… we don’t realise how much we limit ourselves, acting as if. Can you tell a story, one of your favourite stories of… there was just no way whether it was with you, or one of your millions of followers who have shared stories with you, where there was no way that they could get what they wanted, but they acted as if and then it appeared? I really think we get trapped with people, well I get this much in my pay check and there’s no way I can afford this. They’re limiting the universe opportunities that weren’t even in their consciousness, so how do we keep those limits off of us, and not focus on the how and focus on what we want?

 

Rhonda – One of the things is that there is kind of a world belief that money only comes to me through my salary, or my work, right? Most people believe that. That’s what they believe and so if you think about that, that is stopping the Universe from giving them unexpected money from everywhere, from everywhere. The very first thing to do is to do an affirmation that overrides that believe that the world gave us, and to say, ‘money comes to me from everywhere for from all unexpected ways’ and to really say it until you start to see that money coming in. So that’s a really simple example, but I remember there was this woman who wanted to buy a horse and she couldn’t afford it. There was absolutely no way she could afford a horse, so what she did was she went and got a bridle. I’m not a horsey person but she went and got a bridle… Even though my daughter absolutely loves horses… So, she bought something really simple and she put it on her kitchen table. She was saying to the Universe I have the bridle and there’s an absence of the horse. Because I am convinced that the Universe abhors a vacuum. I proved it time and time again, abhors a vacuum so you’ve got to create the vacuum, so she did that. That’s exactly what she did. She got that and put it on her kitchen table, and she looked at it every day as though that belong to the horse that she had. She got a horse for nothing and the way she got it was through this person, this person, this event, that event, like this whole string of things, and she got this most incredible horse and that’s just the way it works. All she did was to do that, was to have a bridle. I remember there is one other story of this woman who was walking, she was going to a meeting, I think she was in the UK, and she walked past a bridal store. She wanted to meet her perfect partner, and she went on all the dating things, and she couldn’t meet anyone. Any way she walked past a bridal store and for some reason and she had no idea why she went into that bridal store and tried on a bridal dress. She didn’t have a partner she had nothing, and she bought it. She bought the dress. She walked out the door and she actually physically ran into a guy. Ran into this guy and ended up going to a meeting, having a coffee with this guy, who she ended up by marrying. She created the vacuum, she really did. There are lots of amazing, amazing stories like that. I remember the spanx lady.. I’ve forgotten her name. She asked the Universe for a $1 billion idea.

 

Kelly – And Spanx came. Wow.

 

Rhonda – And she had her scissors and cut out all the things, and that’s what you got. $1 billion idea. You can ask for anything. Oh, thank you, yes Sarah Blakley.

 

Kelly – They were there holding up the sign.

 

Rhonda – Yep, they were.

 

Kelly – I love those examples and to create a vacuum. So many people are going to walk away from this and think about what vacuum I can create. And how can I act as if. Just so cool. For parents listening and you mentioned on it before with your daughter, say God forbid your child is going through leukaemia or something devastating that you feel powerless over, or your son is struggling with drug addiction, and you want to change it for them. What advice about us do you give parents when their child… when they feel helpless in helping their child? Can we manifest for someone else?

 

Rhonda – Well it is a really interesting question, that question, because each of us is an individual creator by rights, no one can create in our life, however if somebody is sick and a child is sick and they really want to be well, then if you add your power to that, then you are really adding a lot of energy you see. So, if you see them well, for example, if they are six years old, see their 10th birthday, see their 21st birthday, close your eyes, see it, see everyone there, see them well. If that child wants that too, and we automatically think they would, but we don’t know we are not inside them, so if they wanted to then you’re adding really good energy and it makes a huge, huge, difference. What was your other question with that?

 

Kelly – Just an example of that, like a child and a relationship, or they’re addicted to drugs, and you want to pull them out of that?

 

Rhonda – So with drug addiction, it’s a real tricky one because it’s obvious. Everything that occurs to us is a part of our journey, right? That is the journey that we were going to have. If that person, and we already know this don’t we? Come to think of it, that the ones that kick drug addiction, or alcoholism are the ones that just decided they’ve had enough. And it’s all about that person has to really want it, and then I’ll be able to be free of it. So, it’s just occurred to me how that it is so important that they really really want it. I’ve had a lot to do in that area of drug addiction, and I know I’ve been to lots of, I haven’t suffered from any drug addiction, but I’ve been to lots of meetings, and one of the things that I realised with people that speak at meetings whether it’s AA or drug addiction, it’s those ones that stand up and speak and tell their story are very conscious. I know part of those organisations are on a spiritual journey and it’s a must. I think that’s absolutely fantastic that it is. I think they’re incredibly inspiring and I’ve looked around at the people that are there. and some make it, and some don’t. If you have somebody that absolutely isn’t going to stop, won’t stop, what can any parent do? Still, I would see them as free. I would see them as free, and free of that, and in joy. One of the things that we can tend to think as a parent, we have this idea of this life that we want our children to live, right? We want them to be happy and this and that and have a family and everything, but sometimes that’s just not going to be the case. And we think that is the best ever life that they can have, and then they might be having a life that’s just our worst nightmare but that doesn’t mean that that life is not the most important life they can be living. You know for their journey, the most important life they can be living, because if they’re living it, then it is the most important life they can be living. I just offer that thought as well that we have such a tiny perspective of it, do we not? It’s like we’re looking through a keyhole. We can’t see all the bigger picture of that no one dies and ultimately no one is hurt or harmed and that we’re eternal. We can’t see that bigger picture and where like looking at this little, tiny, tiny little, little thing, and maybe if we could see the bigger picture, we would say that every experience that every one of us has is gold. And essential for the growth of that being and beautiful because it’s taking them to the next step.

 

Kelly – It is that belief that we are all… I’ve said this so many times, I think people might be sick of it now, but we are the little fraction of the divine, and we are here, experiencing different aspects as humans, physical beings having… spiritual beings having a physical experience, and so as you’re speaking, it is really about, surrendering, and giving up resistance, and stop should-ing, it should be this way, it should be that way, needs to be this way for me to be happy, and really surrendering and accepting that things are unfolding really perfectly.

 

Rhonda – They are.

 

Kelly – What everybody needs to realise what you’re speaking about, it’s all really about the mind and the mind is designed and hardwired to look for threats and danger, and survival, and you’re just giving us the reins rather than letting it go loose into negative manifestation, which is focusing on the worst case scenario or spiralling in fear, and focusing on what we don’t want. It’s literally equal and opposite just as powerful, but no one has been taught to do it, and just taking the reins of your mind and training it every day with manifestation cards and gratitude work, with all these tricks and tools to get into joy and just feeling better that it’s your mind and your thoughts and your emotions, and really just learning how to harness the power of the mind rather than if we leave it to our own devices which most of us do, we are just going to be complaining, victims, powerless, and at the mercy of resisting all the shit that life throws at us.

 

Rhonda – Yeah.

 

Kelly – And that’s heaven or hell.

 

Rhonda – Yes, yes. And it’s not the outside circumstances, we think it is, we’re so sure it is, but all our suffering comes from the mind, all of it, all of it. I remember this really wonderful teacher in his 80s, and he said these wonderful words, and I was just like wow he said, ‘what’s the problem if we don’t think about it.’ And you know if you don’t think about it, suddenly everything is just here as it is, and then if you think about it, and then there’s the problem. People would say, but it’s not going away, well there’s the thought. And the thing is, is that when we give up our resistance and we actually do kind of relax and surrender everything changes. that’s the amazing thing about it.

 

Kelly – Yeah like you said with sleeping earlier you stop the momentum. Do something differently, or stop focusing on it, and stop obsessing, and go and do something that’s going to change your state of feeling, change your thoughts and then all of a sudden, the aperture opens and new solutions to the problem come in to your awareness because you’re not cutting off, by grasping or obsessing.

 

Rhonda – Yeah and you know it was the very reason that we did the cards actually was to try and keep everybody on track, because in this busy life it’s nothing to pull a card in the morning, if you have it, and then you read it. Then it is impossible for your frequency, if you read a card for your frequency to be the same after you’ve read it as it was before. Something changed and you just with reading that card, and then how deeply are you hearing the words, will also affect the degree of change. I’ve always been really big about gratitude in the morning because that changes your frequency and the day that you then step in to believe, is a completely different day from the one that you were going to live without the gratitude. So, it’s the same for me with the cards, you take a card, and you read that card, and now your day is different depending on the degree that you hear those words. that are just the truth, and to keep you on track, so that you have a really great day, and keep training that mind, which is just a program. That’s all it is, it’s just a program and you’re training it to be positive. I know because that is what I experienced. That is what I did. I mean I trained the mind to be positive and when you do that you can’t really… like law of attraction doesn’t let you see the nasty things. Like you’ll be walking down the street, and you just turn the corner and then there’s a brawl that happened on that street, but you could not possibly be in that vicinity of that brawl, because you are not a match to it. You are not a frequency match to it, at all. If somebody and it rarely, rarely ever happens to me and I can’t remember the last time it happened, but you’re driving a car and someone toots at me. Wow! I’m so grateful to them. I’m so grateful because this… I would use all of the outside world to tell me I need to lift my frequency, and that toot is telling me lift your frequency because if you feel good you are not tooted. It’s not possible. Haha!

 

Kelly – That’s hahaha!

 

Rhonda – It’s not on that frequency. It’s not on that frequency, it just isn’t. I would use everything like if an ambulance, or a fire engine, or a police car, or if somebody yells something out somewhere that was kind of aggressive or something like that, if I went into a store, and the person was absolutely gorgeous, and you wanted to be their best friend, if they weren’t like that, if they were snooty and rude, I’d be like, I have to change my frequency, and I would start to do steps of gratitude. Yeah, because you can’t possibly connect with anyone like that unless your frequency has dropped.

 

Kelly – I love that so much. If you are not feeling good you will possibly be tooted. Haha!

The funny thing is I had The Secret deck and I have 12 cards here, it’s a 65-card deck and this is like… what a great gift for people. My husband was listening to you as I was preparing for this interview, and he was like, this is how I live, this is how I think, and he got so excited.

 

 

Rhonda – Oh wow!

 

Kelly – So he’s like I’m going take your deck, and you’re going to get the new one and these are the cards that I have right now. It’s so great and even him, and this is how I’m naturally wired and this is how I’ve obtained so much success, and I’ve never been able to articulate it, so he is just obsessed with the cards because he picked 12 that really resonated for him right now and he is focusing on them, and writing about them, so I think for anybody it sets the tone for your day, it’s the exact… And as you said your frequency is exact you going to draw the exact message you need, and you’re consciously taking the reins of your life…

 

Rhonda – That’s right.

 

Kelly – … and then you’re using the feedback from the outside world, so if you do see an email that’s like jarring, or someone’s tooting at you with their horn you check yourself rather than blame the outside world, you check yourself, and go away. I need to do some frequency hygiene here.

 

Rhonda – Yeah haha! The world is so good to be able to keep you on track. It’s really, really good and I used it all of the time. All of the time.

 

Kelly – Everybody needs to get the manifestation deck and we’ll have the link. Then the last story I want to share with you because I was so honoured that I was kind of… So Beyond Words did the HEAL DVD, and like I said your film change my life, and then I learned of course that you did the film, and then I think Beyond Words said you should write the book.

 

Rhonda – That’s right.

 

Kelly – So when HEAL came out very quickly after it, it was number one documentary on iTunes, and it was doing really well and Richard was like, and Michelle were like we see it on the trajectory of The Secret which I was like, I’ve arrived. That correlation I’m so honoured, and they were like you should start writing a book, and they were like you know Rhonda did it in six weeks, or two weeks or whatever it was…

 

Rhonda – Yeah it was crazy.

 

Kelly – … I was like okay, I can do it, if Rhonda can do it, then well cut to, that didn’t happen. Like nine months later, had a baby and had no creative juices, but I just think that’s a funny story because this book… and then of course I was like I’m going to sell 34 million copies, and I think we’ve sold 20,000 or something. I have no idea how many we’ve sold but it’s not in there what you have accomplished, but I just want to share that because again it has to do with belief.

 

Rhonda – Yeah I know.

 

Kelly – Yeah you know, like really… you and I have the same mission of just learning what has worked for us, and then sharing it with the world to empower the people. And really, we’re so limited by our own beliefs, of A what’s possible and B what we’re worthy of receiving. I just want to, whatever you have to share, to leave with our audience.

 

Rhonda – Yeah well that’s true and it brings us back to what you were talking about conviction and with The Secret and with The Secret Book, the conviction that I had was incredible and I would love to be able to bottle that, and I just with the level of conviction I had, I absolutely know that was what I was meant to do in my lifetime. I just know that was, if I looked at my life, I was totally on track for that, I was prepared for it all the steps along the way, with everything that up and had unfolded in my life, and that conviction, oh it’s just the best thing ever. To have that conviction and I don’t have it for everything. I want to have it for everything, but I don’t have it for everything, but that’s okay. You know believing will get you there, and then knowing, well that’s instant manifestation anyway, is knowing, but in terms of deserve-ability because I just think that is one of the biggest things and I know what I had to do to undo the beliefs that had…. I had inherited just from school or relatives and growing up I had a lot of beliefs like all of us, and I had to let them go for The Secret to do what it needed to do. I knew that very well. I knew that I couldn’t have any of those, so I had a very, very strong reason to drop all of those beliefs, and override all of those beliefs, because I wanted The Secret to reach so many people. The deserve-ability, oh my gosh, I wish I could give that to people, I wish I could. If you listen to the mind, if you listen to what the mind says, don’t listen to a single thing that the mind says, unless it’s saying glorious things about you, because if it’s saying anything but glorious things about you, it’s all lies. It’s lies. Every single being is special, just beyond words, and I think it takes the most enormous courage for all of us to come into this duality, and experience all of these things the way that we do it, and the challenges, and the suffering, and the hardships, but everybody deserves absolutely everything that they want to have, or do, or experience in life. They deserve it all. If you only do one thing, say that to yourself every single day, over and over, until you see your entire life change.

 

Kelly – Oh my goodness, thank you so much. Guys if you haven’t already ordered The Secret Book and all The Secret books: The Secret, The Power, The Magic, HERO. There are so many wonderful books that you offer the world. Definitely this manifestation deck, I’m going to devote every day in 2024, and just watch my life get better and better.

 

Rhonda – Yeah absolutely. Get that little mind working for you because it is an amazing tool, right? The thing about the mind, it’s only creative, it’s just creative, but if we talk about what we don’t want, it’s creative, when we talk about what we want, it’s creative.

 

Kelly – It’s the biggest secret that we have, the power to use the mind, consciously and positively and to create the life we desire.

 

Rhonda – We do, absolutely.

 

Kelly – And you’re giving us the tools. Thank you so much, I’m beyond grateful I was able to connect with you.

 

Rhonda – I loved it Kelly, thank you so much.

 

Kelly – You’ve really enriched my life and empowered me, and given me these tools, I can’t wait to recommit to this daily, moment-by-moment practice, because it really is everything. So, thank you.

 

Rhonda – Thank you.

 

Podcaster and ground-breaking female motor racing driver, Danica Patrick, hosts creator and author of The Secret, Rhonda Byrne on the Pretty Intense podcast, talking about creating The Secret, how magical the universe is, and how to live in the flow of positivity to truly live the life that you want to live.

Click below to watch the video or scroll down for a full transcript of the conversation.

Danica Patrick – Back in 2008 someone suggested I watch The Secret. I watched it and it was spring of 2008 and then, I don’t know if it was the exact next race, it might have been, cos I was a race car driver…

 

Rhonda Byrne – Yes. Yes.

 

Danica – And the next race was my race in Japan that I finally won in an indie car, and I always connect the dots between watching The Secret and winning in Japan.

 

Rhonda Byrne – Right. Right.

 

Danica – And so thank you so much.

 

Rhonda – Oh no gosh, you did it. You’re the one who did it… so. It’s been, 2006 until now, unrecognizable life for me, I have to say. Compared to prior to 2006 when I was just totally asleep to everything. So, it’s really good to be conscious.

 

Danica – This podcast exists because I love talking to people and love going deep. The purpose is to plant seeds of inspiration. We enter space of vulnerability and relatability and what you realize is that we are so much more alike than we are different. To quote Rhonda, ‘we are all just walking each other home’, and the show is just one step.

 

I am Danica Patrick and I’m Pretty Intense.

 

Danica – I am so excited about the guest on the show today. Her name is Rhonda Byrne. She, you may remember it, she created and produced The Secret. Like this was revolutionary. I watch The Secret in 2008 and then I went and won in Japan, and I would always connect the two. And I think she really brought in the idea that you can manifest your life, the law of attraction, thoughts matter, thoughts become things, energy, she really, I feel was for at least for me, she was the first one to bring this into mainstream. She is also an author, she’s written a bunch of books, she’s written a new one that’s just come out called The Greatest Secret. Our conversation was all about her journey, how she had these epiphanies, her stories of transformation, and you know she’s constantly, she’s really like where she’s reached a point now that she’s not so constantly seeking and she’s being much more. It was just a fascinating conversation full of so many stories and just like your jaw will be on the ground when you hear some of them, and just how magical the universe is, and that it is so in your favor, and it is not against you. And she gives so many good tips on how to live in that flow so that you can benefit from the infinite potentiality that the universe has to offer us versus what our limited minds have only seen or experienced. So, I hope that you found this just as fascinating as I did and that you take so much away from it and you are able to apply it to your life and truly live the life that you want to. So enjoy the episode.

 

Rhonda – I tend to just do one thing. So you’re it, you’re the star today. Star of the day.

 

Danica – So my honor. I, like let me go back in time for a little bit of background so you can understand how long I’ve been aware of you. Back in 2008 someone suggested I watch The Secret. And I was like oh okay. What year did it come out?

 

Rhonda – 2006.

 

Danica – Okay 2006. So it had been around for a bit but I watched it and it was spring of 2008 and then I don’t know if it was the exact next race, it might have been, cos I was a race car driver…

 

Rhonda – Yes, yes.

 

Danica – And the next race was my race in Japan that I finally won in an indie car. And I always connect the dots between watching The Secret and winning in Japan.

 

Rhonda – Right, right.

 

Danica – So thank you so much.

 

Rhonda – Oh no gosh, you did it. You’re the one who did it… so. It’s been, 2006 until now, unrecognizable life for me, I have to say. Compared to prior to 2006 when I was just totally asleep to everything. So, it’s really good to be conscious.

 

Danica – It is but it’s a journey at the same time.

 

Rhonda – Oh it’s a journey. Hmm. Yeah it is but it’s a wonderful journey.

 

Danica – Yeah, it’s like you talk to anyone that’s on the journey of waking up of consciousness, of healing, of any of those things and you know there can be really rough periods where you have to face a lot of things, and look at yourself and that you’ve denied, or the things that you’ve not nurtured or cultivated whether it be inner child or whether it be relationship or the way you show up and how you feel about them and how you project, but at the end of the day it’s always a rise in frequency and it’s always a greater, a greater existence on a daily basis. Like your base line changes.

 

Rhonda – It does, and you just become…. I wouldn’t have been able to recognize this I don’t think going back to 2006 but you… you become freer. So, my first step to freedom was definitely the realization of The Secret and that we can create our lives whichever way we want to create them. That was just the most massive breath of freedom and was incredible. So, my life completely changed from that, 360, 360 in every single area, but then I always felt well if this is the case, then there must be more that I don’t know and so I just became a crazy, crazy, sincere seeker. I just read every book that was going, I went back through time I was going through all the traditions and the religions, I just could not get enough. And I was doing it 24/7 and I could do it 24/7 because it was really my work. So, it was amazing to be able to do it. So, blessed.

 

Danica – Well that’s an example of doing something endlessly and getting….and you’re so energized for it, insatiable for it, because it’s so your purpose.

 

Rhonda – I was not the least bit tired. I had to force myself to go to sleep because I couldn’t wait to wake up in the morning and so, I could keep going and doing more and more and more. And I had so many realizations over those years, one after the other, after the other, after the other, after the other. Aha moments that completely changed the way that I saw the world and the way that I saw myself. It just kept continuing that way and so the more realizations that I had the more that I could see the way things really are, the happier I became, and the happier I became, happier, happier, happier, happier. And less able to be disturbed by people and events.

 

Danica – What was the first story? What is the first story that was like being hit by… being hit with a truck or enlightened… probably not in a negative way, but what was that first thing that.. aha… that epiphany that happened that made you realize, that got you into the path that lead to The Secret?

 

Rhonda – It was a particular evening and I’d had a really, really, rough year that year. My father had died suddenly, and I was making six movies about unsolved murders, so it was a really really, rough subject. I had a production company and so everything that could go wrong went wrong that year until I reached September the 9th, and I had two phone calls in a row. And it was timed so beautifully when I look back it was incredible, cos the first phone call absolutely brought me to my knees and that was my accountant saying you’re going to… you’re going to be broke in 30 days you’ve gone two million dollars over budget on the movies, and I still had one and a half to deliver. And I had, had a director that had gone over budget and then I hung up the phone and as I hung up the phone it rang again it was my mother who was in a really bad way. So those two phone calls absolutely brought me to my knees because I didn’t feel that I could solve either problem. Like I was so good at fixing things but these two things my mother was grief stricken because my father had died earlier in the year and so these two things I could not solve. And so, I just collapsed in despair and that moment of collapsing in despair was the moment where my life would change forever. Because my daughter, my adult daughter saw me and just walked out and handed me this book which was from 1910 and said, read this it will help. And I mean, I asked her since why did you give me that book, and she’s like, I don’t know, you know. She just didn’t know, she was just… And the way that she gave it to me was almost kind of… um a robot like, do you know? Like just start handing it. What’s even weirder is that with the sky falling in and after the two phone calls, is that I read the book.

 

Danica – Right so you made time for the book.

 

Rhonda – I just sat down right there and then and I opened it up and I started reading and all my tears were hitting the pages, the ink was running, and 90 minutes later I finished reading it and oh my gosh. My life had completely changed I knew things that were not in book. I just had the biggest, biggest, realization and of course the book was the trigger and the book is called The Science of Getting Rich by Wallace Wattles and it’s available for free on our website, if anybody wants to download it  thesecret.tv. But that book, oh… I just saw so much in that book and that set me off on a search from that book onwards I went back into time, searching for this information that I absolutely knew was the truth, that we created our life. And I just went back, right back through history actually way back in history to the Emerald Tablet. And I didn’t tell anybody what I’d found I just continued to research, and it’s like when you were talking about, I just… There was something rushing through me that just took me, I barely slept. And then it was almost like, like I would pick up a book I know I would start to read it and I would read that book and then I would look at the time I’d think it must be really late but then it was five minutes from when I last looked at it. Like it was like time stopped and it was like time became really malleable for me…and so…

 

Danica – Wow. Well that’s a reality, time and space.. this dimension, you like were in a different reality a different dimension when time wasn’t relevant.

 

Rhonda – Time wasn’t relevant. And so, I just what I accomplished in just three months was crazy. In terms of reading and research and then in January this was in September and I mean mind you I drove to my mother’s straightaway the next morning and I told her everything I discovered so I got her all set and a whole New World that opened up for her and then I went back and continued with the research and in January 2005 I walked into my team and I said we are going to make and it wasn’t a documentary at that stage or a movie or I didn’t know what it was but we’re going to make something that will change the world. And they thought I was mad.

 

Danica – Well isn’t there some saying about like it takes someone like someone crazy or mad to change the world. That they actually believe it’s possible.

 

Rhonda – Totally.

 

Danica – Which is The Secret, you know.

 

Rhonda – And so that was how it began, and you know we were really practicing The Secret while making The Secret. And we became very, very, aware. I was very aware of signs of messages and hearing things of being guided by everything we needed was put in front of us. Absolutely everything.

 

Danica – What were the signs? What things were happening that made you go, green light, green light, here we go.

 

Rhonda – Everything. Okay so one thing example is we came to the United States to film teachers, we had no teachers lined up to film absolutely none whatsoever. We could reach teachers so easily like it was just crazy and they would all say yes but one of the teachers was Jack Canfield and he was in Aspen at the time and so we went to Aspen. He agreed to be filmed and he asked me to do a presentation when I got there. And we made a big trailer and there were something like 60 teachers in that room that I presented, and met Jack, and that I presented The Secret of what I was going to do. And Jack said, who wants to be in this documentary put your hand up. They all put their hand up. And in addition to that we had been trying to get in touch with Bob Proctor through his people and… and then when we were in Aspen finally my researcher was in touch with his personal assistant, and she said where are you at the moment? And it was my sister actually who was helping me, and she said we are in Aspen and Bob’s assistant said, oh my gosh.

 

Danica – He’s in Aspen.

‘

Rhonda – He’s in Aspen. Yes. And so the moment she told him he came over to us in 30 minutes because he knew it was meant to be and they all knew. Like everyone all they all just knew something incredible was happening and even the way we released it. Like I had in my mind that because I had a production company that made content for television and so in my mind this was going to be released on television through networks around the world in a 24hour period that was the way I saw it that it would be released globally basically at the same time. And so, I had all of these networks all interested and then there was this extraordinary thing they all just dropped out. Like one by one by one by one and so I knew that this was not the way it was meant to go. And so, I just opened myself to the possibility of it going out differently. We spoke to some film companies, and they just wanted to buy it, and buy it out completely, and I wouldn’t do it. And then eventually what happened was, I saw an advertisement on the Internet that you’ve kind got to imagine a time that was so different from now but I saw this British Airways commercial on the Internet and I was like, that’s it, we release this on the Internet. Now nothing, no movie had ever been released on the Internet. And I called… I called my CEO and I said we’ll release it on the Internet, it will go round the world in 24 hours, and he said, oh that might be one way to release it, but you can’t release it in that way entirely. Well do you know my CEO happened to be…. happened to be amazing at technology and he worked with the company that just happened to be two streets from my office, who… who put out that British Airways commercial in Melbourne in Australia. And he worked with them and created the technology for The Secret to go out on the Internet. So it was the first… the first film that had gone out on the Internet…

 

Danica – Wow!

 

Rhonda – …and within one hour of it going out I knew that was it. Like I just sat back and it didn’t matter what happen from there it was out in the world and that was all that mattered to me.

 

Danica – Well what’s special about that story is that it’s really easy to see the signs when it’s positive, but it’s hard I feel like to accept the signs when they’re negative. And so as you were being, you know, left to dry with the networks about putting it out on television, I think that that… that to me is the striking part about the story, that you go okay well we’re not gonna do it that way but that… that that might be the point, and I’m curious how are you get to the point where you allow the signs both positive and negative to equal in volume because that would be the point in time where you know, my older self, where I’m so used to forcing I would push through and I’d be like well let then let’s call somebody else, and let’s figure this out, give me the phone, send me an email, let’s go there, and I would push through it, and that’s like… So can you explain how you got to that point and how are you then… and how you also stay in alignment so that you don’t force things that aren’t. Because you have to put effort into things, that there’s a difference between effort and forcing to the point where you’re getting enough signs, that it it’s kind of turning into a wall.

 

Rhonda – Yeah that’s true. And… I just knew from The Secret that everything was happening for me and that also meant that if there was a block don’t push against it. If there is a block and that is something doesn’t come through straight away, stop. Stop and for example, I’ll give you an example, we filmed a teacher that… that I wasn’t 100% sure about when we film that teacher, but there was a technical problem all through it and it was unusable footage. You know, and so I knew… I knew that that person was not meant to be in it. Then there were other teachers that we contacted that didn’t respond, really well-known ones for example that didn’t respond, and I knew that they were not meant to be in it. I knew… I knew that whatever we needed would be given to us and if there was a block I would not push against it. And as you say actually, it’s very different from what I used to be, because I used to be, oh I will fix this, I will do this, I will get it done, and look for another way, but instead I would stop and I would wait to see what was going to be shown to me, and this is living The Secret. This is really, really living it where you understand that this is a friendly universe, and it is doing everything for you. It is conspiring for you in every single area and with the making of The Secret was the most speculative thing I have ever seen in my entire life, because everything was done for us. And even down to the point where I remember we would be editing and we were like 16 hours in the edit suite editing all of this masses of footage, and then suddenly the system would, rainbow ball, in other words it was it was going to crash, and I would just say to the editor get up walk away, because we were forcing that rainbow ball. We were like we were like this, we were too tense in editing trying to push against time, not relaxed and so the equipment was responding to our pushing, you know and that’s in The Secret too, because it’s… if you were like, I’m gonna be late, I’m gonna be late, and you’re rushing and rushing, then that energy will cause a car to be in front of you, slow, slow down, this will happen, the train line gates will come down, everything will happen. But if you just let it go and you relax which is what I was experimenting with, if I was running late for somewhere, I would do the exact opposite. So I would just let go, I would stop rushing and then everything would just line up, and I would be there on time.

 

Danica – That happens to me sometimes. I say some, I say sometimes because my aggressive driving nature gets the best of me most of the time. But when I’m like you know what just relax instead of speeding up to get by that car, I’ll just fall in line, and wait and then all of a sudden almost every time the car will move over, get off out of the way…

 

Rhonda – Exactly!

 

Danica – …and it will turn, and I’m like why, don’t I do that more often. It works so easy. Like what’s our cultural problem? What our cultural problem and then what is the solution to getting into that mode because and trusting that? I think, I think it’s not even about trusting in it as much I think once you see you see it, but how do we keep ourselves in the mode cos even though I can repeat these kinds of things to you in awareness, there’s something in my brain, and I don’t know if it’s I’m just too high beta state at times, whatever it is, but how do we get down to that state where we are allowing, and flowing, and one with the universe instead of constantly pushing against it?

 

Rhonda – It really is, I didn’t realize what I was doing back then but nowadays I understand what I am doing and I… I have practiced very deliberately to surrender and let go. And so that is what I do constantly, constantly, constantly. Back then I don’t know how I did it, but I would just kind… I just had such faith in the universe because that is the way that I described it. I had set the biggest intention for The Secret and I just knew that everything would happen for us, so we were very much in the flow, and if we were not we stopped. And we just walked away until we felt good, we came back and would continue working when we felt good. When I didn’t feel good I would not answer the phone, I wouldn’t open my computer, I would not do any of those things because if you’re in a really bad frequency and you open your computer, in comes a whole lot of problems, and so on the same frequency, so I wouldn’t open my computer and wouldn’t answer my phone until I would… until I could feel a whole lot better. So that was very deliberate way that I did it then, these days it is very different. I don’t have such a personal attachment to, ‘I am doing this’ with the universe. The universe is doing this for me. I am the universe, kind of one with the universe. And so, I am just in a complete state of allowing, surrendering, letting go, because we are the ones that need to get out of the way. Because everything that will be given to us, that will happen for us, is way beyond what we could even imagine for ourselves.

 

Danica – I could imagine that I’d be striving for it, but when you let go of your own idea of how something could go, your now open to the quantum field of all potentiality that goes far, far beyond what our imagination has even conceived, experienced, seen or caught a glimpse of.

 

Rhonda – Exactly. Exactly because all we can imagine is the mind, and the mind tends to be a recycling machine, and as you say in the quantum area, or beyond the mind is every single possibility, unlimited possibilities. So yeah, I just keep surrendering to all of that and the less we put ourselves in the way, with our fixed ideas, and opinions, and all of those things, you know, and we kind of get those out of the way, the more magnificent our lives become. Absolutely magnificent.

 

Danica – I found the human experience is challenging because it takes experiences, patterns, relationships ,friendships, family, it takes all of these dynamics that push on us to see ourself and it’s hard to see ourself, and so how did you get to that point where you could kind of release and surrender, and get to that point? Did you have… did you process anything about your childhood, was there anything about your upbringing, something about families, something about your own patterning or were you able to just not have to go there and access this potentiality with the simple awareness of The Secret?

 

Rhonda – Right I saw in 2016 I had a revelation of who we really are. And so that is what really changed everything. And even I think in The Secret I would refer we’re the infinite being. I would say it in The Secret, and I definitely believed that, felt that, knew that, it’s just that in 2016 I had the experience of it. And so, I realized then that the person is absolutely the smallest, smallest, tiniest part of us. And so basically, I’ve just spent my time releasing any negativity that arises, any memories that arise, because I know that any negativity that appears or that it… that somebody else triggers with negative feelings or negative thoughts, any memories appear because they are ready to be released from our life. That’s why they’re appearing. They’re ready to be free. And so, I know those things are inside of us, held in our subconscious mind, and when they appear they’re ready to be free, so I learned how to release them really quickly. And it applies to everything that you, everything negative, everything that we consider negative, but I only release the things that appear. If a negative feeling comes along, like agitation or disappointment, like I get so excited because it would mean I could release it, and in the releasing of it, once you’ve released it all, you’ll never feel it again. Like there isn’t anybody that can aggravate you in the outside world. The only reason I can aggravate you is because you have it inside you ready to be released. Right? Which you know very well. So I just kept releasing, releasing, and releasing and what I found is the more I release the happier I got, and so then I would see things like I had beliefs that didn’t serve me, and I would just release the beliefs that didn’t serve me, and oh my gosh.

 

Danica – That’s beautiful and not overwhelming?

 

Rhonda – Not at all. Yeah.

 

Danica – You know because in my mind I think, oh man get through all the trauma, clear a lot of things….like

 

Rhonda – No no.

 

Danica – Ancestral things like, do it again, but right…like how do I get to that? The way you’re describing it, and this is I think one of your many gifts, is to put things simply so it can be comprehended and understood, is that when it comes up, you deal with it. So of course, I’m curious of what that thing was that happened in 2016?

 

Rhonda – I had another kind of moment… I had another moment… and a circumstance happened with the house I was selling, and it ended up that it fell through really quickly. And after I’d made all these plans to kind of move out in a week, and I felt this incredible disappointment in my body, and I was just like how could I feel something like this when I always feel so good? I just didn’t understand that, and so what I what I did was I just decided that I wanted to watch something spiritual. I didn’t want this feeling and so I just wanted to watch something spiritual so the feeling would go away. And I turn on my computer and Conscious TV, and they were interviewing a man called David Bingham, who is just an everyday person like you and me, not a teacher or anything like that, and he talked about how he saw the truth, and became free. And I was like, the truth? And I followed in his footsteps and did what he did, which is listen to a podcast and… by a man called John Wheeler and I listened to that podcast. And you know it’s really interesting because I watched the Conscious TV interview with him several times, I listened to the podcast multiple times, and then I reached out to David to speak to him, and this was over a period of three or so days. And then when I spoke to David, he sort of did an experiment with me where he showed me the… my mind focusing and what’s there if my mind isn’t focusing. What’s behind my mind and it’s been there the entire time for my whole life. Yeah, and it was… I was just…wow!. And David said to me you’ve already seen it before we got on the phone, and I said had I really? And he said yes, but all I know is those few things, and I saw who I was from my own experience. The unlimitedness of who we are, and there are no boundaries and so everything changed again, massively. The way I see the world, and… second huge step to freedom.

 

Danica – Right well it’s just our perception that colors our world. It’s not always nice, sometimes we have things that happen to us, we have patterning from parents, patterning from friends, and in growing up, and environment, television, we have all kinds of different things that give us a perception, and again since it’s so hard to see ourselves, you have to have these moments where you go, oh. So what is the letting go process?

 

Rhonda – It’s a technique that I use to release things, and I’m working on at all of the time, because in fact, I just said to my daughter, I need to find a simpler way of saying this. I just want it to be simpler and I covered it in my book The Greatest Secret but I still, like I’m always looking simpler, simpler, simpler ways. So, one of the things, just to understand, so people can get the feeling is, one of the things that we do is we resist all the way along in our life. We resist when something happens that we don’t want to happen, and I don’t want that, we resist. We’re kind of enjoying…like the things we like but the things we don’t like we’re like pushing them away…

 

Danica – True.

 

Rhonda – …including people or a comment that somebody makes, we don’t like that comment and it affects us. And so, that’s all resistance, and resistance is what causes all the negative feelings, and contractions inside of us. What releasing does, is it stops us from resisting. If a negative subject arises, a negative memory, a negative feeling, it is because we have just resisted. And so to counteract that resisting, and stop that resisting, we do the opposite to resisting. What we do is like I could say just like relax, but I say welcome it. Welcome the feeling, welcome the memory, welcome the thought, and it’s really just that we don’t try and fix it, we don’t try and change it, we don’t try and make it go away, we don’t try and do anything to it we just allow it to be there. And in the allowing of it to be there, we stop resisting and it just the energy just evaporates and very often you can feel the energy unwinding in your chest. It’s just an automatic cleansing system in our body the moment we stop resisting, everything unwinds. You can just do this if nothing appears you can just be really relaxed and just allowing of everything to be just the way it is right now. And so to be very present as well of course helps to do that, and then all the energy that’s trapped just begins to unwind and be released and why we don’t need to go through picking one trauma, one memory after another is because many of them are attached like a train with carriages so we can get one and it just pulls a whole train of carriages all at the same time…

 

Danica – Oh god that’s overwhelming.

 

Rhonda – …it takes a whole lot of memories with it. We don’t need to go through anything one by one, we just need to see the ones that appear, the ones that are triggered, you know the feelings that are triggered by an outside event. I know that you talked about mirroring and that’s what’s so beautiful, is that I mean, I can use the universe as an example will use the people circumstances and events. It will use all of those things to show us what needs to be released you know. It’s just everything that happens to us is the most beautiful gift steeped in love and designed for us to be happier and to be free. And so that’s how I release, now you get you that good at it that, I don’t even know how I do it now, I just kind of, you feel a relief, you just kind of welcome, and just sort of…. sort of thing and immediately you’ll feel a sense of relief through your body, and you just feel this thing dissipate and disappear. And it’s amazing you can have a really strong emotion and it will just evaporate. It’s the best feeling in the whole world.

 

Danica – Do you think that there… Yes it sounds magical, this sounds like floating through life but do you think that there… 2016 was when you were able to sort of sense and feel this, I’m gonna call it from my perspective what would be like the observer? You can access the observer of your thoughts cos we aren’t our thoughts right? So where there’s something that’s able to recognize that we are having the thoughts.

Rhonda – Exactly.

 

Danica – So we can’t be our thoughts cos we know we’re having thoughts, and so do you feel that that this transitioned when you felt that more observer perspective, that instead of things happening to you and being in the moment you’re actually almost looking from above, feeling from above and allowing this sort of exchange of energy to come and release and go because you’re not in it, and you’re not grasping onto either the memory, something you wanted, or identifying with the pain, or some sort of level of victimization, or something you want like it’s more observer mode?

 

Rhonda – Most definitely what it is, most definitely what it is. You become the observer rather than the observer of the person, you know… and the observer of yourself. And so you create this kind of gap so everything’s not as personal, you know, and you just discover incredible things. You allow other things to be released because, and I think you said it in your 20… watch… your 20 things that you realised…

 

Danica – Lessons, oh really you did ….

 

Rhonda – I watched the lessons this morning and yeah one of the things for sure is that you…you begin to see everything really really clearly and you’re not so attached, and you’re not so identified, because when we identify with those things, then we really feel the pain of those things, and as you said, actually nothing’s personal. We feel it’s so personal, everything so personally, it’s not at all personal. And so when you’re the observer then you can have some relief from it not being personal at all. Yeah so.

 

Danica – Do you feel like this also affects the way you see other people? Meaning instead of saying them. do something to you, you actually see their pain and their patterning perhaps, as opposed to why’d you do that to me? You can actually see their light, instead of the projection.

 

Rhonda – Exactly. And you can see that’s where they are. And you don’t have this, if somebody asked for your help, you’ll do anything and you give it, you’re not overcome with this I have to fix everybody. You know because everybody is just in the perfect place where they are. They’re exactly where they’re meant to be. Somebody wrote to me and said how do I get back on track? And I said, well you’re never off track, ever

 

Danica – Explain that, what does that mean for them when you’re, don’t worry about it every everything is perfect, you’re right on track, what is that, what should that be telling them?

 

Rhonda – Well because immediately, first of all immediately you let go of resistance, so the mind is saying, oh you’re off track, you’re off track, and then you believe it, and then you, and then you create it, and then you feel like you’re off track, and I’m saying but you’re actually on track, you’re perfectly on track. Now if I could’ve had a conversation with the person, I would’ve said to them, are you the one that is off track, or are you the one who is aware that you’re off track? Are you the one that’s aware, or are you the one that’s off track? And we are always the one that’s aware, which is the observer right? The observer, and so, that kind of frees you up right away because it stops the mind from kind of getting you and having you identify with this concept, that the mind is that just made up, it just made up this concept, you’re off track, we swallowed it hook line and sinker, we perpetuated it, we’re off track, or believe it. I’m off track, I’m off track, no you’re not you’re perfectly on track, and then to look at it in an even bigger perspective is that we are always exactly what we are meant to be. And Robert Adams used to say, everything is unfolding exactly as it should. And everyone is going to be fine in the end. None of us can be hurt or harmed in the end, none of us, we are all eternal, and it’s up to everybody to discover that about themselves, and I can only encourage people and say, it’s the greatest journey you’ll ever take, is to find out who you are, and to free yourself, it’s really really wonderful, but there’s death of the body for sure but there’s not death of the consciousness of who we are. And so we’re just here having fun.

 

Danica – I’m curious if you feel like you come into… that we come into life as people with a purpose and a mission? I’m asking that because The Secret is all about manifesting your life and asking the universe and sort of allowing the flow of things, so do you feel like you came in with a purpose? And some of your stories you talk about this knowing that you have, there’s like it’s almost like it’s this tiny bit of information that unlocked this huge vast library of… of content and knowing. And so, I wonder where you stand on that, do you feel like you came in with a mission?

 

Rhonda – I do and definitely The Secret was a part of that for sure. I mean I looked back on my life, and I just saw how I had just been shaped all the way along for that moment. I just felt my entire life was heading toward that moment, even to the point of, to give you an example, I worked in television, and I worked in news, and so I was very aware of news manipulating stories the way they wanted to manipulate them, and so when The Secret became massive I had every show and organization wanting to interview me, newspapers and everything, and I knew because of my experience with news that if I succumb to all of that and did all of that, there would just be this thing building you up, and then tearing you down. I knew not to do it. Now I would never have known that had I have not had the experience in news, and so I was very careful about what I did, I did Oprah because I knew that Oprah lived her life, you know this way and so I was very particular about what I did. The other thing was that I wanted to make sure that the message was the star and not me. I’m happy to be there to say this is what I discovered and I had to share it with the world and I really did. I just couldn’t have lived without sharing this. It was a force that was coming through me, so I definitely know that the journey I ended up on was the journey that I was meant to be on, however I want to say that it’s the same for everybody. It’s just more easily marked you know with The Secret because it was a big event. But with everybody’s lives you know they may be a mother and she has three children and she does all of these things of bringing up the children and the children grow up to be beautiful human beings, that is exactly what she was meant to do. She’s meant to be the beautiful mother to have that experience to shape those beings, her children and so, I just know that that’s why we’re on track in every given moment even if we’re hurting. We are still on track now… but what is our purpose? Like our purpose I am absolutely convinced is to find out who we are? I think that’s our purpose is to realize that we are much more than what we’re seeing. And I think that’s our ultimate purpose because when we discover that, we are free. When we discover it, I don’t mean it as a concept or intellectually, when we experience it for ourself then we’re free and then we find permanent happiness, and then we’re not afraid of death, because we know we don’t die, you know so.

 

Danica – Have you had any transcendental or spiritual moments that showed you a different reality, or showed you, showed you perhaps source, god, higher dimension, have you ever had any of those moments?

 

Rhonda – I have, yes I have. I had, probably the one that had the biggest impact on me was when I was a child and I was about 10 or 12 years of age, and I was one of four girls at that time, and we were very protected by my parents, so there wasn’t a lot of socializing in those times, we would just really, the siblings, we would just play with each other but I was sent away to a school camp and that was a really big deal for me to be separated from my family. I’ve never been separated from them before, and I was very shy, and so we went to this camp and somehow or another, I had developed this really really bad… what I came to see later on, a migraine headache. And I didn’t even, I was even, I was so shy I didn’t even tell the teachers that I was so sick, and I remember we were in these huts and we all were put to bed and of course the moment you lay down with the migraine it’s even worse than ever right? I felt so ill and but still too afraid to tell anybody, so I just walked out of the hut, I can’t even believe that I did this, but it was night and I walked out of the hut and down the little steps and this camp was by the ocean and I stood on this cliff edge, and I said in my 12 or 10-year-old way, if there is a God please take away this headache right now. And not only did the headache dissolve instantly, but the most incredible joy and ecstasy and love swept all through me, and I had tears pouring down my face and there… and from that moment on I always knew that God existed. Yeah. Always and so it wouldn’t matter if the whole world said, oh no, no such thing. Now from my own experience I knew it and the way I see that God is very different from the way I saw that God when I was 10-year-old. I saw that it was something separate from me right? You know that God out there, and sort of talking to the sky. So that was a really big experience, but I’ve had many, many, spiritual experiences which like the earlier one that collapsed time and space and where I’m here, but then I’m there.

 

Danica – Wait, what did you tell that story? Was that the reading?

 

Rhonda – The reading one and I’ve been in some places and then I’m in another place.

 

Danica – Tell me more about that? That sounds like fun astral travel.

 

Rhonda – So I was with the teacher and we were 60 miles away from the city and…and I asked this teacher a question about, you know, dimensions and travelling from one dimension to the next, and he… he said close your eyes to all of us in the car. We were travelling on a freeway, and we could see the city way in the distance, like 60 or so miles away so we closed our eyes and next thing there was this bump. And we opened our eyes we were in the driveway, in the city in the driveway. Yeah.

 

Danica – Do you remember what happened in that time frame or was…?

 

Rhonda – There was no time.

 

Danica – So was this a shaman, was this a shaman?

 

Rhonda – No. No. It was just a teacher he was a teacher, and yeah, he just, I think had a really good understanding of time and space, and that doesn’t really exist. Yeah so. I was really lucky because we… there were five people in the car and one of them was my daughter as well so, but what was really amazing about that experience for me, is that, is this, is that what it had me see was that nothing is what it appears to be. And when you can have an experience where what you believe is, you know solid, and can’t move, and when you have an experience like that, it just, you kind of melt and then all of the fixed ideas you have, begin to collapse, the things that you’re convinced that you’re walking into a room. I mean quantum physics tells us, you know… quantum physics tells us that when we walk out of a room it doesn’t exist anymore and the room just appears when we observe it. And so, I mean, I studied quantum physics and so are used to try, and you know catch the room coming back into existence.

 

Danica – Right. Right.

 

Rhonda – Which is really hysterical, right?

 

Danica – There is a really high probability that it is a virtual reality.

 

Rhonda – It definitely is, and I remember a teacher Lester Levenson saying that reality is actually very vaporous, so therefore very malleable. Now I definitely know when I was researching The Secret that I didn’t do it deliberately, but time just collapsed. It just collapsed for me. It’s just, and I was able to do things in kind of no time at all. And you can’t explain that. That’s beyond what we see as reality but I would just say to people that if you look at quantum physics everything that you think is real isn’t real anyway.

 

Danica – Yeah even the doctor… oh sorry the scientist that discovered and I’m not going say this in exact scientific terms, but basically when he discovered that nothing is really real and nothings really matter, it’s energy…

 

Rhonda – It’s energy.

 

Danica – … it’s like, it’s just energy, it’s little tornadoes we are just a little mini tornado. We are at this density that we collect into this form but when he discovered that he got up the next day and put his feet down on the ground and he was afraid he would fall through the floor, because he knew that nothing was actually matter.

 

Rhonda – That is was solid. I can actually relate I can actually understand that. I’ve haven’t had that experience, but I can totally understand that. When you can see that none of it is really there, and I have had realizations of oh my gosh, everything that we experience of the world is all experienced on the inside. We can’t actually prove there’s an outside like I would go out all through these experiments to breakdown the very concrete structure that the mind has created, so that I could open to the possibility of seeing the way things really are. And of course, the way things really are are way more beautiful, is way more beautiful than the way the mind has constructed it. Way more beautiful.

 

Danica – What have you learned? Are you aware of your gifts? Like what you’re able to do, or see, sort of beyond the normal? Any of those kinds of things? Cos I just get the sense that like you have, there’s sort like a claircognizant nature to you where you just know things. Have you ever, have you found those out?

 

Rhonda – Do you know I can remember this mentor of mine… I could see things, light and all kinds of things, and auras, I remember I walked passed a person and could see they had this aura around them, and I’d be like wow, this is so cool. I would see light like someone would be talking and it was on a really beautiful subject and I would see all this light coming from their hand, and I just thought, oh this is so cool. And so, I had a mentor at the time who’s Spanish and an Imperator of an order that helps raise consciousness. I was telling him about all these experiences that I had, and I was super excited to tell him, and he just sat there kind of mmm. He said, it’s normal. It’s normal. And it was really amazing about that because I thought it was like supernatural, but he was telling me it’s all natural. And so anything… the ability to know things, and I do know things, like if I am, like I know for example, there was a friend of ours and she was rushed to hospital, and she was pregnant, and the baby was….. I think she was like 32 weeks and my daughter came to me and said, can you please give her magic dust, so that she will be okay with the baby. And I said that little girl is going to be just fine, and I said she’s having a girl right? And my daughter said, they don’t know what they are having. And I said, oh it’s a girl and she’s going to be fine. And Poppy was born, and she was just fine. And I just knew that. How did I know that? I just knew that but it’s the same for everybody. There’s nothing special here at all, it is just open your mind, just open yourself to the possibility that things are different from the way that you think they are, and that they are more beautiful, more magnificent, more amazing. Because people can be really afraid, you know like you they think all I don’t want to see light. Seeing light is gorgeous there’s nothing to be afraid of, and that’s also the other thing my mentor said to me, there’s nothing spiritual that can ever harm you, there’s nothing to ever be afraid of. Yeah, because people are afraid, they’re afraid of the dark and… No nothing spiritual can ever, ever, harm us. So yes. I just took that into my heart.

 

Danica – I would agree and I would, I mean I have had some weird mystical sort of like scary things that have happened.

 

Rhonda – You have?

 

Danica – Oh yeah yeah. One of them, I mean I’ve heard the good ones the sort of transcendental good ones, but I’ve also had a few bad ones. And I remember one in particular I was, I was in a hotel, and I was asleep, and I woke up to, I woke up, I didn’t wake up, I awoken from my dream to a silhouette of a little boy that was like a black see-through sort of smoky image of like a little boy. And it ran around the room and then it sort of jumped on the bed and started jumping on the bed, and I turned over to go to sleep, like I turned over away from the facing side to the door, and then it laid down in the bed next to me staring at me, and the only thing that I knew to do at that point in time even in my sort of lucid state, was to pray. And so I just asked for this to go, for help, for angels, for all the support, and I fell asleep, and I woke up, and I had cried in the night so like my eyes were crusty, and so things can scare you, but nothing can hurt you.

 

Rhonda – Nothing can hurt you no no. Nothing at all. I mean I can remember my, the ceiling of my bedroom. I would wake up and it would have all these hieroglyphics over it, you know all of these…yeah. I’d be like wow look at that. You know all of these like symbols, Egyptian symbols and everything, and that just did not surprise me because I had traced The Secret back to the ancient mystery schools so the fact that all of this appeared on the ceiling just didn’t surprise me at all. I just laid there and was like wow this is gorgeous.

 

Danica – Have you been to Egypt? I went to Egypt earlier this year finally.

 

Rhonda – No I haven’t.

 

Danica – I have been called to Egypt for probably since I was probably 18 or 19. I thought the oddball place that I wanted to go and so I went this was 20 years ago. Where nobody was wanting to go to Egypt 20 years ago well at least not in my reality. And I finally ended up going and it was one of those scenarios that all went very quick. I was doing a Joe Dispenza, I was with Joe Dispenza in Santa Barbara and it was just like a one day little event and there was about 20 of us, and there was a manifestation technique showed where we write down a letter representing what we wanted to manifest and the reasons why and then elevate emotions and connecting with it and so at dinner that night, a girl turned over and said and she goes I heard you’re interested in Egypt and I said what? I was like shocked do you know what I wrote down? And she said no, she goes but the girl next to me said you were talking about Egypt earlier and there’s a trip in February if you want to go? And so that all came down within two hours after manifesting it, and the funny thing was that I really release the timeline on manifesting it, and I thought I’ll focus on this for the next couple of years if it takes to manifest the right trip, and it came about and so we ended up going in February, and it was so beautiful, and it was just, you know, you really understand, you really get the perspective, the main perspective where is that we don’t get it. Like we don’t see it at all, we don’t know it all, we have no idea how anything is done, we’re talking about what was written on the walls, but we don’t even know how they made the walls. How they are so perfect. How did they do that, we don’t know. And so there is just there is a lot of mystery and so you know, and you talking about the mystery schools, you know I’m not well-versed in that but there’s like Isis’s mystery school, Hathor mystery school, right?

 

Rhonda – That’s right.

 

Danica – They’re all the different…

 

Rhonda – They were masters of the mind. I mean they could manifest incredibly, and they were absolute Masters.

 

Danica – What did you learn about them? What was the mystery schools that you learned when you traced it all right back?

 

Rhonda – Well all of the teachers’ teachings like that we create our reality, and the, that the mind is projecting absolutely everything and so the mind is creating everything and so that was really the biggest thing. I mean basically it’s all the principles of The Secret, I mean it’s just the law of the mind and it’s the way that everything works, and subconscious mind, and the conscious mind, and thoughts, and so all of those things which came from the mystery schools, there was an order where I, is called the Rose Cross Order in Europe, and I landed upon that order when I was going back in time, and that order took me to all of these incredible people. Like Francis Bacon and all these, Victor Hugo and all of these men who knew all of this. Yeah. And Isaac Newton who was a part of this secret order and the reason it was secret was because you were executed if you tried to empower people then. And so they worked in secret but all of their teachings came from the ancient mystery schools. I studied these teachings of the Rose Cross Order. Something like 22 degrees so I’ve studied those over the years since The Secret. And you know it’s incredible because you learn all about just everything. All about physicality, the cycles, Karma, the law of Karma and all of the things that you learn. I saw that you had the book by the three initiates the Kybalion. And so you learn all of those things the law of vibration, the law of gender, and all of those kinds of things. And so I learned all of those things and then many spiritual things. Learned one of the spiritual things I learned was how to pop clouds, and you think why do you need to pop clouds? Well because it shows you the power of the mind and the focus of the mind, and so that’s in a degree like years into a degree, I think it was maybe something like the 11^th degree, and I thought wow can I do this. But you know you’ve taken all of the steps to that path and it’s just understanding that everything is consciousness, and that cloud is not all that way away from me. We were taught to put ourselves in the middle of the cloud and blow it away. I would project myself into the middle of the cloud and I would feel the cold of the cloud all around me, and then I would just blow it away, and I would open my eyes and I would see oh. A whole lot of the cloud is gone and I close my eyes again and I blow again and the cloud would be completely gone. They did that so that you can understand the power of the mind. That all of this is the mind, and we have the power to be able to do things like that.

 

Danica – That’s like the three initiates, the whole thing is that, all is the mind. All is in the mind.

 

Rhonda – All is in the mind. Yeah all is in the mind.

 

Danica – All is in the mind. So how many degrees are there?

 

Rhonda – 33.

 

Danica – Is this the Mason, Masonry?

 

Rhonda – It’s not the Freemasons, no. No it’s completely different to the Freemasons yeah. It’s…  Nobody has ever heard of this order… well nobody… Not so much in the United States. I think more in Europe because the order has… Well at the moment you know it’s in the Canary Islands. But the teachings are translated and you can get, and you get pamphlets and you learn everything about the world, the duality of the world, the mind, karma, the body, you come to understand that the body is a perfect mirror of the solar system, and each organ is reflected in the solar system. As within so without, as above so below. And so all of those things you’re just learning and seeing those things, and it’s just revealed to you very precisely and exactly… yeah. Very exact, and these teachings have been passed on through hundreds of years, and preserved for people you know who are ready to learn about that kind of thing. You learn all about vibration and sounds and the om, and you know what you can even do with the sound, you know how you can use that. I don’t do any of those things anymore. I did and I loved it all oms, the raa’s… I loved doing all of those things and understanding. Like they tell you the lost word and all of those incredible things. I mean I have all of that I guess, so I’ve absorbed all of that. And it’s all fantastic and without a doubt it has helped me on my journey. But I don’t, I’m not kind of seeking out that kind of thing anymore because I feel that I have found all that I needed to find.

 

Danica – What I keep hearing is all in all of the stories that I’m so grateful you’re sharing, they are so interesting is that, you have proven over and over and over in different ways how powerful the mind is. And that might be kind of feeling for even myself, or maybe someone else might need to hear, just try things, just see what you can do, and so since you’ve proven to yourself through these modalities and these techniques and these skills and these ancient traditions, that you have this power. So it’s not a matter of how to practice it, you use it when you need it.

 

Rhonda – That’s true. That’s absolutely true, and my life is so smooth. And also, it’s so smooth but also, I’m so allowing of everything now. I’m just like so if something happens that normally I would think, I don’t want that, or I want to change that, I don’t want to change it. I just know that everything is unfolding perfectly and so if something occurs that is maybe not what I want then I just really release that. I release that feeling and that I don’t want it, and then it changes. That’s the thing, the only reason that something stays the same is because of our resistance.

 

Danica – grasping it.

 

Rhonda – Exactly that.

 

Danica – I’m so good at the death grip to practicing it for 27 years. So fundamentally then in all of this learning, in all of this exposure to these traditions and these.. in history why is it hidden?

 

Rhonda – I would ask that question all the time to the Imperator. I would say to him all of these secrets, they should be released into the world. People should know these things and he would say to me, you know people aren’t ready. They’re not ready to hear these things, and he said, anybody who is ready will be led to these things. So in other words when the student is ready the teacher will appear. Right? And you’ve just got to be on that frequency. I remember that I used to think the Imperator, he would have masters appear, and I want a master to appear. I want a master to appear. And he would say to me, there’s only one master. Yes. Yes. The master is within you. There’s only one and the master is within you. And now I see that. I see all of the things that he used to say to me and that all of them made… Some of them are frustrating at the time…

 

Danica – I was just going say that. They are always frustratingly simple, the advice. That’s not helping, right now.

 

Rhonda – That’s right, and there are things that I discovered like I don’t know 10 years later, and I would say to him, I’ve just had this realization and I would explain it and he would say yes you are correct. And I was like why it would’ve helped me a lot if you told me that 10 years ago, you know. But I wouldn’t have been able to hear it. Like consciousness is expanding and so you can only hear what you’re ready to hear, but I want to say to everybody there is so much for you to hear. There’s so much for you to see and just to… just keep opening yourself to the possibility that there is… nothing is the way that it appears to be.

 

Danica – On the heels of the original inspiration and story about insatiable drive to learn and absorb after reading that book, which I’m so glad I heard the story about your daughter giving you the book because I wondered when I re-watched The Secret the other night, because I was like, I should buff up and re-watch The Secret, and how the post-it on the book it said mamma, you need this, what was it?…

 

Rhonda – Yeah it’s this will help. Mama this will help.

 

Danica – Mamma this will help so I’m glad I heard the story but what is it now and I’m exaggerating it in my words, but I’m using it as an analogy what keeps you up at night now?

 

Rhonda – Just being. Just being. That is such dud answer because it’s not very exciting. So it’s kind of no mind, just letting the mind….and just being and the one thing that I found was The Secret was so extraordinary in helping me use the mind for what it’s meant to be used for which is to create what we want. And so my thoughts became positive and I really became very aware of negative thoughts, and I wouldn’t allow them to rest on me. So my life really became incredible in every area of my life because all of my thoughts were really positive. I would pick people up when they would say something, I’d be like don’t say that don’t say that, change what you’re saying, cancel that out, don’t say that, say what you want, don’t say what you don’t want. And so my life was really really incredible, the difference now is that The Secret helped me so much because it helped me master the mind in that way and now the mind does not have control. It doesn’t have control and so now I have, I exist with this beautiful happiness and just use the mind when I need the mind like to talk to you today, and just use the mind when it’s necessary but the mind is not really as strong, doesn’t have the strength to kind of rise up and take over, and take me down a rabbit hole with some story it’s created, and then have me buy into that story, and believe it, and then have me suffer because of that story. It doesn’t have that kind of power over me anymore and it was just a progression, first of all The Secret and then becoming so aware of your thoughts. You know just becoming aware, and aware of how you’re feeling because feelings and thoughts are both the mind.

 

Danica – Is that what by the way The Greatest Secret this book it’s heavy, it’s really heavy. Is it that gold I’m wondering if it’s actual real gold because is that The Greatest Secret to release the mind that there is no mind.

 

Rhonda – Absolutely it is, that is the way. It is heavy and I think it’s the paper…

 

Danica – It’s beautiful.

 

Rhonda – And it’s thick too. Yeah to release the mind it’s really to… it continues on from The Secret because The Secret tells you how to use the mind to what you want and The Greatest Secret does… it shows you how to release the mind, it can’t be there to torture us, sabotage our life, and create negativity, and with negative thoughts, negative feelings torture us with negative feelings. You know getting angry over things and all of that and keep creating all of the circumstances out in the world, that trick us, so that the emotions arise in us so it’s to be free of all of the suffering. So yeah, that’s really what it is and when you remove all of those things of the mind then what is left is the most exquisite happiness that is unshakeable, will not move even in an urgent situation, you know. If an urgent situation arises that happiness is there, but if an urgent situation arises, you know, you will be led to do exactly the right thing. You’ll be guided to do the exact exactly the right thing whereas the mind will be, what will I do? What will I do? But instead, you are just kind of being placed everywhere perfectly in life, way better than you could ever do yourself.

 

Danica – Ain’t that the truth.

 

Rhonda – Isn’t it.

 

Danica – Ain’t that the truth. Well thank you so much for your 15 years guiding us and exposing The Secret and giving us all tools to happiness and having the things that we really want in life and recognizing at the end of the day our true innate power.

 

Rhonda – Thank you. And thank you so much for having me, it’s been a delight to talk to you.

 

Danica – Thanks everybody for listening to the Pretty Intense Podcast today. I hope you enjoyed it.

Due to popular demand, creator and author of The Secret, Rhonda Byrne returns to talk with life-style entrepreneur Lewis Howes for his podcast, The School of Greatness. Rhonda and Lewis discuss her latest release, The Secret Manifestation Cards.Click below to watch the video or scroll down for a full transcript of the conversation.

Lewis Howes – Welcome back to the School of Greatness very excited about our guest we have the inspiring Rhonda Byrne in the house I’m so grateful that you’re here.

 

Rhonda – Oh thank you so much for having me here.

 

Lewis – We were just talking about this um right before that you have sold with The Secret almost 34 million copies are in print around the world translated in over 50 languages um and I believe this is one of your first down interviews in person since you did Oprah about 16 years ago.

 

Rhonda – That’s true.

 

Lewis – You’ve done a few virtual interviews over Zoom we did one that got millions of views around the world, and um, and you are back in person. I’m so grateful that you’re here because there’s definitely an energy about you in person that brings a different element, and I’m excited to talk about the things some things that we covered in the previous interview but even more, because you have this incredible piece of art that you’ve come out with called these manifestation cards. The Secret Manifestation Cards which are beautiful, and I want to go through a number of these today and talk about this. But you have received so much celebration over the last 16 years since The Secret came out.

 

Rhonda – Yeah.

 

Lewis – But you’ve also had criticism of The Secret and what this is.

 

Rhonda – Yeah.

 

Lewis – And so for people that don’t know what The Secret is, if they didn’t see our previous interview and this is their first time hearing about you and it’s their first time saying what is the law of attraction and The Secret.

 

Rhonda – Right, right.

 

Lewis – Can you explain what the Law of Attraction… explain the Law of Attraction and manifesting actually is in simple terms before we dive in deeper.

 

Rhonda – Sure. Gee it will be interesting to see, well interesting to see how I describe it now after all these years um. Basically, every, not basically, actually every human being is a

Creator. And they are creating their life, and we don’t know for many of us we did not know that that was the case. And we are creating our life through our thoughts. So, it’s not that our thoughts are powerful it’s that we are powerful, and so when we focus on a thought and we really hold that focus, that thought will manifest in our life. We create our own life through our thoughts and through the mind. The mind, our mind is super, super, super powerful. Yeah.

 

Lewis – For good or for worse.

 

Rhonda – Yes so for example um we can talk about what we want, and we will manifest that you know and so some people they just see the abundance in the world. You know that’s all that they see they don’t they don’t see any lack they just see abundance, and everything seems to go right for them everything falls into place for them they invest in this and its skyrockets. They buy a house in this place and that suburb goes crazy and it’s like everything they touch turns to gold but it’s because they have the mindset that is toward wealth and abundance and they don’t have a mindset toward luck and we have a lack mindset when we say things like I’m broke, I don’t have enough, I don’t have enough to pay my bills. And you see whatever we say, is what our life will be, and so if we are saying I don’t have enough money, then by law of attraction we will not have enough money we will continue to not have enough money so what we have to do is we need to speak about what we want and we need to talk about for example if it’s money, or if it’s health, or if we’re not feeling really great then we can talk about what it feels like to be really well instead of talking about not being well. Right? Because if we’re talking about not being well, we’re attracting more of that more of that more of that.

 

Lewis – Right.

 

Rhonda – That’s basically law of attraction. I mean it is so wonderful and it’s so intricate and the more that you… The more that it becomes a part of your life the more you see the little kind of twists and turns.

 

Lewis – Synchronicities.

 

Rhonda – Yeah like for example, if you’re saying, yeah I’m so overwhelmed there’s just so much going on at the moment, and I can’t get on top of things and I’m just overwhelmed. Guess what? Guess what’s coming, more overwhelming, more.

 

Lewis – You know so when we speak about things that are frustrating us, that are overwhelming, that are stressing us out, that we’re in lack of, when we speak about them or we’re constantly in a loop of thinking of those thoughts and then speaking them to ourselves or to others, what I’m hearing you say is it’s going to be a lot harder to get beyond those struggles then to speak in a different way, or think in a different way, is that what I’m hearing you say?

 

Rhonda – That’s what, that’s the case and in fact until we think differently it won’t change.

 

Lewis – Really.

 

Rhonda – It wouldn’t matter all the action in the world all the action in the world will not override a belief, that we have and usually when we speak, for example, if I’m saying I’m so overwhelmed, so much is happening, and when we’re saying, “I’m so overwhelmed” we believe it, like we’re saying it with conviction, right? And so, the fact that we believe it, it’s not going to change we’re going to keep more things are going to come more things are going to come.

 

Lewis –  And even if someone let’s say they, they did work hard for a long time and they’re feeling this overwhelmed and all of a sudden they started to make a lot more money but it’s not going to change the overwhelm if they keep thinking it.

 

Rhonda – That’s right.

 

Lewis – So more money might come because you spent more time in this world and worked hard, and it’s just your time to make more.

 

Rhonda – Right.

 

Lewis – Right but you still might say well I’m still overwhelmed it’s not enough, right? There’s not enough feeling even though you have more you’re still stressed and overwhelmed.

 

Rhonda – You’re still stressed and overwhelmed.

 

Lewis – That’s why you see people with money, some people with money who aren’t fulfilled or happy they’re still overwhelmed.

 

Rhonda – That’s right yeah.

 

Lewis – So how do we shift it so that when more comes our way we’re actually not feeling more overwhelmed, but more in abundance and grateful for that.

 

Rhonda – It’s so simple it’s so easy we just have to talk about think about what we want. And do we want to feel overwhelmed, and no, we don’t. So what do what do you want? I want all of the success, but I want it to be effortless and easy, and I want to have lots of spare time, and I want to really be enjoying it, and I want. Like talk about what you want, and talk about what you want until you have what you want.

 

 

Lewis – When people talk about what they don’t want consistently, what typically happens?

 

Rhonda – They get that. That’s what they get more of what they don’t want. Yeah, they get more of what they don’t want. If we could just talk about what we want our life would be incredible, incredible, amazing spectacular, that’s it. Just to talk about, but we are so, we have a world that’s very beautiful, but orientated towards drama, and you know news is negative and so you know it’s challenging for people, but we’re all in it together.

 

Lewis – Yes.

 

Rhonda – Because we’re all dealing with the mind, and the mind that might be delivering a whole lot of negative thoughts, but not one of us, it’s not harder for one or easier for another. We all have this mind that can be like a flat mate and chatter, chatter, chatter, non-stop chatter, keep going on you know. So, we all we’re all dealing with that and the mind it’s just a, it’s just a program it’s not an entity it’s just a program, and so through I think because certainly through my experience through The Secret, you can to totally train your mind to be positive so that it is not leaning toward the negative all of the time and positive is just what you want.

 

Lewis – Right.

 

Rhonda – Right.

 

Lewis – When someone is thinking or speaking about what they want does that mean that they are in lack of it, or how do they speak about it where it’s not from a place of lack.

 

Rhonda – Right. It’s a good question because…

 

Lewis –  like I want this I want this but I don’t have it so how do we speak about it where we’re in gratitude and positive around it as opposed to I really want this thing but it’s not my life right now but I want it.

 

Rhonda – yeah but the problem is you just canceled out the manifestation when you said but it’s not in my life right now. Yeah because if you if you’re saying that… I you know I well you could say it like this, ‘I would really love to have this…’ it’s a little bit softer right than I want but you but to manifest something that you, to deliberately manifest you have to want it but then you can’t have any thoughts of well it’s not here yet. Because the moment you say it’s not here yet what does law of attraction do, it’s not here yet.

 

Lewis – And it’s constantly not here yet.

 

Rhonda – Yeah.

 

Lewis – So say so say this again, how do we really manifest something? We put it out there we speak it, or we think it but then we detach from it.

 

Rhonda – Yeah. And you know here’s the thing we so don’t realize our own amazing power that we can just ask for something and it will be given to us.

 

Lewis – Now here’s what here’s what the criticism online is for The Secret or the power of manifestation, the law of attraction, or anyone talking about manifesting…

 

Rhonda – Okay

 

Lewis – This is what I’ll see people ,and this is typically people in lack or maybe people with more of a negative frustration because they don’t have what they want, they will say, or these are comments that I’ll see you can’t just think something and expect it to appear without putting in the hard work, without action, without consistency, it’s just the world just doesn’t work like that. When you see comments like that or people say this, how would you respond to someone saying, thinking that, or saying that?

 

Rhonda – Well I don’t um I always kind of feel that everybody has the right to think what they want, and believe what they want, and I know it’s not the case. I remember Lester Levenson said something so incredible, he was a wonderful teacher, he’s not alive anymore but he was very simple in the way that he talked. He told these students that if you want something, I could lock you up in a room and padlock that room and you ask for that, and you know you have it, right, you know you have it now, and it will come.

 

Lewis – Really?

 

Rhonda – Yeah it will come. And nothing in this world can stop it. So…

 

Lewis – Wow. What are some examples in your life where you’ve thought or spoken about something you desired or wanted, and it has come effortlessly. Or maybe an example of people that have written about their success stories, is there anything you can think of?

 

Rhonda – right.

 

Lewis – Maybe for a long time they’d struggled in manifesting or attracting what they wanted but they started to apply this and really believed it and that thing came to them?

 

Rhonda – Right well when I did a book signing and I had I got to talk to all of these different people and every single person at that book signing told me about how their life had completely changed. And what was amazing was so somebody would say that they wanted to have… they were working, I don’t know cleaning a bank or something and they wanted to have their own sound studio, and that is what they decided to manifest and they visualized and visualized and they felt it and they wouldn’t allow any thoughts of doubt to enter their mind. They are now running one of the top sound studios in LA.

 

Lewis – Wow

 

Rhonda – But not just that, they met their perfect partner, they bought their dream house they have, you know, two children, or they travel. Every single thing that they wanted they received and that was what was so amazing about all of these people when I was signing books. It wasn’t just one thing in their life, but these people were amazing. They did gratitude all of the time or they did affirmations all of the time and they had a complete change within themselves. You know to be kind, you know to other people, and so they would think positively, they were aware when negative thoughts came, and they would stop them in their tracks. For me I think the biggest manifestation for me was The Secret.

 

Lewis -Yeah

 

Rhonda – Because I was a mother of two children in Melbourne Australia, I had this night where Henny Penny the sky fell in, everything in my life completely collapsed right and I had a huge awakening that night. And realized how… realized all of this and how incredible we are and what we can do, and what mastery we have over the world, and there and then I looked out at the world and I’m like, no one knows this. No one knows this and so I was determined that I would find a way to take this to the world. I had no idea what shape or form it would take or, but that night I determined that that is what I would do. Eventually a whole team were gathered I had a production company at that point, and everybody might think oh if you had a production company, it’s so easy for you to make a documentary. Aha but let me tell you. Aha there’s a snag, I was $2 million in debt. R

 

Lewis – Really?

 

Rhonda – That production company was $2 million in debt and my accountant told me you’re going to be broke in 30 days and lose everything. Lose everything and to this day I don’t know how it didn’t happen. I do know because I didn’t allow that thought, I only allowed the thought of taking this to the world, and nothing else mattered.

 

Lewis – Wow

 

Rhonda – Getting this out into the world. Getting back to your point, I would like, I don’t want to I remember when I did time 100, and they had all the cameras that was an interesting experience. Well were on the red carpet and walking down and they were all like, what do you say to the naysayers? And I said, “Good for them, good for them”. Because I think one problem we have in the world is people wanting other people to believe what they believe. You know I discovered something incredible I absolutely know it’s the case through my experience through tens of thousands and millions of people’s experience, I know it’s the case, but if there’s somebody that isn’t ready for this in their life, that’s fine.

 

Lewis – Yeah right.

 

Rhonda – Right. That’s totally fine.

 

Lewis –  Because a lot of people feel like they might be in a breakdown you know during that moment of your life you have were struggling with you know business different things in your life that were happening, relationships it sounds like there were some challenges boiling up, but then this wisdom within you came out, and you decided to act on it. And one of these cards again this is this is a beautiful piece of art these cards, these manifestation cards, and I want people to get this we’ll have everything linked up, and I’ve gone through a lot of these already. They’re amazing, I wish I would have created this. This is incredible it says this card is great for this point of the conversation where it says, ‘Everything is always on track always, no matter where you are in your life currently and no matter how difficult things might appear to be in this moment you are always being moved toward magnificence’.

 

Rhonda – Yes.

 

Lewis – So why are we moved toward magnificence even when we’re in breakdown stress and feel like we’re suffering? How are we on track when we’re in that moment?

 

Rhonda – Well we are though. We are and I mean if I use myself as an example, and sometime excuse me for doing that but, that night that I talked about where everything collapsed in a heap and I was going to be broke my health was really bad my relationships were in a mess, my father had died really suddenly he was young, and he had died really suddenly and my parents just had the love affair that I’ve most beautiful love affair I’ve ever seen so my mother was in terrible grief, and so I had all of these things, and then I was going to be bust in 30 days. So I was able to turn all of that around and if that hadn’t happened that night, and I’ve thought about all of the things that led up to that night, and you know I was making six documentary films about murder. Can you imagine?

 

Lewis – Wow

 

Rhonda – Yeah, a subject like and it was heart-wrenching cuz these were unsolved murders, and talking to the families, and everything like that, but it was perfection. The way that all of these things lined up, that I was making these movies and then that I plummeted into grief with my father, that I was so stressed about my mother, and all of these things led to this incredible night on the 9th of September at 9:30 at night. Where everything fell in a heap and I… We could all say oh but that was so terrible all those things happened and not long before that you know years before that I’d been fired and never imagined I’d ever get fired but if any of those things hadn’t happened, I would never ever have discovered The Secret. I’ve been through lots of tough things since, you know…

 

Lewis – It hasn’t been perfect?

 

Rhonda – …when. No. When we’re human you know, we’re going to have things… We’re going to have things that will come that will have us go further, reach further be more magnificent be more understanding be more compassionate. You know when you lose somebody really close to you, you become very compassionate you know it helps to instil all of that. So absolutely I say that we are all on track. The first thing people always ask me is what do you feel about the world, do you know, ‘oh my gosh it’s a mess’. And I just say everything’s unfolding perfectly. It really and truly is, it’s unfolding perfectly. And the same for everybody and somebody might be going through a really rough diagnosis, but from where I am there’s no end for any of us.

 

 

Lewis – Really?

 

Rhonda – No we are we are Consciousness, there’s no end.

 

Lewis – Right, right. So it’s not going to end even if there’s a bad diagnosis in our in our life?

 

Rhonda – No this is just this is just the vehicle, this is just the car ,you know that we’re that we’re using to travel around in the world. Yeah.

 

Lewis – You this is one another one of your cards that I love that speaks into this and I hope you don’t mind me reading some of these this one says, ‘Be grateful for your challenges’, and you wrote all of these from your wisdom which I think is amazing. It says, ‘Be grateful for your challenges, it’s all of the hard things and apparently negative things that happen to us which give us deep desire to change our lives. Be grateful for them because they have given you the strength and determination to manifest something different, and you will change your life.’ And we were talking about this beforehand. about how hard it is to watch people suffer. How hard it is to watch people you care about, suffer people struggling in the world that you don’t know about and seeing suffering happening it’s very challenging to witness especially if you have a lot of compassion in your heart, if you have, if you’re empathetic towards individuals and if you felt pain yourself.

 

Rhonda – Yes. Yes.

 

Lewis – Very challenging, very,  so how can people be grateful for their challenges even though we know…. I know you know, and I know that our biggest challenges of our past got us to where we are today. It’s like those moments of complete pain and suffering taught me my biggest lessons which have given me strength and courage today, but how can people fully understand that when they have a horrible disease, when they’ve lost someone in their life too soon, when there’s an unfortunate war in their individual life, or in their country, they’re going bankrupt, how can we empower people to be grateful for their challenges when there’s so much. How to be grateful during tough times, pain and suffering in their life?

 

Rhonda – Because being grateful is what will change their lives. And so the difficulties that they’re facing, I mean, we have a lot of stories on our website about people with health challenges and how those those health challenges just disappeared with love and gratitude, so, and just being grateful. Being grateful is I mean that that is just number one, that’s the fastest way for anybody to change their life. And I think if you went out and asked most people they would be, they would say, oh yeah, I know it’s important to be grateful. I think most people would agree with that. Grateful isn’t spiritual or you know, it’s just being grateful. I just say if you want to see the power that you have to change your life really fast then start doing gratitude, and it will just blow your mind.

 

Lewis – It changes everything, again next card I just turned to, it is, ‘Gratitude is The Great Multiplier. Set the Universal forces in your favor for tomorrow. Tonight before you fall asleep, go back over your whole day in your mind and replay each good moment, feeling genuine gratitude for each one. This practice ensures the Universe will make your tomorrow a day filled with good moments, and plenty to be grateful for, for the next day as well’.

 

Rhonda – Absolutely.

 

Lewis – And when we are ungrateful when we are not in appreciation for the good the bad the ugly, what happens in our lives when we lack gratitude?

 

Rhonda – We’re taking things for granted, which means things will be taken from us.

 

Lewis – Oh!

 

Rhonda – Yeah, yeah. When we take things for granted, they get taken from us. Yeah gratitude will hold absolutely everything to us in our life. It will just, it will stick everything to us.

 

Lewis – How do we be grateful when we’re in suffering or sadness or loss?

 

Rhonda – I know it’s really hard but there’s I guess, there’s like, there’s like, suffering sadness and loss that continues in that way, or there suffering with gratitude, and the suffering gets easier.

 

Lewis – Right.

 

Rhonda – Well there’s sadness with gratitude and the sadness begins to lift, or the loss with gratitude. I know because of my mother was so grief stricken with my father having died, and what brought my mother right out of it was gratitude. She was just so grateful that they got to have all of the years together that they had, that they had five children, there were five of us, and they had five children that they had an incredible life, that they loved. They loved each other was love at first sight and they loved and adored each other until the last moment. And she was so glad that he didn’t suffer. She just found so many things to be grateful for, and this was the love of her life, but from doing that gratitude she just lifted herself up and began to live a new life. You know, so what happened was she reduced the…  the pain, the pain, and the grief, because eventually it will lessen, but she and she just felt absolute love for everything that… I remember her saying to me she’s not alive now, but I remember her saying to me, ‘You know I’ve had such a blessed life’. I was like wow,

you know you went through a war, you went through… You know they didn’t have like I

came from very humble beginnings that my parents did not have much and yet she

saw her life as rich and blessed.

 

Lewis – Wow that’s beautiful. A lot of it is perspective you know. And if we hold on to resentment or lack of forgiveness in our life. we able to manifest and attract beautiful things if we hold on to resentment and anger and don’t forgive?

 

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Rhonda – I think we can still because we’re attracting every day so I think we can still attract things, but will those things bring us peace and happiness. Not when your heart is full of resentment because if you’re full of resentment, what you will attract is more people,

circumstances and events that will cause resentment.

 

Lewis – Oh my gosh.

 

Rhonda – That’s just to show you that there’s something to let go of you know. Everything’s very beautiful, everything’s beautiful.

 

Lewis – Can you explain that what does that mean something to let go of?

 

Rhonda – So it’s time to let go of that resentment. that because that original resentment is attached to some story or another that we have about somebody did something to us, and isn’t it crazy, that maybe somebody did, but then that we would carry that for years. And by carrying it we keep attracting more of more and more of it, so that just it just shows you how all of those religious texts and everything, they got it really right.

 

Lewis – Yeah of course.

 

 

Rhonda – When they said not to you know love thy enemy, and all of those things, that was said all of those things make total sense, don’t carry those things with you.

 

Lewis – well that lack of forgiveness that resentment is an energetic force that’s almost attracting more of those things and resisting the abundance, of peace and harmony. When you’re carrying and holding on to that anger, you’re resisting peace.

 

Rhonda – Yeah

 

Lewis – This is another card again I’m just in the flow right here, that says, ‘Feelings are powerful manifestors, remember that worry attracts more worry…’ just what you said.

‘… unhappiness attracts more unhappiness, fear attracts more fear, and remember that joy attracts more joy, happiness attracts more happiness, love attracts more love’. And it’s the times what I’m hearing you say, the times when it feels like it’s the hardest is the times when it’s the most important…

 

Rhonda – That’s right.

 

Lewis – … to be in a state of gratitude happiness and love. Because holding on to anger unhappiness and worry only attracts more of that.

 

Rhonda – More of it. And I think everybody experienced that right during covid.

 

Lewis – Yes.

 

Rhonda –  With all of the worry about covid, which then turned into fear, and people became more fearful, more fearful, and then things seemed to get worse, and then more fearful and things got worse, and things, got right?

 

Lewis – It did.

 

Rhonda – When you got the whole world when you’ve got when you have the majority of the world in so much fear it’s going to get worse.

 

Lewis – It is yeah. Do we, should we be thinking more about our thoughts or our feelings when it comes to manifesting and attracting abundance?

 

Rhonda – Good question. You know what I would say, I would say for people to choose whatever’s easiest for them. I did thoughts, I became very aware of my thoughts, but too I have to say I also became super, super, sensitive to what I was feeling. So much so that if I wasn’t feeling good, I would not open my computer, or any emails.

 

Lewis –

why is that?

 

Rhonda – Because if I’m on a frequency, if I’m on a frequency of frustration, when I open up those emails in comes frustration, in comes problems. And so I wouldn’t answer my phone if I wasn’t feeling good and in fact the whole Secret team knows very well…

 

Lewis – If you can’t get a hold of Rhonda…

 

Rhonda – No I said to them, if you don’t feel well, please don’t touch The Secret. And if you had an argument with your spouse, or you got really you know fell out of bed the wrong way, take the day off. Don’t touch The Secret.

 

Lewis – Unless you can shift out of it quickly…

 

Rhonda – If you’re unable to shift which they all can now, but this was early days. I was really careful. So feeling good, I guess if you ask people how did they feel they might say oh yeah I feel you know I feel pretty good, or they, but what I want to know is do you feel happy, because if you’re not feeling happy, then you’re unhappy. Like we could say there’s just two you know two.

 

Lewis – Black and white, happy or not happy.

 

Rhonda – Exactly. So, if you’re not feeling… And if you think about a time in your life when you felt happy, and I don’t mean over excited, or what I mean is just happy. You know just feeling full and happy, and it’s a great day, and you’re really positive and friendly to everybody. Yeah that’s happy, and the other that kind of numb feeling, or you know it’s another day kind of, that’s unhappiness.

 

Lewis – I will say Rhonda, I grew up not thinking that I was very smart or intelligent, I struggled in school. So, I had this belief that I wasn’t smart enough for really anyone or anything. And I was never going to be able to figure things out cuz, I had this kind of belief based on testing poorly, just struggling in school, was hard to read and write, and I just felt like everyone around me was smarter, based on kind of school system and tests. Now I learned later that that wasn’t true in other areas of life I had more Street smarts rather than school smarts, but I remember in my early 20s not thinking I had skills to go into a career, because I lacked success in school. And early on I was trying to figure out how can I start to make money how can I get opportunities for me when I don’t have these skills. And what I said to myself early on was I’m going to bring joy and happiness everywhere I go, When I would enter a room I would I would think about okay this is a pathway to joy and I would smile as I would cross the doorway I would cross it I would just open my heart to joy and smile and enter a room and smile at people. And when I would smile at other people and just ask them a question how’s your day, they would smile back and bring that mirroring energy. In this next

card here, you say, ‘Live In Joy. Humanity needs your joy. Planet earth needs your joy. The Universe needs your joy. And that’s why you are here; find what brings you joy, start living it, and you will have fulfilled your purpose.’ And when I didn’t know what my purpose was, I just said I’m going to be joy, and that is purpose. And things started to unfold in my life, financial opportunities, people wanted to be around me more, and they wanted to help me. I didn’t know why except for that I brought joy and happiness. So I want people to know that you know when you bring joy even if you don’t know what direction you’re heading, or what should I do next, at the next chapter of my life, joy unlocks opportunities, like you said and I love this message in this card here.

 

Lewis – Well that that was just such an insight that you received, you know. That’s like a divine message to you to do that because on the frequency of joy is every that you could ever want.

 

Lewis – Really.

 

Rhonda – Everything. Yeah.

 

Lewis – It’s not when you’re in anger?

 

Rhonda – Joy. Haha! I mean people must notice, you know, it’s so obvious look at your life and you can see how you’re creating it like you get angry and then one thing happens, and then, oh no, something else happens, and then something else happens, and something else, you know, I mean, we’ve all had those days.

 

Lewis – A snowball bad things.

 

Rhonda – Teah and we just keep creating one after the other. Yeah and on joy, because Joy is at the same frequency is love.

 

Lewis – uh-huh.

 

Rhonda –  So it’s right up there, and it is incredible, and that’s why in The Secret Documentary and in The Secret why I say nothing is more important, than that you feel good. Because when you feel good, you’re on a feel-good frequency and absolutely everything you encounter in the day, all the people, all the circumstances, all the events will be feel good. They will be things that make you feel even better, even better, even better, even better.

 

Lewis – Yeah. There’s a quote from famous football coach in America his name is Vince Lombardi who passed away, but he was a he won a number of championships for the Green Bay Packers, I believe it was, his quote that he would say to his, you know his team, his athletes, was that… What did he say he said, ‘Either be fired up with enthusiasm, or you’ll be fired with enthusiasm’. Right, it’s like you either got to bring the joy is what he was saying, bring the energy, bring the positive excitement, or you’ll be fired passionately. Because it’s hard to manifest or excel at a high elite level in sports, or something, if you’re not bringing passion and joy, in a in a loving happy joyful way. It’s hard to, maybe you could have some success but to kind of maintain that level of opportunities and flow it’s hard to do that without it right?

 

Rhonda – Wow that’s really interesting cuz that’s the same with life too. Right? Is really like for example, when you’re in joy you will manifest so fast, it’s a really high frequency and you will manifest really, really, quickly. The thing is, if you’re in grief and despair, it’s very slow..

 

Lewis – Right.

 

Rhonda – …and that is so that’s a protective mechanism for all of us. Because I had one time in my life where I hit depression, and because I was extremely worried about my daughter, and I just…. it was just like this black cloud and I and I thought I have completely thought myself too here. I could see all of the scary thoughts that I believed, and that and I am here now here is where I am and I knew I was here because to experience it, so I could help people out of depression.

 

Lewis – So no one else created you to get there?

 

Rhonda – Oh I did it.

 

Lewis – You created yourself?

 

Rhonda – Yeah because I just believed all these thoughts that I was, all these scary thoughts. I was just believing them all and my daughter’s fine and well today. They were just, they were just all thoughts, and so now, I mean I’m really, I guess really fortunate, I tried everything that I knew, which was to be grateful, and to think positive thoughts. So I tried thinking positive thoughts, I could feel how weak they were.

 

Lewis – What do you mean by that?

 

Rhonda – They didn’t have a lot of power behind them.

 

Lewis – So they were like, I’m going, I’m happy but I’m not really happy, not feeling it?

 

Rhonda – Because the depression….

 

Lewis – Strong.

 

Rhonda – You know it was strong. And so what I did was, I decided to not resist the depression, but to love it…

 

Lewis – Tell me more.

 

Rhonda – …and it melted away.

 

 

Lewis – what does that look like if someone’s going through three to six month…

 

Rhonda – I had to imagine this. I had to create like a picture of this, but I kind of like, I could feel the sensation of it, because depression is just a sensation. All of my feelings are just sensations and they’re not actually us they’re just they’re just a sensation, but I would get that sensation, and I would feel that sensation of depression, and then I just imagined putting my arms around it and pulling it into me. And that was hard to do…

 

Lewis – Not pushing a way of resisting…

 

Rhonda – …because that’s what we do you see, we push away, bad feelings, we don’t want to feel the pain. Right?

 

Lewis – We numb them, we try to escape from them.

 

Rhonda – Exactly. We do everything but I did the opposite because I knew what you resist persists. Right?

 

Lewis – Yes.

 

Rhonda – And so I just imagine putting my arms around, the moment that I did it, it just evaporated, that whole feeling of depression. And then a couple of hours later it would started to come back, not nearly that same level, did it again, in 3 days was totally gone.

 

Lewis – How long had you’ve been experiencing the depression for. Was this weeks, was this months?

 

Rhonda – It was like couple of weeks.

 

Lewis – A couple of weeks. And if you would have resisted it, or numbed it, or tried to escape it…

 

Rhonda – I’d still be there.

 

Lewis – Really?

 

Rhonda – Yeah.

 

Lewis – So what I’m hearing you say, is that you embracing the sadness, the pain, the grief, the loss, whatever it might be, but embracing it, and creating a relationship with it,

as opposed to pushing it away yeah allowed it to flow through you and leave you.

 

Rhonda – Yeah it can’t stay. Because nothing negative can and remain in the face of love.

 

Lewis – Wow.

 

Rhonda – Love is the light and everything negative you could say is darkness is one way to look at it, and so if there’s love the darkness just disappears. And that’s why it just evaporated, was the most incredible feeling, and I knew I’m experiencing this so I can share it with people.

 

Lewis – How does someone, I mean, The Secret 34 million plus copies you know, tens of millions of people have watched the movie all the other books, and programs, and products that you have, have been, you know sold by millions of people, have been bought these things, how does someone believe they are worthy of great things the way you have been able to do great things in your life? And impact the world in such a magnitude that you have done? How can someone know and trust that something is destined for them, maybe it’s not at this level, but something is great and destined for them? How do they know that and did you know this your entire life, leading up to this, that something like this was supposed to happen?

 

Rhonda – No I didn’t. No, but the moment I discovered it I knew. I absolutely knew it I knew this is why I was here. I knew it with every fibre of my being. But prior to that, I didn’t, I was really ambitious…

 

Lewis – You were driven, you had a business, was driven…

 

Rhonda -…but when I say ambitious, I was only wanting to perfect, be great myself, I wasn’t in competition with anybody. I wasn’t trying to be better than that person, or I just wanted to be the best that I could be. I didn’t… but after I discovered The Secret and my whole life turned completely around 360, I looked back on my life and I saw that every single thing in my life was leading to this.

 

Lewis – Really?

45.05min

Rhonda – Yes because just even things like I worked in the newsroom for in a radio station and so when The Secret went crazy, like crazy, and I just had every news media outlet in the world, in every country coming at us. I did very little, because I knew that, what happens, what can happen is that the media will build you up to tear you down.

 

Lewis – Wow.

 

Rhonda – And I knew that because I had worked in news, and I’d worked in media, and…

 

Lewis – you had seen.

 

Rhonda – …I had seen it.

 

Lewis – Is that why you did very you did Oprah, and that was really it.

 

Rhonda – I did Oprah, and I did Oprah because I knew Oprah lived this. And you see I didn’t want to go onto anything where, I didn’t want to have arguments with people, because I’m not trying to convince you to do anything. I discovered something and I wanted to share it, and if you find that it’s incredible for your life, then I’m so happy, if you if you don’t want to hear about it, that’s fine too. So, I didn’t want to get into situations with people where they’re like oh, this is you know as if the mind can do this. This is all there is, is mind, you know they didn’t even realize like it’ll be hundreds of years before it is realized what the substance of the universe really, really is, but right now we can use this knowledge to completely create the life we deserve to have. And what you were talking about being this great greatness, I think some of us were born to do something like this, but then there are others, and I think about this with my mother, right, my mother stopped working when she was like 19 years old and she had five children, but my mother achieved greatness, because she was an incredible mother, and she was an incredible wife, and so her level was different. I think you know what you did, or what I did, not everybody is prepared to take the risks. You took risks.

 

Lewis – Yes.

 

Rhonda – You can’t, you can’t do it without the risks. I took huge risks. I put everything on the line, I would everything, I would have been on the streets. I like mortgaged, overdraft, I did everything possible to get The Secret out to the world and I didn’t care honestly what happened to me after it I just wanted to get it to the world, and that was it. You have, there’s something within you that really pushes you, but then there are people that they might love what they, do you know, and they don’t want to be running a company, they don’t want the stress of that. They love their family they want to spend as much time with their family as possible, they just really love to have a better house, or you know… I think honestly if you can live your life, and you can bring joy to other people just by your presence, just by your presence, if you can do that, oh my God you’ve lived the greatest life possible. You really have because every single person their true nature is joy, and their true nature is love, and that’s why you feel so good when you’re in joy.

 

Lewis – Yeah right.

 

Rhonda –  That’s why we feel so good when we’re loving, and being loving is smiling to that person, like you did, you know I’m opening the doors, and I’m in a small.

 

Lewis – Yes absolutely. Yeah, I mean you talking about kindnesss, this is the next thing on top of here, you just said kindness… We’re in sync right here. ‘Kindness Changes Everything. Want to see your life change for the better, today? Then be the kindest you’ve ever been to every person you encounter.’ When you do that it’s hard to have a bad day.

 

Rhonda – You can’t it’s not possible, that’s why, just do that. You know like I’m like just do that one thing, and you don’t take my word for it, try it for yourself and just see for yourself what happens. I remember this person contacted us and really early on, and he said, he decided that he was just going to be happy. I think it was a hairdresser and he said I’m just going… I’m making a decision that I am going to be happy and I’m going to see what happens. And it was incredible what happened in his life. Got his own hairdressing salon, and all… just because he made a decision to be happy. What’s on the happiness

Frequency, everything that you want to make you happy.

 

Lewis – Absolutely you know so I’m curious about after the secret came out and every news outlet in the world wanted to hear more about what you were creating. You do Oprah which that you know blows up everywhere, you you’re Time 100 Most Influential person in the world, you’re selling tens of millions of copies within the first few years, this message was everywhere you could not go into a store without seeing this book. he

 

Rhonda – True.

 

Lewis – How did you navigate the pressure of success the success and not let that weight or pressure break you? Because some people want the impact, this the success but then they’re not ready for it, how did you prepare yourself, and was that a conscious decision not to do a lot of interviews after that. To not be picked at or try to be pulled down in certain ways, like…

 

Rhonda – That was a conscious decision.

 

Lewis – Like did you feel ready for the success? Did you feel prepared, or did you feel like this was a little overwhelming?

 

Rhonda – I never felt it was me.

 

Lewis – What do you mean?

 

Rhonda – I just, I just it was the message that was the star.

 

Lewis – Interesting.

 

Rhonda – I never felt that it was me. Like even writing The Secret Book, I absolutely knew that, and making the documentary, like it was a miracle what happened making that documentary. The way everything that we ever needed just landed right at our feet. It was so spectacular it was the most incredible thing I’ve ever seen, and I just knew the universe you know just putting that in that most affectionate way, I knew the universe was with us. Writing the book, it was the same thing, like I felt such a rush, in writing that book. I couldn’t write it fast enough, all the things that I’d learned and practiced, and I wanted to share with people. um but you know I had like I got a burst blood vessel in one of my eyes, I had my feet got all cracked, all the skin on my feet got cracked from high frequency in writing that book.

 

Lewis – Really, yeah cuz you said you were telling me before off camera that you wrote this book in Santa Monica in an apartment, just a few miles from here…

 

Rhonda – With my laptop on my lap.

 

Lewis – …with your laptop on your lap, in a small little apartment. Were you on the beach, were you off the beach, were you, what was your environment like?

 

Rhonda – Off the beach, it was a very simple little corporate apartment, the documentary had been released and I was writing the book, and I had… It was it was just the perfect situation I knew exactly everything that I wanted to say, it was really just rushing through me.

 

Lewis – And because of the frequency you had like, you know, so you had your body was feeling…

 

Rhonda – My body really…

 

Lewis – That’s fascinating.

 

Rhonda – …and after it I wasn’t wipe out.

 

Lewis – You were like exhausted, you were like energetically drained.

 

Rhonda – Energetically drained yeah. Then with each book that I wrote, I tried to manage that more, you know, that I wasn’t so wiped out, and now I could write a book and not at all.

 

Lewis – Right yeah, but were you a writer before this did you..

 

Rhonda – No. No do you know what?

 

Lewis – The Secret this was, this your first book. The Secret is your first book and you sold 34 million copies. That is crazy.

 

Rhonda – I know, right? I remember when Beyond Words contacted me and said we want you to do The Secret book. Well I knew there’d be The Secret book cuz I’d seen it in bookstores in my mind all around the world, in the front window, I’d seen it I didn’t know what it looked like, but I could feel the book. And I said yes. Like I knew there’d be a Secret book and I said okay. And they said and we want you to write it, and I said I’m not a writer. And guess what, I heard those words, and I’m like, yes I am.

 

Lewis – you switched it.

 

Rhonda – Yeah because I’m not a writer means that you will not be a writer. Right? And I’m like, yes I am, because I can do anything that I put my mind to you. Everybody can do anything they put their mind to, and so I wrote, and I was very specific I wanted to write to people as though was just talking to them, and not you know any kind of incredible huge words, or anything like that. I just I wanted it to be super, super, simple because law of attraction was a hard concept to get your head around at that time. It’s understood a little more these days.

 

Lewis – This is this is what I love about what you did because you first said you saw it in your mind, and you felt the book, in bookstores, you felt it so you were connecting the thought the visualization of what you saw in your mind and the feeling, you had those two things connected it sounded like and this is where I think some people get wrong about the law of attraction, or The Secret is they, you know you had those two things the thoughts and the feelings as if it was already happening but then you took action. You wrote the book. You didn’t just say it’s magically going to like be in bookstores there had to be some action somewhere whether it was you or someone else.

 

Rhonda – Yeah but I had the publisher come to me to say you to write the book.

 

Lewis – You drew it in.

 

Rhonda – So I attracted that, but do you know what, with that book I honestly feel like I was just a stenographer.

 

Lewis – You were just downloading it.

 

Rhonda – And that’s why in answer to your question how did I manage all of that? Honestly I never I just felt like I was the luckiest person in the world to be a part of that journey, but I know without a doubt the universe was just there. This had to come out into the world and it was there to help at every turn.

 

Lewis – If someone is applying these principles and think they’re not drawing in the person the publisher, the right person to hire the thing, to support them in manifesting what they want. Does that mean they’re not ready for that thing to come out into the world, is it not the right timing, you know cuz you could have wanted this 20years prior, but it didn’t happen then it happened, at the moment you were ready for it, it sounds like. So how can

people let go of their frustration of really wanting something to happen now versus knowing when it’s the right timing for it to come into the world?

 

Rhonda – Right. So, the difference is just simply belief. So, you have to believe you have it already so can if I explain what my belief was like, my belief was a notch above believing it had already happened. Mine was knowing it had already happened.

 

Lewis – What’s the difference between believing and knowing?

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Rhonda – because one, because knowing is the highest you can get. It’s actually knowing is beyond the mind but believe, but you can manifest with believing too. So I didn’t just believe this had happened, I absolutely knew it. And I knew it, I knew what it was going to do. It felt I knew it so much that I felt like I had already lived the entire journey of making it and it coming out, and that I had such a great time that I was reliving it.

 

Lewis – Oh that’s pretty cool.

 

 

Rhonda – That’s how that’s how it felt.

 

Lewis – This is, this is fascinating what you just said, this unlocked something for me. The difference between believing and knowing. I grew up in a religion, the religion of Christian Science which is all about healing and applying healing thinking, and applying the mind to the material world, but really there is no material world anyways… but one of the things that I would hear over and over again when I felt like something was off in my life, or I felt like I was feeling a pain, or something physical in my body was off, out of alignment, we would have Christian Science practitioners, spiritual practitioners, that would give us um prescriptions, but they weren’t medications, they were spiritual medications essentially. Right?

 

Rhonda – Gotcha

 

Lewis – and it was and they were always called truths, and they would always say know the truth. They didn’t say believe this, they would say know the truth, and when you know it, it is true, and it is a reality, and it was hard it was confusing as a kid because I was like well, but I feel this thing and there’s this pain but how can I know it, but what I’m hearing you say is believing can really help you in a big way, but knowing is what unlocks manifestation into another level.

 

Rhonda – Yeah knowing it’s just done. I mean there have been times for everybody when they knew something they absolutely knew something was going to happen before it happened. So, let’s say…

 

Lewis – And how do they know that?

 

Rhonda – Yes, how did you know that? And you don’t know how you knew it.

 

Lewis – It’s like an intuition or a feeling or something.

 

Rhonda – Yeah right. You knew it, like somebody’s having a baby and they don’t know what sex it is, but you’re like, oh I know it’s a girl. I absolutely know it’s a girl, and everybody thinks you’re just guessing, like everybody else. No, you’re like I know it. I know it’s a girl, or there’s a spinning wheel and you all of a sudden you’re like, I know it’s going to be number 11. I know it, and it is number 11, but you knew it, absolutely knew it.

 

Lewis – How does that happen?

 

Rhonda – Yeah because it’s above the mind. It’s above the mind. So, you definitely know it.

 

Lewis – That’s crazy

 

Rhonda – So you don’t have to be at knowing to manifest, you just have to be at believing and, might I just say, that you just have to be more believing than not believing. So that person who’s not, you know, they’re waiting, and it hasn’t manifested and they’re here, and here, the difference is they’re not believing it is done already. The moment they’re believing more that it’s done than it hasn’t arrived, it’ll manifest.

 

Lewis – How do we stay patient? And…

 

Rhonda – See well if you need patience, you’re not believing it’s manifested right?

 

Lewis – Interesting so is there…can you give me..

 

Rhonda – So you are done for right there.

 

Lewis – So give me an example, give me an example if there’s an example in your life

Personally, or something you’ve seen from a friend or someone who’s read the book, where they were like man, I’ve been waiting for this to happen it’s been 10 years, I feel like it’s supposed to happen, I’m believing it’s happening, but I haven’t got the thing that I’ve wanted yet, or haven’t, it hasn’t happened yet hasn’t come to fruition yet right. Should I have more patience in manifesting, should I expect it’s already here now, what should I do?

 

Rhonda – Okay. So I’ve definitely had some people do that, one in particular she was wanting to have a baby, and get pregnant, she had visualized, visualized, visualized, visualized, getting pregnant, she had been doing affirmations, she’d been grateful that she was getting pregnant, and she’s like, still I’m not pregnant. Now I just, and I think she’d even done IVF and that hadn’t worked and so she’d up yeah…

 

Lewis – Tried lots of things.

 

Rhonda – I just knew that for a woman who can’t get pregnant, getting pregnant has a lot of resistance around it, because when you’ve not been able to get pregnant, get pregnant, get pregnant, there’s like real resistance around that getting pregnant, and so much so that the resistance was outweighing.. her resistance that I’m not pregnant yet, was outweighing her visualization all the other things, so I said to her I don’t want you to visualize that, I want you to visualize holding the baby, because that’s the outcome, right? That’s the end result, you don’t want to be pregnant for the rest of your life, right? You want to be holding the baby, so I said to her I want you to visualize holding the baby. I want you to hear the baby, I want you to feel it in your arms.

 

Lewis – Wow!

 

Rhonda – Pregnant in a month.

 

Lewis – Wow!

 

Rhonda – And I’ve done that with a lot of women.

 

Lewis – You know even you saying that I’m not a woman but it’s like imagining you know, a child coming into my life from my partner, and hearing the baby, having the baby against my chest, being born, you know feeling the heartbeat of the child next to my heartbeat, having this beautiful moment, like I’m already seeing the future happening now, by experiencing that feeling as opposed to like, I’m feeling it…

 

Rhonda – I mean you me be careful. You better be careful you know do you want to have children now.

 

Lewis – I do at the right time, yes at the right time.

 

Rhonda – Okay yeah at the right time.

 

Lewis – But it’s like when you feel that, and you really imagine and experience that feeling it’s as if it’s already happened, or it’s happening. And you’re feeling it and there for your allowing that to come to you, and you’re allowing that as opposed to resisting it. Where this person a friend of yours was like I really want this, come here, come here, but, but like it’s not here yet, and I’m frustrated.

 

Rhonda – So many disappointments you see. You know women I know go through a lot who can’t get pregnant so there’s just one disappointment after another, or maybe they got pregnant and then they miscarried, and… Somebody else they’re two Australian girls,

volleyball players, and they were playing in the Olympic Games, and these girls were just so brilliant so clever. They were not at all the favorites, far from the favorites, they were way down the way down the chart, and what they did was they filled their entire apartment with gold awards. They got everything gold leading up to the Olympic Games and they had gold everywhere they bought all these awards everywhere gold, do you think anyone could have beaten them at the Olympic Games?

 

Lewis – Wow!

 

Rhonda – No chance. The ball was going to bounce in the perfect way, they were going to be in the exact perfect position. You see because… So when we talk about action the kind of action that you have to do for when you have used the mind, that action is effortless. That’s why writing The Secret book was effortless. It’s effortless but if you go out into the world and you’re like make this happen, and you want to do all the action, oh you’re going to struggle, oh it’s going to be hard.

 

Lewis – You might get there eventually but…

 

Rhonda – it’s going to be harder than it could be and you’ll get there eventually but you only get there eventually because you think it gradually bit by bit, that’s the only reason you get there, because you had the thought, oh things are getting better. I’m starting to see success is coming, you’re having these little thoughts along way, that’s the only reason you make it you cannot do anything in the world without thought nothing. You show me one invention that’s happened without thought?

 

Lewis – Right you have to imagine it first…

 

Rhonda – Right.

 

Lewis – …you have to come up with it in your mind and then you alchemize and created in the world.

 

Rhonda – Exactly. So for those…

 

Lewis – you have to think it first.

 

Rhonda – Yes so for those girls you see they lived with that gold and saw themselves winning gold. I bet if you ask them they would say winning that gold was effortless for them, that they just got the right breaks, that everything happened, the right way for them. You know sports people are so amazing at visualizing winning, right?

 

Lewis – Then it does look effortless for them because they’re in the flow, they’re not working hard they’re working they’re they effortlessly moving to their desired result, right? How do we navigate the ego when… let’s say when success comes our way, you know whether these girls who win the gold medal, you know, an athlete, you selling millions of copies in the first year or months, or whatever and getting all these opportunities, how do we navigate the ego from not consuming us, but success actually allowing us to multiply into greater success?

 

Rhonda – Really good question.

 

Lewis – How did you navigate that?

 

Rhonda – You just, you certainly have to remain humble, you know, humble and grateful. And I think we’ve all seen people that have had success and then just robbed… just find themselves in the most awful drama, of you know terrible situation, where they made one mistake and just everything, you know the whole World turned against them. You have to remain humble otherwise truly just, you’re in for a really rough ride. You could visualize all the most wonderful things, and you could you know, achieve all of that, and manifest all of that, but if you don’t remain humble… because if you look at it anyway you never did it on your own like even if you just look it physically in the world, I mean I knew we had the universe behind us, I felt it with every step that we took, but even, I’ve got the most incredible team, I mean we did intentions meetings at 11:00 every morning. And where we intended, and in those meetings, we were celebrating The Secret having swept the world, and having become a global phenomenon. That’s what we did in those meetings.

 

Lewis – Before the book came out?

 

Rhonda -Oh yeah, but we danced, and we celebrated that. That’s what you’ve got to do.

 

Lewis – You had the feel of joy and excitement..

 

Rhonda – That it was already done. If you want to go traveling, if you want to see the world and you’re like, I don’t have any money, how will I ever go traveling, straight away law of attraction says, okay, done. You know, I don’t have any money, or, but if you want to go travel get out your suitcase.

 

Lewis – This is the funniest thing you said this, cuz my fiancé, Martha, she’s Mexican, they grew up in this Mexican traditions and over the holidays I don’t know, this never happened to me growing up in America but over the holidays, they would do this thing around Christmas and New Year’s, her family, and I believe this is a Mexican tradition, uh

but her family, they’ll all get out suitcases during the holidays and say, where do you want to go next year? And then we leave the house with the suitcase and say we’re going to

Japan. We walk out and we skip down the sidewalk with a suitcase, me and Martha did, and then each family member does this and tells the experience of where they went. I’m going here and this is where it’s going to feel like, and the experience, and it’s this joy and excitement talking about the trip. And we take the suitcase out the door and then we come back and we tell the experience and we said this this last year Japan, and now I, we literally just booked our trip to Japan, happening in like a month.

 

Rhonda – Oh I was going to say you are going to Japan.

 

Lewis – Yeah, it’s happening. No, it’s happening we already booked it. but even though I didn’t know when, or how at the end of last year we set an intention, we celebrated it, we talked about it and we allowed the universe to open up to see, when is this possible, how is this possible, what are we going to be doing, right? And things are coming to us in a way that’s going to create a beautiful magical experience.

 

Rhonda – Oh was so fantastic.

 

Lewis – But we took our luggage out. I don’t know if this is like a Mexican tradition, but so literally, what you said, they do every year, is really cool because it sets that intention.

 

Rhonda – Yes it’s acting as if, is what it is it’s acting as if you already have it, like I remember there was this lady who wanted to be in the audience on the Oprah show when I was going to be on there, and the audience was completely full, it was, it was booked out, but what she did was she got her suitcase out, and she got a flight to Chicago. I mean this is somebody really, really, game and she gets a call a message on her phone when she lands into Chicago to say, come to the studio we’ve got a seat for you. Yeah.

 

Lewis – She had already intended it and went there.

 

 

Rhonda – She had to get a seat you know.

 

Lewis – This is fascinating.

 

Rhonda – She really like, she really believed in you so acting as if like I I know I wrote this in one of my books, but there was, there was this woman who wanted a horse she couldn’t afford to buy a horse, so she went and bought the bridle. She put the Bridal on her table in front of her and looked at that bridle every day.

 

Lewis – Is that, is that the saddle, is the bridle is that the saddle?

 

Rhonda – I think it’s the I’m not a really great horse,..

 

Lewis – the mouth piece?

 

Rhonda -Yeah the straps that go around the head, kind of thing I think, and within a couple of weeks threw actually the most extraordinary set of circumstances, she got offered a horse.

 

Lewis – Oh my goodness.

 

Rhonda – Yeah through someone, through someone, through someone, through someone, and she got off at a horse, but of course she was acting as if she already had the horse. She bought the bridle, so and I always say the universe abhors a vacuum.

 

Lewis – Say it again.

 

Rhonda – The universe abhors a vacuum, so abhor is a b h o r s. The universe dislikes a vacuum. The universe can’t tolerate a vacuum it has to fill it. So if you create a vacuum which is why like for all the people who want to meet their perfect partner, and you go to their house and their wardrobe is totally full, and there’s no room for their partner’s clothes, right, and they sleep in the middle of the bed, where does their partner sleep, right? So you got to create a vacuum and so you got to sleep on that side of the bed so the partner sleeps there, you got to make room in the bathroom, you need to make room in the closet,

you’ve created a vacuum, then the then the person can come into your life.

 

Lewis – That’s so, this so funny you say this as well, because Martha my fiancé, she when she was single before we started dating, she bought herself a home and she was going to buy a queen size bed but her coach was like well, are you trying to, you know what type of man are you trying to attract? She’s like well you know a king. You know I’m trying to attract my king in my life right not saying that I’m a king or whatever, but like I’m trying to attract and she was saying, explain what’s does he look like, is he is he short, is he tall is he, you know and she was like, nah he’s like 6’4 and you know, he’s an athlete, and he’s he needs space, right? And her coach was like well you can’t buy a queen or full-size bed if you want to attract a bigger guy you need space like you said you need to have a big. So for a number of months she had this big king-sized and she’s tiny she’s like 5’2 right, so she was but she was sleeping on this big bed, she’s like ah is this weird because I have this extra space, but she allowed room for me to be there as well.

 

Rhonda – How amazing your life is full of these stories. So good.

 

Lewis – And you hear a lot of like I’m assuming you know mothers to be, they create rooms with a crib, and they have the room ready for the… that’s like creating a vacuum right, for the baby to then arrive.

 

Rhonda – Good observation.

 

Lewis – A lot of mothers do this nesting, or whatever might be…

 

Rhonda – Great observation.

 

Lewis – It’s another example of like okay I’m struggling getting pregnant, but let me just intend, and set the intention, that there will be a child here, but I got to do it before it comes.

 

Rhonda – And you know what people might say, some people might say, ‘oh no you might jinx it’. Come on, come on, are you going to believe that thought. Don’t believe that. Everybody deserves everything they want and there’s no shortage.

 

Lewis – Yes how do we… this is a, this is a card you talked about with navigating negative thoughts, how do we when we want something? How do we learn to navigate the negative thoughts that come and go, because not all of us, you know are going to be able to have perfect positive thoughts all day long, especially when there’s challenge, or breakdown, or maybe some financial strain, or pain, physical pain. So how do we navigate negative thoughts based on what you’ve talked about.

 

Rhonda – The Secret really is to become more aware of what’s going on in your mind and you might, to begin with, just become aware of your feelings you know, and all of a sudden you’re not feeling very good. And I promise you if you’re not feeling very good it’s because you’ve had a whole lot of negative thoughts that you’ve been giving your attention to too, and that’s why you don’t feel very good. And so you need to be more become more aware. I just had somebody yesterday say to me that they spiralled downward in in a particular situation, and then they kind of came out of it and they were like, why did I do that, why did I let all of those thoughts get me down like that, and I said to her but you know what? What you did is amazing because you saw it. You know even if you went down with it you still saw it, you came out of it, and you’re like look what happened, that was all negative thoughts…

 

Lewis – You caught it.

 

Rhonda –  … you caught it, and so for me like really early on, you know, I would only realize a couple of days later or but the more that you do it, the faster that you catch it, and a negative thought feels so alien now, or negative thoughts feel so alien that…

 

Lewis -They’re foreign to you now. Well, most people, its negative thoughts are so familiar because that’s all they know is negative thinking. You get in a trap or in a cycle of thinking you wake up negative you wake up frustrated resentful and you follow through and you go to sleep frustrated and negative thinking, and it is a familiar feeling. I’ve been there in the past it just becomes a familiarity of everything is against me, the world is against me, this person is trying to take advantage of me, negative, negative, negative. And it can feel like you’re in a trap or you’re stuck, it can feel extremely hard to get out of it, but the more we practice what I’m hearing you say, the more we practice catching it, and being aware of it, and practicing having replacing it with a different type of positive empowering thought, then the more familiar that will start to feel as well.

 

Rhonda – That’s right, it’s just a pattern that that is the mind’s just a program, you know it’s just a program so it’s programmed right now based on what each of us have been putting into it, and you know I lived like decades with, you know, caught up in dramas. I mean I’m really grateful to the universe that it didn’t wipe me out. You know because oh my gosh, you know if I think about different negative, you know things that I get caught up in and talking about, and you know gossip, like for example, is just such a negative awful thing.

 

Lewis – It’s a low frequency energy.

 

Rhonda – Very low frequency yeah, really low frequency. so

 

Lewis -Gossip it’s one of the lowest frequencies I feel. Like right?

 

Rhonda – Sure it. Yeah sure is.

 

Lewis – It doesn’t empower you to attract what you want.

 

Rhonda – No and you know for the Law of Attraction, like there’s only one. You. There’s only one so it is responding to your thoughts, to your words, but there’s only one there’s only you and so whatever you say about another you’re bringing to you.

 

Lewis – Can you say one more time?

 

Rhonda – Okay. So for Law of Attraction it’s responding to thoughts, right? And so your thoughts, and you can’t think a thought for me, and I can’t think of thought for you, right? So law of attraction is just responding to my thoughts, and it’s responding to your thoughts, and so what it is doing is, if I am talking about, oh she’s, you know she’s this, I saw her do this, I saw her you know, and she did that to somebody else, you know too, and blah blah, this big story, you’re saying all of that all that blame, and law of attractions giving it to you.

 

Lewis – Oh man!

 

Rhonda – Yeah we can’t think, we can’t think badly of somebody else without it affecting us. It will come back to us, guaranteed. We’re just not making the connection, you know and so we attract blame, so we’re blaming somebody and then we going to work the next day and we’ve made the biggest mistake of all time in our job, and we’re hauled into the office and the boss is going right through us, and we don’t make the connection.

 

Lewis – Wow yeah, yeah.

 

Rhonda – No, kind thoughts, kind.

 

Lewis – Yes to others, do it.

 

Rhonda – Do it for you. You know..

 

Lewis – Because what we think about others, we are attracting to us as well. It’s hard but the universe can’t make that distinction right? The difference?

 

Rhonda – No and there’s only one for law of attraction, in truth there’s only one too, overall we feel very individual but there is there is only one but for Law of Attraction there’s only one and if you think about it, it has to be that way that it’s just responding here to these thoughts, to these thoughts, it’s responding to these thoughts, to these thoughts, it’s responding to these thoughts, it’s none of it’s personal. Not personal at all. It’s not saying oh I know you don’t really want that, I’m not going to give it to you,

 

Lewis – But if you’re speaking you.. We’re talking about The Secret Manifestation Cards by Rhonda Byrne, make sure you guys get a few of these decks. There are tons of different decks out there in the world that people make, but I don’t think I’ve seen decks, a deck this beautifully done. The design the artistry, I know Nic was heavily involved in this on your team.

 

Rhonda – Amazing team, amazing team.

 

Lewis – It’s beautiful. I mean I just want to like frame these they’re like pieces of art, so they are powerful. I think it’s 65 cards, and a 16-page booklet that is in this, that will give you in a moment you pick it up, you take up the first one, you shuffle the deck, you pick it out, you’re going to get inspiration.

 

Rhonda – And by law of attraction like if you wake up in the morning and wake up in the morning and draw a card, by law of attraction that is the most important message you need to hear in this moment.

 

Lewis – Let’s go, let’s go. I’m excited. I want people to get this, The Secret Manifestation Cards.

 

Rhonda – Oh thank you.

 

Lewis – Make sure you get this. I’ve got a couple final questions for you, but people can get this at thesecret.tv I believe, it’s the main page where they can get it. Everywhere on social media The Secret or thesecret365 is also on Instagram, but pretty much everywhere. The Secret on social media and thesecret.tv where you can sign up for the newsletter get information about all the books that Rhonda has, the last book The Greatest Secret is incredible we talked about that in our previous interview, it’s incredible. I have a couple final questions for you Rhonda but I’m I just wanted to say before I ask them, I’m so grateful that we’re doing this in person. There’s an amazing energy about you that is that is magnificent, in itself the energy, the wisdom, the passion, and the joy you bring, I’m so glad we’re doing this in person, I hope we can do this every year, or in the future again…

 

Rhonda – That would be nice

 

Lewis – …and just continue to have these conversations cuz I feel like there’s an amazing flow here, so I’m very…

 

Rhonde – Ioved every second.

 

Lewis – …I’m very grateful you’re here and I know people love hearing from you. I’m so glad that we’re doing this. This is a question that I’m curious about because you’ve done so much and you’ve impacted tens of millions of lives what do you see is what’s next for you? You know beyond this, do you have a vision of what you’re trying to create in the future, or is it more you stay very present, and you allow things to come to you at this stage where are you at currently in your life?

 

Rhonda – Certainly I allow myself to be guided, and I don’t kind of make up my mind, there’s a book I’ve been thinking about for a while, and for the last year, and I’ve been doing some research on that, so that might happen, we’ve been doing apps, and so I’ve been enjoying doing that with the team as well. I just, all I want to do is keep creating in the hope that, to reach more people and to help more people have better lives. I don’t even mind what shape or form that comes in, just as long as it, just as long as it reaches people. And it just, I mean that’s just what you live for, and I’m sure that is the case for you too right? W

 

Lewis – That’s what I’m doing.

 

Rhonda – When you get that feedback is just absolutely amazing, and then you’re like, I knew this is what I was meant to do. And isn’t it a total feeling of serving, is a real feeling of that is it not?

 

Lewis – 100 precent. That’s where we get a lot of fulfillment when we’re in service.

 

Rhonda – of course, yeah.

 

Lewis – That’s beautiful, I’m so excited. Well, we’re here to support you spread the message whenever you have the next book or project, so we’re here to do more of this. I asked you this question the last time it’s what I asked everyone towards the end of my interviews, and I’m curious if it’s the same or if it’s different and we’ll have to go back and hear the previous interview to see where it was at, but this question is called the three truths. So imagine a hypothetical scenario you get to live as long as you want in this physical world, but it’s the last day for you, somewhere in the future, it’s the last day, and you get to continue to create all the books the apps the projects, or whatever you manifest in the future it all comes true, as it has for you in the last you know, 15 – 20 years but for whatever reason in this hypothetical scenario you have to take everything with you. So no one has access to the manifestation cards they don’t have access to The Secret movie, The Secret Book, or anything you’ve ever created hypothetical scenario. And all you get to leave behind are three lessons that you’ve learned, and everything else is gone, what would be those three lessons, or what I like to call three truths for you?

 

Rhonda – Well to definitely to love everything and everyone, to be grateful for every moment, and to be the joy.

 

Lewis – I love that. I’ll make sure to link up the previous interview, so we can see what you said before.

 

Rhonda – It’s probably similar.

 

Lewis – So people can watch. I have one final question Rhonda again I want to acknowledge you for your joy, for your light, for your creativity, for showing up for yourself fully, for living a harmonious life internally, so that you’re able to create effortlessly in the world, and be of service, it’s a beautiful thing to watch, and again I hope we get to do many more of these in the future but I acknowledge you for the gift that you are and I’m very grateful for the impact you’ve made on so many lives. So, thank you for being here.

 

Rhonda – Thank you so much.

 

Lewis – Of course my final question is what is your definition of greatness?

 

Rhonda – Humility, that’s what I would say. Yeah, because I think if your humble then you’ve definitely got greatness inside you.

Jay Shetty – Hey everyone, welcome back to On Purpose the number one health podcast in the world thanks to each and every single one of you that come back every week to listen learn and grow. Now today I have the honor and privilege to sit down with one of my favorite authors someone who has impacted millions of lives over the last couple of decades and someone that I was just sharing with I never believed I’d ever get the opportunity to sit down with, because back in 2006 and before when I was reading her work and interacting with the work that she was doing in the world I never believed I get this opportunity. So today I feel extremely grateful to be sitting down with the one and only Rhonda Byrne. For those of you that don’t know, and I mean there will literally be 0.3% of you that may not know. The internationally renowned bestselling author that is best known for a documentary and book titled The Secret. Rhonda‘s work has massively transformed millions of lives around the world and her newest work is a continuation of her previous insights and it’s called The Greatest Secret. I’ve just finished reading this book, I genuinely cannot wait for it to be in your hands and so will be putting the link to the book with the podcast so make sure that you go and grab this whenever you have that moment during this conversation that you are accessing The Greatest Secret. Rhonda welcome to On Purpose and thank you so much for doing this.

 

Rhonda Byrne – Oh Jay thank you so much. Do you know as you were doing that intro I got very teary because when you were mentioning changing the lives of millions of people, really to this day you know it just affects me. It’s so humbling and I’ll receive a letter from somebody and it’s honestly like the very first time that I’ve read a letter and somebody’s life has changed. It’s never altered over the years it just affects the same way, so I just had a total meltdown listening to you. So, thank you!

 

Jay – Oh that’s amazing. I love hearing that because I feel so similarly that it’s such an honor and humbling opportunity to have an impact on anyone. I love hearing you say that it’s so beautiful. I heard recently that you actually moved, and you moved home. Is that true?

 

Rhonda – Yes that is true.

 

Jay – I was going to start there because I almost feel the act of moving is such an interesting journey in and of itself, physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually and I wanted to ask you what your move was like and what that journey was like on each of those levels?

 

Rhonda – Well I love it because you always end up by throwing material things out. Like I don’t need this, and I don’t need that, so it’s a really cleansing to move I think, and go through everything. I don’t need any of these things anymore. I mean and sometimes I give away things and then I think, oh gosh I really did need that, but who cares. You know who cares. Can you believe this, I moved next door to where I was? Next door, right? Is that crazy or what? I’m on a property that is 85 acres of orchards and avocados, and oranges, and lemons and all of those things and what absolutely gets me all of the time in life, and I never tied of it, is the way that life or the universe always lines up everything I’ve ever loved in my life. Always, absolutely always. Like open fires and this property has deer walking all over it and for me coming from Australia we don’t have deer in Australia so it’s amazing to wake up in the morning and there are deer outside my bedroom window. I mean squirrels jumping everywhere. It was really a beautiful move actually, it was effortless, absolutely effortless and kind of a new, when you move it’s a new. At the same time, you take you with you wherever you go.

 

Jay – Right.

 

Rhonda – It’s always really good to be working on the inner part of ourselves because then when you take you with you, you have a fabulous life.

 

Jay – What was the thing that you were happy to let go of physical or emotional of that space? And what was something that you rediscovered that maybe you had forgotten about that you thought, I am actually excited to take this with me?

 

Rhonda – Actually, I had moved a year earlier so I had a massive cleanse when I moved. I had been in a really, really big house for like 15 years and so that was amazing because I was just giving away everything. Would you like this? Would you like this? So, this move wasn’t as great because I’d already cleaned everything out the year before. Let me think. The things that I loved about the house that I was in was the incredible sunrises and sunsets and that I got to see those, that house had massive orange trees everywhere and so the orange blossom was absolutely intoxicating. I think Jay you know all the things I love in life are the things that are free. They are not anything kind of money buy and the house that I was in was full of light and that was absolutely beautiful but then the house that I moved to, and it didn’t have open fires to the other house, and I love open fires. The house that I’ve moved to has open fires, it has all of the light, it has the orange trees, the orange blossom, it has beautiful view across the ocean. Ocean front views so it has the sunrises and sunset and so everything kind of lined up for me with the house that I’m in after being in the previous house but I’m trying to think, I just gave away mostly kind of clothes and things like that and a few appliances, and just sort of things like that but in my previous home I have away everything. I gave away barbecues, I was just saying to people do you need a juicer, do need this, do you need that, and I was just giving away everything which love, and do you know when I moved from Australia to the United States this was just prior to The Secret being released I came with two suitcases that was it. I left my home, everything I had collected over 20 years or whatever it was. I left it all behind and came here with two suitcases and it was for the release of The Secret and I just intuitively knew that the United States would be the country that lit The Secret up first, and that I needed to be in the States. So, I travelled here, and I had two suitcases and then everything that I owned back there, I gave it away. I gave it all away, absolutely everything except for two things, two things that I ended up having shipped over that one you can see behind me there that tapestry. Can you see that?

 

Jay – Yes, yes, I can see that.

 

Rhonda – And see that Buddha, that Buddha are the two things I brought with me. Those two things are really special to me but everything else I gave away. I’m really good at letting things go and just actually I’m great now letting things go. Especially material things I’m not really attached Jay anymore you know are used to have decades of attachment and I don’t think attachment in the end is a lot of fun.

 

Jay – Absolutely

 

Rhonda – I mean it’s really beautiful to have all of open space here and I think that that reflects the way that I feel inside, and my journey of The Greatest Secret is just like this freedom and openness to life and just please trust and faith in life this total faith that life has got everything under control.

 

Jay – Yes. Well let’s start there at the beginning of The Greatest Secret, you share this beautiful thought around how, you know what keeps us from The Greatest Secret is a belief. I really liked how despite the incredible success of The Secret you’ve continued on this journey to continually seek for a deeper secret and the greatest secret as you call it, and you say that a belief has been blocking us this whole time from this secret. Tell us about this belief? Where does this block of a belief come from? And how it is created such a strong hold on each and every single one of us?

 

Rhonda – Well the belief is that we are separate ,and that we are individual, and that all that we consist of all that makes us is just a body and a mind and I think the majority of people will consider that they’re a body and a mind and the name that they’ve been given, and the story of their life, and I was born here and parents did this, and do this for a living, and siblings, and the story that we then identify with and carry around with us. Those stories, this story, it doesn’t matter what the story is, it doesn’t matter how fabulous the story is, it does not compare to who we really are. And so, we have this belief that we are limited basically in a nutshell. That we are limited individual that we are born, and that we die, and that’s kind of it, and the truth is we are so much more than that. We are certainly having the experience of being an individual, and we are certainly having the experience having a human experience, but ultimately it is not who we are, we were never born, and we never die. We are, if I were to sum up everything that we are it’s almost the opposite to everything we strive to be, so we are all the intelligence that there is, we are all the beauty that there is, we are all the happiness that there is, we are pure love without any judgement whatsoever, we are complete and utter freedom which is why freedom means so much to us, why we fight and struggle to be free. We have total knowing of absolutely everything in the moment of knowing it. We are infinite and we are eternal, and that is what is actually experiencing this particular form, and so we have a belief that we are an individual that we are separate, that we are born and that we die, and our mind reaffirms it over and over and over again through all of its thoughts and with everything we say and with every thought and every single thing that we say. And actually, doesn’t the world affirm that over and over that we were separate? But we are unlimited, we are absolute perfection, and I’m not talking about the name or the ego, I’m not talking about that because we all can see what egos can get up to you know, they can cause a lot of trouble. Egos want approval, they want attention, they want to be right all the time, they judge all of the time and so they’re not something to attach ourselves to and to identify with when we are this incredible being that is blissful happiness. We can have a life where we are living as an individual human, having an individual human experience, but from the perspective of the infinite being that we are in which case we will never be touched by negativity no matter what happens, and we will remain in lasting happiness no matter what.

This has been my journey really from The Secret to now and I was searching seven days a week I was, Jay, I was just like, I was one of those crazy people. There is this law that governs our mind then there is definitely way, way more to discover, and so I just searched and searched for religions and spiritual traditions and read thousands of books and it wasn’t until 2016 that I had this experience where I realised who we are, and I was like, why haven’t I seen this? Why haven’t I? What is it, that I could’ve missed this? From that moment of realising there was this happiness that a rose inside of me and then with everything that I did from 2016 to 2020 that happiness just became deeper and deeper and then I would just notice things like, that person you know when they would do something or other, that used to bother me a lot, that didn’t bother me anymore and how was it that I was ever bothered by that? And that particular subject doesn’t bother me anymore, so I was just finding that I wasn’t reacting to life, the reactions were all dissolving, judgement was dissolving, I was just whatever was happening I’m like it’s fine it’ll be it all okay. And so, with letting go of all those things including the belief that where a limited being, we become free, really truly free and then we will live a life that’s described as heaven on earth or nirvana, a life where we know we don’t die and the body ends sure, but who we are does not and so yeah, that’s been my journey.

 

Jay – Well it’s been beautiful hearing it because I was very fortunate to at least learn about that intellectually when I was 18 and I first met the monks that I lived with, and then when I went and lived as a monk for three years in India and across Europe when I was 22 to 25. The text that we studied whether it was Vedas all the Gita introduced me to that at least intellectually, and I say at least intellectually because I believed a lot of these ideas begin with intellect before they truly become realised.

 

Rhonda – Yeah you are absolutely right. I think in 2016 it was a realisation of who I am, but was I completely living that? No. I remember thinking, oh my gosh, I’ve lost it now, you know?

 

Jay – Yeah

 

Rhonda – You know I had it and now I’ve lost it, and of course you can’t lose it because it’s who you are.

 

Jay – Ha ha yeah!

 

Rhonda – But you’ve kind of got to go on this bit of a journey, you don’t have to, there are some people that, oh gosh, they will just hear it and that’s it, they will live it, they will live like that for the rest of their life.

 

Jay – Yes, yes.

 

Rhonda – They are just in joy and I have had some letters from some people that that has happened to. For me it was more of a journey but oh wow, when you just, definitely intellectually is the beginning, and there’s nothing wrong with that at all. Because that’s where you start.

 

Jay – Absolutely

 

Rhonda – Then it’s sort of diligence to keep noticing who you are. Noticing awareness, noticing and asking yourself, ‘am I aware’, is you know one way to begin, ‘am I aware’ and even in The Secret, I talk about that. Remember to remember that you’re aware, and to be aware, and so it is just keep coming back to noticing who you are. It’s so interesting because when you notice who you are you feel this absolute relief travel all through your body which means prior to that you were tense, you were holding onto life you know the kind of white knuckle and everything. I mean I just, oh my gosh it’s just like this incredible thing that we have and then you look out and you see people suffering and that part really challenging because you want to help everybody and so that they don’t suffer anymore. I remember with my teacher really early on I would be like, oh I’ve lost it, and why don’t I have it all of the time, and she said it’s because you haven’t suffered enough, is what she said to me. You need to suffer some more and then it’s really really, really going to mean more to you than anything else in life. Yeah it’s a wonderful thing, but, oh my gosh, in your 20s Jay, heaven.

 

Jay – I remember learning that definition which you describe so beautifully, the idea that we are full of knowledge, eternal and full of bliss. And I remember one of the ways we were trained to understand that is we had no mirrors in the Ashram and without a mirror you lost conception of your physical self because you no longer could check how you looked. The other one was I remember when I first started I would, and I know you use the beautiful word awareness in The Greatest Secret, I remember I used to write on a little ‘post it note’ when I’d wake up in the morning I’d have it next to my bedside table and then by the place where I brush my teeth, that ‘I am awareness’.

 

Rhonda – Did you really?

 

Jay – Yeah yes.

 

Rhonda – That’s beautiful. Oh gosh!

 

Jay – To remind myself in the morning to wake up with the understanding that I’m not this body.

 

Rhonda – Oh brilliant. That is brilliant. People should do that. I mean that is absolutely fantastic yeah. ‘I am awareness’ because the moment that you say, like our mind can’t comprehend awareness, it can’t, it can’t comprehend it, that the mind is sitting in awareness, and so the really beautiful thing is that’s saying something like that ‘I am awareness’, or ‘am I aware’, the mind just goes quiet, you know just really quickly. When the mind is quiet then all that there is awareness or consciousness or whatever, the word doesn’t matter. You know I tried to choose the word I thought was the simplest that people could kind of understand, but the moment the mind drops, there is awareness, and so I love that, I am aware. Love it.

 

Jay – Yeah, thank you. Yeah I was, that’s why when I was reading your book and I hope you can tell when I was reading your book I felt so happy because when you were sharing this was the greatest secret I couldn’t agree with you more. I don’t think there is a deeper secret at the beginning of the knowledge that we were always told that this is the first lesson you’ll learn and the one that will take you a whole life to live like to actually practice. When I was reading the book it was just it was so beautiful for me because I could totally see how much you care for people and for what journey you want to take but isn’t it fascinating that we almost and you said something really beautiful and you talk about it in the book about how actually we are free and we have complete freedom but we limit ourselves, but isn’t it fascinating that we think that the body and mind keep us safe. So, the very things that are actually keeping us in prisoned and we think that they are safety.

 

Rhonda – Totally. And don’t you think also with what’s happened in the last year that we had this idea, or most people have this idea that they work really, really hard to get safety and security? You know to accrue things, and to have money in the bank, and to have a house, and all of those things to have safety and security and this world event came along and shook that and actually showed everybody what is the truth is that we will never find safety and security in the world and the reason we won’t is it’s always changing. Always changing. But we are the only safety and security in existence. We’re it. We are trying to get on the outside what we are on the inside and that is not to say to enjoy this incredible world. I mean this is a miracle, this is miraculous, this experience of this world, and it is here for us to enjoy in every way that each person wants to enjoy it, but to know who we are, to instead of spending our whole life trying to fill ourselves from the outside world which will never ever work, is to be spend just a little bit of time and on the inside, like waking up to awareness or asking ‘am I aware’. One of the things that I found that was really fantastic, and there’s so many incredible practices and I’m sure, my gosh, you would have done so many fabulous ones, I would love to hear about that, but one of those things in The Greatest Secret, all the things that I did, and the teachers that are in The Greatest Secret were my journey all of them from The Secret through to now. Every single one of them changed my life in one way or another. Some I followed for a couple of years and some for months, but all of those teachers played a really, really big part in my life. The practice in The Greatest Secret that I had the greatest effect on me, and that I would say for anybody is the best thing you can ever, ever, ever do, and that is to never resist negative emotions. Instead to do the exact opposite which is what we have not been told to do, which is the opposite to resistance is to welcome, so resist is push your way and welcome is to pull in.

 

Jay – Embrace.

 

Rhonda – Yeah embrace exactly, exactly and to embrace those negative emotions because the most incredible thing happens when we do embrace them, when we allow them to be there when we don’t try and change them, and we don’t try, and we don’t want to make them go or do anything but just allow them to be there, they just evaporate. They just evaporate and the more that you do it the faster they evaporate because when I started I would feel a strong emotion and it would maybe last 30 seconds, 45 seconds or something like that and then gradually gradually, went away but the more that I welcome, the weaker they get, each time you welcome a negative emotion it just gets weaker and weaker and weaker until you don’t have a trace of that negative emotion in the body at all any more, and when you don’t have a trace of it you’re never going to feel it.

 

Jay – Explain to us as you do in the book, what does it mean to truly embrace and welcome a negative feeling? What does that mean in a practice because I couldn’t agree with you more and just to help people as they’re listening and watching and thinking you know what, I just right now, I’m just, there’s so much negativity in the world, I’m watching the news, I’m stressed out about this my kids are at home and I’m having to homeschool, how do they welcome that and I agree with you we resist completely, we don’t want to feel negative?

 

Rhonda – We don’t want to because it’s not pleasant, feeling negative feelings. When you feel a negative feeling arising, you notice the feeling, don’t focus into the feeling, because if you focus into it you’ll just make it stronger, the mind is really powerful so don’t focus into it, but notice the feeling, and just welcome it, so it’s almost like you could imagine just putting your arms out like this, put your arms out to the side of you and just allowing the feeling, which is simply energy that all is feel, it is just energy, and just allowing it to pass through. One thing that I did was I would imagine putting my arms around and embracing the feeling and pulling the feeling in close to me. I just found that that was amazing for me and I think people can try all kinds of different things like, I just imagined that feeling was one of my oldest dearest friends that I loved so much that I hadn’t seen in decades and they arrived at my door and I was just like, could not get my arms around them fast enough, and that is what I imagined with each of the feelings. And I mean at one point in my life I did that with depression and so I wrapped, and that’s really how I learned how powerful this practice is because when I wrapped my arms around the depression it just dissolved and the relief, I mean the relief that you feel when the negative feeling dissolves is so good, it’s worth every, it’s like a high, and the reason it’s like a high is because when you dissolve the feeling there’s you underneath, and who you really are, and so you get a flash of who you really are, this kind of joy and happiness, and so that’s what I did. I would embrace the feeling and hold it in without focusing on it, notice it, but don’t focus into the feeling and just let it dissolve, and I promise the next time you feel that feeling it will never be a strong when you do it. And so, you do the same thing the next time that feeling arises and then the time after that it’s going to be weaker, it just gets weaker and weaker and weaker until you get to a point where you can’t remember the last time I got angry. I just can’t remember when I did ever get angry. You know you’re just all agitated or impatient and so you do it with every feeling. So to give people a really good guide I would say that unless you’re feeling really happy joyously happy, welling up inside of you, you have a negative feeling, pretty good, you don’t need to know what the name of it is to welcome it. You just welcome it. It doesn’t matter about its name. It doesn’t matter what it is just welcome the feeling or embrace the feeling or allow the feeling to be there and then you will begin to dissolve these negative feelings that are actually masking who you are. The more you dissolve them the greater the happiness that arises within you.

 

Jay – Mm… beautiful. I love that and I encourage everyone right now that is listening and watching to do that practice to give it a go, to experience and experiment with it because what Rhonda is saying is something that, it needs to be experienced, it needs to be felt, it needs to be put into practice, it’s not something that you need to overthink or over analyse, actually do it, and feel it, and you’ll figure out how it works for you. Rhonda I’m intrigued what is the first thing you do in the morning to start your day? What is it that you do that you feel starts your day because I feel that a lot of the times what I’m noticing especially now in the culture we live in, whether it’s reaching for our phone whether it’s looking at the news, we’re starting our day with energy that’s already putting us in the wrong direction or pushing us in the wrong direction what are you doing what are you encouraging people to do first thing in the morning to start with this understanding that we are awareness, to start with this understanding that negative feelings need to be embraced?

 

Rhonda – It’s so amazing because what I do now is, I lay in bed and as awareness, so I’ll be awareness and I just lay there for a particular amount of time just feeling the joy and the freedom of the eternal being that we are, and just lay in awareness and so that’s what I do absolutely every single morning. And what’s extraordinary now, and I mean at the beginning it was like I felt like I had to remember to do that but that doesn’t even kind of makes sense but that’s what I felt, I felt like I had to remember to do it, and now at the moment I open my eyes, it’s just awareness, just fills the room and the joy just fills the room, and so I lay in that. Prior to that, I would wake up every day in gratitude.

 

Jay – Yep, yep.

 

Rhonda – Prior to that gratitude was you know Jay, even now if life gets a bit bumpy or something happens just something not really negative but just something where everything isn’t flowing then I will just look at gratitude and through awareness just be so grateful for the fact that we are this infinite being and that no one dies. I’m so grateful to be aware of this and to know this. It’s quite, you know, it’s also quite humbling that somehow or another in this life time I had this awakening and realisation of this, and because as you say, I agree with you 100% there is nothing greater than knowing who you are. There’s nothing, there will never be anything greater than that. 1000 years from now 10,000 years from now, nothing will be greater than knowing who you are and being who you are, and it’s just step by step, little step by step, and now is a really good time because the ego is being challenged, the mind is being challenged, it’s being hit on all sides with the disharmony and the disruption on the planet, and so now is the best time ever to really, like welcome those emotions, and to look toward to look in the direction of who you are instead of who you are not.

 

Jay – Yeah. Absolutely, absolutely and I just want to address because I feel like someone maybe listening to us and thinking well Rhonda, Jay how does this help me be successful, be happy, live the life I want, how does, how does this create it? And I just want to dive in with what Rhonda is going to have to say about this, but I just want to address it from how I see it. The understanding is very simple that as Rhonda’s saying we’re not our body and if we think where our body we will surround ourselves with things that are good for the body, but if we’re not the body then none of those things can actually satisfy us, and an example that we always learned from the Vedic tradition was, a fish out of water that if you took a fish out of water you could give it a mansion you could give it a car you could give it jewelry, you could give it money but that fish will die because it’s not in water, it’s not where it belongs, and it isn’t in its natural habitat and so similarly understanding that we are awareness gives us the opportunity to do what is right for us as awareness, to truly feed that awareness because I think the challenge that we think about when we think about success or happiness we think of success and happiness on the basis of body and the mind that’s why even after accumulating everything we still feel dissatisfied because those things only touch the body and mind correct Rhonda?

 

Rhonda – Correct. Correct. Really the best thing that could happen to everybody is that their greatest dream comes true because when your greatest dream comes true the dream that way you are absolutely convinced that when this dream comes true that is when I will really be happy. The best thing that can happen is that that dream comes true because when it does you will realise that there is something missing and that happiness that you thought you would have doesn’t last. It’s such a beautiful thing for people who have been successful, then they get to that point and they’re like they’re not happy and they’re not happy because those things were never going to make you happy in the first place anyway, but in terms of success, I would say this, that when you are who you really are when you’re living from the place more of who you are then who you are not, everything that you need and want will fall into your hands effortlessly and you are actually, the infinite being is effortless. The way to kind of tell who’s in charge is whether it’s the ego or the mind that’s in charge, or who you really are that’s in charge and any moment is effort, and if you’re efforting, if you can feel this efforting, then it’s the ego in the mind and if you’re coming from a place of effortlessness where athlete call it ‘being in the flow’, everybody has these kind of descriptions it’s where the mind has stopped, and just everything is flowing you just feel like everything in the universe is just dancing your dance, and singing to your song. And so in terms of success when you are being more of who you really are that idea that was going to make you successful is what will come to you, that original idea, because the mind just recycles, that’s all it can do, it’s a program and recycles and the ideas that business kind of business ideas that have never been on earth, they are coming from awareness. They are coming from above the mind so when you are awareness that is when everything will fall into your hands, everything that you need and is just your whole life flows, and you’re just happy all of the time. Like there is, it’s just like the universe is just saying, and I even wrote in The Secret, you know the shortcut to The Secret is, be happy now. Right. Just be happy and let go of all the things that are saying why you can’t be happy, and just be happy now, because when you’re happy, everything just falls into place. It’s so amazing. So definitely for success that is the fastest way to success is to be who you are. We’re not talking about going in a cave or you know we’re doing anything like that, we’re talking about living your life in the incredible form and the human being that you are, and having the experience that you are, but from a place of knowing that you are the infinite being, that you are immortal and we are taught, as Jay said, it’s got to be through your experience it can’t be through, ‘earlier I heard Rhonda talk about this’ and whatever, no not interested in you taking on another belief. What it is, is for you to experience it and it is not hard for you to experience it because it’s who you are already, it’s not anything you have to go out and get, and then some ways it’s almost frustrating isn’t it?

 

Jay – Yes

 

Rhonda – I remember when I started out, I’m like, it’s who I am already, but at the time you know I’d be like I can tell the minds taken over at the moment, and yeah it’s already who we are and so we’ve just, what we’ve done is we’ve attributed everything that is awareness to the mind, we’ve given the mind the whole thing and its awareness is that is hearing these words right now, that is what’s hearing these words. Right? That’s what is seeing through these eyes, its awareness, without awareness we wouldn’t even know we’re alive.

 

Jay – Exactly! Well that’s the thing Rhonda that you know I’ve heard a lot of people say that when they first saw an autopsy or they went to a funeral that’s when they realised, they weren’t the body, like that is that’s when if you’ve ever you haven’t seen an autopsy I recommend everybody finds a way to visit the hospital and say, just to see, that allows us to disconnect from we’re not this physical body, we get that, but I feel that for a lot of people like you rightly said, it’s difficult to think we’re not the mind because you like you said, we have given the mind all of awareness we think that that is us, so I think a lot of people are getting to the understanding that we are not this body, I think people can get there to some degree at least in their mind, but then a lot of a struggle to get behind well if I’m not the mind then what else is there? Tell us about how you start seeing the fallibility of us thinking with the mind?

 

Rhonda – So let’s just investigate and look at the mind and what the mind is, so it’s really good for you to find out what the mind is especially considering that most of us have given total authority of our life, and we believe all of the thoughts that it produces, which is the voice in your head, and the voice in your head is not who you are, so that was a really big revelation for me. So all that the mind is made of is thought, beginning to end full stop its thought. So it’s memory which is thought, and it has images which is just thought in pictures, but it’s still thought, and the current thoughts that we think, and so all the mind is made of thought and so without a single thought and check for yourself the mind isn’t there. If there’s no thought, there is no mind and so when you begin to look at that and investigate that, then it’s really quite interesting. But then, so now we know that the mind is just thought, and therefore when a thought comes and a thought goes, if we were our mind, then that means that when a thought comes and when a thought those a little bit of us would go with it , and then when a thought comes and a thought goes a little bit more of us would go with it, with the thought, if we were our mind, a bit of us would be disappearing with every single thought, but if you look, guess what? You are there aware before a thought comes and you are there after it leaves, so how can you be the mind? And the other thing is, what is aware of the thoughts in your head? Awareness is aware of the thoughts in your head, because a thought is not aware, a thought it has no awareness whatsoever. So the one that is aware of the thoughts, is who you really are, and so when you start to just sort of sit with this a little bit, I’m not suggesting that, oh in this moment you’re like, oh I know I’m not the mind, that if you just kind of sit with it, with this, and next time when you’ve got a whole lot of thoughts coming through your head that you remember this, and think about it. Oh, I was here before all of these thoughts, and I am still here after they go fully intact, none of me has disappeared and what was it that was aware, because you could even ask this question, am I the thoughts that I think, or am I the one that is aware of those thoughts?

 

Jay – we never say ‘I mind’ we say ‘my mind’ or ‘my body’ or we say ‘my car’ because we realise that we are not it, right? You don’t say ‘I mind’ you know so it’s so clear to us even our language is that it’s my mind that means my mind belongs to something that is me and hence the question is who am I? Because it’s my body and my mind and I think what you just shared so beautifully is exactly that, is that it is something that is existing beyond the purview of the mind and thought simply, and for anyone who is wondering and trying to intellectually wrap their head around this, the reason why it’s so powerful to understand this, is because then the negativities of the mind and the body start to affect you less because you realise they are not you and they are not your life, and that’s the key that you know if anyone’s wondering well how does this help me, that’s how it helps you, is because you start to recognise that what happens to the body just like, if your car has an accident you may feel a little bit of pain, but you don’t feel the same pain as when something affects your body directly and that the car is a shell and so similarly you start realising that I’m a driver inside my body and my mind and so even though my body, yes obviously I need to go to the hospital and take care of it of course, but that still isn’t me.

 

Rhonda – No. Do you know Lester Levenson who is no longer in physical form but who’s quoted in The Greatest Secret and he would say that our mind has just been created for one reason and one reason only, and that is to create what we want, that’s it full stop, that’s it, that’s it’s job, that its tool, to create what we want in this life, and what we want to experience in this life. That it’s not our psychiatrist, psychologist, psychotherapist and tells us what to do, and believing our thoughts and Jay, I believed my thoughts for decades. It’s just amazing that you would believe these thoughts in your head and if people just noticed the next time, and hope that you don’t feel, but that you feel agitated or negative emotion or feel stressed it’s because you were believing a whole lot of negative thoughts. That’s it, you were just believing thoughts. Then that sends you, you know, into negativity, and so our freedom is the mind is wonderful and fantastic tool, nothing wrong with the mind, the only problem comes with the mind is when we think it is who we are, that’s the only problem.

 

Jay – And you give this analogy which I loved you talk about how we’re in this dream state and there’s a need for awakening from that because when you’re asleep, right, when you’re asleep and I think a lot of people feel that, I think people right now feel an awakening in their life that’s coming, tell us about the awakening you’re speaking about?

 

Rhonda – I just think you know when you’ve woken up. I just think you know when you’ve woken up because if you’re wondering, ,oh am I asleep now, have I woken up’ when you wake up you feel incredible, you feel so much lighter than you’ve ever felt, you feel so much free, happier life just becomes miraculous everything is a miracle and the little things that you just kind of ignored before, now are just things that bring you to your knees, because the sheer beauty and love of those things, like sunsets. I remember in my life I would hear people speak of these things and I remember I used to think, ‘oh you know I just need to be able to pay my bills you know forget about sunsets’, and all that kind of thing, but as you awaken it frees you, it just frees you from all of the limitations and all of the conditioning that we’ve all had in our lives no one is to blame for that, it’s just kind of part of the journey. You just become free, the feeling is incredible, and people can have lots of little awakenings, can they not? You know along the way like a little, and it’s usually when you’ve seen through some belief, that you’re like, oh my gosh, I used to believe that, and that isn’t true. Then you suddenly feel lighter and freer and so awakening is just a big one of those it’s just a huge sort of realisation, it’s like a ‘wow’ moment but instead it’s a ‘wow, wow, wow, wow, wow’ moment. Everyone can have it, there isn’t anyone that can’t have it, everybody can have it because it’s who you are already.

 

Jay – What are some of the daily rituals people can do to experience what you’re speaking about because as we both know it’s not a, it isn’t a life hack, or isn’t an app download or it is into a you know it isn’t a mechanical operational logistical rate there’s three page, you know, it’s not that so what is it like how do we make it more tangible for our tangible minds because our minds are wanting to do something daily and repetitive because it is repetition, there is repetition, what would you say we can do daily?

 

Rhonda – Well one of the things you can do which really helps this identify with the body and the mind is to take, so let me see, so first take your body and just put your body aside over there because you were not the body, so just like put that aside for the moment that is not who you are, you can pick up the body in a minute or two but just put the body aside, and then put aside your name and your age and the description of you, also put it aside the story of who you think you are, put all of that aside so now the bodies aside, the stories aside, all of those other things are aside now, what you’re going to do is you’re going to take the mind and just for a moment you’re going to put that aside, and that includes all memory and all sorts, and all feelings and you’re just going to put that aside as well, just pop that aside, and now very quickly noticed what is left, because what is left is awareness. So that is one way that’s a really good way in the beginning to come back to awareness and it’s like I think in ancient traditions some of them spoke about it’s like peeling the onion right, so instead of us accruing we think we have to pile on this knowledge, and I have to go through life, and I need to learn more, and I need to accrue more, and I need to get all of these degrees, and all of that has its place, but it’s never going to set you free, so peeling away what we are not and seeing awareness is what will set you free. Once you can get to the place, I mean honestly the way that I did it was, and I put it in the book and it was three steps, I would ask myself multiple, multiple, multiple times in the day ‘am I aware’, and the moment I would ask ‘am I aware’ awareness would be there. There would be this awareness and then I would go about my day and then I would ask again, ‘am I aware’, so I did that constantly that’s a practice to do constantly after a while actually really short of amount of time days really or a week or two weeks when you go to ask ‘am I aware’, you can’t even ask the question because awareness is completely there immediately, like immediately so the second step is the first step transforms into this step so you go from asking the question, ‘am I aware’ to automatically noticing awareness. So lots of times in the day notice awareness, and then the third step is staying as awareness. The second step merges into the third step because when you notice awareness enough, then you’re going to find that you are staying as awareness more and so what happens is, just so people understand, what happens is, the mind is kind of in potentially for many in the foreground at the moment and sort of running your life and awareness is so quietly beautifully, magnificently, quietly sitting in the background but when you ask the question when you notice awareness, stay as awareness, what happens is there is a total shift and awareness comes to the foreground and the mind goes to the background and that way you can use the mind whenever you need to use the mind, it’s great to make a date like for us doing this podcast, it’s really great for things like that, but then you can stay as awareness and then your life is just absolutely effortless and you just have incredible happiness. That’s where it all is.

 

Jay – I love that Rhonda it’s just, it’s been beautiful discussing this with you because I love that you really, I really do believe it is this, you’re really challenging all your readers and the people in the world to go beyond..

 

Rhonda – Yes

 

Jay – …the body and the mind which really means to go beyond the desires of the body and the mind which is really difficult because we’ve been trained to believe that the desires of the body and the mind of what will make us happy and so I can you know I commend you and feel great joy that you’re putting this message out there and encouraging people to go in this direction and I want to ask you now what we call the final five, these are your final five questions and we do them in a fast five rapid fire.

 

Rhonda – Wow! Okay.

 

Jay – So each answer has to be one word to one sentence maximum. So, Rhonda these are your final five and the first question is what is your biggest lesson from the last 12 months?

 

Rhonda – Discovering awareness.

 

Jay – Beautiful! What are you hoping to manifest in 2021?

 

Rhonda – Freedom and joy for as many people as possible.

 

Jay – What do you know to be absolutely true about human nature that many would disagree with?

 

Rhonda – That it’s ultimately not our true nature, human nature is not ultimately our true nature.

 

Jay – Question number four, if you could create one law that everyone else in the world had to follow what would it be?

 

Rhonda – Ha ha! Oh, happiness is mandatory.

 

Jay – Yeah that’s

 

Rhonda – I would have the law of happiness because then everything would be totally fine.

 

Jay – I love it and question number five final question, beautiful very quick concise answers, very clear and amazing. Fifth and final question, what is one truth that you try to live by every day?

 

Rhonda – I try and live by as who I really am. So, the infinite being that we are, and awareness that I am, that is the one, that is the most important thing in my life.

 

Jay – Everyone that’s Rhonda Byrne The Greatest Secret if you want to dive deeper into your personal eternal journey then this book is a phenomenal guide to doing just that, it’s a lot heavier than it looks too, it’s, it’s, it’s a heavy book.

 

Rhonda – I know right?

 

Jay – It’s a heavy chunky book.

 

Rhonda – I don’t know what happened there.

 

Jay – The truth is heavy, so it’s a heavy book. It’s a beautiful book, I highly recommend it to everyone listening and watching here today. Rhonda it’s been a joy spending this time with you and I really look forward to meeting you in person and getting to do this again in person one day and I’m really excited for all your readers and millions of people that will read this book and take that next step in their journey of discovering who they truly are beyond the body and mind.

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Lilou Mace – Hello Rhonda,

 

Rhonda Byrne – Hi Lilou, how are you?

 

Lilou – Great, I’m so excited to be interviewing you. This is really, really exciting. This is a manifestation by itself for me.

 

Rhonda – Thank you. It’s wonderful to be here.

 

Lilou – I’m excited to speak about your latest book The Greatest Secret. Obviously, we know you from this bestselling book and documentary called The Secret that was sold to 34 million people around the world, translated in 50 languages. That I was actually in Oprah Winfrey show when you were there on stage in 2007, I think in Chicago. I could feel the goosebumps running through my body of excitement and like this is when, we’re making history here.

 

Rhonda – Oh wow, yeah that’s true.

 

Lilou – Remember that moment? Wasn’t it exciting to be sitting with Oprah?

 

Rhonda – Yeah it was. I remember because I didn’t sleep at all the night before. Haha! Not even one second sleep, not one second of sleep. I realized because I had visualized that I would be super cool and super relaxed, so I just kept visualizing that because it was not really my thing. Like I worked behind the scenes so being out on camera wasn’t really something that I felt comfortable with. And so I just used The Secret and visualized and visualized being really, not the least bit nervous but just so chilled and happy and so the night before I did not sleep, not one single wink. And so woke up and felt kind of weird how you do when you don’t sleep, but what I realized actually many years later, I was not the least bit nervous, I mean I was just so relaxed but what I realized later years later is because I didn’t sleep, I had zero resistance.

 

Lilou – Yeah!

 

Rhonda – Zero resistance, and so that is why I was so, so, relaxed and one of the other thing that I did when I went on that show was, I asked to see the love of the universe, that it would manifest in front of me and that I would see it and it would fill my body with love and so when I sat down it was there with the live audience. And I sat down, and I looked down at all the people and they were all people whose lives had changed with The Secret, and I just looked down into their eyes and I get a little emotional now when I talk about this, and I looked at them and just these beaming smile, just absolutely beautiful, beautiful, people and like saying thank you, mouthing thank you to me, and putting their hand on their heart, and boy I was just like woah! So, I just felt incredible.

 

Lilou – It is that, well the electricity that is in the air when there is such an alignment with your vision, and Universe and you are living it. I mean, how did it feel in your body?

 

Rhonda – Oh unbelievable. My body was like and electricity tower, you know one of those huge towers, it was just vibrating like buzzing, buzzing, buzzing all of the time. And the joy that ran through my body like these trills of joy all through my heart it was just an amazing time and I look back now at that time and I really do see that I had no resistance, I was not in the mind at all, I was completely coming from the heart and it was just the most extraordinary time, you know. Except I knew what was going to happen. I mean people would say to me, wow you know, can you believe what happened? And I’m like yes, because I visualized this. I visualized it every day for years.

 

Lilou – Let’s go back to that moment because in 2004 you were going to be broke. You have this producing company and you had only 30 days or so to survive.

 

Rhonda – Yes that’s true.

 

Lilou – And you were gifted, or someone gave you this book, The Science of Getting Rich or something at that time.

 

Rhonda – My daughter did. Yes, my daughter did, yeah.

 

Lilou – And you had this huge epiphany?

 

Rhonda – Yes it was the night that my accountant called me and said, you’re going to be broke in a month. You’ve run 2 million dollars over budget with the 6 movies that I was making, I was making television movies, and he said, there is nothing you can do, you are going to lose everything. And so that was that. I hung up the phone and immediately the phone rang again, and it was my mother. And my father had died suddenly on the 1^st March that year, really suddenly and my mother and father had had the love affair from the time they saw each other. So, my mother suffered terrrible terrible grief, and of course I was in grief, and you know my life spiralled downward, you know. One thing goes wrong after another and after another, it’s just law of attraction, you know, and everything that could go wrong went wrong that year. Everything with the productions, and everything, so I hung up the phone and I picked up and it was my mother saying she couldn’t go on, and she was living quite a distance from me, so I talked for quite a while until I knew she was fine, and I said to her I would be down to see you in the morning. I hung up from her and I just collapsed in despair because these were the two things that I had no way of solving. I always thought I was great at solving problems, but these two things were beyond what I could solve, and I just absolutely collapsed into despair and tears and my daughter, in her twenties, asked what was wrong. I didn’t want to tell, you know, played it down, I just said something, but it will be alright. She disappeared and then came back with this crumpled up paper with a bulldog clip and said, here read this it will help. And you know I’ve asked her, why did you give me that book, because that book changed my life on the spot, and she said, she had no idea. She didn’t really remember giving it to me. So, I opened the book and I can’t believe it, I started to read it, and I had the whole sky falling in on me, but I’m reading this, and my tears were hitting the paper and the ink was running, and 90 minutes later I finished reading it, and nothing was ever the same again. In that book which we have for free on our website you can download it for it free, The Science of Getting Rich by Wattle Wallace, written in 1910, I knew more than what was in that book when I read that book. I just knew so many things.

 

Lilou – But you weren’t practicing it before you said you completely switched the mind, you changed the way you were living life in that moment.

 

Rhonda – Totally, Totally. I realized the power of our thoughts I realize the power of us, I knew we never died, like I absolutely knew that, without a doubt I knew it, and I knew that we created our life with our mind and so that began massive research for me. Because I was really like a researcher, and didn’t talk to anybody about it at all, and just traced it back through history, actually all the way back to the Emerald tablet. It was so amazing because they’re everywhere, it’s in every religion, it’s there, it is but you have to know what you’re looking for to see it, otherwise you miss it. And so here was this wisdom that our mind is incredibly powerful, we create our life with our thoughts, it’s a simple as that, it’s never going to change, it’s 1000 years from now, it will never be any different.

 

Lilou – So would you say because from my understanding of The Greatest Secret, the mind is not much relevant to knowing who we are, and how we can truly manifest our being, so how would you say, how did this involve from where you were at with The Secret to where you are at with The Greatest Secret? Because we could feel it’s deeper, more spiritual, less material, what we felt was missing in The Secret, you dig this for you, went for it during the last 14 years. You studied with the best most enlightened people, so what have you, what is this related to the mind aspect, how have you shifted?

 

Rhonda – Yes. Well, I think with The Secret, it’s just, I will maintain this, it’s just the greatest gift given to me, and that was shared with the world. It is the greatest book for life on planet Earth. I don’t think you can beat it. It is so simple and so clear, and everybody can understand it, and it does explain to you the power of the mind to create and that’s actually the only reason we have the mind, is to create what we want, but what happens in The Greatest Secret, is you come to understand more about the mind and how we are using the mind in a way that doesn’t help us at all. Because we are using it as, we are believing every single thought that’s coming into our head and so we are believing things, and we are sabotaging our own life by believing all these things instead of just looking at life. And we are piling up all of these beliefs in our subconscious, and so you understand a lot more about the mind in The Greatest Secret, but the amazing thing is, here is this mind that is only there to create what we want, that’s it. Full stop.

 

Lilou – To support us.

 

Rhonda – To support us, end of story, but use it for that, and then don’t use the mind at all because when the mind is still, then you will find who you are. And who you are, it has always been there, has never left you, and who you are, is it matters a lot to know who you are, you’re eternal, you don’t have a problem in the world, you were never born, you never die, it really matters a lot to discover who you are and to understand that this is just a body you’re using to have a lot of fun in an objective world, right. So The Greatest Secret puts the mind more into perspective, it’s an incredible tool but it’s also, will act as they are a blanket, or a curtain covering up who we are. So, the journey from The Secret to The Greatest Secret, and I wrote several books in between, but The Greatest Secret is my entire journey, and it features in it, all of the teachers who played an enormous part my journey. I followed them, some of them for years, and some of them for six months, and some for a month, but all of those teachers changed my life in one way or another.

 

Lilou – You didn’t meet them the same way than the first one, because the first teachers of The Secret from my understanding, a lot of them were coming from this group of leaders, transformational leaders from the US. That I had also the opportunity to interview so I really get how rich it is and how much knowledge, but what would you say the difference is between this group of people, and this one, that you have decided to feature in this one. My understanding all of them have represented transformation in your life, but is there something in they understood that is at the core, you know that makes this greatest secret amazing?

 

Rhonda – Yes. Every single one of them is self-realized you know, every single one of them, or another word for people would be enlightened, if they wanted to use that word, but they are all living as their true nature, every single one of them. Whereas the teachers in The Secret they were completely focused on law of attraction and actually what The Secret is focused on, and how to have an incredible life, and you can just think your way to whatever life you want, but one of the difficulties we have is if we are allowing the mind to run us, then there’s going to be a whole lot of thoughts that we don’t want, and will create those, and will manifest those, so the quieter and our mind is, the more powerful we become.

 

Lilou – You featured Mooji, I love Mooji. I think he is so good.

 

Rhonda – I love Mooji.

 

Lilou – I love Mooji, oh my god. How did you meet him?

 

Rhonda – He is so beautiful. He’s just gorgeous. Oh my gosh. I was just so overwhelmed when he said yes, actually overwhelmed when they all said yes. They all said yes without any hesitation it was just beautiful. Mooji, I actually went to a retreat of his in Lisbon and I went with my daughter and I had already well and truly woken up, and so it was amazing to be there but for my daughter, he walked into the room and my daughter was just, that was it. She was just, she just had this big smile on her face, and she was in heaven you know, she was home, and so it was the trip of a lifetime for her. He is just so beautiful, and I just looked around at all of these people and there are just people everywhere, just waking up, waking up, just in his presence, you know, just such an incredible presence.

Lilou – How would you describe that, a person that awakens in the presence of another? How would you rationalize that? Or how would you put it in words?

 

Rhonda – It’s interesting isn’t it because I’ve had some letters from people who have read The Greatest Secret and just woke up, just like that, on the spot. I just kind of think of people in that way and when I saw those people with Mooji that it’s just like a really low hanging fruit, right? That’s just ripe and ready to drop, because for me I guess for me, it was quite fast to, but I’ve been living since 2016, living with my true nature, and consciously living as that, so it’s been getting deeper and deeper, the mind quieter and quieter, and just like the flimsiest thought, would just create, just like that, because there’s nothing to contradict that thought.

 

Lilou – Wow! So you just said 2016, so what happened in those 10 years.

 

Rhonda – In those 10 years I searched 24/7, thousands of books, went through every tradition I could, studied every tradition, every person, like 7 days a week, truly.

 

Lilou – On a larger scope than for The Secret because you had digged already?

 

Rhonda – Yes well I had thought I have discovered the truth, there must be more. You know I knew without a doubt The Secret is the truth, this is what works, this is what works, this is the way it works, and it’s the way it will always work, the mind is creating everything, and so I knew there must be more. For example, I knew we never died and so I just set off on a path to discover more and more and more. I discovered so many incredible things on the way, you know things that people, the general public aren’t aware of, and it was an incredible spiritual journey, and very very intense, and I had a lot of amazing experiences.

 

Lilou – Crazy experiences, I guess too? Some crazy experiences that were un-rational probably at times?

 

Rhonda – That’s right. I knew things, like I remember there was a family friend of ours and she was having a baby and she was rushed into hospital, I think it was like 6 weeks before the baby was due, and my daughter said to me, can you please give her some light and some magic dust and help her? And I said, she doesn’t need any help, she is going to be fine, and the baby girl is going to be fine, and I said, you said she is having a baby girl right? And my daughter said, no they don’t know what she is having. I said it’s a girl and she is going to be fine. And she was, and I just knew it, you know. Everybody’s had that experience for sure in their lives, where they knew something, you know. I absolutely knew that was going to happen, I knew it, I knew it.

 

Lilou – Would you believe we are all healers and mediums and?

 

Rhonda – Yes, yes, yes.

 

Lilou – Some people are more gifted than others?

 

Rhonda – We’re unlimited. We’re unlimited. I mean, so what it involves is like opening your mind and what I mean by opening your mind, really like allowing your mind to go into the background. And most people like to think of themselves as, what are your qualities? I have a mind, I’ve got a great sense of humour, but a lot of us have a very closed mind. We have closed it to new, new ideas. You know like The Greatest Secret presents a lot of things to people, all of it is the truth, but it presents a lot of things to people that might challenge their current beliefs. Often if we have a belief that is challenged, we’re like oh no, I don’t believe that, and so therefore our mind is closed, and the mind, our mind, bless it, is an amazing tool, but it would do everything to stop us from discovering who we are. Because it really likes running the show, you know it likes it. It also likes it when we discover who we are, and it can go on a long vacation, as well.

 

Lilou – How about the heart in all this? Because you are speaking about the mind, and open mind, but is the heart playing a role to actually perceive being aware of who we really are?

 

Rhonda – Yeh I think when the mind goes to the background and who we are the infinite being we are, awareness consciousness is in the foreground, then you just become, just this total joy, total love, everything is perfect just as it is, nothing needs to change, and you absolutely know that we are all one. While we are appearing as individuals, that we are all one. And no matter what happens, no matter what, even like an intense year like the last year that we have all been through, everything is absolutely fine. And there is no end to anybody. You know, so you just have this peace that’s beyond, you know this beautiful peace and just joy and happiness and so all of those things are love and this great sense of freedom, and no fear what-so-ever. So even if people just imagine, what it would be like to live a life without any fear at all? Amazing right! Amazing.

 

Lilou – So this is how we feel in the presence of somebody that is enlightened or reading your book that is filled with enlighten people? There is something to do with the energy, or we are in contact with that and immediately we have glimpse of the experience of the source.

 

Rhonda – Perfect! Perfectly said. Yes, because I think in the presence, and I think it would vary, I’m sure for some people, like I’m sure some people went to Mooji and it didn’t happen to them whereas, it did happen to many many people, but what my perspective is, that when you’re in the presence of an enlightened teacher, their energy of love and joy is so strong that your mind just stills. And when your mind stills there is the joy and love that you are. There is who you are. So the moment the mind is quite there you are. So that’s really what happens, their love is so strong that energy makes your mind just be still, so all these tears come, all these tears or laughter, just the joy and recognition, and the beauty of who we really are. When we allow it to be our psychiatrist and our psychotherapist and everything, it’s really going to say a whole lot of stuff about us that’s not very nice, right? You shouldn’t have done that, why did you do that, that was really stupid, you know all those kinds of things, and when in fact we are absolutely perfect. Just really, really perfection itself. And if we are trying to perfect the person, there’s no hope. No hope to perfect the person because it’s the mind and the ego running the person, and they’re imperfect. This is the nature, this is why we’re here, is to experience imperfection, to experience sadness when we are joy itself. And so, we get to experience sadness and we get to experience the duality.

 

Lilou – And how do they maintain that or what did you find out in order to maintain that state because enlighten being seems to have this pivotal moment, and then all of a sudden, they’re like this. I’m remembering my conversation with Byron Katie, I mean it’s just like..

 

Rhonda – Yeah

 

Lilou – Just pure joy and enlightenment and she dissolved all limited beliefs. How do you, is that only for some beings, or do you believe it’s for everyone that can stay in that state?

 

Rhonda – Look somebody like Byron Katie happens very suddenly, and she never, the ego and the mind never come back in the way that they were, but that’s rare, That’s really rare, and it’s also, it’s pretty intense for it to happen that way. I think Katie sat for 2 years in the desert, you know barely talking to anybody, and I think Eckhart Tolle was similar you know, it was very sudden, for me it’s been gradual and for most people it’s gradual, so I had an awakening and I totally knew who I was, but then all through the day I would say to myself, ‘am I aware’, ‘am I aware’ which is one of the processes in the book to bring you back to being, to be consciously aware. And I just put in the book what absolutely worked, that worked, there’s no.. it will not fail and so the more that, I did that, and the more that I noticed awareness, the weaker the mind got, and the more who I am was in the foreground.

 

Lilou – How would you say we should choose our enlightened being? Some people say you should go towards a master and only study with that person and totally devote yourself to that master so that you can really be enlightened. Do you believe it is a matter of as you did in the book sprinkling because we’re also learning in the book how you’re completely in love with your own master, I should say or somebody that is anonymous, that we don’t know, but that you I think you’re..?

 

 

Rhonda – Yes my teacher that I love so much. Yeah I do.

 

Lilou – Is there one way or many?

 

Rhonda – I think the best thing is to trust. I remember a mentor of mine saying, when the student is ready the master will appear. And for years and years I wanted that master to appear, and I was like open that it could be in a supermarket you know, I just wanted that teacher to come, and the teacher didn’t come, so I was like, well I can’t be ready. And so, I just kept following all the teachers and sometimes I would think this is the teacher, but then I would find I had moved onto another teacher. If you just trust, if you really really want this and you want to be free and you want to be free of fear, and in joy, and just have a life that is probably inconceivable to most people right now, then trust. Like certainly read The Greatest Secret or you could choose another book it doesn’t matter. If there is a teacher that resonates with you in that book then follow that teacher and follow that teacher until you feel you’ve done enough with that teacher, and then go to the next one. I mean the next one will appear for you, it did for me. I would finish with one teacher and then I’d be like gosh, I don’t have a teacher, and within hours another one would appear and with my teacher that is anonymous in the book I’ve had no other teacher than her since 2016 and she has been there, and there will be no other teacher, but I just think to trust that you may go through many teachers. You know for some people there may be just one teacher, you know, you just know, you can get to a point where you don’t feel like you are moving anymore, and you hear something from another teacher that sets you a light. So, I think just trust like Lester Levenson says in The Greatest Secret, oh my gosh, he was the most amazing teacher, but he says in The Greatest Secret, ‘You take one step toward your infinite self and it will take ten steps toward you’. And so just keep doing the practices, you know, checking in, and am I aware, not saying, I am aware, because I am aware, I am aware is the mind. It is very specific, am I aware, and the moment you say that the mind is still, and awareness consciousness comes into the foreground, because the mind can’t answer that question, so it’s very specific.

 

Lilou – Yeah. So I guess this is the best place in order to know if it’s our teacher in front of us, if we want to. But how do you deal with, when there is the crisis, the craziness the mind that is there and you so much want change in your life, but you’re not in a place where you’re there to be that awareness? How do you choose and have discernment uh or from the right place? How do you know what is the process to your, going to be?

 

Rhonda – You feel it. You’re going to feel a teacher. You will feel it. If you are in the presence of a teacher and you are just feeling absolute joy and love, oh my gosh, you aren’t wanting to go anywhere. You’re just going to want to hang on to that teacher’s arm and never let them go, and follow them everywhere. So you will really feel it. For somebody who’s not even in that place, I just feel like The Secret gave me the perfect stepping-stone to this. Because I worked really hard on watching thoughts and not paying attention to negative thoughts, and only enhancing positive thoughts of what I wanted, and so for those people who followed The Secret and have really worked out being positive, it will be much easier for them than, somebody that is just beginning. I remember Lester said, first step is to get your mind positive and to think of all the positive things, and to watch your mind, to watch it, and when there are negative thoughts, don’t believe them, take no notice of them. So, the negative thought that says, you shouldn’t have done that, you upset her when you did that, you shouldn’t have done that, you know then just, then just say there you are again, you know, go away. You don’t know anything, and so don’t listen to those thoughts, and only concentrate on positive thoughts, then you are really becoming aware of your thoughts, that’s a big deal, to become aware of your thoughts and to be able to discern. I just think that’s the greatest step to the next step of The Greatest Secret and then becoming aware, because you have weakened the mind.

 

Lilou – How is it for you to come out with this book and The Greatest Secret after The Secret, meaning weren’t you afraid? And I know it isn’t in your paradigm but weren’t you afraid that it was not up to how the people that read The Secret evolved? Meaning because we all had a spiritual path since The Secret, we all tried so many things, experienced life and evolved and got connected. Were you a bit afraid that this would not fit to where most of your public was from those 14 years, and how they have evolved?

 

Rhonda – Yes, and no I wasn’t afraid because I knew that this was something that I had to do and it didn’t matter if people understood it, or got it now, or in 10 years, or 20 years, or in 50 years, all that mattered was that it was there, so it will always be there for when somebody is ready. You know when I did The Secret, when we did The Secret that was ahead of its time. That was considered so controversial and really a head of its time, and here I was telling everybody you create your life with your thoughts, that it was just like, whoa. That’s now been absorbed into our civilization and accepted and so with The Greatest Secret it’s a little bit the same. I was on the edge back then in 2006, and so I’m on the edge again. You know haha.

 

Lilou – Yeh

 

Rhonda – For freedom and for joy and just for a life that is really worth living and a life without fear, and with no problems, just like that alone, like no problems, none. You will let go of all problems, there will be none anymore because they’re created by the mind and this is for everybody because you’re already that. I’m just saying something that you already are, you know, this is not something you have to go and find somewhere, this is who you are already. And it’s just the mind of keeping you distracted, and looking over there, when you need to look over here.

 

Lilou – Yeah. Yeah. And create, do you believe we are creating right now, that it’s an opportunity to create the new world or in French we say, ‘nouveau monde’ you know this huge paradigm shift that we all waited for a long time, is this the bridge to that?

 

Rhonda – I mean I would love to think that the world is about to wake up, but I’m not sure it is. Haha, haha!

 

Lilou – Haha, haha!

 

Rhonda – Certainly there is a lot of awakening that has come out of the last year and you know truly, my feeling is we created that situation to wake up. Everything in our life is to wake up, and realize who we are, in every moment, every second, every word, every picture, every image, every experience and event is leading us to who we are, and to complete freedom and immortality. I just think that was a gift and many people have seized upon that gift, and there will be those who won’t, you know so something else might come along. You know Lilou, isn’t it crazy that it’s only when we’re really pushed and in a difficult situation that we kind of wake up, because the two biggest awakenings in my life were both in really difficult situations. So, if life is going along really swimmingly, we don’t tend to wake up, and so this was a gift, too. There’s no end to anybody, and it’s been really challenging but if people have been really fearful it’s just letting them see how fearful the mind makes them. Because who they are, has zero fear. Zero.

 

Lilou – It seems like there is a lot at stake but there is also a lot of opportunities that are arising to create something new based on the new consciousness also.

 

Rhonda – Yes totally. And you know I would like it, it would be great if it was, you know if we all kind of woke up, if everybody woke up, that would be wonderful. but do you know what? It is not required either. Everything is so perfect just as it is. It’s all unfolding exactly as it is every single being is going to realize who they are, there is no other way, there’s only one path, and that path is home.

 

Lilou – So I’m hearing, that you want to enlighten the most people, so that then other people that are meeting those enlightened people, can themselves be enlightened?

 

Rhonda – Exactly! It would be an incredible ripple effect, right? I mean like if you’ve got enough then their presence would uplift all of the others, so if there are any stragglers left behind, that would be really easy for them because they’ll just wake up and be like, oh wow, I just woke up, this is incredible.

 

Lilou – Have you ever felt that you were mystic, or that you had ideas that were coming to you from a different dimension, and other beings, or that you were really receiving and have this greatest need to share, you know all of this with the large public?

 

Rhonda – I’ve had all kinds of spiritual experiences but the books that I’ve done were most definitely destined, yeah. I just know that that is what I’m here to do without a doubt.

 

Lilou – You feel supported by other dimensions?

 

Rhonda – I feel supported by who we are. I used to in my journey got into all of that, all the dimensions, and all the other beings, and I investigated, and researched all of that, and it was interesting but my mentor said something to me that kept me in good stead, because I was having lots of experiences like, I could see auras around people, and I could see all this coloured light, and all these different things, and thought WOW, this is incredible you know it’s like super powers. I talked to my mentor about it, and I told him about my experiences and he just went mmm, mmm. And I said don’t you think that’s incredible? And he just said, no it’s normal, it’s normal. And then he said to me, you must be very careful, that you stay focused on where you are going and not get distracted because all of those things are just phenomenal as well, they are just phenomenal, and they are just of the mind as well so don’t get distracted with where you’re going. And that was just the best thing he could have said to me. I could have just gone around looking at auras all the time, but instead I was just like, oh that’s just normal, and all that light is just normal, and I just kept my eye on going home. And mind you, I didn’t even know where I was going Lilou. I mean this is the crazy thing, I’m just like I’ve got to keep searching, I’ve got to keep searching and didn’t even know what I was searching for and I thought I am going to be searching my entire life, like this is going to be my life forever more searching, searching and then 2016 when I realized who we are, all the searching stopped. Just like that. No more books to read, no more, just stopped. Yeh. Just all stopped. Once you know who you are you don’t have any more questions.

 

 

Lilou – Yeah! I have one last question and I’m sure I’ll have hundreds of other questions later on, for other interviews and I’ll still have questions, I can’t help it, I love asking questions.

 

Rhonda – Okay that’s great.

 

Lilou – So would you say the focus should be very narrow or huge as you’re doing a very expansive, expanse, you know focus in life when we do things and projects and when we move forward because you speak about that aspect within your book?

 

Rhonda – For what result, do you mean?

 

Lilou – Like when we want to experience our being our awareness?

 

Rhonda – So when we want to experience our being the more that we become who we are the more expensive we become. So, we begin to experience for ourselves that we are not confined to the body, that we are actually everything out there as well as what is here, and so what happens is a very expensive feeling, and it’s a sensation and the only way anybody can know that is to experience for themselves. I would also say that everything in The Greatest Secret is for each person to experience, not for you to believe anything, but you experience it because only when you experience it, will you categorically know, and when you know there’s no fear you will not be afraid of death any more, you will see life in a different way completely and instead, see the beauty in everything, even in a difficult time. And that you will live in a foundation of happiness that can never be shaken ever, no matter what’s going on, and also nobody bothers you, or upset you anymore.

 

Lilou – That’s handy, especially right now haha, haha!

 

Rhonda – Haha, haha! So you become very expensive, and so a real feeling of spaciousness guess which is what we are, so very spacious, and free. Yeah!

 

Lilou – Thank you so much for this interview Rhonda, it was such a delight to be interviewing you on your book, on your latest book and your journey. Is there something else that you would like to add to this interview or say to people around the world?

 

Rhonda – I guess the one thing that I would say to people is make it this lifetime that you wake up to who you are. Just do it in this lifetime, you can do it, and it’s your answer to every question and it’s your pathway to happiness and freedom. Just make it this lifetime, make it this lifetime, that would be the best thing that I could say to anybody.

 

Lilou – Thank you so much Rhonda, and thank you for your latest book The Greatest Secret and thank you for this delicious interview that I recommend to everyone to share it passionately on the web with all those networks, it’s going to sprinkle. Thank you so much and thank you for this book and this interview, thank you much love.

 

Rhonda – Thank you Lilou, much love to you too bye!

 

Lilou – Bye!

Iain – Hello and welcome to Conscious TV. I’m Iain McNay and today my guest is Rhonda Byrne. Hi Rhonda.

 

Rhonda -Hi Iain.

 

Iain – And of course Rhonda needs no introduction she originally put together the film The Secret and then published the book The Secret, has put other books out as well based around The Secret and she now has the latest book out, been out for a few months called The Greatest Secret and we are obviously going to explore this book but we are also going to talk about her process because we find on Conscious TV it’s so important that people understand that often it takes time to have realizations and then what and how is the realization change them and there’s an integration of that realization. So we’re going to as much as we can find out how Rhonda‘s path worked and hopefully that will be a very helpful interview for many people.

So, Rhonda you started off, I’ve done obviously some research and you started off as a radio producer and then you were a television producer in your native Australia, and actually I found one of your old films, do you remember this one? UFO’s in Australia.

 

Rhonda -Oh, I do yes, I do. (laughs)

 

Iain – Which we watched.

 

Rhonda –Oz Encounters, yeah. You did? (both laughing)

 

Iain – Yeah. I thought it was quite good actually, I quite enjoyed it. I’ve been intrigued by UFO’s like so many people.

 

Rhonda -Right, right. You know when we made that people asked me afterwards do you think UFOs exist or that those people really had those experiences? And I said, ‘look I don’t know all I do know though is I don’t want to have an encounter, that’s all I know. (laughing)

 

Iain – Well, I think in a way a lot of us would be intrigued but we probably at the same time be really scared.

 

Rhonda -Exactly, exactly, because of all those people they were pretty scared.

 

Iain – They were but they were ordinary people which made it very authentic.

 

Rhonda -Yes. Yes.

 

Iain – So then around 2004 things happened in your life which turned your life upside down to the extent your father died, I think your daughter was quite ill your business had huge debts and was struggling and you yourself weren’t a happy person at that time were you?

 

Rhonda -No, I was not and 2004 was a really, really, challenging year for me. A year or two prior to 2004 had also been quite difficult when I look back, so it was kind of a perfect setup, I think. And 2004 we were making six movies about unsolved murders and so that was really challenging to do to make, like a very challenging subject, and so we had everything that could go wrong went wrong that year. I remember sleeping on edit suite floors and all kinds of things like that, and I reached September and I wasn’t well, my relationships, I hadn’t been able to maintain them, and my mother was in such grief over my father‘s death. I reached September 9 and I had two phone calls, my accountant calling saying you’re going to lose everything in 30 days and then I hung up the phone and immediately it rang again, and it was my mother, and I couldn’t barely recognize her voice at all, and she said ‘she couldn’t go on’. It was those two phone calls that brought me to my knees because I had no idea how I could solve these things. I fixed everything all of my life and this I could not solve. I really just collapsed, and my adult daughter asked me what was wrong and I kind of brushed it off and I was in tears and despair, and she came back with a photocopy this crumpled up photocopy bound pieces of paper and said here you are read this it will help, and that was The Science of Getting Rich written by Wallace Wattles. Yeah, well done, (as Iain holds the book up). Written in 1910 and I sat down and read that book and I can’t imagine why I did that you know when I was so distraught, but I did and my tears were making all of the ink run on the photocopied pages but 90 minutes later after I read it my entire life had changed. I knew more than what was in the book, I can’t explain it, I knew we didn’t die but he doesn’t cover that in the book at all. So that is what changed to everything, and I knew that we had the power to manifest our lives in whatever way we wanted so then basically I researched without saying a word to anybody I researched for three months on my own tracing this knowledge back through history.

 

Iain – And you also read this book here didn’t you too, which is Thought Vibration?

 

Rhonda – What is that? Oh gosh yes, I did. I read William Walker Atkinson I loved him. Yeah, I love him, I read all the new thought leaders, and I read all of their books I bought all of their books, I consumed thousands of books and wherever I looked this information was there. So, I had a really, really, massive awakening at that time because I realized we were much more than what I thought we were and that life was not the way that, it was actually the opposite to the way that I thought it worked. So that was the beginning and of course The Secret, we made The Secret documentary.

 

Iain – But just to stop and look a little bit at what was in the books..

 

Rhonda – Yeh, sure sure.

 

Iain – ..because especially the one The Science of Getting Rich. I read that book and it took me more than 90 minutes, so you did really well to read it in 90 minutes.

 

Rhonda – Oh wow!

 

Iain – And you’ve got more than was in the book which is even more impressive, but there was things in there that I hadn’t necessarily thought about and because it’s not as you’ve hinted, it isn’t just about getting rich it’s about seeing reality in a different way and he says things that are very deep, things like, formless intelligence is the father, there is one original stuff, he calls it, from which all things are made. And that, of course, is limitless, and we think of things as kind of, there’s a limit to what can be achieved or what we can do, we feel that, he even mentioned there’s no limit in the amount of gold on the Earth, and I thought that’s strange but of course. If you have that belief have thinking that understanding there are no limits and that’s what I think really got into you at that time wasn’t it? One of the things.

 

Rhonda – Yes. I mean he was he really was incredible, and The Science of Getting Rich is really about getting rich in life in all aspects of life. He was extraordinary and it had such a massive, massive impact on me that book and actually, all of the new thought leaders and I read you know I read Charles Haanel, and Charles Haanel really edged into the infinite being that we are. Actually, they all did, they all spoke about that you know at that time. I love every single one of them, I love all of their books and I studied all of their lives so that was just like the beginning for me of an incredible journey.

 

Iain – And there was also this element in the getting rich book about being grateful and it’s like not being in competition with someone else but creating something that’s unique to you, doing what you love and focusing and that’s where so many people, so many people on a journey they don’t always focus, they get distracted and also in the book is this thing which I know you know only too well now, which is how the mind has all these programs mostly historical programs and it limits and traps us, often unconsciously.

 

Rhonda – Yes it does. You know gratitude has one entire chapter in that book and so gratitude became a really, really, big part of my life and it still is, like if I find anybody is having difficulty or is in some kind of a slump then the fastest way out of that is gratitude for sure, hands down. People will see changes in 24 hours it is so extraordinary, so gratitude played a big part in The Secret and in all of the work that I continue to do, and it was all due to that book, and just kind of carrying that forward.

 

Iain – Yeah so after you read the book you were saying earlier that you kind of knew so much more so was it like almost you woke up the next day and thought, wow this is my new life wasn’t that instant?

 

Rhonda – It was actually instant. I remember going to my daughter and saying where did you find this? I knew it was the truth and so I said to her, ‘where did you find it, do you know what this book says this book is incredible?’ And you know Iain, she doesn’t even know why she gave me the book. Like when I said to her, ‘why did you give it to me? She said she didn’t know why she was just kind of moved to give it to me. I mean, I really didn’t talk to anybody, and just to give you an example of how much I knew it was the truth, the very next day when I was researching I had reading glasses on and I would take them the reading glasses off and put the reading glasses on and on and off and they weren’t working very well and I needed to go up to the next level and I just went to put them on and I paused and I was like, oh my gosh. I realized that I have taken on a belief that your eyesight diminishes as you get older. And somehow or another I believed it and because of that belief that was my experience so immediately I closed my eyes and I visualized myself in dark restaurants reading the menus in planes being able to read in every situation where at that time where I couldn’t read and then three days, I thought it would be one-day but in three days I could see clearly without glasses, and I’ve never used them since. So that was the level of my knowing and belief from that book.

 

Iain – So, were you aware of changes in your mind it in so far as you know that they talk about the mind and neurotransmitters firing and as we get older, that generally, if we believe it certainly, the neurotransmitter slow down so were you aware that you felt brighter and more focused in your mind afterwards, straight away?

 

Rhonda – Absolutely. Absolutely. And I became very aware of thoughts, I could before I was I just live my life as a kind of thought (laugh), and as the mind and I became very aware of thoughts and especially negative thoughts and so everything changed. My whole life changed, I became very aware of if I was talking to somebody, and something came out of my mouth I realized that was the belief that I had and so then I was able to change it. That was what I did, I just did massive, massive internal work and my entire life changed.

 

Iain – Yes so this showed you somehow the gateway and you had to do the homework and that’s often what people don’t realize they think enlightenment self-realization freedom suddenly comes and everything changes and it’s all hunky-dory but of course you’ve got to do the homework and that is you have to stay focused, for that you have to put the time in, and you have to believe in it, and be consistent, and I think you mentioned there somewhere to, that you have to if people are negative in your life, you have to say, woah this is not for me at the moment anymore.

 

Rhonda – Exactly you do. Really needs to matter to you a lot that you are feeling good which is what I talk about in The Secret because if you’re feeling good you are not going to have negative thoughts, that’s an impossibility. So, if you’re feeling good then all of the thoughts are going to be positive and good and so it becomes really important that you feel good and that is not at all selfish because how can you be of any service or help to anybody unless you are feeling good yourself,..

 

Iain – Yes.

 

Rhonda – ..then you can help others. That’s what became very, very important to me was watching my thoughts and not energizing negative thoughts and things that I did not want.

 

Iain – Yes, and you also did some things that might seem a bit crazy, you were giving money away you didn’t really have, you were walking down the street saying, I’m abundant, I’m abundant even though you had lots of debts.

 

Rhonda – Yeah right. (laugh) I had so much debt I just had because I was like $2 million in debt and then I like I have to get this knowledge out to the world and so I had a belief in the lack of money just like so many people, from upbringing and parents and kind of a poverty consciousness, money would come in, and then it would go out again. So, I knew that the mind was a program and I needed to reprogram it into wealth consciousness and not poverty consciousness, and I knew I needed to do that for The Secret to be a success.

 

Iain – Right.

 

Rhonda – So, it was really on my shoulders to change the internal mechanics of me, so that I was at the level of the success of The Secret and so that it could do what I wanted it to do which was bring joy to many millions of people. So, I did, I would walk down the street with mantras, I am abundant, and usually, that happened when something happened in the company, and it was payday the next day and I did not have the money to pay everybody.

 

Iain – Wow.

 

Rhonda – So, I would be walking out in the street and saying there is only abundance I’m breathing in abundance, and I would do all of that and you know what, so extraordinary but our accountant would say, oh we just got a transfer of money in from the UK for something like OZ Encounters we’d made, and I had enough, just to pay everybody. So, I was kind of on the edge, but I could see the more work that I did internally, I began to see everything change around me. One of the things that I felt was that I didn’t feel good about money, and I needed to change that and so what I did was I went and drew money out from my credit card and I held $20 in my hand this was in Australia and then I would walk down the street with the $20 looking for who to give it this money to and $20 was quite a lot then. I would look at every person really connect with every person, and imagine giving it to them and giving it to that person and giving it to that person and something so amazing happened when I did that because I just, like my heart I was out of my head and into my heart and I felt so connected with everybody on the street I wanted to give it to everybody, and in the end I just said, mentally said, show me clearly who to give it to and it was perfect really because a whole bunch of kids just came out of the store, a record store and they were adding up all of their money and they didn’t have enough to buy what they wanted to buy and so I just handed them the $20, and you know it was so beautiful, they said thanks lady, and ran back into the store. (laughing)

 

Iain – So where did the idea of the name The Secret came from was it something you woke up with one morning, or how did you get the name The Secret?

 

Rhonda – I actually used The Secret to get the name The Secret. So, what I did was I asked to be given the perfect name that would bring joy to millions.

 

Iain – So you already had the idea of the film at this point, and you needed a name.

 

Rhonda – I didn’t have the title and so I asked for the perfect title to bring joy to millions, and it just came from formlessness it just came The Secret. And I knew it was it, I knew it was it, and then what was extraordinaire was all of those new thought leaders they kind of The Secret was in the words The Secret was in all of their work.

 

Iain – Yes. Yes.

 

Rhonda – So, I was having it confirmed over and over and over again to be called The Secret.

 

Iain – And then you went to America with the crew you made sure the crew had the same belief in The Secret as you did and you had no appointments, but you found 55 people (both laugh) and it interviews 120 hours in three weeks or something extraordinary.

 

Rhonda – Yeah that’s right. Again, using The Secret but do you know when you are authentic when your heart is full to want to help humanity, I just think the universe will drop everything every obstacle and lay everything at your feet and truly that is what happened for us. Yes, we did not have one thing lined up, not one thing but I knew that all we needed to do was land in America and we would have everything we needed and that’s exactly what happened.

 

Iain – And also, you’re maxed out on your credit cards you remortgaged your house you really went 100% for it, didn’t you?

 

Rhonda – Yeah, I took out an overdraft with my company, I did, I maxed out my house to the limit. I borrowed money wherever I could borrow it to make the film.

 

Iain – You know we have to admire this commitment some people would say that is madness you put all your eggs in one basket, but you knew didn’t you, you know it would work?

 

Rhonda – I knew. Iain, you know what, it is so incredible when you know something to that level and I knew, I absolutely knew. People say what would have happened had it failed, well I would’ve been on the streets actually I would’ve lost everything but, and so people considered it very risky but for me, it wasn’t risky at all because I knew what it would do, I absolutely knew it and so it wasn’t a risk that doesn’t mean I didn’t have really intense challenging moments along the way. Joseph Campbell is so right in many ways of the heroes journey you know if you do have a journey and you do have dark moments and you do have to find the courage in the face of really scary situations, but when you can go through all of that and never, never, never, give up, oh wow, then it’s fantastic.

 

Iain – Absolutely, and then the film comes out and it was, was it a success straight away or was it something that took a bit of time to take off?

 

Rhonda – Oh it was a success straight away like within the first hour it was incredible.

 

Iain – The first hour? Wow.

 

Rhonda – Yes, yes. And we were the first film to be streamed on the internet. The first-ever.

 

Iain – Really?

 

Rhonda – Yes yeah. My CEO was very technically minded, and he worked with a company in Australia to create pause fast forward rewind all of those things and so yeah it was the first film so we released it online. I actually always knew that it would, I’d visualized it going out around the world within 24 hours. Actually, I thought it would go out on television that’s why because that was my background but every door of television closed, it slammed shut in my face, and then this particular day I saw a British Airways commercial on the internet and I’m like, oh my gosh, that’s it that’s it! We go out on the internet and so we were the first film in one hour it was crazy, crazy.

 

Iain – What is there an element of you that was surprised, or you just felt I knew this was going to happen and this is the way it is? What was your response?

 

Rhonda – I knew it was going to happen but, but when it happens it’s just incredible, it’s so humbling and now I sort of have that feeling of that moment when we released it and I was so happy that it was released and I really didn’t care what happened from there because it was out in the world and that was all that mattered to me, is that the world had this knowledge. It was, I just felt so humbled and so happy and content and then with it taking off the way it did, I knew it would do that, however, the experience of it was just incredible.

 

Iain – And then you wrote the book or put the book The Secret together in 18 days. That’s another fast thing that happened. (laugh) And that again took off really dramatically, didn’t it?

 

Rhonda – It did. I remember talking to Simon & Schuster and we were having a publicity talk, a chat, and they said we think this book will sell 1 million copies during the call altogether through history and I said, ‘oh my goodness no it will sell 1 million within a couple of months. And they all kind of fell off their chairs, but it did, that is exactly what it did. You know, I just knew that you know, that’s just from who we are, that was just coming from who we are, I knew what it would do, not because we were so clever, my gosh we were given everything that we needed, we were the lucky ones that got to be a part of it.

 

Iain – How is that to go from debt and relatively obscurity, not that your obscure (laugh) but not that well known and suddenly you’re rich and famous, how was that? You have to that’s a whole new thing to handle in some ways, isn’t it?

 

Rhonda – Yes it was and I was living in Los Angeles at the time where I couldn’t walk anywhere I would walk down the street and there would just be one person after another stop me and they would tell me my mother told me about The Secret and how her life is changed and their life has changed and so basically I spent most of my time just in tears with all of these people just so grateful just on my gosh, can’t tell you and just one person’s life changing is so amazing. I was really just so humbled and grateful but then it got very tricky because I couldn’t go anywhere, and people were taking photographs of me everywhere and I didn’t really mind but then I ended up an hour and a half away and where I am and it’s very peaceful and there are so many celebrities here nobody cares about anything. I mean we’ve got Harry and Meghan here so Prince Harry and Meghan so there are lots of people like Oprah and Ellen and all of those people and nobody takes any notice of them.

 

Iain – In all the interviews I’ve watched of you it’s like I can tell how touched you were when people said to you what a dramatic effect that the book and the film had in their lives is that something that you were at all in touch with beforehand that feeling to be moved and touched or was that something that came out of your own process?

 

Rhonda – You know what the people elicit that out of me. I feel such a deep connection to human beings and just think we are so incredibly courageous for doing this planet Earth thing and so I, when somebody stands in front of me, even today when people talk to me about how The Secret has changed their life or even The Greatest Secret when they’re talking about that I’m really, really, just my heart melts, it is hard to explain, my heart just melts and I feel such an enormous love it’s really overwhelming, just incredible love for everybody.

 

Iain – I think one of the things that impressed me the most about you was with all this that happened, here you are, you say you feel incredible love, your whole life has changed from poverty to prosperity, you’re helping millions of people and yet your journey went on. In fact, you talk about your journey was only just when it started, and that was from 2005 to 2006 onwards it was a 10year journey and you were exploring, you were going to other people’s seminars and I’ve got a list here of all the things you did, (laugh) which you probably know better than me but extraordinary. Why don’t you talk us through your process of going to listen to these teachers learning something, and then moving on to something else because that is so fascinating?

 

Rhonda – Yes. Yes. Well, The Secret kind of set off a spark and I knew that was the truth for our life here on planet Earth so then I knew there must be more of the truth, so I just became a seeker a really, really incredible seeker. I read, I listened to, and watched everything I could get my hands on 24 / 7. Now I could do it 24 / 7 because it was my work, and it was my greatest joy so weekends that’s all that I was doing. It was an amazing journey and initially, I was made an honorary member of the Rose Cross Teachings and so I followed those teachings and that was a progressive path and I followed those teachings for quite a long time and that was many years and I had a lot of experience, you know really incredible experiences through those teachings but I read all of the alchemists, all of the Esoteric, Christian Esoteric from hundreds of years ago, I just read everything that I could possibly read and then I kind of moved, I was very drawn to the past and the past teachers, and then I sort of gradually moved to living teachers and that’s when I began to follow, I think it was like a little bit before 2016, I think a few years before 2016, I mean I found Conscious TV of course so that became a part of my life watching all of those interviews that you and Renata did and all of those impacted me as well. Every time I watch something or listen to something there was just another glimpse and another, but I had no idea what I was looking for, I was just, I’ve got to find more of the truth.

 

Iain – And so something was driving you to find as you put it more of the truth and how did that feel, how did that drive feel at times, do you remember?

 

Rhonda – Yes, I do remember. It’s you can’t stop it, you just can’t stop it, it’s like it takes over you, it’s just nothing else matters but that, and every second you just want to look for more and find more. It’s like a fire inside, a spiritual fire inside of you and it’s glorious you know it’s really glorious.

 

Iain – So you say yeah. I’m just looking at some of the things you explored you mention the Esoteric Christian and then Buddhism, Theology Hinduism Taoism, Sufism, Krishnamurti, Ramana Maharshi, that’s like, there’s just a lot there.

 

Rhonda – (laughing) Yeah, there’s a lot there isn’t there. I know that’s true and every single one of those teachers impacted my life enormously. Krishnamurti too because earlier in my life in my 30’s my husband fell in love with Krishnamurti, and so we had Krishnamurti in our lives for 10 years and you know I used to get really mad at him because I’d listen and he’d say don’t do this or this or this and so my natural question, well then what do I do. And somebody would ask that and he would get really frustrated and say you’ve missed it, you know so are used to get really frustrated listening to him. He still had a big impact on me it was just something about him that fascinated me and of course then eventually I found Ramana Maharshi. I then sort of moved more, I can remember saying to a mentor of mine from the Rose Cross Teachings there must be a faster way? And he said, ‘what’s the rush you’ve got all of eternity’. And I said, ‘but I want, but there must be a faster way’. Because I can think there’s a faster way which means there must be a faster way, and really that is when I began to move more towards the direct path and it was kind of a mixture I think because the direct path included everything of the power of our mind and what we can do on Earth and I never wanted to leave that behind because I know that if you want to manifest on Earth that is what you need to do. I always wanted to take that with me. It was really a journey actually to merge those two things together the direct path and then The Secret and it was actually Robert Adams who created the bridge for the two. I found him and I read his book and to this day Silence of The Heart is one of my most treasured books of all time, I can just open that book and just lose myself in that book.

 

Iain – So what form did the bridge take for you?

 

Rhonda – He wrote a book I think called The Secret to Happiness and there was just a paragraph that he wrote he always shared the teachings about manifesting and so he incorporated the direct path with manifesting. I remember there was this one paragraph I was like, that’s it. That’s it. There’s the bridge and I can’t remember what was in the paragraph, but I just remember the way that he put it together and then I found The Secret and The Greatest Secret come together and of course there was all of the teachers that are in The Greatest Secret and all of those teachers became my teachers from my journey from The Secret to The Greatest Secret. Conscious TV was a part of that you played such a big part of my journey as you know.

 

Iain – Yes because there was this time in 2016 and something happened, and you were deeply disappointed and then you were online and found I think it was me interviewing David Bingham who’s a friend of ours that we’ve known for a long time, and you had a chat with David Bingham on the phone and then something clicked. So, what clicked?

 

Rhonda – Well David said I’d already realized who I was when I spoke with him, and I said to him had I really? But when I watch the interview that he did with you he mentioned that he woke up from a podcast with John Wheeler.

 

Iain – Yes, that’s right.

 

Rhonda – He listened to a podcast with John Wheeler and so I immediately looked for that podcast and I found it and I listen to it, and oh my gosh, I just got a really big glimpse when I listen to that podcast then I went back and listened to David’s interview again and you know it’s really interesting because some people just wake up boom but for me it was like this sort of, I don’t know, everything like dropping and so I began to seeing that what we really are and when I spoke to David, David did some exercises with me of looking at something with my mind and then to look at something as awareness, so not focused at all. After that phone call I mean that was it. I can remember calling a spiritual friend of mine and saying, ‘oh my gosh I know who we are, I know who we are, and we’ve missed it, we’ve missed it’. Like I couldn’t believe I’ve done all of those years you know, and I think I’d maybe heard teachers talk about it like I’d already been following Mooji and Adyashanti, so they must’ve mentioned it but somehow it didn’t work, it didn’t penetrate, but that interview with David that just changed my life and that was, I listen to that on 10 January 2016. See I remember the exact day. That was, that would be my greatest awakening.

 

Iain – And you had the awakening, you had the realization, how did that change thinking practically in your life?

 

Rhonda – Everything changed then because there is just this peace that came over me, however, I knew there was work to be done because the mind would come in and I could be awareness but then the mind would come in and so there was kind of a yo-yo kind of time awareness and the mind and awareness and the mind and ego, and so the last four years really is what I have dedicated to just being who I am, and resting as awareness and so it was you know it’s a little bit of a journey but the thing is, that you just have this happiness arise within you there’s no mistaking it, you know the happiness that was always there just begins to arise and take over your life, and the most beautiful feeling is that you don’t need anything to change, everything is just fine as it is.

 

Iain – Yes but you’ve created this space for that hadn’t you, to allow to a large extent that for so many years, so many of us, we hear things and years later we realize, gosh that’s it, that’s important, that’s my next step, that’s my awakening or whatever. Of course, there wasn’t a space before it was the Thought Vibration book where I remember reminding me again about how you slow down the mind, if you slow down the mind of course there’s more space for things to come in and in a more subtle way you’re not racing around feeling everything up and I’m sure that’s what happened with you, it was the right time and you had done the work, and that I keep stressing that a lot these days in interviews because so many people still think something happens and it’s wonderful and it’s not quite like that.

 

Rhonda – Yeah, yeah. I did a lot of work I have to say and continue to just be aware but now there’s just a happiness a foundation of happiness that’s always there no matter what is going on so this beautiful happiness and just that one of the other big things that I’ve noticed is fear dissipating. Not living in a foundation of fear as well and just it’s really nice to not have a strong ego in your life. It’s really great to have that sort of dissolving, you know because you don’t mind about what anyone else thinks you don’t mind about anything there’s nothing to protect, there’s nothing to defend, its freedom you know it really is.

 

Iain – So the realization was of course as you said that we are awareness and awareness is the base of everything and I remember you know Renata and I had quite a significant awakening when David Bingham was at our house and he came for lunch one day after we’re done the interviews we got a bit friendly with him and we saw him a couple of times and he just said these words and the words were, ‘well there’s the changing and then there’s a never changing’. You think about it, the changing form is always changing but never changing awareness the formless and of course it ties in so well with quantum physics as well. So, when I interview with quantum field physics they talk about the chaos and the chaos his form and the order is the formless because in the formless there has to be order because there’s no room for it, there’s no space for chaos (both laughing), and what interests me is, I think you still work with the teacher, don’t you? You have a female woman that used to work with.

 

Rhonda – Yes I do.

 

Iain – And it’s like I guess your refining things the whole time is that how you see it?

 

Rhonda – Yes and I see it at her I look at her my teacher and look at her and the way that she is and I just, she’s just, my gosh so amazing, every question that anybody asks her, the answer is incredible and just makes total sense and so she’s very inspiring to go even higher level of happiness and peace to keep going and so yeah she’s helped me a lot because she’s very tough on me and that is what I wanted I didn’t want to waste time. I wasn’t 20 years old and so I wanted someone somebody to be super, super tough on me and she was really tough and so that kind of brought, that helped break you know those tendencies and the mind programs and everything she was really good at spotting those and she would just say something and I would be like, oh I see it, do you know some tendency and see your belief that I’ve had for ages and ages and it would just crumble in front of me so she also helped me, which is also in The Greatest Secret which is I just think is one of the most incredible things in The Greatest Secret is the way to release negative emotions and negative thoughts and so that’s something I’ve been doing for four years. I don’t anymore it’s so rare for me to feel impatient or disappointment or anything like that and that’s just from the work of releasing all of those things and of course each time you release them you get happier.

 

Iain – Yes and you talk, I should say in the book, you certainly talk and there are techniques there. There are clues how to clear yourself of these negative patterns and it’s down to whether somebody wants to do it or commit themselves and you’re just so committed and you’re still our commission still with your teacher now just there’s a level of your commitment. So, what does freedom ultimately mean to you? Do you feel completely free, that the way you talk you’re almost completely free, but do you still feel there’s something, unclarity there that still needs to fade away in its own time?

 

Rhonda – I’m certainly freer than I ever imagined I could be but I would say there’s still some things there if I look at my teacher I can see my teacher is total pure freedom and so I think they’re so the subconscious has still got probably a few things going on and they would be very deep and may be there from the collective unconscious you know but certainly, do you know Iain, it’s like every day I feel that I’m freer.

 

Iain – Every day?

 

Rhonda – Yep, every day I wake up I feel happier and freer and yeah, and it’s just from doing everything that I wrote in the book. I mean I wrote what I did, what worked for me and it’s quite simple really and I think you know the minds wants to complicate it, and we want to complicate it, but awareness is really really simple, I mean is here all of the time. Even just when you just say the word, it is there, you know it’s in the foreground it’s right there, so beautiful and right there. And that’s all it takes is just noticing it and then it gets stronger, and mind gets weaker.

 

Iain – Yeah, well awareness is always there but of course you have to have as we talked about earlier with the space to let it be more in the foreground and this is what people that do wake up, they often say well the background became the foreground, and the foreground became the background and that’s it really isn’t it? And a lot of people can say yes, they know they’re awareness and then things happen and they’re all over the place.

 

Rhonda – And you have to be careful that the mind doesn’t sort of trick you and you turn it into a concept, you know, because it’s not awareness is not a concept, you know it’s a being. All it is, I mean Lester Levenson who is featured in the book and a teacher that, oh my gosh, love him so much, he just says everything so simply, he just says you are yourself without the mind, that’s what you are, just without the mind.

 

Iain – Yeah, and it is something that isn’t always easy to spot what is the unique expression as a human being of you without all your historical conditioning because they’re mining together, interwoven and I think I find that myself, yes, I me, and of course that me isn’t necessarily the purist me because it has all my historical patterns that I haven’t yet dissipated.

 

Rhonda – Yes.

 

Iain – I guess that’s what, I don’t want to put words in your mouth, but I guess maybe that’s to some extent what your ongoing journey still is, just to purify and purify, is that what it is?

 

Rhonda – It is, it is you know one of the traps that I had was I was looking for another version for quite a long time even though my teacher would say you were here now and I would be looking, I was kind of looking for something else that wasn’t, some other form of me, the infinite being of me I was looking for that and for quite a while, and then I just realized okay so here’s what it is just take away the name, and take away the history of this body form, take away the Rhonda and take away the history and take away the body and what’s left, is who I really am. It’s just taking away the mind and the body and what’s left and then me that I feel myself to be, is the being, just not with any of those other stories, you know it’s just what’s left, and it is here right now it’s here, here it is it’s not over there, or it’s right here, and it if you could just take away the name and the history, and the body and the mind then what’s left is you, and it’s the you, you feel yourself to be, it just doesn’t have any baggage, and the you that you feel yourself to be is actually gloriously, gloriously happy.

 

Iain – The me that you feel yourself to be is gloriously happy. And you look gloriously happy at the moment. (both laughing)

 

Rhonda – I do yes.

 

Iain – And you do and you’re a living example of that and you say I pulled some quotes. and I should show the book The Greatest Secret and one quote I pulled out, “The only purpose, the only purpose of life is to be totally who you are”.

 

Rhonda – Yes. Gosh yes.

 

Iain – And that’s where you got to isn’t it?

 

Rhonda – Yes.

 

Iain – And that’s where real seekers finally get to the only purpose in life is to be totally who you are. And actually, if I look back at right at the beginning of your journey The Science of Getting Rich in his own way.

 

Rhonda – Oh that’s gorgeous.

 

Iain – He says that it’s not about pleasing people and he says don’t give charity to the poor you encourage the poor to start in their own way when they can take responsibility and find their own way in life and that sometimes difficult to do but it’s the key isn’t it?

 

Rhonda – It is the key, and then when you’re free just everything is a miracle Every moment is a miracle and just the joy and the love and the gratitude, it’s not gratitude to somebody, it’s just gratitude for being, all of it is just so wonderful and that’s all I mean it’s the one thing to do in this lifetime, it really is the one thing to do, because then everything else falls into place. Everything that you need or want and so it is really important to me that not just to suggest you go off into a cave cross-legged or something like that because we’re here on planet Earth to have this experience on planet Earth of knowing who you really are and there’s no end to you and the beauty, and the beauty the absolute beauty that we are, the innocence that we are, like oh my gosh. (laugh) I just think we are so incredible to take this on you know because it can be tough right?

 

Iain – Well it’s that there are people with huge challenges, and you know when Renata and I are involved in supporting a charity called The Prison Phoenix Trust and what that does is it supports through meditation and yoga people in prison. Now they really do have a challenge but some of them do rights to it and they use that time in the prison cell it’s only small cells to do their yoga, to do their meditation, some get up at five in the morning when the prisons quieter, do their meditation and then somehow they find the beginning of some peace but you and I can I comparatively lucky because we’re in the free world we’ve had our challenges, of course, some people do find it tough but as you say the potential is, people are also very sick but the potential is somewhere there in their own way.

 

Rhonda – Well yes and then everything that is happening is to help lead us to wake up, you know as well and so I mean I woke up through difficult times, and I’m on both occasions the two big awakenings were in challenging times and so the challenging times help us they help us question and question about life. The challenges have their place too, and it’s not easy going through those times but then every time I would come out of one of those, I was so grateful. I remember my mentor would say to me at the end of your journey he said, ‘you will be so grateful to God for all of the difficulties that you faced’. I did not believe him (laughing) because at that time I was going through an intensely difficult time and he told me I’d be grateful for that time and I just, I really, I couldn’t believe I would ever be grateful for that challenge, but do you know what I am so grateful, I am so grateful for all of it. Yeah.

 

Iain – We’ve got three- or four minutes left Rhonda is there anything else that you want to say that’s in The Greatest Secret that you think is so important that people just have a look at that particular page or exercise because you have some exercises in there?

 

Rhonda – Yes. It’s a book that I hope people will find simple enough it’s not easy to write about something that’s invisible, but I tend to write about things that are invisible. (laugh) As I did with The Secret as well but there’s just a promise that when you realize who you are everything will fall into place. You know you won’t suffer from anxiety or stress or any of those things anymore there might be a moment that comes but it will just pass on by and to live your life without fear of death in particular, and without fear anyway is just the most glorious way to live your life so I would just urge anybody, if you feel there are a lot of problems that you have or you’re going through any challenges I want you to know there’s a way out, and the way out is absolutely gorgeous and I think it’s just lined with rose petals and if you can just take the steps that are necessary and everybody can do it because it’s who you are, right? It’s not this, it is who you are and it so it’s just lifting up that blanket that’s covering up who you are. I would say to anybody that is wanting to be free but I would say to you in particular and to Renata thank you, because I have just I’ve had so many wonderful, wonderful hours watching your interviews and having so many aha moments, and replaying things over and over again with guests, and so I want to say thank you to both of you because you’re really made a big difference in my life and I’m sure so many other people‘s lives as well. Yeah, Conscious TV it’s been wonderful for me and really such a service that you have both done.

 

Iain – Yeah, you see it’s been a journey when I had the idea all those years ago it was about somehow a progression of my journey and Renata’s journey, and we got so much of doing the interviews so as they say it’s a complete win-win situation and it continues to be, and we do less interviews now but the ones we do we still value so much. So, I’m looking at the clock and we’ve pretty much got there in the hour, I really appreciate your time and your wisdom Rhonda, and good luck with the further stages of your journey, all the further stages of awareness’s journey.

‘

Rhonda – Thank you Iain so much and thank you for having me.

 

Iain – And thank you, everyone, for watching Conscious TV and I do hope we see you again soon. Goodbye.

Best-selling author and podcaster, Sahara Rose interviews Rhonda Byrne, creator and author of The Secret, for the Highest Self Podcast. Rhonda and Sahara Rose discuss all that Rhonda has learned about the Law of Attraction in the past 15+ years since The Secret has come out. They delve into the role of destiny and karma with manifestation and going beyond manifesting for material desires. The original title of this talk is ‘Law of Attraction Techniques with The Secret Creator Rhonda Byrne.’

Click below to watch the video or scroll down for a full transcript of the conversation.

Sahara Rose – Welcome Rhonda to the Highest Self podcast, it’s so great to have you here.

 

Rhonda Byrne – Thank you so much Sahara, it’s wonderful to be here. Thank you.

 

Sahara – And the first question I’d love to ask you is, what makes you your highest self?

 

Rhonda – Oh wow! Great question. Being present, being in joy, being unattached, actually not listening to the mind when it’s saying things that I’m less, or we’re less, or that we’re lacking, that’s a big one, so not listening to the mind. Using it of course to manifest, so yes, all of those things and definitely when I love, when I’m in peace, when I’m in joy, that’s when I’m really being my highest self.

 

Sahara – I love that so much it’s so beautiful like so many of the words you just said are the words that I journal upon every day and like collectively we all want to feel that way. We want to feel joy, peace, serenity, harmony but it’s all of the disillusions and the mind that sometimes keep up from seeing that it already is here we just aren’t able to fully recognize that, so I’m excited to dive in more but a lot of listeners probably know of you from the movie The Secret which you know has come out more than 20 years ago which is crazy, I mean more than half of my life so I’d love to know what was that process like creating this movie especially in a time in the 90’s where these conversations were not trendy they were not at the forefront, was there any backlash that you received? What was that journey like for you?

 

Rhonda – Sure, sure. I mean, I think it was considered quite controversial at that time but even though it was considered that I was absolutely determined because when I discovered it, I knew it was the truth without a doubt. I knew that law of attraction applied, I knew that our mind was creating absolutely everything depending on what we focus on, and so I was just determined to get this movie out there no matter what, and truly Sahara to this day I don’t know how it happened. I had the Universe give me everything that I needed because I was in such a lot of debt, and it was impossible if you looked at it from where I was and where I started, it was impossible for me to be able to do it. But it was just everything that was needed was given. I remember my daughter saying to me, well you’re a controversial writer, and I said, no I’m not, I just write about the truth. It was a journey for sure.

 

Sahara – It’s crazy how something like, you create your own reality, and you are worthy of joy, and peace, and love and is like considered controversial but then all of the horror and action and all of those things no one bats an eyelash at that.

 

Rhonda – Right. I mean that is so true because what I felt, the news that I’m delivering is the best news you’ll ever hear, like the message of this is incredible and both for The Secret and of The Greatest Secret. The Secret was basically telling people that they have the power to create the life that they want to create and then The Greatest Secret is really showing them why they are unlimited and why they can create anything that they want, and it’s just all good news. It doesn’t make any sense to be either that there would be pushback, but we have to remember it’s the mind that’s pushing back. You know that’s what’s pushing back it’s not, it’s certainly not who we are.

 

Sahara – And I think it’s also the element of responsibility of it. If I am creating my own reality and I created this, I don’t want to be responsible for that because I don’t like this so let me blame something eternal around me that you know, the Government do have a role to play but if we give up our sovereignty and wait for the Government and everyone to give us what we want, we are going to be waiting many, many, lifetimes.

 

Rhonda – Yeh and you’re right taking responsibility for our life is the first step and when I first discovered this, I kind of, my whole life flashed before my eyes. All of the great things and all of the really tough things I went through, but I could just see how I created it all and of course I never deliberately created the tough things, those were inadvertent, those were, you know sloppy thinking kind of thing, but I took responsibility for all of it. But for me and now for millions of other people the news of this when you, when the truth resonates it is the first most colossal step to freedom. It is gorgeous, it is absolutely gorgeous, to feel that sense of freedom that you have to create the life that you want to create. Yeah, it’s pretty good.

 

Sahara – I love that. It puts the power back in our hands and puts the energy from trying to change the external role that we really have no control of to the things that we can control which are our daily practices and you know actions like we can take like journaling gratitude etc. that these things will actually make a huge difference in our lives and the ripple effect of that as well I think we really undermined that as a society. We think that change has to come from such pain and agony and suffering and the old way and really what I think this new paradigm is about is creating change from the vibration that we want in this world.

 

Rhonda – Oh exactly, yes definitely. It’s all an inside job, all of it, all of it. And it’s so easy to change our lives as you mentioned with gratitude. I mean somebody can really see the difference in their life in under 24 hours with gratitude. I mean it’s so fast and if they are doing it genuinely and from their heart, they would see a really big difference in a very short time. So gratitude just is the easiest thing to do to change your life and begin to see the power that you have when you are being grateful for what you have and then of course love is also another thing to use. In a similar way to what you’re using gratitude, so doing a rampage of love for example of all of things that you love and the really great thing about the law of attraction is you kind of start, what can I think of that I love, well I love it when there’s blue sky and I love it in summer and I love the fresh air and I love it when the traffic is really easy and you start to do these deliberate thoughts and then law of attraction kicks in and in 20 seconds law of attraction is just giving you one thing after another after another of all the things that you love. So, when you are doing that your frequency flies really high, the happiness and joy inside of us increases and when we are really happy and joyful, we can create in a heartbeat. I mean we can create really fast and manifest very very fast and then if we’re down and super low the really good thing is we don’t create as fast. We just don’t have, it’s like a self-protective mechanism that we don’t create as fast if we’re in a really lower frequency. Gratitude and love and all of those upper emotions and feelings and passion they are all just life-changing and you actually need to feel them first. Like I remember in The Secret I would say you be happy first, be happy first and then you’re on the happy frequency where all of the things that you want because they make you happy are sitting, right. So it’s sort of a little bit around the other way that I’ll be happy when, I’ll be happy when, no be happy first and watch your life change.

 

Sahara – 100% I think about it like being in an apartment building and every floor is a different frequency and if you get off on that happy or joyful frequency like there you are where all of those things are on the floor but then you could go down the elevator into the shame frequency or anger or sadness and then you’re living that experience so there’s so much more that you’ve uncovered in your newer book The Greatest Secret so I would love to know what was your pathway from The Secret to The Greatest Secret? What were the things that you learned about law of attraction that you got to put in The Greatest Secret then years later?

 

Rhonda – Okay that is such a good question too. As the year passed by I realized more deeply the incredible power of our mind to create and on just a far more expansive level that I came to understand that the entire world is a projection of our mind and so if the entire world is a projection of our mind then it’s actually really easy to create because the world is just a picture of our minds so therefore if we hold an image in our mind then that image will be projected into the world and if we’re holding the image in our mind without any resistance, you know resistance that we don’t deserve this, or any of those kinds of emotions but just knowing the infinite power that we have to create the life that we want to experience and have is, once we are at the place we can just manifest anything. I also dived a lot into quantum physics as well and understanding the observer effect and that sort of area and that just helped back up everything that I knew spiritually, was to look at that, and there are really incredible scientists out there that are cutting edge and that know that the whole world is not what it appears to be, that it’s very different. And that’s all good news too, that’s all great news. So, to understand that the power of our mind, to focus on something, is when we focus on something we will see it in the world. And I also came to understand the power of our beliefs that we cannot experience anything that is outside of our beliefs. Therefore, letting go of beliefs was an important thing to do, letting go of suppressed emotions. Emotions that we’ve suppressed where we had difficult moments in our life, and we experienced traumatic or sad low emotions and letting those go meant that we would get happier, and happier, and happier with every single one that we released and let go. What I came to see is that the mind is the most incredible powerful tool to create whatever we want in our life, but it also can be our greatest torturer, if we believe the negative thoughts. Because all of its negative force is not true, we are the being that we are, is absolutely perfection and so anything that the mind says that is less than that, you can’t do that, you don’t deserve that, any of those kinds of negative thoughts are not to be believed, at all. Not to be given any attention to so it was a journey of really understanding the mind a lot more the wonderful parts of the mind and the other parts that are not so wonderful and how we can be completely free and existing in permanent happiness. And that was kind of my journey and then in 2016, I had a really big second wake up call, like The Secret was the first but into 2016 I had a second big wakeup call and I’ve been on a journey for the truth like crazy, 24/7 reading, reading, reading, listening, listening to everything I could find. I was like there must be more of the truth. And then in 2016 what to me the biggest thing of all was, understanding who we really are. That really sets you free. Complete actually and puts you into a life with no fear which is a big deal and a life of permanent happiness.

 

Sahara – I love that so much and when you spoke about beliefs it brought up for me, I remember I went to Varanasi India which is where all of the cremations happen, millions of cremations a year but when you go there no one is crying, not a single person there is crying in fact their just chanting and in a deep deep spiritual practice in fact it’s a huge honor for them to be there but they are literally cremating by hand their mothers, their husbands, their most loved ones but it’s this belief of death that we have in the western world that death is the worst thing that can happen for you is surrounded by sadness, and grief and loss. I mean even this idea of loss of something being taken away from you, that belief is just not there in India because death is just a cycle and you’re just going to transform into your dimension, and in fact, they say you’re, whatever vibration that you are carrying at the time that the soul is transitioning that is what the soul will leave with so if you are screaming, crying, angry the soul is not going to have peace to be able to depart in this clear way that it is meant to so even so much of our actions are to avoid death, right? Like this whole 2020 of a year and everything beyond, it’s like do whatever we can to avoid death, but we if really look at it, is death really the worst thing possible, or is it just this inevitability that if I change my beliefs around it then I don’t have to stop living my life in the fear of what is eventually going to happen to all of us.

 

Rhonda – Yes, yes. I mean it’s so beautiful in India they most certainly understand that there’s no death for the soul as you say or the being that we are. It’s just the body that ends there’s nothing else. Nothing else that ends. We can’t end, it’s actually impossible for us to end. We never began either, of course, that means, so we’re having an incredible experience of being a human and it’s fantastic and that we’re separate all of those kinds of things and we’re in this incredible objective world but it’s just an experience and who we are never began and will never end, and is actually, which I think is very beautiful is untouched and unharmed by anything that takes place on earth in the physical world. We remain untouched and unharmed but even just this one question that I would say to people, what if you knew without any doubt whatsoever that no one dies? What if you knew how would that change your life, your world, your opinions, your outlook? What if you knew that no one ever dies, there can be no end to any being? The world would be so different right? Yeah.

 

Sahara – Yeah, I think we would stop gripping being in fear trying to control everything, trying to delay something that is just a natural process of life. I think we created so many systems and technologies and things to like to try to keep death as far away as possible and don’t really have a relationship with it either. It’s like Halloween is maybe the closest thing that we have but it’s scary, right? But I think the more in touch we are with our death the more we can truly live.

 

Rhonda – Oh, absolutely and it is possible to live your life without the fear of death. It is possible to know not to believe, I’m not saying to take on a belief but to know through your own experience without any doubt whatsoever that you, who you are will never die. That the body will end but it is not who you are. I remember I had this mentor, a really beautiful man many years ago, he is the imperator of one of the esoteric traditions, and he said to me that the moment of death is the greatest moment of life because of the realization that you never die and that you can’t take any of the negativity with you. Eventually, what happens, of course, you must as what you said is also true that you will experience whatever frequency you are on in the moment of death you will experience that but then ultimately you can’t take that with you in the spiritual realm, you can pick it up on the way, on the way back in though. He said it’s just joy and love and happiness. I’ve always thought about that it’s like that but since The Greatest Secret I am being fortunate enough to have the experience of being much more than the person and the form that is sitting here and that is what I would honestly so wish for everybody because that is what will set them free and that is what will deliver to them a happiness that they can barely fathom.

 

Sahara – Mm. So beautiful. And how did these realizations come through for you, is it through just contemplation, writing, mediation, taking walks, how did these awarenesses start to show up in your reality?

 

Rhonda – For me, after the sort of realizing who we really are, for me then for the last four years I have been releasing everything that I’m not. That has been releasing beliefs, limiting beliefs. When any kind of negative emotion appears to release that and to welcome that emotion so that I’m releasing all the suppressed emotions from inside the body and when you release a suppressed emotion, you’re releasing thousands upon thousands of thoughts that are attached to that, and so after releasing those things you feel lighter, happier, lighter, happier. So that’s what I’ve been doing and if I feel like for example if you feel disappointment then this is a great day to celebrate because now you can let that disappointment go and my teacher would say to me you are only feeling these things because they’re ready to be released. That’s what I did, I would just release disappointment, impatience, any anger, and then the next time I would feel one of those emotions it was really weak and not so strong and once again I would release it, and then it would it get to a point it’s not possible to feel disappointment because I don’t have any disappointment left inside of me, so I took a really practical path and I mean of course, too, I would be consciously holding myself in the space of the infinite being that we are. I would do that as much as possible in the day was to really hold myself in that space and remembering all the time who I am, the peace of who I am. It really happened I think really, really fast in a short time, I began to feel happier, happier, and more at peace and do you know what’s incredible? All of the things that you begin to see is that things that used to annoy you don’t bother you one bit anymore and you wonder how was it that I ever would get annoyed at that or that that person would sometimes irritate me, you just don’t feel any of that anymore. Nothing really bothers you and it’s so amazing. Really incredible, yeah. I know that is possible for absolutely everybody and yeah so, I took the practical approach to be free.

 

Sahara – I love that, so let’s say you get into a fight with someone, and some anger shows up, some fear of what they’re going to do, how would you then release that experience you are in?

 

Rhonda – Okay, so what I would do is feel the emotion, so I notice it and then I take my attention off it because as you know whatever we put our attention on expands and magnifies, so I take my attention. First, notice it and you don’t even need to know that anger or that impatience as that just doesn’t matter, it’s just to notice the negative emotion, then I would take my attention off it. And that’s the thing, once we take our attention off it, it is automatic, the release. We kind of have this self-cleansing mechanism in our body, it’s so amazing, take our attention off it and the energy of that suppressed emotion will unwind and be released. So, to be sure to do that to take our attention off it is what I do is welcoming that emotion. I don’t try and change it, I don’t try and get rid of it, I don’t fix it, I don’t try and do anything with it, I allow the emotion to be there fully, and I’m kind of putting my arms out as though you are welcoming you’re about to put your arms around somebody because I find that if you have your arms out you’re not tensing up and resisting anymore and it helps you to just kind of relax and so it’s really surprising how fast an emotion, the energy of an emotion will pass out of our body when you do that. So that process is what I did, I put it in The Greatest Secret, it is the most powerful thing I’ve ever done in my life. I did that for beliefs, I would spot a belief and I would just be like wow, and I would put my arms out basically and just allow, just look at that belief and allow it to be there and it would just dissolve to such a point that I couldn’t even remember what that belief was because once a belief is gone you can’t remember it anymore. I also did it with any sort of subject, negative subjects or negative train of thoughts, I used that one process for all of that, and then I would just revel in the peace and the bliss and the happiness that would arise within me.

 

Sahara – Wow it’s so simple yet so profound and I think the difficulty is sometimes what I experience is my mind thinks that I need to think through a problem to find a solution so I’m like I need to keep repeating this because maybe I’ll come up with something that I wouldn’t have and then I create this evidence oh well one time you thought about this problem enough you came up with this solution so you should keep on doing that. So, what advice do you have if you are continually thinking about a problem over and over again?

 

Rhonda – Yes well, the first thing to know is the mind has no solutions, it doesn’t so a true solution will come from the infinite being that you are, and it will often come as an insight or an intuition. The mind doesn’t really have any answers to anything, it asks a lot of questions for sure, but it doesn’t have the answers. The answers and the insights and the true resolutions are coming from beyond the mind. What the mind will tend to do is keep you trapped you know in, it loves problems because it’s a whole lot of energy and it feeds off those things so it will kind of keep you trapped in a maze going around in circles and then just when you think you resolved it, something else pops up and so you’re attracting more and more problems and I think for many people like they spend their lives just putting out spot fires of problems. “Oh, here’s the next one now I need to put that one out,” and that’s like perfect for the mind. But for who we are and for beyond the mind there’s not a single problem anywhere at any time. To be in that frequency to be at that level, when you’re at that level, it’s like the problem gets resolved all by itself without you doing anything. When you just open yourself to that and you step beyond the mind and just open yourself up it will just get resolved all by itself and you’re like wow. I’ve had that situation so many times where I’ve had one of the executives in my company called and say oh there’s… no I don’t think anybody in our company calls it a problem, they say a challenge or whatever other words and they’ll say there’s this one that we need to address and straight away I just hear it and I release it just automatic and I release on it and then they’ll call back and they say, oh that thing I was talking about, it all got sorted out. I didn’t do anything. I didn’t do anything but just release the idea of it being a problem and not allow the mind to convince me that it is. That’s when you put yourself on a plain where there is absolute perfection and whatever it is will be resolved.

 

Sahara – Yeah, I mean I was in a situation that was going on for months it was like this dispute, and I kept trying to come up with all the solutions and this and that and then the best solution was just walk away like I don’t want this problem anymore and this is the solution.

 

Rhonda – Ha Ha! Yeah well, that was most definitely as you would say your higher self-speaking to you because that’s the exact answer and I’m sure when you walked away, and I’ve been in that situation as well, some kind of a dispute and that’s just really really tough and the mind loves to comes up with all these kinds of things you know let’s fight and let’s do this and it’s like no, let it go and that feeling to let it go is way beyond the mind. And you would’ve felt such relief. Like we always know when we’re on the right track because we feel this, first of all, we feel this incredible sense of relief. It’s just like, so beautiful to let something go. The wonderful thing about letting something go is now you have the space for something new to come in and something different to come in for the solution to come in. It’s almost like let go of everything. You know just let go of everything. Let go of it all, let go of the story you have about yourself because that story is created by the mind and that story, therefore, is limited, it’s definitely limited because it’s created by the mind and we are unlimited, we are absolute perfection and just letting the story go of who we think we are, suddenly there’s all of this incredible space for who you are to just come flooding in and fill your life with joy and bliss. Heaven.

 

Sahara – So where do you think processing our thoughts plays a role in this you know some people feel like they learn when they process whether it’s talking to their friend, journaling their therapist, talking through everything, they’re thinking defined clarity? How would you say this plays a role or would you say to not even entertain that because it’s entertaining the mind and making the mind’s problems even bigger?

 

Rhonda – It’s tricky isn’t it because I know for some people that that’s what they feel they need to do but the more we focus on something just understanding the dynamics of our mind and the way that it works is the more we focus on something, the bigger, the more energy we are giving to it and the bigger it becomes. One other thing to understand is that who we are is absolute clarity. The mind is confusion, it’s not clarity, so when we go through the whole process like that of talking to people and trying to talk it out and eventually, we get to clarity. I think we get to clarity because we’ve suffered so much and we really just can’t bear to suffer any more, and then we get clarity. Like law of attraction says you focus on something the bigger it becomes and therefore we always want to be focusing on what we want to see, if we were to focus on something then the thing to be focused on is us being in joy and having the solution, you know, not to be focused on the problem, and it’s tricky because the mind is constantly luring us in and you know, what about this? You know, making out like it has the answer but doesn’t have the answer. All of the most incredible things in this world came from beyond the mind. They came from the infinite intelligence that we are, that’s created absolutely everything and so it’s when the mind is quiet that all of that comes in. All of the solutions, all of the incredible inventions, all of those amazing creations, the beautiful music that’s composed, you know, that we feel just came from some divine frequency, a piece of music, or art, or all of those things they all came from beyond the mind.

 

Sahara – Absolutely yes. Sometimes I feel what journaling really helps with is like getting all of the mind’s shit out so then you can go beyond the mind because it’s like sometimes the mind is just like I need to think I need to, like, give all this focus to have that out, like, I listened to you, I heard you and now let’s go what’s beyond this.

 

Rhonda – Yeah, I don’t have a problem with journaling because I actually think journaling is sort of different to talking to somebody about it because then you’re kind of getting into the frequency and the problem and sort of holding yourself there a little bit but journaling most definitely. I just did an “advantages and disadvantages” list yesterday of a decision that I’m wanting to make and so I decided to do advantages and disadvantages because I wanted to see what my subconscious mind was holding. Did it hold any block? Was there any kind of block anywhere? And when we do journal like that, and I’m a big supporter of journaling most definitely because we are releasing a lot of potentially limiting beliefs, and we can see them on the paper, a limiting belief that is coming out. I think journaling is different from sort of focusing into a problem, you know and talking about it over and over and over. Yeah, I think my daughter has always journaled, and it has been incredible for her. Incredible.

 

Sahara – Yeah, I think we process in different ways. Sometimes, dancing is what you need to just move it out. Sometimes it’s singing, praying you know whatever feels good but eventually all of those things are like boats to take you beyond that action.

 

Rhonda – Yeah that’s exactly it, exactly it, and when you release all of that and then the peace that you feel, and then you get all of these insights, oh I know I’ve got an idea. Then there’s the space for all of that to come in, and it’s more that our mind is creating this sort of blanket over us and stopping us from seeing all of the solutions and all of the answers and all of the clarity. If we can just let that go and move that aside then, I mean we have all the solutions, we have all the answers, we are complete clarity, it’s only the mind that has complete confusion so if we can just shift away then the clarity will arise within us and insights. I mean I’ve had lots of insights, when I was just like, oh wow, and I knew that it didn’t come from the mind because I had this whole thing instantaneously that would take the mind half an hour to explain it because when you get an insight it’s like you get this download and it’s instantaneous. Yeah, it’s wonderful

 

Sahara – Yeah, I can feel the difference of the thoughts when I’m channeling that it’s much faster and clearer, it’s like the stream of information that’s flowing, it’s almost like if I don’t write it at that moment, it will pass right by and I will actually forget it so you can feel because it’s like full of information that you probably wouldn’t have been thinking of in your everyday normal thoughts.

 

Rhonda – You’re right to write it down to you won’t because you won’t remember it if you know it’s like when it’s an insight, you need to kind of grab it, you need to kind of grab it and get hold of it and writing it down is really great. I mean I’ve had insights, and I’m like wow, wow and then I go to tell somebody and now it’s gone. It’s completely gone. What was incredible about it. So, it’s a really good idea to write it down to just sort of cement it.

 

Sahara – Yeah, it’s kind of like a dream.

 

Rhonda – Exactly like a dream.

 

Sahara – I’d love for you to share with us what is effortless manifestation?

 

Rhonda – Okay so effortless manifestation is created with an effortless thought and that is really a thought that’s beyond the mind which kind of sounds contradictory but when we are in a place of zero resistance, so we’re not contracting anywhere, no resistance whatsoever, then one thought will manifest virtually instantaneously. And if that thought is not contradicted by any other thought, I mean that’s the power that everybody has, you focus on a thought, if you do not contradict that thought, it will manifest. One of the things that we could do is when we want something or we want something to occur we have a desire and then we visualize it or we think about it and then a whole lot of other thoughts coming in, well how’s that going to happen, and you didn’t do that well in that subject so how are you going to get that job, or things haven’t worked out for you before in that area so what makes you think it’s going to work out this time and all of those kinds of thoughts which are contradictory thoughts so every time there’s a thought like that it just cancels it out. It’s resistance to the thought that we have basically planted to manifest. Effortless manifestation is really effortless thought and having one thought that is not contradicted by any other thought at all. The more joy that we are in and the more happiness we are then our thoughts are going to be effortless. When you’re in joy and happiness you have very little resistance or gratitude, and in gratitude, you have very little resistance. That’s why when we are super grateful will have tears come to our eyes because we are letting go of resistance. The higher we can be in joy and happiness or love or gratitude the less resistance that we have and that’s the time, I think, to manifest is when you’re feeling that way. Not when you’re feeling all I don’t know if I’ve got it right or I’ve been waiting for this for a long time and still not here, all of those kinds of things. If you can just get yourself up higher into joy or into happiness or into passion then you’re in a place where you don’t have as much resistance and then you’re going to manifest but basically effortless manifestation it takes one thought to manifest just one, as long as it’s not contradicted with any other thought and that’s effortless manifestation.

 

Sahara – I love that because so often when we go to spiritual practices it’s when we’re in a low place and we want something, and we like I will do all of the rituals and the moon practices and whatever you’ve got because I need the situation to change but then when you’re just joyful and living your life you kind of forget about those things.

 

Rhonda – Yeah, yeah. Ha Ha!

 

Sahara – It’s like how can you bring in more of that intentionality when you’re feeling good?

 

Rhonda – Yeah and it was perfect what you just said because I want this to change and if you feel that, that’s full of resistance. Right? I want this to change, and I want it to change now or I need this now and that has a whole lot of resistance. And resistance you don’t want because resistance is basically saying I don’t have it yet and so then you’re not going to get it. That’s why we need to let go of resistance and in those higher frequencies, there is not as much resistance there so it’s going to manifest a whole lot faster. So yeah, I think some teachers say to manifest, you don’t want to need something but it’s just because the needing has resistance in it, that’s all. Needing says, I don’t have it, and as you know for manifestation, you have to imagine that you have it already because there’s not time for any of the laws, law of attraction or any of the laws of physics, they’re all operating in the present moment so that’s why you need to visualize that you already have what you want. You’ve already got it.

 

Sahara – So what if there is something that you deeply desire and it’s kind of hard to get rid of that desperate energy around it because you so deeply do desire it. So what is your advice there?

 

Rhonda – Probably with that I would release that feeling. These days, that’s what I do. I would release that feeling because that feeling doesn’t feel good, if you really examine it, that feeling it’s not a good feeling when you’re kind of desperate like that. So these days I would just release it immediately and I would just let that feeling leave my body. Otherwise, if I go back to The Secret then what I would do is I would just be doing a lot of practices to have me in joy and happiness because if you notice when you’re in joy and happiness you’re not so desperate anymore; because we only ever want anything to be happier, we think we will be happier for the having of it, or for the absence of it. It doesn’t matter what is, for every human being in the world we have one thing in common – we are seeking happiness and we think that in manifesting this job or this partner or having a baby or money or the house or whatever it may be that we will be happier when we have it. If we can get to happiness, we don’t have so much resistance or needing or wanting and so we can release a little bit of that kind of desperate feeling. Like some people will ask me. is it better to have a time frame on what they want to manifest and it’s a really hard question to answer because some people will manifest really well. Like in the month of June, I want this, or in the month of July, I want this to happen, and by the end of July this will have happened and for some people that will work really well for them because of their degree of faith and no doubt about it. And then for other people, it creates resistance right, and so they’re kind of with resistance pushing what they want away. It depends, but resistance, I mean, I could write a book on resistance. I mean, I talk about it in The Greatest Secret a lot but it’s an incredible subject because it is all negative emotion in resistance, that’s what it is. I don’t want this, the words, I don’t want this, I don’t want this to happen. I want something to go this way and I don’t want it that way and just letting go of resistance. Oh my gosh, the happiness and the joy that you feel. And then when you are feeling that way, manifestation feels really easy. When you’re really happy and joyful it doesn’t seem big or hard at all. It seems easy, you feel like you could manifest anything, you know.

 

Sahara – Absolutely and you have less of a need to because you are already happy where you are.

 

Rhonda – Exactly, exactly. Yeah!

 

Sahara – So I’d love to know what do you think is the role of destiny and if something is meant to happen in your life, like an experience that is meant to happen or a soul contract, etc. versus how much we can control through manifestation?

 

Rhonda – Mm, that’s a big question. Ha Ha! We certainly have some control over some things for sure but too I feel that we have a destiny. I sort of feel like it’s both, and it seems like one contradicts the other, but I feel like we have a blueprint, and that blueprint was worked out by us, with very good reason, that blueprint and to free us. And so, from a really incredible place of allowing, I think we create a blueprint but in between all of that in that outline, there’s lots of details and things that we can manifest that don’t affect at all the overall blueprint. So, I kind of feel like it’s both. I know one thing for sure, we are all destined to fully wake up and realize who we are, there is no doubt of that. Not one of us can ever, ever, ever miss out on that ever. It may take a bit of time, or so-called time, but every single being will arrive home, and be free. every person and realize who they are. That’s just a beautiful way to look at everything and there’s manifestation of people at different stages along the way of that, but it doesn’t matter where anybody is because. the destination is the same for all of us. I remember when I would speak to my mentor and I would say, oh I want more of the truth and more of the truth and I want to do it this lifetime and he would say to me, what’s the rush you’ve got all of eternity. And he meant that, I mean you have all of eternity haha! What’s the hurry? Ha! We do all have the same destination and that destination is one that whereby the incredible experiences that we’ve had in the physical world do not harm us, the experience, I can’t even say they add, they’re an experience but in the end, the destination is the same glorious destination for every single being, and they will be free, and they will know that they are infinite, that they are all that there is, and that nothing ever, ever, ever can harm them, and they are so much more than they ever, ever, thought they were.

 

Sahara – Do you feel that soul ages, like the number of souls or lifetimes we’ve had on this planet play a role in someone’s awakening? Like those who are awakening are old souls potentially, or do you feel like everyone in this lifetime can spontaneously awaken regardless of how many lifetimes they’ve had here?

 

Rhonda – I think anybody can spontaneously awaken. I think that is possible for everyone simply because it is who we are. Yeah, anybody can awaken, and I mean I sort of wonder what happened in the previous lifetime that I came into this lifetime, and I don’t know and the reason I don’t know is because it’s not important for me to know. My mentor used to say, if you need to know anything from any other lifetime and it’s important for this lifetime you will remember it. It will be given to you, and you will remember. I just kind of have a sense of a country and things like that but, yeah, I just think we’re…um. I don’t know I just think we’re all just so destined to end up where we are and there appears to be a journey and like an evolution for the soul, there appears to be, and certainly when you look around it feels that way too. And I remember the Buddha said he had had 500 lifetimes, and he recalled all of them, so one would think therefore there are some souls that have moved along more than other souls or awakened, but I don’t know the answer to it. And it’s speculation like I guess I should ask the question because whenever we ask the question, we get the answer, right? And then we know for sure, but I just know for this lifetime here that I am so so grateful to have woken up and so grateful, so I don’t know what happened previously but oh my gosh whatever it was, thank you, thank you, thank you with all of my heart. It’s kind of round-about way of answering your question.

 

Sahara – Yeah and I think truthfully it doesn’t matter, you know sometimes in our journey we’re like I need to know all of my past lives in my astrology chart in my human design, in my this, in my that, all of these things and it can be educational for sure but really from the highest realm we are all love, we are all going to the same place, and just to enjoy this experience and sometimes release even our need to label it, right?

 

Rhonda – That’s beautiful!

 

Sahara – And like have more and more, just like I’m a this that that, you’re here and you’re love, you’re light, and that in itself is enough.

 

Rhonda – It is. It is more than enough and all of those labels as you say all of those labels just kind of box us in and imprison us to be limited because every label is limitation, and we don’t have any labels at all because we are unlimited. I say this, we are holding the Universe in our hands, you know we are just beyond what most of us can even fathom and that’s why in the ancient text they would talk about the unspeakable that it can’t be described because we are just beyond description, the perfection, and the love as you say just cannot ever be defined because the moment we define it, we limit who we are. Just to begin to feel that presence is within absolutely everybody, it is who they are, and you can feel that presence at any time and it’s possible to wake up at any time. But it’s all unfolding as Robert Adams used to say, everything is unfolding exactly as it should. And I would say that to myself a lot of times you know like when through the last year and half when I saw so many people in fear and I would say to myself everything is unfolding exactly as it should. I didn’t have any fear at all in that time, but I really increased the work that I was doing and tried to help people and soothe people thought that time, but I think that time for all of us was an opportunity to let go of fear and be free of fear and let go. It was a big wake up call for us to let it go and there was a lot of sadness for people who lost loved ones but there’s no end. There’s no end.

 

Sahara – I love that so much. So, what advice do you have for someone who is really seeking to find more purpose in their life right now?

 

Rhonda – It’s almost like this, if we could just let go, what would unfold would be incredible. Because I think in so many ways even what we think might be our purpose is not, is limited as well. So, for example did I ever imagine I would be doing this? No. I mean if you look at my life and you know I was a secretary, I was a producer on radio and then I was a producer on television, I started a television production company, I mean where was the spiritual journey of decades in all of this? But I know without a doubt, without any doubt whatsoever this is what I came here to do and everything else along the way was preparing me for this. I feel life will take you there if you can just trust life and if I look back at how this began, the point where everything changed in my life where my life did a complete U-turn toward The Secret toward my own company was when I got fired. I mean that was incredible to me that I got fired because I’ve always been like this, I’m this really good person, I don’t do anything wrong and I got fired because I didn’t dob on somebody else, and so I got fired along with her and I was absolutely devastated but do you know that moment, that moment is what changed my life and right then and there I was on the runway to The Secret. So, there’s just this kind of trusting in life and when I got fired and I said to myself this is for the good, you can’t see it yet, but you will.  So yeah, I have a lot of trust in life to take us where we need to go to.

 

Sahara: That’s so beautiful that something that could have been the worst thing that happened to you was actually the best thing that happened to you.

 

Rhonda – Yes it was, it was completely. And that happened to me a few times in my life including the night that I discovered The Secret my whole life had collapsed in one big heap and I had two phone calls that just wiped me out and I remember thinking, oh that it was so tough that night that it was like my ego jumped on a horse and rode the heck out of there because it was too much and then in that moment I kind of saw and realized a lot and had a really big sort of awakening. But that moment in my life truly that moment where I was in total despair I let go, and in the letting go everything came of what would become The Secret. It’s a big deal. I think we get in our own way a little bit, a lot.

 

Sahara – Yeah these opportunities led us to let go of what we thought the plan was going to be I mean even in 2020, this experience for the collective we were so in our day-to-day routines not questioning things just in the hamster wheel and this caused us to get off that. Right now we’re going through the greatest amount of job transition and even divorce and all of these things that have been bubbling underneath the surface but we were just too busy to really look at them that now there are going to be so many beautiful businesses and inventions and ways of connecting that maybe would not have been had we not had this, you know, rug swept under our feet so sometimes you know like they say you need to have a breakdown to have the breakthrough.

 

Rhonda – Yes and I think a lot of people, they hit the bottom didn’t they. I know a lot of people young people were afraid and saying is this the end of the world? I know throughout my life there were times in the world, crises in the world where we thought it was the end of the world, you know there was..

 

Sahara – Yeah there was 2020, 2012

 

Rhonda – Yeah there was an incident do you know where we are like..

 

Sahara – Every 10 years there’s the end of the world.

 

Rhonda – Exactly. Exactly. So I really sympathized with all those young people because this was the first time that they had experienced something that they just couldn’t believe what was happening to their life to their world been turned upside down, but always when there is something that is massive like this it is because it’s a little bit like except on a global scale what happened to me and the U-turn of my life, oh no we have a Global U-turn and I just know with all my heart that that will mean that what is ahead is absolutely amazing.

 

Sahara – Yes it’s like the entire world having their dark night of the soul at the same time and we’ll all be rising up and that’s why more and more people are opening up to spirituality and meditation all these different practices that they, you know never felt like they needed it before but sometimes we needed to have that on, on my knees moment to finally open up and receive support from something greater than ourselves.

 

Rhonda – Yes definitely. If I look at my own life and every difficult moment that I’ve had, if I look back, has been a blessing and it has been a curve when my life turned, all my life changed and so I just see everything now far more clearly and I don’t see anything as bad and I’ve had lots of experiences, do you know really what people would describe as very very challenging experiences. But all of those things were just, they’re just events, you know, they’re just events and we are all here and we’re having this experience and it’s colossal. It feels so real, and it’s a miracle, and it’s beautiful, and just think to the mind is so serious, right? So serious, which is why the word, you know, “enlightenment” just means more light and more lights means more joy, more happiness, more clarity, more direct intelligence, more peace, more allowing of everything. I know Krishnamurti says, there’s one quote in the book where Krishnamurti says, I don’t mind what happens. And he did not mind what happened, because it’s all just a passing show and in the end, we are all fine.

 

Sahara – I love that.

 

Rhonda – Right. You can definitely get to that place, really and truly get to that place where you just know everything is totally fine. We are deathless, deathless. So, it’s all good, all good.

 

Sahara – I love that so much when I was going through my, just awakening, and was trying to figure out my path, I remember I would tell myself it’s okay, you’re just at this shitty part of your memoir. One day this will be the point that everything changed and it’s so funny because then when I wrote my book that was the shitty part of the story that everything changed. And sometimes the things that we feel like oh well I don’t want anyone to know about this or you know I never want to go back to this experience, it ends up being the thing that sometimes we end up telling people about the most because it shows people that change is possible.

 

Rhonda – Yeah and we tend to resist change, right? You know that’s one of the things that we fear – we are afraid of change but we are in the world. It’s a duality and we are in a world where nothing stays the same. It’s all constantly in flux, it’s constantly changing which is fascinating because who we are is unchanging. Who we are is totally unchanging and so we are in this whole experience of everything changing. I love that because everything is like the opposite of who we really are you know. It’s all the opposite and we long for attention and approval and yet who we are is all the approval there is and all the attention there is and so there’s this deep kind of longing within us and we don’t recognize it. When we are longing for attention or approval or happiness or love we are actually longing for ourselves, we are actually seeking ourselves.

 

Sahara – I love that so much we are already home and perfect and beautiful as we are it’s just remembering that.

 

Rhonda – Yes, exactly, exactly.

 

Sahara – Yes. Well it was so great diving in with you and so many beautiful topics that I know so many people are wondering so I would love to share with listeners where they can read The Greatest Secret and connect with you more.

 

Rhonda – Oh thank you so much and I’ve got to say it’s so wonderful to speak to somebody like you and to be able to talk about all of these things, like this it just was heaven for me, absolute heaven. And so, thank you thank you so much. I just think you know whatever we can put out there, any one of us that will set somebody free and help them to happiness and have the life that they deserve to have. It’s just worth its weight in gold, everything is so precious.

 

Sahara – Thank you so much for your wisdom and for truly being a pioneer in this movement. I know for probably so many listeners The Secret was the first time they have ever heard about these types of concepts so thank you for really standing in front of the mainstream media that has its own prerogative and agenda that is not always enlightened and for bringing the light there where it is so needed.

 

Rhonda – Thank you, thank you, thank you so so much.

 

Sahara – Have a beautiful rest of your day.

 

Rhonda – Thank you. You too.

 

 

 

 

Esteemed podcaster, and intrepid scholar of consciousness and personal awakening, Rick Archer talks with Rhonda Byrne, creator and author of The Secret, for his popular interview series, Buddha at the Gas Pump. Rhonda and Rick talk about discovering The Secret in the depths of despair, and seeking an even greater truth as revealed in The Greatest Secret.

Click below to watch the video or scroll down for a full transcript of the conversation.

Welcome to Buddha at the Gas Pump. My name is Rick Archer. Buddha at the Gas Pump is an ongoing series of conversations with spiritually awakening people. I’ve done about 620 of them now and so if this is new to you and you’d like to check out previous ones please go to batgap.com and look under the past interview’s menu. You can also subscribe to You Tube Channel and explore on You Tube but on batgap.com we have better organization system with categorial listing and chronological, most popular, transcribed ones, and a bunch of different things that you can’t easily do on You Tube. This program is made possible through the support of appreciative listeners and viewers so if you appreciate it and you’d like to help support it there’s a PayPal button on every page on the website and there’s also a donations page that explains a few alternatives to PayPal.

 

Rick Archer – My guest today is Rhonda Byrne. Most of you have probably heard of Rhonda or at least you’ll remember who she is in second. She is the creator of The Secret which is a documentary film that swept the world in 2006 changing millions of lives and igniting a global movement. She also wrote a follow up book also titled The Secret which became a worldwide bestseller and translated into more than 50 languages. Rhonda has since released another five bestselling books covering such topics as the power of love, gratitude, the law of attraction and the hero’s journey to success and her latest and most important book to date, and those are her words, the most important, is called The Greatest Secret and she describes it as a quantum leap that takes the reader beyond the material realm and helps them discover who they truly are. Rhonda in addition to things I’ve mentioned Rhonda also served as a Producer on the inspirational 2020 family movie, The Secret: Dare to Dream based on her book. The film starred Katie Holmes, Josh Lucas, and Jerry O’Connell.

 

So welcome Rhonda. It’s funny I first heard about The Secret quite a few years ago it must not have been long after it came out and I was taking tabla lessons from a guy and because I used to be a drummer and play tablas a little bit and he was all excited about it and he leant me the thing so I watched it and everything and you know we talked a little about it afterwards and he well you know obviously there’s something to this but you also have to be realistic, you know I’m not going to become the world’s greatest tabla player at the age of 60 any more than I’m going to become any competition to LeBron James or somebody. We have certain limitations, but I’d imagine you would say people limit themselves a lot more than they need to maybe.

 

Rhonda Byrne – Correct! (Laughing) I would and as I was listening to your words, then I thought well then you wouldn’t be the world’s best player because you have to believe you can be and I mean law of attraction says absolutely anything is possible and everything is possible so if we can open our minds to that then we reduce all of the limitations that we impose on ourselves, that society imposes.

 

Rick – So LeBron James doesn’t have to worry about me, 5ft 10ins and 72 years old?

 

Rick and Rhonda – (laughing)

 

Rick – I don’t know.

 

Rhonda – But I think anyway that you’re drawn to, you’re attracted to what you’re meant to do so you have an enormous dream it’s not a coincidence that you have that dream. I certainly know from my life that once I discovered this then what ensued anybody would have said that is totally impossible for that to happen. Somebody from Australia to create a documentary, I had hardly any money to do it and to have it affect tens and tens of millions of people around the world and change their lives, you know that would be an impossible dream, but it happened.

 

Rick – Yeah, yeah. I want to mention that you’ve done several other interviews, and lots of them probably in which people have gone in great depth about your whole biographical background and Iain McNay of Conscious TV did a great one, I listened to it twice and I don’t want to spend half of our time together going over the same stuff you’ve said a million times and that people can listen to elsewhere but we’ll cover some of that in just a second. In fact, let’s do that now and then will get into some more points about the main things were going to talk about. You just touched upon you were this person in Australia but let’s do the synopsis of the story of Rhonda?

 

Rhonda – Oh gosh. Born into a very modest family background, I guess you could say our family was quite poor, but I wasn’t aware of that as a child, but I was incredibly lucky to have had a very safe and secure childhood. Just went to public school nothing incredible although I would have to say that I was always curious as a child and asking questions. So did all of that and I think my first job was being a stenographer and I didn’t even have any big dreams then. Being a stenographer was what I thought I could be and not anything more than that, but as time went on, I went into radio. I became a producer on radio and the person I was producing on radio said, ‘Hey come to television it’s the same as radio but with pictures.’ So, I worked on a tonight show which was incredibly nerve wracking and just like Jay Leno, a show like that but live and so worked on that and that gave me all of my television background. I ended up by leaving the network that I was working for and started my own production company, jumped off the cliff and took a risk. Then I made a lot of prime-time kind of television shows, and I would come up with the idea a concept for those shows and then in, basically I look back I say well I was asleep all of my life until September 2004. And as 2004 was a tough year because my father died suddenly, and I was also making television movies about unsolved murders and so everything that could go wrong went wrong that year. It was on a grief frequency you know, it’s tough.

 

Rick – Let me just interject here do you feel that making television shows about unsolved murders had a deleterious effect because you were putting your attention on such dark stuff all the time?

 

Rhonda – Absolutely. That year, you know it was perfect, I just look at it, it was perfectly lined up. I just think everything when I reflected back that everything in my life that happened at exactly the right time. I went through a really difficult relationship break up just prior to 2004 so there was that as well. So, all of that came together and my mother was grief stricken so that year was really really challenging in making this show on murders and the other thing is that there were psychics involved in that format of that show. I think just filming and working with them had me open my mind. I really do think, we all like to think we are all very open-minded mostly we are not open-minded and that experience even though it was terribly terribly difficult that year it really opened my mind. I began to sense things intuitively where I hadn’t before. Yes, in September I just hit the skids with one thing went wrong after another after another.

 

Rick – I once heard an Indian sage say, when the postman knows you’re going to move he tries to deliver all your mail. I’ve talked to a lot of people who have really gone through a rough time just prior to some big breakthrough as if they are just getting rid of a whole load of karma before something clears.

 

Rhonda – Yes, it’s extraordinary really. The particular night that I collapsed in a heap was my accountant called me you’ve gone over the budget and you’re going to lose everything in one month and my mother called me immediately after I hung up the phone and said, she couldn’t go on because she was missing my father so much. You know it’s so perfectly timed Rick it’s incredible. I play that over and over and over that one night it was just incredible, and my mother was a long way away from me and so I couldn’t get to her, but I talk to her said I would be there first thing in the morning and hung up the phone from her and then just collapsed because these two things I just could not solve. My daughter walked in my adult daughter walked in and said, what’s wrong and I didn’t really want to upset her and said something had gone wrong. She disappeared and came back with this photocopied bulldog clip on these papers all crumpled up and she said here you are read this it will help. I mean I read it it’s like, Henny Penny the sky is falling in, and I sat there, and I read it. I was weeping and it took 90 minutes to read.

 

Rick – What was it?

 

Rhonda – It was The Science of Getting Rich from Wallace Wattles, 1910 I think it was.  I read it in 90minutes, and I knew much more that was in that book after I read it. I knew we didn’t die. I knew that we had way more power than we thought we had, it was just incredible. It was my first sort of awakening and my first step to freedom. I was just like I can tell the world doesn’t know this. I researched it for about three or four months without telling anybody what I had found. I went back through history and said, we’re going make a documentary and I said, to my accountant I’m going to make something that is going to help millions and millions and millions of people all you need to do is keep me afloat and I’ll make it. And so, he did.

 

Rick – Yeah (laughing)

 

Rhonda – So I put everything on the line to make that documentary.

 

Rick – Yeah, I heard about that, you maxed out your credit cards, you mortgaged your house to the hilt. You really did…

 

Rhonda – Yeah, I did. I had an overdraft on my company.

 

Rick – Yeah kind of a jack and the bean stalk situation, remember? (laughing) He sold the family cow for a handful of beans and the beans turned out to be magic.

 

Rick – Then of course the whole thing really took off practically overnight. I was wondering I was hearing you say you made the film and you put it up on the internet and it really took off but how did you monetize that?

 

Rhonda – Because it was like $3.99 a view something like that. It wasn’t meant to, I had this vision it would go round the world in 24 hours and because of my television background I had pitched it to all of these networks worldwide and they were all desperate for it. Then when we reach the point of completion, they all backed away. I kind of knew enough then to know there was another path that I wasn’t seeing, and it was going to be a better path. I remember seeing this commercial on the internet, and the internet was so early days and I saw a commercial on the internet and I thought wow we could put our movie out on the internet. I told my CEO at the time, and he said, no, no way we can’t do that. You can’t do that and then he said maybe at some other time, and I said yes this is it this is it it’s going to go around the world in 24 hours. He had a technical background, can you believe it, per chance, no. He worked with a company that put that ad out which was two streets away from my company in Melbourne Australia and we work together with them, and he created the pause and the fast forward and the rewind and so we were the first movie to go out on the internet.

 

Rick – That’s great. Most people are probably familiar with The Secret but for the sake of those that aren’t give us a nutshell synopsis of what it’s about?

 

Rhonda – The Secret explains to you that you create the life through your thoughts that you think. So, your mind is whatever we focus on is what we will create in our lives so it’s really talking about the power of the mind that affects everything in our lives. For example, I certainly did this before The Secret, I’m broke, and I would say that all the time, and when you say your broke all the time then indeed you will be broke. You have to think about, and you have to focus on what you want, not what you don’t you’re lacking. So really that’s it in a nutshell but then The Secret shows you all the ways to apply it to relationships, health and money and your life and your job all of those things. It’s what I lived my life doing that, being very positive and grateful. Gratitude is a huge part of The Secret and to just be grateful. When you think of all of those things like kindness and positive words I would wake up in the morning and I would intend my day, the day that I was going to have and then I would also set out that I’m going to make other people’s lives better today because I touch their lives. What it does and certainly what he did for me is helps get you off focusing on negativity and things that you don’t want and limitation and to focus on what you do want and break the limits of your mind.

 

Rick – I saw a cartoon once in which there was a dog and there was a genie that had come out of a lamp, and the genie is saying to the dog, now you only have one more wish, are you sure you want another tummy rub?

 

Rick and Rhonda – (laughing)

 

Rick – The reason I mention that because it seems to me that if you can manifest anything you would want the first thing you should wish for is wisdom so that you can want the right things.

 

Rhonda – Good. Good. Absolutely.

 

Rick – Yeah. There was a guy in your book for instance who wanted to date three women a week, it’s like alright, I can think of many things more useful. More edifying, more uplifting, more evolutionary, but maybe that’s where he was at and we do progress from stage to stage through what we desire.

 

Rhonda – And he did to because he did that for a while and then he wanted to marry somebody, he wanted to find the one. So. it was even a steppingstone for him, he wanted to find the one, so he needed to change what he was doing and what he was focusing on.

 

Rick – How did you, I just want to mention this before asking you this question, in the Vedas they have three kandas and they’re like different aspects of the whole Vedic wisdom and there’s the Karma-kanda which pertains to performing actions, there’s the Upasana-kanda that concerns itself with the worship of the divine and then there’s the Jnana-kanda that pertains to self-knowledge. So, it seems like in a way The Secret was Karma-kanda pertaining to action, getting things accomplished and fulfilling your desires and then you kind of jumped to Jnana-kanda the portion of pertaining to self-knowledge with The Greatest Secret. I mean that’s what The Greatest Secret is all about.

 

Rhonda – Yes, yes it is.

 

Rick – How did you make that transition?

 

Rhonda – It was how many years – it was about 14 years. I was just this is sincerest seeker you could find. I dedicated myself 24/7 searching, searching, searching because after The Secret I knew there was much more of the truth that I did not know. I certainly knew we didn’t die. I inherently knew that and so I wanted to know the truth. I went through lots of different traditions. I was made an honorary member of an order and I did a whole lot of degrees there and I was just searching, and do you know I didn’t think in the searching that, I thought I would always be searching, and I would just find all these nuggets along the way. I love the nuggets and then it was in 2016 and I remember hearing some teachers and it could very well have been BATGAP because I most definitely watched many, many, interviews that you had done. I would hear them say that once you discover this, you will, the search will be over. Once you know who you are the search will be over. I could not imagine the search being over. And yet in 2016 it ended. I did discover who I was, so I just think it was all of those years of searching to just stop and I don’t know why took that long. You realize that you had to go through all of the things that you went through to get to where you got to. There’s no explanation for that but it was just your destined journey and that was my destined journey. I just feel incredibly blessed that I had the biggest awakening of my life.

 

Rick – Yeah, I want said to my mother I said mum don’t ever feel bad about the way you raised me because I had a pretty difficult childhood through no fault of hers, but I said because I am really happy with the way my life is turning out now so whatever you did or whatever has happened it’s been good, so don’t worry about it.

 

Rhonda – Yeah, it’s so true. All of the things that we would think are bad things that we wished, or we thought we’d call bad, and we wish didn’t happen, I am so grateful for every single thing that has happened in my life that led me to realizing who we really are, and that having that freedom, you would go through anything, anything to get to that point, absolutely anything.

 

Rick – As a matter of fact the intensity of your search could well have been the result of the sort of difficulties that you had experienced. They say and some spiritual circles that the angels in heaven aren’t interested in enlightenment because their life is too good it’s too easy and they’re happy there. So, they just don’t even think about there being something greater, possibly.

 

Rhonda – Makes sense to me because I just think that when life is just going along really smoothly, you’re not really searching all looking for answers. It’s when life delivers you big shocks, big shocks that you begin to ask questions and one of those shocks is when somebody that we love dying suddenly. If events have us ask questions, who am I, and what’s going on, and what’s this all about? Then they are just the gifts, the absolute gifts.

 

Rick – On the point of big shocks, the old Indian adage comes to mind, for the wise only an indication is necessary. So, in other words if one has wisdom a subtle hint could be sufficient but if we’re kind of a blockhead then a good smack upside the head might be necessary to… (laughing)

 

Rhonda – I had smacks on my head for sure (laughing). For sure, I definitely did, but I’m really grateful for those, I really am. Just listening also to other people ‘s journeys they’re experiencing of their awakening all of those things make such a difference. I think I always get something out of every single interview I have watched. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have watched it you know. I put there to watch it for a reason, there is something in there, in that interview that is going to open my consciousness more.

 

Rick – I always get a lot doing them and preparing for them because I usually spend many hours each week preparing for each one and it’s just this enriching process which is just wonderful.

 

Rhonda – Best job ever.

 

Rick – Yeah and it sounds funny to call it a job even.

 

Rhonda – Yeah, it’s not at all. I feel the same way because my work has allowed me to search 24/7. That is what I did. I just could not have been more blessed to be able to do that.

 

Rick – And when you say your search came to an end it sounded like it was kind of abrupt and I’ve actually heard you tell the story about it so why don’t you tell us the story about it?

 

Rhonda – (laughing) Okay. I had a circumstance that took place on the 1^st of January 2016, I mean it’s irrelevant the circumstance but January 1^st, 2016, but what happened from that circumstance I felt enormous disappointment. I was so shocked that I could feel something like that so strongly when I always felt so good because I felt so good in using The Secret principles. I couldn’t get over it and I decided I wanted to get rid of that feeling I didn’t want to feel that feeling anymore, so I grabbed my iPad and I put Conscious TV on. They were interviewing somebody that wasn’t a teacher just an everyday person who had woken up and that was David Bingham. I listened to David Bingham, and he talked about how he woke up and he’d listened to a particular podcast and so I traced David Bingham’s footstep and you know it was really interesting because I woke up, I kind of had the second awakening over several days. It wasn’t like David‘s interview began it, and then the podcast really hit me and then I reached out to David, and I spoke to David and that was all over a few days, and that was it, I was just, I was, oh my gosh. I was so overwhelmed with joy and then the search did completely stop, and it was a couple of months later that I met somebody who would become my teacher and I was very fortunate because she was really quite tough on me. I wanted her to be really tough on me. When I say tough in showing me the mind and the tricks of the mind. It was really fantastic because she really helped me see the mind and all of its tricks and so really since 2016, I have been doing the welcoming practice, which is in The Greatest Secret, which is basically releasing all beliefs, all negative emotions, just releasing those with everyone you get happier happier, happier, happier, happier. It’s glorious and it’s very rare for me to feel any kind of negative emotions I still can, but I notice it right away and then just welcome it and it just dissolves away. I remember Krishnamurti used to talk about that anger kind of flowering and then collapsing and it didn’t make any sense to me at that time but now I get it. That’s really how it all happened.

 

Rick – So the way you describe it, I mean I’m sure it’s going it’s about six years since that episode with David Bingham and don’t let me put words in your mouth, but you probably feel like you’ve grown a lot through these past six years, and you continue to, right?

 

Rhonda – Yes, yes, absolutely, never stop.

 

Rick – Right, right. So, the thing about the search comes to an end doesn’t mean that the journey comes to an end, somehow just a milestone that the energy changes from this kind of desperate seeking to a more of an abiding contentment and then on the foundation of that one continues to learn and explore and the adventure continues.

 

Rhonda – Yes and I think rather than I was looking on the outside and I had the joy of many, many, teachers looking on the outside that over the last six years it’s been internal. Yes, looking inwards and it’s all been inwards, so there’s nothing now to know because I’m undoing all those, all of that, peeling all of that away, and just being really that’s the thing, just being aware being aware of awareness. That’s my life and don’t need to read a book any more just need to be who I am, consciously be who I am.

 

Rick – And if you wanted to read a book you can still be who you are reading a book.

 

Rhonda – I mean if you’re drawn to read a book or if you’re drawn to do something then that absolutely you are meant to do that. I know that there are no coincidences, and we are drawn to exactly what we need in the moment in every moment. I do have Lester Levenson’s book by my bedside table and I do listen when I go to sleep at night, I always listen to somebody but it’s not because I’m searching for anything but because I just can’t get enough of it. I can’t get enough of it. It’s so good.

 

Rick – In that way too I’m kind of a spiritual junkie or something (laughing).

Question came in and this might be a good time to ask her it’s from Elizabeth from Colorado. The question is, who or what is the I that creates my own reality? Is it a personal “I” for instance an individual in a human body your mind, or is this “I” that creates my own reality something universal or transpersonal?

 

Rhonda – And the “I” our true nature, the “I” is who you really are.

 

Rick – Actually I heard you talking in The Greatest Secret about this thing where we create what we perceive, and you actually play this game with yourself where you would leave you the room and turn around really fast to see if you could see the room coming into manifestation if you turned around fast enough. Actually just last night I asked Swami Sarvapriyananda about this, I take classes from him, and he said, well in Vedanta it is understood that there is sort of a universal reality to things that is not dependent upon individual perception in the sense that we have inner subjective agreement we all see the same tree and the same car going by and stuff like that, but obviously the individual perception of colors and everything but he said there’s this kind of a more you could say cosmic mind or Suguna Brahman which is called sort of a synonym for God that gives rise to the Universe and ultimately there is a universe and we are all completely one with that and it also depends on where you want to take you stand. You can shift from level to level and the whole consideration changes.

 

Rhonda – That’s exactly right. That’s exactly right because the difficult part with that question that question could be answered on a few levels. But ultimately, there’s only awareness, consciousness to use another word, and that’s all there is.

 

Rick – Yeah. Obviously there have been different schools of thought and philosophies throughout history and they all kind of argue these different viewpoints which might seem contradictory or conflicting but it’s really just a blind man in the elephant situation where they’re just describing different perspectives of the same thing.

 

Rhonda – They are because I was so for many years on the progressive path. I remember I used to ask my mentor at that time when I was doing all of these degrees in this order, I asked him there must be a faster way because they’re 33 degrees and most people don’t finish those degrees in one lifetime, and so I said to him there must be a faster way? And he said what’s the hurry you’ve got all of eternity, what’s the hurry. And I’m like no, I want it now, I want it now. I know there must be a faster way because I can think there is a faster way, I can have I thought there is a faster way so it must exist and so I did find that, and I know that I summoned that basically that fast faster way. Interesting you know. The progressive path served me very well, but I know when I look at everything that I learned in the progressive path that it’s just the same thing just said in a different way.

 

Rick – Yeah. And you know there’s another old Indian saying which is to say the goal is all along the path and so…

 

Rhonda – Oh I like that.

 

Rick – You like that?

 

Rhonda – I do, I like that.

 

Rick – So what that says to me ones part of can be both direct and progressive and I feel like in my own path when I first learned to meditate 53 years ago, boom, directly of the self but then I made huge progress since then and yet still the self, so it’s kind of like it becomes clearer and fuller and so on but it’s really the same thing that you can have a pretty clear flavor of from day one.

 

Rhonda – Yes you can, and I know with the progressive path that there was like a refining, certainly in the order that I followed you were refining the person, refining the person like a diamond until and it was absolutely pure and there was nothing left on it, right. So that was that journey whereas the direct path is start with the fact that you are the diamond. Do you know you are the diamond and as things arise and they go away, they fall away? I didn’t know it was just right for me that direct path, something so direct was just right for me at the time. I have such an appreciation for all the traditions and how they serve people and help people. I mean we need every one of them we really do to set people free.

 

Rick – Yeah very true. For instance, all of your books each address different facets of life and people you know just using yours as a case in point those different books would be different relevant to different people at different stages of their path I no one thing is universally relevant for everybody, it’s just the way it works with anything right?

 

Rhonda – it is and I remember my mentor saying to me there are three levels of people there are those that want a better life this life, and he said The Secret services those people and then there are those that will begin to seek there the second level so they will begin to seek and then there is the third level her while this is sincerest seekers and will not stop until they find the answer. He said there are less people on each of the levels and I’m sure that’s true but what you do and hopefully what I do is to try and encourage people to go to the third level because you’ll never ever want to turn back.

 

Rick – Yeah that pretty much mirrors the three kandas that I said earlier the action one and the divine one and the knowledge one. The thing is though, and I’m sure you’ll agree with this that each succeeding level kind of incorporates the previous ones. It’s kind of like if you’re going up a building to the second story third story fourth story it’s not like you lose the view of the second floor when you get to the fourth floor, you still have that you… but you have a wider view contained within it.

 

Rhonda – Absolutely I agree with that 100%. In fact in The Greatest Secret my mentor again he always referred to the mountain of consciousness and that in the valley you can’t see very far you don’t know what’s around the corner, there is a lot of fear in the valley but as you begin to climb the mountain you can see more your perspective changes and the vegetation changes and the atmosphere changes and of course then when you get to the top you can see everything but you are still the mountain of consciousness, the entire mountain. That I agree 100% that is the same thing.

 

Rick – That is a good metaphor or analogy with that mountain example which is that someone standing on the top of the mountain doesn’t necessarily help people who were climbing it to shout down a description of what he sees, you know, and just kind of, it doesn’t do them any good really they need instructions that can pertain to the stage of the climb that they’re at.

 

Rhonda – Exactly. Yeah, because they can’t hear. I remember I think it might have been Jack Canfield, I can’t remember when we were filming The Secret it was one of the people in The Secret and they referred to the UPS driver that has this really big package that they need to deliver except the mailbox had this little slit and they can’t get it in, they’re trying to deliver this big package into this little tiny slit of consciousness that hasn’t yet opened up and I always remember that. It’s like the cake is too rich and the people can’t digest it, it’s too rich so most definitely is at exactly the level in that the person is at and step-by-step.

 

Rick – Jesus is always talking about the pearls before swine those that have the ears to hear let them hear, so constantly saying things that indicated that you know that he can speak the truth from his level, but people aren’t necessarily going to get it from their level, and I think the art of a really good teacher is to… He’s another Indian saying when the mangoes are ripe the branches bend down so that people can easily pick them. So, a good teacher can teach on the level of development or consciousness of the student.

 

Rhonda – Absolutely yeah and they just have that ability to see right through the student or what they’re struggling with and just to be able to redirect them and that’s the wonder of a teacher and like a lot of people ask me do you need a teacher and I didn’t have a teacher for many, many, many years although I had many teachers along the way but not a teacher that I connected with personally, but I had many teachers that I followed. In fact, all of the teachers in The Greatest Secret every one of them affected my life in one way or another I know mostly actually but to have but then when I did find a teacher it just accelerated everything because they’re so perceptive and as you said they can just see through everything. All of the concepts and beliefs and everything that you hold onto and the mind getting in the way. Because that was the biggest thing for me, my teacher would say to me, it’s all the mind Rhonda, everything you are saying is mind, it’s just mind. I’d be like oh I want to tell you something that happened since I’ve seen you and she’s like it’s all mind. It’s the mind in other words it’s totally irrelevant it doesn’t matter at all. A teacher is incredibly valuable I think when you find a teacher.

 

Rick – I just want to say because we’ve already got one email about it your teacher doesn’t want to be known right? She wants to remain anonymous and so please everybody don’t send 100 emails saying who’s your teacher? Because she doesn’t want to say.

 

Rhonda – She does she does she doesn’t she wants to remain anonymous; she’s not really, doesn’t consider herself a teacher. She wants to be low key basically in the silence to be honest. But you have her, you have all of her in that book you have all of her in that book all of those incredible words I get quite emotional just thinking about that. I think when we were chatting, I talked about when I first met her, and I was overcome with this incredible bliss, and I realized I’ve finally arrived home. So, when you have a teacher like that that takes you home like that immediately it’s just that teacher will always mean everything to you.

 

Rick – Yeah that’s great. Let’s get back to that, let’s put a pin in it as they say because there’s another point that I just want to finish wrapping up we were talking about the progressive in the direct paths and there’s a few dangling thoughts on that. One is this old Zen story, where the master hands this student a brick and he says polish this brick until it becomes a mirror and you can’t, but this guy polishes it for some days and it doesn’t get anything more like a mirror and that was meant to sort of indicate that the progressive path is refining, refining, refining might have no end to it so there’s that, but analogies have their limitations and you use the analogy of diamonds and I can say you could pick up a rough stone on the street and it’s all dingy looking and has dirt on it and think of this is just some stone but it could be a diamond and if it’s polished and cleaned and prepared and cut properly you have this beautiful sparkly thing. So, I’d suggest at same time refinement has its place and refinement will be never ending as long as we exist there will be continual refinement in addition to perhaps hopefully to direct transition.

 

Rhonda – Yes, yes. There has to be. Continual cleansing and purifying, continual purifying until there is nothing else there but awareness and then I don’t know that we’re here (laughing)

 

Rick – (laughing) Yeah, we’ll see what happens.

 

Rhonda – Yeah exactly.

 

Rick – And I just want to say it’s not something you and I am making up all the traditional teachers and scriptures if you respect those say this kind of thing and have examples of it of how profoundly refined one can actually become and how incredible that can be so there is always something to aspire to.

 

Rhonda – Yes there is. It’s the less opinions and all of those things, the less person that’s there the happier we are and that is certainly what I have found and it’s really interesting because the person is still there but not really in so many ways, as well. It’s a little bit like what you said before with the building that’s there, but awareness is there. I mean nothings deleted in the universe, there is no paddock of absence up in the far corner of the universe. So just being more being that awareness, and not allowing, and that love, and intelligence, and presence is shining through the form of the person.

 

Rick – Maybe one way of putting it is realizing that where the ocean doesn’t mean that we are no longer still a wave, we are both, it’s much cooler though to be the whole ocean and be a wave than to just be a wave (laughing)

 

Rhonda – Oh totally (laughing)

 

Rick – Waves get kicked about you know (laughing)

 

Rhonda – (laughing) Most definitely. Yeah.

 

Rick – On the point of teachers, let’s talk about that for a little while. There are all kinds of wonderful teachers in your book, Rupert Spira and Pamela Wilson and many people I’ve interviewed and a few that I haven’t and those are all to me friends and inspiring people. There’s a problem in the spiritual community, which is that a lot of teachers, a lot actually seem to go bad in some way seem to go off the rails. It’s revealed that they’re engaged in some inappropriate sexual behavior or financial shenanigans all control things where they’re working students to death, and this and that and a lot of people become delusional, some kind of give up on the spiritual enterprise altogether because they feel so burned by the experience with some teacher. Do you have any thoughts about that?

 

Rhonda – Well I’ve never come across a teacher like that so I’m very fortunate in that way and I’m sure it would be incredibly disheartening but it is also, I do believe we are meant to hit each lily pad that we hit and so if you are connecting with the teacher who has gone bad there’s a lot for you to see in that, and to learn in that, and more discernment or whatever. But just to keep going, you know just to keep going. I’m sure even if a teacher went bad that that student received a lot from that teacher even if they did something. You know the order I was talking about is very interesting, it was open for 120 years and then it closes for 120 years, and it’s done that since way before the Knights Templar, way back…

 

Rick – That’s intentional, is that a pattern, is that intentional?

 

Rhonda – Yes that’s intentional and the reason that they do it is so that no family can have the power, this immense power of knowledge and miss use that power. They knew that with a certain amount of power people are tempted, you know there’s temptation there, and so to avoid that they closed. 120 years open, 120 years closed. I just think that is part of life and you just move onto somebody else.

 

Rick – Yeah, it’s interesting. I think one reason that people get burned is that they, like you said you went from out to directed to in a directed but a lot of people that first get into spirituality have a very outer directed orientation and they invest everything in the teacher to the exclusion of their own sensibility sometimes and their own confidence and so on and they allow themselves sometimes to be led way off the track because they doubt their own judgment. Give precedence to the teacher about everything.

 

Rhonda – I think you hit the nail on the head. I really do because if we look at every single moment and circumstances my teacher says, ‘every moment, every second, every circumstance, is to take us home, every single moment, every meeting with the person, the words that you hear, every event and circumstance is a gift to take us home’. And so therefore that teacher we gave all of our power… because I know if my mentor would say to me there’s only one master and if I ever said to him, that something where I was bestowing upon him superior wisdom, he would say (shaking head) ‘there is only one master, and that master is within you’. I think you’re absolutely right that if we do invest too much and given our power away, we were on the wrong track and we need to redirect.

 

Rick – Yeah, another sort of healthy variation on that is sometimes teachers will give all the glory and credit to their teacher and there and they often have a picture of their teacher behind them, and they say it’s not me I’m just a spokesperson for this guy, and he’s the spokesperson for the guy before him and so on and so on.

 

Rhonda – Well you see my teacher I was thinking before when I was talking before about my teacher, my teacher wouldn’t, she doesn’t want to, oh how do I phrase this… she doesn’t want to be given any credit or accolades or anything whatsoever. If I’ve ever gone to say something to her, like recently I remember I was recapping when I first met her, and she said I let you go on for a reason for you to let all of that go. Let it all go let that memory go with everything else. There is no possibility with her that, always she’s reflecting that one being that we are.

 

Rick – Yeah that’s good. Yeah well you were describing that I kind of flashed of the absurdity really making a super duper fuss about their individual of a teacher because from that teacher’s perspective if they are the real deal their individuality is pretty negligible and really it’s the divine that they just reside in and we just see them as a window into the divine but it’s the divine we are interested in not the window, so much.. (laughing)

 

Rhonda – Exactly, exactly. They’re just there temporarily. For you to discover who you are and then and I don’t see my teacher very much anymore. Because I know now other than enormous gratitude that I have, but I don’t see her.

 

Rick – I’ll tell you a cool story that plays out the devil’s advocate to the point we’re just making. A disciple one day came upon his teacher and God incarnate standing next to each other, and for a second, he thought so who should I bow to first, I mean there’s God and my teacher and then he bowed to his teacher, and he said I bow to you my teacher who has shown me my God.

 

Rhonda – Mmm… but they are both the one, right?

 

Rick – Exactly.

 

Rhonda – Right? The teacher is, they are the one, they’re the same. I’d be bowing to both of them, actually (laughing)

 

Rick – (laughing) Yeah bowing right in the middle. Alright, let’s talk more about The Greatest Secret now. I was reminded of a verse of the Gita that I copied down here Chapter 2, Verse 29 one sees him as a wonder another likewise speaks of him as a wonder, and as a wonder another hears of him, but even on seeing speaking and hearing some do not understand him. And they use the word him and that but they really talking about Brahman or Being, or Self or whatever you want to call it. There are all kinds of versus like that about how, and not only in Gita but all kinds of books about how there’s this profound reality, which is really all that exists, or if we want to think of it as transcendental, it’s within everything, and yet the vast majority of people are completely unaware of its existence, and isn’t that odd?

 

Rhonda – Isn’t it? I think about every day. Every single day about this, and I understand because I didn’t see it for decades, so I understand and yet when you see it, it’s so obvious. It’s always been there, that consciousness has always been there for every single second without it there’s be no experience whatsoever. And yet it is overlooked by so many people, and I guess it’s just where things are at, at the moment, where people are at, at the moment.

 

Rick – Yeah! Yeah, I mean some people say there have been ages in the past such a Satya Yuga where it was kind of the norm to know this and now we’re in a Yuga where it’s a rarity, so who knows about that. I guess when you consider what we’re talking about here actually which is this ocean of bliss and then when we consider how much unhappiness there is in the world and how much suffering it’s kind of like a fish been thirsty or something here, they are just immersed in the ocean craving water (laughing).

 

Rhonda – Totally and the unhappiness and suffering isn’t necessary it doesn’t have to occur but if we invest everything in the world and that its all real and think that is the one reality then we will continue to be buffeted around because as my teacher said, every moment is to take us home then I certainly in my experience of that confirms it. While we continue to believe in something that isn’t real then we will continue to be buffeted, there will be suffering and there will be difficulties and challenges.

 

Rick – And not only we as individuals but the world. There is kind of a macrocosm microcosms thing where the world is getting buffeted around and sometimes there is world wars, and sometimes there’s pandemics, and sometimes there’s economic collapse, and so on. Ultimately, I think those things are arbitrary or capricious or insignificant there is an evolutionary impact to everything.

 

Rhonda – Absolutely. And definitely the timing, I’ve just recently what we’ve been going through it’s perfect in its timing. I mean I watch that event and the effect that it’s had on people and can see that, all of it, there was an invitation there, because there was great fear, you know so there’s an invitation to be free of fear, and to recognize and realize the truth to look beyond to look beyond because one of the things that everybody strives for, is safety and security and to feel safe and secure and what the last couple of years did was say, well you may never be safe and secure because you don’t know what is it around the corner. And I can see the beauty of that, that if you find out who you are you have total safety and security, amidst the turmoil and the turbulence, and not suffer, and to be at peace and to be filled with happiness in a really challenging world situation, you know you found something incredible.

 

Rick – Something that I know that it has happened in this pandemic and we’ve been talking about a lot on the news is called the great resignation where a lot of people are thinking, well what am I doing on this job, and their resigning from their jobs and I don’t know if they’ve all figured out what they’re going to do next but it’s actually a big thing and causing a labor crisis because people think I don’t want to spend this much of my time doing this thing anymore, there must be something better for me.

 

Rhonda – Right, which is great isn’t it because they are questioning, I mean it makes it difficult for the world to keep turning in the way that it’s been turning, but it isn’t meant to. I mean I think when something dramatic happens we are being directed to take a right hand turn not continuing down that path anymore we’re turning out right and turn and I absolutely know that everything that is coming is for the better everything absolutely everything. I think for sure people…this kind of thing will help people to wake up and as you say, to not want to continue and to resign from their jobs and to all those people that have relocated. You know people left cities and then move states and relocated and to get out of the city and we know the impact of nature and the peace and the silence and that has on us, so one has to think that’s heading in the right direction too.

 

Rick – Yes and interesting. There’s a lot we can talk about with this kind of thing, but we’ll just keep swimming along, but I’ve often been as fascinated with the societal implications of what the spiritual significance of what happens in society is, as much as I am as the spirituality of the individuals and there’s major shifts and trends and transitions and the whole collective consciousness goes through.

 

Rhonda – Yes and I agree that I always fall back on the words that Robert Adams would say and adjust resolves all of it for me, ‘everything is unfolding as exactly as it should’. And I’m just like everything is unfolding exactly as it should. Argh! It’s beautiful I carry that with me everywhere.

 

Rick – Did you ever hear that story of the Zen teacher that comes in and looks at his student and says, ‘you’re all perfect just as you are but you could use improvement’ (laughing)

 

Rhonda – (laughing) No I haven’t heard that one.

 

Rick – There’s another question that’s came in, this ones from Maree in Oak Park Illinois. Since awakening to your essential self, do you still feel the impulse to use the law of attraction to manifest things as a process of intending, requesting, praying for things changed in any way?

 

Rhonda – That’s such a good question. One of the things going back to my mentor and the order, my mentor was definitely self-realized however when they… the order was non-profit so whenever they needed anything he would visualize, and he would visualize that they had it already, and he was self-realized so I was very fortunate to have been connected with him because I saw how he still used the mind and visualization to manifest things, and of course they would manifest things really fast. So, there might be a really ancient book by Francis Bacon that they wanted to bring back to the order so that so he would visualize having it. So, I do still, I do still I guess use the law of attraction, use the mind however, it’s very fast. Because I don’t have, I’m not reading opposing thoughts and thoughts of doubt and all of those things. It’s like the thought dropped into fertile soil and it will just manifest, so that’s one thing is that it manifests really quickly, yes, I do, and it manifests really quickly so I’m not visualizing for days and days or anything like that, but the second thing is, I don’t want for things really. So, I don’t have that, I don’t have that yearning anymore for things. I just find that even before I’ve realized I might want or need something it just appears. Right? It’s like wow, it appeared before I realized I needed or wanted that. I’d like to give Maree something because when we no longer, when we are so effortless, and letting go of everything, and not this desperate white-knuckle kind of thing to try and control life but when we let go life delivers to us far more far greater than we can actually ever imagine.

 

Rick – There’s actually the mechanics of this explained in Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, there’s a word called Samyama, and it’s this process where you entertain a desire but it’s not this white knuckle thing that you described, where it’s like grr… this intense thing but it’s a really subtle impulse and then you just relax, sit back into the transcendent just let it drop into the ocean and then the result comes, and if we’re doing that in a really clear level like you said the result comes immediately.

 

Rhonda – Yes yeah that’s exactly what it’s like you described it you described it perfectly that’s exactly what it’s like because when you know that you are the one and only then everything is you. But one of the things that I realized is that and I might just say this to Maree for visualization is very early on with The Secret I would visualize, there would be, I would visualize myself and the object in pictures so there were two things in the picture and it worked just fine but a faster way to visualize is to be one with that object, to be that object to be one, there is no separation no gap between you and the object, you are one with it, and I know the Knights Templar created these tarot cards to contain the truth because all the books were being burned so they put all the truth in tarot cards and gave it to the gypsies and said these are fortune-telling cards and this was so that the wisdom would last through the centuries for whoever would come up on it, and one of those cards has a woman pregnant very pregnant in it in a field and I had a really big impact on me that card when I was learning all about the symbols because that’s exactly what it needs to be like when you want to manifest something is to be pregnant with that desire to be one, to be totally one and that happens in a flash. That happens so fast, you were just saying it, and then it just drops away and it manifests immediately.

 

Rick – Yeah there’s a saying that I actually researched it to try and figure out where it came from that appears that a number of cultures have this saying, ‘that first deserve then desire’. And I think it’s kind of what you’re talking about here, you know there’s, we can desire at a level of at the mind where the mind is very agitated and dissipated and full of conflicts and impurities and so on, or we can desire it from a very refined area where the mind is pure and settled and just shimmering along on the surface of the self so to speak, and there’s a big difference between desiring at this level and desiring at this level in In terms of the power and efficacy of the thought or the desire.

 

Rhonda – Yeah that sounds, it’s perfect really. As long as, because the mind separates everything so it’s turning the universe into all itty bity pieces, keeps making itty bity pieces everywhere, carving up more and more and more whereas everything is actually all one, and so when we visualize something when we are one with it, we can manifest it just so fast because then we’re not getting time involved we’re not getting space involved, when they don’t exist anyway for law of attraction, time and space don’t exist and so you can manifest something really quickly. It’s a really wonderful thing when life is giving you everything before you can even think that you might want it. It’s really, really a wonderful thing and I would just say to anybody watching or listening that it is the way to go because it’s a delight. It’s so beautiful.

 

Rick – Yeah, your itty-bitty pieces phrase reminded me of a Gita verse, Irene passed me a note twice saying I’m talking too much but I just want to say this first (laughing)

 

Rhonda – (laughing) I love all your pieces of wisdom.

 

Rick – So this first verse goes, ‘for many branched and endlessly diverse are the intellects of the resolute, but the resolute intellect is one pointed’. So, you can think of it like a bicycle wheel where some people live at the hub and all the spokes radiate out from them and others are kind of out on the spokes and they’re scattered.

 

Rhonda – Yes exactly scattered all over the place. I used to be like that.

 

Rick – Yeah me too, and still am to a certain extent (laughing). But you know, more and more.

 

Rhonda – More and more. That’s it more and more of your self.

 

Rick – Now this thing you brought up a couple of times now about having something come to you before you realize that’s the thing that you needed. I think this is a beautiful point and might be worth us discussing that a little bit more. Maybe I can ask you, what do you feel are the mechanics underlining that phenomenon?

 

Rhonda – Good question. I never really thought about that. Now when anything happens, I’m like well this was meant to happen. When something happens when something comes, I don’t even question it because well this was meant to happen at this exact time and it is divine timing. I don’t even look to see, like it has to do so much with no resistance to anything right? And this openness that you carry with you, so I don’t think anything comes that’s out of place. I think it is something that you need for the journey that is no journey. It’s so interesting because with law of attraction you use the mind but when these things happen this is beyond the mind, you know these things come from beyond the mind. Do you have thoughts on it?

 

Rick – Yeah and I can probably use you as a case in point which is you’re serving a beautiful function propagating some nice wisdom to lots of people and so in that sense, you’re serving as a sort of agent of the divine, an instrument of the divine. Since you’re doing that you receive a lot of what we could say support, we could say supportive nature from the divine if you want to call it that, and like you said earlier you don’t have a lot of superfluous trivial desires of things that you want it’s pretty simple in a way, so you’re not getting showered with Mercedes-Benz’ left and right but the things that you really do need, which will help you serve your purpose your function as an instrument of the divine, come to you because the divine wants you to successfully fulfill that function.

 

Rhonda – Yes. I love that actually I really love it. And too when you don’t have any resistance then you’re just kind of surrounded with all the love, and well you are all of the love, but the very abundant physical world that we exist in is absolutely abundant of everything. And so, I think also, it’s a reflection of everything that you have inside of course. I’ve never really thought about that, but I love your take on it. I’m just always so grateful and then the days are filled with, I must call someone so all and they call, or I must do and no then they email, and so, and you would think I would sit down and say oh okay now I’m going to get someone to call but I don’t but I just have this effortless thought, this effortless thought, oh I must call so-and-so and then next thing they’re texting me on or calling me. Yeah, it’s just an incredible way that it works, and it just makes my life is so effortless and free.

 

Rick – There’s a saying nature knows best how to organize.

 

Rhonda – Yes, yeah.

 

Rick – And when you think about the organizational capabilities that it must take to run a universe (laughing)…

 

Rhonda – Yes (laughing)

 

Rick – That it must take on a cosmic level to the galactic level and all this intelligence is functioning so perfectly, it’s kind of like pretty light work to fill the desires of a person who happens to be attuned to that intelligence.

 

Rhonda – Yes. I remember hearing these words be like a hollow bamboo, many years ago I heard. And those words had a big impact on me as well and I realize that the last six years that’s what I’ve been doing. You know becoming a hole that hollow bamboo and when you are that kind of empty, just everything flows in.

 

Rick – So I have in front of me here, and we have some time still, plenty of time. And also, incidentally if any thought pops into your head and I haven’t asked you a question feel free to launch into it even if it’s a gear shift into a different topic or something. But in terms of The Greatest Secret, we’ve touched upon the notion that it’s hidden in plain sight, and I like that phrase and it’ll be interesting to dwell on it a bit more because we’re not talking about something that’s far away or you know impossible to reach or anything like that, it’s some say it’s closer than your jugular vein.

 

Rhonda – Closer than your breath. Closer than everything, it’s just filling the room that you’re in, it’s filling the entire universe and it has no boundaries and then that’s when you begin to look and see there are no boundaries, it’s just infinite. To try and help people see this and it’s really sensing it isn’t it, really sensing it. It occupies my day, every single day to try and find ways that will absolutely every single person will say it. Like I think there must be something where everyone can see this and sense this, there must be, there must be, and I want to find it, I want to find that way. It’s here and now and the mind is taking us to the past to the future and this presence, and this is another word that helped me to, this presence that I think everybody can sense and feel. That the presence in life this presence but for me now, it’s just so obvious it’s filling this room and all of us. When I look at you there it is. So, this really beautiful consciousness that we are.

 

Rick – Yeah, we were just discussing a verse last night that goes about Yoga says, ‘the self in all Beings and all Beings in the self’. Swami went on about 45 minutes about that one verse.

 

Rhonda – And I think that just deepens and expands more and more, goes deeper, and expands to be further and yeah. Just with every day the more that we can be conscious, conscious of consciousness of awareness. Because I certainly found for myself the more that I am aware of awareness the weaker of the mind becomes.

 

Rick – Weaker in the sense of less intrusive right, not weak in an innovating sort of way.

 

Rick – Correct, No not at all, but just becomes weaker so then I’m just using my mind for what I need to use it for which is on a particular time for when I’m talking to you but I don’t have that psychological mind that is like the torturer, and was the torturer for me in my life most certainly and for many people that psychological mind that just kind of causes all of the suffering and people and I don’t have that. It can’t trick me anymore you can’t pull me in anymore. So are use the mind for what I what it’s designed for my teacher says, ‘we created the mind for only one purpose and that is to manifest what we want’. That’s it we created it for that and of course the mind is creative so if you want to use that word, creative in the dream, so it’s always going to create what we want and what we don’t want. But yeah, ultimately it is all a dream?

 

Rick – Well we can get into that for a moment, but this thing of the mind one way I’ve heard it explained if the mind is just chattering along and constantly going along like radio static on with a million different thoughts then all those different thoughts are dissipating our energy, it’s been dispersed in all kinds of 99% of which are irrelevant and useless, but if the mind is sort of settled and refined then you still have thoughts, but you just have the ones that are actually appropriate and all that energy that was dissipated before can be channeled into as much fewer and therefore the thoughts have more potency and efficacy.

 

Rhonda – Yeah that is exactly right and people would know that by their own experience because if they got really upset over a circumstance or somebody said something to them and they just got really, really, upset then they will find that that upset or anger or whatever that negative emotion is, that is just food for the mind, and the mind is just delivering one thought after the other, after the other, you should’ve said this, you should’ve said that, and just continues on and on and on at the end of that day you can barely crawl into bed you’re wiped out. Right? You’re just a total wipeout. People would know for sure through their own experience exactly what you just said, is what occurs. Of course, when the mind is still and you’re just using it for what you meant to use it for, and it’s not your psychiatrist, and psychotherapist, and commenting on every single thing that you do, you’re not going to feel depleted of energy.

 

Rick – And I don’t know about you, but I’ve met a few people whom I considered quite remarkable in terms of their level of evolution or consciousness or whatever, and the level of energy is astounding. I mean hours and hours and hours and hours on end without appearing to get tired, or unhappy, or grouchy, and all of those things (laughing)..

 

Rhonda – (laughing) And I mean some of them only sleep like a couple of hours a night you know don’t sleep very much. I still sleep the whole night, but yeah, they just have this unlimited amount of energy and as you say, you can feel it when you’re near them, that energy is just, you can surf that energy.

 

Rick – Yes it like this field that absorbs you or something.

 

Rhonda – Yeah wonderful. Absolutely wonderful.

 

Rick – Looping back to about two minutes ago you were saying your whole day all the time is to make more people aware of this. I think one key point in there is what we’ve been saying about how this reality we’re talking about is an ocean that we are swimming in and therefore everyone should have the confidence that they could realize it. I think if you’re able to think I thought, if your able to listen to this interview, it’s well within your capability to have this realization, it’s not just for famous people or people that wear white robes, or any such thing, it’s for ordinary people.

 

Rhonda – Yeah and it’s actually already there for every person, it’s what they are already, so it’s not something you have to go and find, all look for, it’s already present, it’s already present within you it’s just that the mind can be so invasive and chattery that appears to be blanketing the presence, and the consciousness that is always there and underneath it. But I mean we wouldn’t even be aware of the mind if it was not for awareness, we wouldn’t even be aware of thoughts if it were not for awareness. I know Francis Lucille says, it is the one that is hearing these words’. He uses that all of the time, and so it’s the one that you are, it’s the one everybody is, it’s present and it’s here now, it’s who you are. It just doesn’t have that story of limitation attached to it.

 

Rick – What you just said reminds me of the second verse in the Yoga Sutras it goes, ‘Yogas chitta vritti nirodha’ which means, ‘Yoga (or union) is the cessation of the fluctuations of the mind’, and then the next verse is, ‘then the seer rests in the self’. I’m wondering in your own case, you described how your mind coming much more quieter and less chattery and all that, did that happen kind of spontaneously or did you engage in a meditation practice or something to settle your mind?

 

Rhonda – I think with The Secret and really wanting to be positive for all those years and when I say positive, I mean to think about what I want and not what I don’t want. So that I think really kind of trained the mind to be positive, to be grateful, to be loving. So that was a really fantastic first step I think for me, and then when I went into the second stage of realizing who I am, then it really did become a process to… because the mind would rise up, and it didn’t happen instantaneously for me. The mind would keep rising up, and I would find that I was following the mind and an hour later, I’d be like, oh no, the mind got me.

 

Rick – Where have I been.

 

Rhonda – And then I would welcome that and release on that, so yeah it was over some time, but it just got weaker, weaker, and the way that I could measure it was the degree of happiness that I felt, and the degree of peace that I felt inside, and so that…… it’s the way that we measure is the way our own experience and the level of happiness and peace. And then what’s extraordinary, because you can just marvel at it, that the things that used to bother you that that person would irritate you, or you would get hot under the collar about a particular subject, and all of those things, they just don’t affect you anymore. Like how did that why did that person bother me? There’s nothing wrong with that person, and so nothing affects you the way that it did, and in fact where I reached a point where I really wanted everything, that I was asking for anything, I wanted to see it, I wanted everything to come up, all of the beliefs and the concepts and everything, I wanted all of them to rise up so I could just like welcome them and just dissolve them and have them collapse. It’s kind of fantastic, if an emotion does arise like a bit of impatience, like a dog and I have a dog and she’s really old now, she’s 16, so occasionally she’ll, there will be an accident occasionally there will be an accident on the floor and that I’ve noticed… and then I’ll be like ‘ahh’, then immediately I would just welcome that feeling and not making not wanting to make it go away, and let it be here and the oh my gosh, it just kind of collapses, and there’s all the happiness sitting there so beautifully underneath it. There’s still things like that that come up, but that’s the main one actually that’s the main one (laughing)..

 

Rick – The dog pee, is the main one? (laughing)

 

Rhonda – Yeah, yeah (laughing)

 

Rick – Well if that’s the biggest problem then I think you’re in pretty good shape.

 

Rhonda – But really, I’m good at welcoming it and then I felt this actual overwhelming love and compassion for her because she’s 16 years old and wow she’s a legend, she’s incredible, so it doesn’t all of that swept over me so now the dog pee doesn’t affect me in the way it was before.

 

Rick – That’s interesting. There’s kind of a cart and horse question in here. It seems like you’ve undergone a lot amount of purification over all the years that you’ve been focusing on this stuff and, purification of the mind is again in traditional…spiritual traditions is considered to be extremely important in order to prevent us to mental turbulence we’ve been taking about from continuing, all that turbulence is said to be symptomatic of pent-up impurities or impressions or some scars, so it seems like you’ve purged a lot of that stuff just through the whole process that you’ve done, and I kind of find it fascinating because in my background I practice meditation it’s been my main path, and then I don’t think about it too much during the day but that benefit carries over but many teachers and then he quoted in The Secret and Ramana Maharshi for instance did advocates something that you would kind of do throughout the day in terms of self-remembrance or the way you deal with stuff that comes up, and it seems like in your case there’s been a lot of your path and it’s been very effective for you.

 

Rhonda – It has and really it was Lester Levenson who came up with that kind of releasing and welcoming, and because of The Secret and because I studied the subconscious mind quite a bit especially with my mentor, I understood how much we created from the subconscious mind by default, and so suppressed thoughts, and suppressed feelings, and beliefs all stored in the subconscious mind so it became very clear to me that with each releasing of those suppressed and repressed feelings that I would be free, I would be freer. I mean and Lester Levenson said he did it in three months, I mean it was incredible what he did. That’s the main thing that I focus on. I will watch out for a belief but really, it’s feelings and when an emotion arises, any kind of emotion that is not a pleasant emotion, then I will just allow it to be here and feel the energy which you can feel the energy coming up through your chest and out. I just found that incredible, really incredible, because you can measure how you’re going because you’re getting happier, that you’re not feeling, you don’t feel anger like you used to feel. My teacher says that once you’ve released all the anger it’s impossible to feel angry ever again once you’ve released it, you can’t feel it anymore. Certainly, my experience has been that that they’re emotions now that I just can’t feel, I just have the happiness. For me it was the fast path and you talked about meditation and I have such admiration for all of those years of meditation, and I decided not to meditate on my path and the reason, and the only reason I chose not to meditate and I have to define this to, was because I didn’t think that millions of people, hundreds and hundreds of billions of people would meditate, and so I thought I have to find another way, rather than meditation however that said, I have spent all of these years in contemplative meditation. And so, it’s not really the case that I didn’t meditate because I think that every second and of every day is contemplative meditation.

 

Rick – True even just meditation where you just sit down and do nothing but that for a while or 20 minutes or an hour or whatever, if that has come a long way since the 60s when it was a little unusual these days and these days and you have Yoga centers on every corner and a lot of people and Dan Harris at ABC News just left his job so that he can focus on his meditation teaching career. There’s this thing called 10% happier and Sam Harris who is a staunch atheist is teaching meditation through his app, so meditation has become pretty mainstream I don’t think and everyone in the world can do it, but it’s coming into its own more and more.

 

Rhonda – Oh definitely it is, and I think mindfulness and people are really into that and a lot of companies are using all those things now…

 

Rick – And it’s been taught in schools, and prisons, at halfway houses and all kinds of things.

 

Rhonda – Yes and it’s wonderful because what it means is that people are understanding more that the biggest challenge they have is actually their mind. You know that is the one the mind. I certainly used to think that it was the people circumstances and events in the world that were the problem but it’s the response and reaction so those things that’s the problem, not those actual things in and of themselves.

 

Rick – I think it might have been Gandhi that said, ‘it’s a lot easier to put leather on your feet rather than to pave the earth in leather (laughing)

 

Rhonda – (laughing) that’s good

 

Rick – (laughing) In other words wear shoes or sandals in his case which is not to say we shouldn’t help the world, but first things first, you know.

 

Rhonda – That’s right.

 

Rick – Oh I know what I want to ask you next. Now again you were saying in this really undermined a lot what more can I do to disseminate this knowledge more widely, and help more people and be to be aware of it, and I mean you’ve already got your book out what are you thinking what are you planning are you cooking up something additional that you might do or are you just doing more of the same or what?

 

Rhonda – So I’ve been doing LIVES, podcasts like this and what is really wonderful is that social media lives, where I do them on Facebook and Instagram, and what I found is that we get a lot of mail from people and they’ve said they’ve read The Greatest Secret but when they watch the LIVES, they got it.

 

Rick – By the LIVES, you’ve got like a webinar that people can join?

 

Rhonda – I do Facebook and Instagram LIVE, like 30 minutes and answer questions and so it’s very focused on The Greatest Secret with those. Because people are asking questions then the way I talk about it comes through differently from the way that I perhaps expressed it before, so several people have said that on the LIVES when I watch the LIVE I just use different words and described it in different way and they have they saw it immediately. And that makes me really happy.  I suppose to try and do as much as I can like that, and there are things in the back of my mind thinking that maybe I’ll write a book about understanding the mind more for people. Of course, understanding the mind so that you can go beyond the mind because that’s always what you kind of hope that people will do. I am toying with something like that but just to be able to answer people’s questions and talk to people, if they ask a question then something just may come through that has not been said before. Letting go you know, Lester would talk about letting go and I think he used to do this thing or Hale Dwoskin does, and to let go is your holding a pen like that and letting go of for example letting go of anger is a simple as opening the hand and letting it go. When somebody have a really strong pattern of an emotion like anger and it arises up in them and it feels like it’s taking them over, and so it can be really challenging to just for them just to do that and so I’m always trying to think of analogies, like floating, be like floating in a swimming pool, you cannot have any tension in your body at all or you will sink and so you have to let go you have to be totally, totally, relaxed and it’s so interesting when you don’t resist an emotion it just evaporates. It’s incredible, it just evaporates.

 

Rick – I think you were quoting Carl Jung in the book, ‘what you resist persists’. Is that Carl Jung?

 

Rhonda – Yes, it is. I could write a book on resistance easily hands down.

 

Rick – Isn’t that what they say on Star Trek, ‘resistance is futile’ (laughing)

 

Rhonda – Right (laughing) Yeah resistance if you wanted to just drill down there are some things that are so simple and resistance which is not accepting of the way things are, you know just letting things be the way they are, because the thing is, if you just let things be the way they are they change. They change. You can’t… but we resist, we resist when something happens, and that resistance holds that circumstance and that energy in that one place without moving. So just need to let things go.

 

Rick – And people shouldn’t feel like there’s something wrong with them if they have a hard time doing this, I would say… because there’s a whole neurophysiological component. You know we’ve spent a lifetime creating deep impressions that actually have a neurophysiological basis and you’re not just going to snap your fingers and have all those impressions disappear overnight, they kind of have to be worked out and there’s this whole science of neuroplasticity that the brain can change, but it doesn’t change in a minute, it can take time for the neurophysiology to rearrange itself and new neurona connections to be established and all this stuff. There’s a great saying in… I think it’s shanaih shanaih, and it means slowly, slowly. Sri Ramakrishna used to say this, and I think Vivekanada, and they didn’t mean like just be lazy, and take all the time in the world with this spiritual business, but they also said, don’t bust a gut, it has to happen kind of, in its proper time, and you just have to tune into that flow and be sensitive to it and not be lazy, but not struggle and strain either to and find the sweet spot.

 

Rhonda – Yes. I recall when I first realized, when I first discovered The Secret that our thoughts create, and I would sit down and decide I’m going to have no thought…

 

Rick – Good luck.

 

Rhonda – …And I’m just going to look at the gap between the thoughts. (laughing) I would just be like, no thought, and then I’d be like no thought, and then I’d be like no thought, it was just still firing at me and so that’s how I started, that was the place I started from where there was zero gap, and they were just coming one after the other. But little bit by little bit as you say, and then all of a sudden you find that things are a little quieter and it’s worth every step, it’s worth every step to whatever process somebody finds, whether it’s meditation or whether it’s releasing to have the mind be quiet because only in an extreme event, do we know how we’re going. You know in a dramatic event, because all we can think, ‘Oh know I’m doing really well yeah’, ‘I’m great’, but then when something goes wrong, then that’s when mind jumps on that energy and all the drama, and you get and just see exactly where you’re at, with the mind. And we all have the same mind thoughts to overcome. And it’s not really overcome, it’s just not to believe them. It’s just not to give them all the attention because when you stop believing them then all the energy drops, and the mind just doesn’t have that strength anymore, but it’s one step at a time, as you say. Some people are fortunate, it just all drops in a moment, and they’re free…

 

Rick – That’s rare, I mean usually it doesn’t work that way, but sometimes it does.

 

Rhonda – No and you know what, I wouldn’t change anything. I love the journey. I wouldn’t change a thing. I love it.

 

Rick – Yeah, there’s so many interesting threads to this conversation. I guess the last comment that you made triggers to the thought that everyone really does have their own journey so people shouldn’t compare themselves to me or to you to Rupert Spira, or to anybody. Envy is not a useful sentiment in this game, and one shouldn’t compare oneself to others level of development or anything like that it’s just a waste of time. But you know the old saying, ‘seek and you shall find’, I really think that is true and I have seen so many examples of it when the desire gets really sincere, and strong, things come, the opportunities just present themselves, oh you’re ready, here you go, here’s something.

 

Rhonda – Yeah and that’s true. My mentor would say you know he was not about that progressive path, he’s not about killing that desire, they’re particular teachings was not about taking out desire, because being a sincere seeker was everything in terms of their perspective. That you would find your way to self-realization and enlightenment if your heart was on fire and you wanted the truth and you wanted freedom more than anything, then you would absolutely bring it to you. It is interesting because desire…I think Anthony de Mello said, ’the Buddha didn’t mean to take out desire, he meant to take out attachment’.

 

Rick – Yeah good one.

 

Rhonda – Right. And that just lit up the room for me. I was like yes of course, of course the attachment to the desire. That there wasn’t anything wrong with desire in it, in and of itself, it is the attachment that was the problem.

 

Rick – I don’t think anyone can live without desire and even the greatest sage that ever walked the earth at some point is going to feel, I’m hungry, I want a burrito or something. There’s going to be a desire (laughing).

 

Rhonda – (laughing) exactly. And as you said it does it play a very big part, and the desire for me on my journey was massive to the desire for the truth and the desire to be free of suffering was enormous, absolutely enormous. That carried me and held me in really good stead.

 

Rick – I think one thing that happens that one’s desires get transformed over the years from all me mine to universal kind of…. You look at the great sages and saints and they were thinking what more can I do for the world, how can I eliminate suffering, how can I do more for people in the world, and that kind of stuff.

 

Rhonda – That’s exactly what… that’s exactly it, giving is our true nature and so it’s all you want to do was give and help as many, many people as want to be helped.

 

Rick – When the cup is full it run us over.

 

Rhonda – Yes, yes it does, it certainly does.

 

Rick – Okay attachment. And a couple of things their attachment and happiness. I guess when we’re thinking about desires, the question arises why do we have them, and I think there is an underlying reason which is that ultimately, we want to be happy, and desires are kind of like impulses of that fundamental impulse or fundamental quality of all of life, I would say, not just human nature but all of life. I’ll let you take it from there I could say more but I’ll let you take it from there and elaborate.

 

Rhonda – On attachment?

 

Rick – On attachment and the fundamental impulse toward… let me give you a quick example and then you can refine it. We have this deep desire to be happy and ordinarily our attention is directed out outwards, and we think this will make me happy, and this will make me happy, or whatever, and then inevitably it may for a brief period, but then it doesn’t, and okay now I need this. But I would say all of those things are just kind of like a reflection, just little mirrors that reflect a tiny portion of the unlimited happiness that exist deep within us, and once we turn things around on and align ourselves and we begin to rest in that field of unlimited happiness, then our whole orientation changes and we can’t easily get attached anymore because our happiness is not invested in things and so if things come it doesn’t significantly increase our happiness and if things go, it doesn’t significantly decrease them. It’s like a millionaire who can win or lose thousands, no big deal, but someone who only has 10 bucks in his pocket winning or losing a dollar is a big deal, he gets attached.

 

Rhonda – Yes and certainly I lived my life with that happiness, like the desire to get objects and then feel some happiness, and then it would just dissipate, and always fleeting and always temporary and it’s always so fleeting, and yet we continue to do it. You know…

 

Rick – Because what else do we know.

 

Rhonda – Right. It’s like even if you’re only in your early 20s you would know that whatever you want it’s brief even that big thing that you want, the happiness it still really brief and then it’s gone again, and then you’re looking for the next, and then you’re looking for the next thing, and then next thing, and you can leave your whole life like that, and it’s never going to it’s just going to slip through your fingers, it’ll just disappear like that and then when you find the qualities within you, like love for example, when we really love everything and everyone no matter what, the happiness that is there within us is absolutely incredible and beautiful and doesn’t move. But it feels like a different happiness doesn’t it because the depth of it, it’s like a blissful happiness where is the fleeting happiness is… it doesn’t feel nearly as deep, but I think of Francis Lucille who says there’s only one happiness, you know there’s only one, and it’s who you are. And so when we get those things we feel briefly happy, we are getting a tiny glimpse of who we are, and then it goes away because the mind comes in and it wanting other things and wanting to change this and change that. But to find lasting happiness, which is what I talk about in The Secret, there’s only one place you can find happiness and that is to know who you are, and to be who you are. And then you have it and then you’ve got it, and then life is just incredible. It’s a wonderful thing and you’re right, that when you have that happiness no attachment is gone, it’s when you find who you are, that attachment isn’t there anymore because you’re way more excepting and allowing of life and not so determined that this should happen this way, or should happen that way, or when you have the happiness what else do you need. Because everything that we want and we don’t want is because we think will be happy happier with the having of it, or with not having of it. So, it’s what drives us and yet here we are, it’s like a big joke isn’t it? It’s like we’re all searching for happiness but it’s who we are already.

 

Rick – Yep, it’s like kind of looking in the wrong place. It’s like that Rumi story where the guys looking for his house keys or something under the streetlight, and then someone comes to help him and they look for a while, and they look for a while and the guy says, so where do you think you lost them? Down the street there you know. So why aren’t we looking there? Because the lights no good down there.’ (laughing) So people are looking in the wrong place.

 

Rhonda – (laughing)

 

Rick – Just again a lot of things are coming up that I’ve just been reading last night this verse from the Gita that we’re studying, the contact with Brahman is infinite joy, and Brahman meaning the self or totality… and that’s what you are, it’s infinite joy and it’s not just contact like dip your toe in, you become that, you know yourself as that.

 

Rhonda – Yeah absolutely beautiful. And then it’s a life worth living every single second and from my perspective that’s why we are here. We are here to discover that and that’s our as my teacher says, ‘that’s our secret intention to discover who we are’.

 

Rick – It might be the reason the whole universe is here. I’ve heard teachers say, one teacher in particular that the purpose of creation is the expansion of happiness, and we are the creator in our essential nature, and so if that is the creator’s ultimate purpose then that is our ultimate purpose because we are that (laughing).

 

Rhonda – Exactly we are that. Yeah. And it’s teaming with happiness.

 

Rick – It’s what?

 

Rhonda – The universe is teeming with happiness. When you tune into that and just feel that way you can feel all of yourself and the happiness of all of yourself all around you, and all through you.

 

Rick – And we may sound like a couple of bliss ninnies here, but this is real you know.

 

Rhonda – (laughing)

 

Rick – But this is real you know. It’s not a mood.

 

Rhonda – That’s true.

 

Rick – That was an old phrase from the TM movement, bliss ninnies (laughing)

 

Rick and Rhonda – (laughing)

 

Rick – All righty. Let me just quickly read the chapter titles from The Greatest Secret and if there’s anything that jumps out at you that you feel that we haven’t covered that we should just touch upon otherwise this will serve as a summary of what’s in the book so just interrupted me if you want to comment.

 

Hidden in Plain Sight

The Greatest Secret: Revealed

The Reveal Continued

You’re Dreaming…It’s Time to Wake Up

Freedom from the Mind

Understanding the Power of Feelings

The End of Negative Feelings

No More Suffering

Dissolving Limiting Beliefs

Everlasting Happiness

The World: All Is Well

The End – There Is No End

 

Have we pretty much covered all of that?

 

Rhonda – Yeah, I think we’ve covered it. We have covered so much. I love the last chapters in the book, The End – There is No End and The World: All Is Well. When thinking about this book, honestly, I didn’t even know whether I would be able to write this book but then there was this overwhelming push within me to write it. I could always feel that I wanted the revelation, and I wanted people to experience the revelation the way I experienced the revelation because its life changing. And then get down to all the practical things of the way to purify and become happier and freer and then at the end of the book to really like go out, with riveting incredible news, more incredible news. Everlasting happiness and The World: All Is Well and The End – There Is No End to me is just so beautiful in the last chapter which talks about all of the teachers contributing and talking about that there is no death. It’s just the words are so beautiful in that chapter, and I get really teary. This book would not be what it is if not for those incredible beings who contributed they’re amazing wisdom and love really.

 

Rick – And if people listen to the audiobook as I did you will hear them in their own voices in various people, Rupert and Pamela and Francis and those people. It’s nice

 

Rhonda – And it was really fantastic because I asked them if they would do it, and they were just yes, pretty much every one of them said yes. A couple didn’t but mostly they all said yes, and they were really wonderful to do that. It makes such a difference when you have the energy of those teachers speaking. All of the teachers that are featured in The Greatest Secret every single one of those teachers has been a teacher that I had spent some time following their teachings, whether I followed them for three months or three years, but every one of the teachers in the book impacted my journey and helped me awaken and realize the truth. That is the 14-year journey from The Secret to The Greatest Secret, all of those teachers.

 

Rick – And you know some people say well you should’ve just focused on one teacher or one teaching and dig one well don’t try and dig ten wells at the one time, but it may be another way of looking at it maybe you could use 10 different tools to dig one well like each tool has its own function.

 

Rhonda – Yeah right. Yes, and that I think if you become really tapped in and feel where life is taking you to then you’ll be in really safe hands because you will land at one teacher and then you may only be following that teacher a few weeks and then there’s another teacher and then you begin to follow them. I was never confused, I would always just stay with the teacher I understood the way they presented the truth and I stayed with them for a while, quite a while very often, and then would look at another teacher. Another teacher would just appear so I would just follow their teachings and there is no right or wrong way about any of it. Which tradition, or how many teachers, or which teacher, or which path, that that path was a dead end. Everything is unfolding as it’s meant to and as it should. Everybody is going to get there. Like everybody’s going to get there, right?

 

Rick – Yeah everybody’s going get there sooner or later.

 

Rhonda – Yeah sooner or later (laughing)

 

Rick – What you just said about all those teachers, and it doesn’t mean that you’re a dilettante or superficially dabbling from one teacher to the next because obviously you were going very deep, but Mirabai Starr gave a nice talk at the SAND Conference one year called, ‘Bees in the Garden’. You might have even been there that year, but it was about how the bees goes from flower to flower and that really works for the bee they don’t just stay on the one flower all the time. But it might be perfectly appropriate for someone to be with just one teacher for decades, but it might be appropriate for other people to be like the bee and go around.

 

Rhonda – Absolutely, and I had I guess a few teachers, if you look at them, if you look at the list of all of those teachers, but then I follow their teachings for quite a while, I have to say for the majority of them years in many cases. But it was always that I felt that I kind of knew that I had received what I needed to from that teacher, and I got so much from every teacher. I got so much, and so many a-ha moments, and eyes opened and consciousness expanding. So, I would just say to anybody we’re so blessed now because there’s YouTube and there’s podcasts and I mean it’s a smorgasbord out there for people. So, there’s no excuse, right?

 

Rick – Yeah for all of its shortcomings, the internet has provided a means for global enlightenment that would be hard to achieve that global enlightenment without communication in a medium like this.

 

Rhonda – I agree. I agree. because I watched, I mean Mooji is in The Greatest Secret and he does so many talks, he is prolific, and I was able to watch so many of his talks. Actually, all of the teachers I watched on YouTube and subscribe to many of them as well and listened and I would just listen and listen one after the other, I just couldn’t get enough. All I wanted to do was do this one thing and let the world pass by.

 

Rick – I think it’s paid off for you. So be sure to let me know about…if I don’t have it in my links, I’ll be sure to get it from you. Oh, wait a minute there’s one more question that came in this is from Amel from Portland, Oregon. I’m wondering if Miss Byrne was also compelled to change her diet as a result of her purification process in terms of eating healthy, plant-based, all that kind of thing?

 

Rhonda – I probably did yes. I think so, and really pure and organic all of that makes a really big difference I think too. But again, and earlier in my life that I’ve done a big job, drink champagne for celebrations, and I just watch that fall away you know, it just fell away, it wasn’t anything I planned, but I just wasn’t interested anymore so that happened with a lot of things. It just naturally happened it wasn’t anything that was forced, or it’s just gradually, gradually occurred. So again, if you just trust, if people trust in what is appealing to them and not appealing to them rather than forcing anything. I think that’s the best part is to take the effortless path as much as possible in every aspect of your life

 

Rick – Row row row your boat gently down the stream, merrily merrily merrily merrily life is but a dream.

 

Rhonda – Life is but a dream (laughing). Life rowed the boat, and just sit back.

 

Rick – Exactly and the stream is doing most of the work (laughing).

 

Rhonda – Yeah that’s right (laughing)

 

Rick – You mentioned you have these LIVE things on Facebook and Instagram so make sure I have the links to those so I can send people to them, and they can join in. You ought to have some guest people once in a while or some of the people from The Greatest Secret could get in there and…

 

Rhonda – I think my team are putting their thumb up behind the scenes here because that is definitely what they want to do next year.

 

Rick – Truly I’d be happy to do it let me know…I could suggest some others to you that aren’t in the book.

 

Rhonda – Oh that would be amazing.

 

Rick – Okay so thanks so much I’ve really enjoyed this time with you.

 

Rhonda – It’s been lovely and thank you very much for having me.

 

Rick – It’s been a lot of fun.

 

Rhonda – Yeah, thank you for having me, I really appreciate it very much.

 

Rick – And I appreciate you coming on the show, it’s been really a lot of fun.

Rhonda Byrne discusses her new book The Greatest Secret along with featured teacher David Bingham, and Gideon Weil – Vice President and Editor Director of Harper One. Click below to watch the video or scroll down for a full transcript of the conversation.

Gideon Weil – Hello and welcome I’m Gideon Weil, Vice President and Editorial Director at Harper One and it’s my pleasure to be here for a one of kind conversation with Rhonda Byrne and David Bingham to launch the global publication of The Greatest Secret. I am happy to introduce Rhonda Byrne. Rhonda is the international bestselling author of The Secret which was a revelation to millions. Her new book The Greatest Secret is a powerful invitation that will dissolve fears and uncertainty and open you to a life of lasting happiness. Rhonda’s mission is to bring joy to billions, and I am pleased to also introduce David Bingham. David is one of teachers whose wisdom is shared in The Greatest Secret, he spent decades as a spiritual seeker before waking up to who he really is. It was in an interview where David shared his experiences of self-realization that helped spark Rhonda’s own awakening.

 

Okay, so let us begin with why we are here and what we can learn from our guests. Those watching now are likely familiar with The Secret. So Rhonda can you share with us the distinction between The Secret and The Greatest Secret and the journey from then until now?

 

Rhonda Byrne – Okay glad to. So, let me think, I always describe The Secret differently which is very nice. So, The Secret we learned that we create our life through our thoughts and through our mind. We learned that our mind is incredibly powerful, and our thoughts are incredibly powerful. And so, we can create the life that we want and so what we think about and focus on is what will show up and is what will experience in life. However, it works whether we want something or whether we don’t want something so whatever thoughts we empower those thoughts are the thoughts that will manifest. And so, The Greatest Secret is the way out of suffering, and the way to lasting happiness. And I think I should define what suffering is because sometime people think that suffering is when they are grief or someone who is dealing with pain or illness and just extreme situations, but suffering comes in the most subtle forms too. So all of our suffering comes from negative thoughts and negative feelings and we experience those things. One of things that The Greatest Secret does is it frees us negative thoughts and negative feelings. It frees us from things like uncertainty, unworthiness, and, oh gosh, fear, anxiety, stress all of those emotions that none of us like to experience, The Greatest Secret shows you the way out of all of those things and in their place to have lasting happiness.

 

Gideon – Love that. So Rhonda, David I’d love to hear a little bit about how you came to meet as that is connected to The Greatest Secret, and the journey.

 

Rhonda – okay

 

David Bingham – okay. Do you want me to begin or Rhonda?

 

Rhonda – Oh who do you want to begin?

 

Gideon – Let’s start with David.

 

Rhonda – Okay great.

 

David – I actually never set out to become a teacher, I was a seeker for many years then from the year 2000 to 2005 there was quite a rapid progression in the way my true nature was being revealed. I saw my true nature in November 2005 and there was a period of integration and actually The Secret played a part in that because The Secret was released in 2006 and what I started to realize is it was really important to make the transition relying on the mind and using intuition, and The Secret was actually a very crucial part of that. The process of integration happened over maybe a two or three year period, and then I was invited to appear on a program called Conscious TV where they were interviewing the people who had realized their true nature. And what came, as a result of that, is even though the mind following self-realization was saying, “Oh it would be wonderful to share this knowledge with people”. It wasn’t something I could do on a personal level. I did try that, but it didn’t actually work. I had to kind of just surrender, and as a result of that, people started to approach me, and so I realized that because our true nature is effortless being, we can actually learn to function from the level of effortless being which is allowing things to come to us rather than pursuing and using the mind to plan and use strategies and that’s really the way the whole thing unfolded. So, because it’s an effortless process it’s also to do with making oneself available. So if people feel inspired to approach me and want to discuss the nature of realization then you know I will always be available or I’ll certainly try to be. The amazing thing is that infinite intelligence will bring things to us and I think that’s one of the key things for people who are familiar with the principles of The Secret because what we’ve all learned from that is that there is actually an intelligence that exists outside of the mind, and that guiding intelligence is the crucial thing. So those who that are already familiar with The Secret are already a long way toward realization already because they already know that there is this intelligence which is way beyond the limitations with the mind.

 

Gideon – Excellent. So, Rhonda you were studying ancient traditions for years, you were continuing your personal spiritual growth and then you heard a podcast of David on Conscious TV. Can you speak a little bit about how that changed the trajectory of your development, and that moment and that conversation that followed?

 

Rhonda – So basically from The Secret in finding that truth of The Secret I knew there had to be more truth. And I just became the sincerest seeker that you could ever find because I searched 7 days a week from the time The Secret was released, and it was a wonderful search and I just went through all the traditions. Yes I did, and I discovered so many things, you know dazzling things, fantastic things, but none of them had me feel that I’d found the truth. Now because I was living according to the principles of The Secret my mind was predominantly positive and so I felt really great, and my life was incredible. It really was incredible, unrecognizable from what it had been prior to that and so I kept searching and kept searching and then there was an incident that happened, and it really wasn’t even such a big incident, it was quite a small incident, but I suddenly felt this very profound disappointment all in my stomach and I thought how I can I possible feel this bad when I always feel so good? So what I did to turn that around was that I just grabbed my iPad it was late at night and I went to bed and grabbed my iPad and I thought I have just got to listen to somebody speaking positively about the world and life. I noticed that they had an interview that it was an interview that had been done many years earlier with not a teacher but just an everyday person like you and I and he had been on a search for the truth for decades and he had found The Truth, The Truth! I was just beside myself I watched that interview all the way through, which was David of course, and then I followed in David’s footsteps and did what he did, he said he’d listened to a podcast and I went and listened to that podcast and I don’t even, and this was January 2016 and I loved the fact that David remembered when he sort of realized his true nature because I will just never forget January 2016. And I reached out to David to see if I could connect with him and he responded straight away, and I connected with him and he was so extraordinary. I get quite teary if I think about it. He was just so amazing, and he helped me see what was right in front of me, and that had been right in front of me my entire life. It is just the most incredible moment to see the truth of something like that, and so and I’ve stayed connected with David. And David is so wonderful to me, he said now you have to write a book and take it to the world. I was like, I don’t know if I can do that and so basically what I did was spent the next four years integrating it so that I could write a book that was as simple as possible and as clear as possible and one of the reasons that I’d taken lots of notes from teachers and I had a folder on my computer with lots and lots of notes but one of the reasons why I didn’t want to do anything to early was because I really wanted to have a simple path and do you know I had come across this two years earlier and hadn’t seen it. I had missed it. I missed it. So I was determined to write a book where no one would miss it. No-one. Everyone would experience it, and no one would miss it. So that’s basically what it took, and The Greatest Secret was born. There is that massive revolution in the book but over the next four years I discovered so many things about the truth behind the world. You know so much and it’s all contained in that book and it’s a fourteen-year journey that no one else has to take but I wouldn’t trade that journey for anything.

 

Gideon – Thank you Rhonda and yeah it is so fitting that David is here today for this launch event, being that key spark in that journey. As you mentioned there are so many incredible revelations in The Greatest Secret as well as practical practices really for putting those revelation into action in our lives. In the book you talk about the idea that happiness is our true nature and so if that is the case, what gets in the way of our happiness?

 

Rhonda – Haha! What gets in the way of our happiness is our mind. And so, we could actually even drill it down to make it even simpler than that. What gets in the way of our happiness is a single thought. And we have a thought and then we think that thought over and over and it becomes a belief and so we have a whole lot of beliefs inside of us that are operating all of the time and we cannot experience the world other than through our beliefs. So the world is not the way that we see because it’s colored by our beliefs. And those beliefs can always, I think I could say always, I was going to say usually but I think I can say always, are limiting, come from limitation and lack which is what we are not. So beliefs, thoughts, negative thoughts, negative feelings are what cover up who we are and happiness is our true nature. That is who we are, a blissful happiness actually, a happiness that is beyond probably what people have ever felt. Even when they got that very thing that they really wanted or that huge dream came true this is a happiness that is absolutely, oh my gosh, it is so beautiful, and so that happiness is our true nature. So then we just all have to stop and think well if I have that inside of me already, and we do, everyone single human being doesn’t, every single one, then why am I not that happy, and it’s the mind, the mind stories, being really tough on us, you should have done that, that was dumb, you know? All those kinds of things that the mind does, and we are just so much more than that. So yes, that’s why happiness, that is why many of us are not experiencing the happiness that is our true nature.

 

Gideon – Incredible. David did you want to add anything to that discussion?

 

David – Yes, I’d love too actually. I feel that the mind is given too much attention by human beings because we are actually led to believe that the mind actually represents 100% of our consciousness when in reality the mind is less than 1% of our consciousness. It’s just that there’s a misunderstanding about the way the mind functions. Because everything that we are always doing, everything that people are engaged in to try to see happiness they’re actually seeking their true nature, their seeking the infinite self, infinite consciousness. Well to give you a couple of examples for instance for people that enjoy spectator sports, if somebody goes to say a football match what they’re going for is to try to experience infinite consciousness, and the way they are trying to do that it, they want to see one of their players performing in a way that is way beyond their capability of the mind. You see the flow of the way they play, and it creates this sense of awe, and this sense of inner bliss, and that is really true of what most people are engaged in. So, whether it is watching a football match or whether it’s going to the opera or whether it’s watching as film we are always looking for that sense of heightened awareness which is beyond the mind and our true nature. In terms of creative people, the same thing applies so people who are writers they like to get into the flow where what they are writing is totally effortless and they are actually functioning from their effortless infinite nature. It’s just that they’ve been told that it’s the mind doing it but it’s never been the mind. And the same is true of whether it’s musician or dancers or artist or poets we’re always seeking to go beyond the limitations of the mind and that is what everyone is already doing but they don’t realize that’s what they’re doing they think you know it’s because they like this particular football team, or because they admire this particular musician or this particular writer but everything has the same motivation which is to experience one’s true nature. But the difference between a secondary mode of experience like that and The Greatest Secret is that The Greatest Secret gives you direct access to that. So, you don’t need any kind of intermediary.

 

Rhonda  – And David you know when you are were talking about it, I love when you brought up effortless being because it’s with the mind suggest to us all of the time that we should be doing a whole lot of action and doing and doing and putting effort and you need to do all these things to achieve in life and you need to be productive so the mind is telling us all of those thing when, in truth, in truth life becomes absolutely incredible when you let go of that, and you become effortless and then everything just appears just because as your effortless. Just as you said earlier with students and teaching that when you let it go then it all came, and I just think you know on my journey that I feel that everything in life is the opposite of what we have been led to believe. Absolutely everything. We are born and we die absolutely the truth is the opposite to all of that.

 

David – Yes.

 

Rhonda – And the other thing about effort is underneath effort is, I’m not going to make it and there is struggle under effort and there is fear under effort and also under effort is, I don’t have this. So that makes it really, really, challenging and yet when we are in effortless, the happiness in us arises. So yeah, I just had to comment because I love that you brought up about effortless being because it is absolutely beautiful.

 

David – Well effortless being is key Rhonda as we both know.

 

Rhonda – yes

 

David – Because the game we are all playing is really to experience the extreme limitation of human life as an opportunity to experience our true nature by contrast. So we having this experience of limitation and we feel as though we are bound in time and space and we are bound by the physical body, when none of those things are actually true.

 

Rhonda – Right.

 

David – And the way we can go beyond those limitation is by beginning to notice effortlessness more than engaging the mind making an effort and feeling as though we have to achieve things in time because it’s actually a kind of portal into our true nature. Our true nature is effortless and our true nature is also neutral so by, for instance by listening to the audiobook of The Greatest Secret, the best mode is to experience that in is a state of effortlessness, and a state of neutrality, because that is actually the basis on which we can see our true nature but also in terms of reading the book because when reading the book there are going to be lots of new concepts for people to take in, but the way to do that is in a state of effortless. So it is important not to allow the mind to come in and say things like, ‘Oh I don’t understand this’, or ‘I don’t agree with this’. You know the mind is basically a device which is for discrimination and judgement and it can be used in a very effective way. But it can also undermine one’s ability to experience happiness because once you recognize our true nature is infinite and it is also effortless then we can begin to align our consciousness before we engage in either, say reading the book or listening to the audiobook. While doing that we’re actually in the realm that we need to be to realize our true nature because the only space that we can realize that through nature is when we’re in the state of effortless when we’re neutral, when there is no judgement and when there is an openness, and when there is no duality because the mind is actually the dualistic device that creates the sense of oneself as being in here and the world of being out there. When really life is unity and we can begin to experience that directly and it’s important for people to know that The Greatest Secret isn’t just about learning those concepts, its realizing that it is something that is directly known. Self-realization is not just on a conceptual level it is really non-conceptual. Taking it really easy and listening to the text or the words and really where one is totally effortless, and the mind doesn’t need to try to grasp the meaning it’s more about just allowing and being really easy with the whole process and just enjoying it. The more one can enter into a state of joy relaxation and ease then the more benefit can be derived from this knowledge.

 

Rhonda – Yes because the mind sabotages us doesn’t it?

 

David – Yes.

 

Rhonda – It will do its best in sabotage us from discovering The Greatest Secret, make the greatest discovery we can ever make. I think they are really wise words because the mind can come in and certainly over the last four years that has been my journey of being able to distinguish there is the mind and not falling for the mind. I would just fall for it again and my teacher that I have in the US would say, well I would speak, and she would say, “Well that is the mind. That’s the mind”. And I’d be like darn theirs the mind again, and I fell for it again. Wow! It’s got a whole basket of tricks you know. The mind what is comes up with it try and distract us, they are really wonderful words for people when they are reading the book and be aware of those thoughts when they come in, I don’t really understand this, or I don’t really get this because in truth every single word in that book you know already. Every single person knows who they are, knows everything that is in that book. This is not news to you. So it is really a process of remembering. That’s what it is, it’s remembering who you are.

 

Gideon – Excellent I have so many questions for both of you. This is incredible. I want to go back a little bit to this idea about that we touched on. You know for those people who are you know living in the world today and there is so much anxiety and frustration and fear going on and in the book Rhonda in The Greatest Secret there is a really powerful discussion about the ways in which anger frustration, anxiety, stem from suppressed feelings. I would love Rhonda for you talk a little bit about the ways in which these negative thoughts and anger that are not coming from the outside but rather coming from inside of us.

 

Rhonda – Sure, sure. So, we if we experience any negative feelings, we only suppress negative feelings pretty well. So, if we experience a feeling of disappointment like I did or anger or whatever. I thought the disappointment was coming from the situation that had happened to me, but that disappointment was coming from disappointment that I had suppressed inside of me. We cannot experience a negative emotion unless we have already suppressed it. And for most of us we have suppressed these emotions when we were small children and usually it’s a whole gamut of them. So we have felt an emotion, we have suppressed it and what happens is in the world because these emotions are energy they create of lot of pressure and they need to be released so what happens is there will be a trigger that will happen in the world that will help us release like a pressure cooker release some of that emotions. For example, what we have seen with 2020 has been a lot of people, a lot of fear coming out of people, but that fear was already in everybody, you know, and they are experiencing it because of the circumstances in the outside world but the fear was already there. And so in The Greatest Secret you’re taken step by step on how you can release these negative emotions for good and once you release a negative emotion and I did release one, I released one around depression and I didn’t even know what I was doing at that time, it was just intuitive and I knew what to do, and so instead of resisting it I didn’t resist it I like welcomed this feeling, I kind of put my arms around my feelings. People might think that is really hard because we don’t like negative feelings, we push them away. We’re like we don’t want to feel them but that is how they are suppressed and they do not help our health at all and they do not help all of this we want to experience in life because they are acting as kind of  blocks in some way and they are covering over our happiness so yes of all of those feelings are suppressed inside of us so if you feel disappointment over somebody who said something to you, or hurt over something somebody said to you, and you are so sure that is it that situation that you just experienced that hurt was already inside you and it needed a release to release some of it but it’s still there and hopefully through The Greatest Secret. I mean I have done it. That has been my journey. When any feeling has come up, I have released it and it is high I’m telling you, oh my gosh, you just feel lighter and then you realize that all of these feelings were super heavy that you are carrying around. You know, really heavy weight and you just feel lighter and lighter and of course you’re happier and happier with everyone. And never will you doubt again, never will you feel unworthy again, never will you question yourself again, I can’t do this or I’m not good enough, they are gone. They have to be gone because known of those things are true about anybody.

 

Gideon – So yes there’s this common belief among some many that I’ll be happy when, whether that’s in a relationship or the right job or the right goal. But you write we can all begin with happiness from today right that it is part of who we are. So yeh I’d love to hear from you both, let’s start with David on this point.

 

 

David – so to continue along the lines of Rhonda’s conversation, the key thing to realize is that our true nature is effortless being and it’s also neutral and it’s also totally easy. So, what we’ve done is we’ve adopted certain concepts of limitation about ourselves and quite a few of them we’ve adopted from our family, you know their sort written in the DNA and what I’ve found with most people I’ve spoken to where there has been self-realization they’ve actually got, most people have actually got one or two beliefs which keep the idea of being an individual and being in limitation in place. It’s letting go of those which actually reveals happiness to us. Because it’s those beliefs, because lots of them there lots of conditioned patterns and we see our parents behaving in this particular way, you know we see our teachers, we see our friends and there aren’t many of them there are probably only five or six but they’re things like, I’m not good enough, there’s something wrong with me, nobody loves me, those sort of core things which can motivate our behavior and there also the things that we tend to do is, we tend to do a lot of effort to try and suppress those as Rhonda’s said, “People try to push those negative emotions down.” When really by being nonjudgmental about oneself and we can allow them to come to the surface and we can look at them in a totally honest way. For instances, my family conditioning was actually to do with inferiority, and the way that plays out, inferiority tend to manifest as arrogance and that’s how it was for me, especially in my teenage years because you have this feeling of inferiority and my family were just ordinary working-class people the sort of social structure in the UK, you know the class system, gives the idea that you are actually inferior. But there has to be a point for each of us where we realize, that for there to be self-realization there has to be a sense of total equality with everyone and everything in life because for there to be unity, there’s no hierarchy in unity there has to be equality and that is the thing we have to fully accept, so we have to fully accept equality and we have to full accept unity and we have to accept our infinite nature. And the way we do that, is actually by being conscious about the programs of limitation and Rhonda’s description there was brilliant. The thing about Rhonda actually when we first met and the first conversation, we had is that Rhonda didn’t actually have any concepts of limitation of herself. I think with all the work she had done through The Secret had eliminated most of those and there are obviously one or two still running and Rhonda was very fortunate to meet an amazing teacher a couple of months after she and I spoke and the benefit of that is that the process of integration has been overseen by Rhonda’s teacher and so that’s how the remnants of limitation have been released and how one’s innate happiness can come to the surface because it’s those concepts of limitation that keep a lid on the innate happiness that’s there. So it’s important for everyone, so everyone who has read The Secret and is actually in a more beneficial situation because they’ve probably already been addressing these sort of issues. You know issues to do with self-worth or issues to do with confidence and these sorts of things. The great things is, if anyone is listening to this broadcast is already really well on track because firstly they familiar with the concepts of The Secret and secondly they’re actually already acting on the basis of inspiration rather than of the mind. The reason they are here is because they have the feeling of joy and inspiration and likeness which has inspired them to attend this conversation.

 

Rhonda – Yes and David also there I agree 100% with the fact that The Secret people who have read The Secret it is really going to help them a lot, because one of the reasons to is because they’ve become aware of their thoughts and they’ve realized how powerful their mind was, in this material world, when they’ve realized how powerful it was and how powerful their thoughts were, the very first thing you do, I remember when I discovered The Secret I suddenly became of thoughts and up until then I was unconscious, I was hypnotized with what was going on in my head. And I also think with one of the things in The Greatest Secret it was a revelation for me, absolute revelation on my journey was the voice in your head is not you. That was just like WOW!  Because as I say in The Greatest Secret it sounds like you it’s very familiar it’s very familiar to you and knows an awful lot about you, but it isn’t you. I just think knowing that helps us stop identifying with it. I mean the mind is an incredible tool and incredible tool to create what we want. I mean if we just thought about what we want, all of the time, that’s all we would ever get in our life so it’s wonderful in that regard but it’s also can be everybody’s greatest torturer and I think that people would understand that with the year that they have had with the suffering they’ve had with anxiety and fear then they would know the kind of suffering they have been through in the tirade of terrifying thoughts that the mind has delivered up to them and they’ve been the recipient of that. I just think people can be free they can be free of this you can be free of this and it is not hard. It’s not hard you already have what is required you don’t have to go and get it anywhere, you don’t have to achieve anything, you don’t have to have a degree you don’t have to struggle, there’s nothing you that you have to do, everything you have, you are that already. And so, all it is, is just a matter of saying that. Just like a slight shift in perception, a slight shift in the way we look at things. I remember my teacher used to say to me, she would say, “You’re looking away, you keep looking away, and looking in the wrong direction.” And I would be like, no I’m looking at it, I am trying to look at it. I think that’s really great because once you see it once, you fully realize it. AH! Then life begins.

 

David – Yes. The teachers, I love every teacher that you featured in the book, I think they are amazing, and I feel really privileged to be one of those.

 

Rhonda – oh you are wonderful David.

 

David – But the variety of knowledge is amazing, and you know the total humility and commitment to bring this knowledge to the wider public is an amazing opportunity for us all. But just going back, two teachers featured in my own development, in the early days prior to my realization were Eckhart Tolle and Lester Levenson. So Lester Levenson, he’s really good at describing what you were just saying, which is that you realize the mind will manifest anything and what Lester says, he says, “If you look at the way you’ve created sickness depression and ill-health and adversity”. He said, “See how affectively you’ve done that and just turn that around and begin to focus on the things you want to create.”

 

Rhonda – Right haha!

 

David – he is wonderful in the way he exposes the subconscious programs of limitations which with all been subjected to and enables us to release them and because your teacher is a student of Lester, then you were really fortunate to have that knowledge available because you’re in the process of integration, we have to release those concepts of limitation, the sort of self judgement and that’s crucial because when you know that your true nature is neutrality and you know that it’s effortless you have to get into a position where you are on the level of the equality with all of life. So if you’re holding a concept of limitation which is either that you’re better than other people or that you’re not as good as other people, those concepts have to be totally erased because to get into one’s true nature, because our true nature is totally stable and it’s also welcoming in its own nature, we have to be able to align ourselves with the attributes of our infinite nature to be able to realize it. So, we have to create that environment in our own inner knowing to be able to do that so learning to just let go of those concepts of limitations are really important and that can happen before realization and sometimes it needs to happen afterwards because there is a residue sometimes. I think Eckhart Tolle is someone who is really good at teaching us how to remain neutral in situations of adversity as we know lots of people experience this year and that is why observing the mind because when we begin to notice we can observe our thoughts we realize we are not the thoughts and emotions and it’s the very act of witnessing the thoughts and witnessing the feelings that disconnects the energy supplied from those.

It’s our own energy supply that is feeding those emotions and when we are able and when we realize it’s possible to disconnect the energy supply we can remain neutral so in the current circumstances in 2020 the best thing we can do for ourselves is to remain emotionally neutral because that that will preserve our own health and energy but also on a collective level we are not actually feeding the collective fear and that’s really important, so for everyone, you know if everyone could realize that, the situation we find ourselves in collectively now would just dissolve. It’s only because we have collectively fed this, that we are able to dissolve that. Fortunately, it’s the thing that’s best for ourselves too.

 

Gideon – Beautiful. I think we could go on for hours and hours, thank you both so much. Just going back as we are winding up here, I think one of the things that I think is most, that I could say about the book The Greatest Secret is that it is this incredible distillation of ancient wisdom and when you read it you feel that power of these timeless truths. But it’s more than that because what Rhonda has done in this book with the help of contributors like David is, there is advice for the experience right now, and practical things that we can do to relieve some of those things that you were talking about the stress and anxiety and I think that’s really one of the most important take aways here it’s rare to have the combination of these incredible timeless wisdoms and these practical pieces as well. So, as we wind up Rhonda, I know that this book is, I think you wrote in the book I think it is one of the most important books you have written to date I just want you to share for everyone listening today and watching today of what your vision for it is, and your mission?

 

Rhonda – Well it was created to free people from suffering and to put the truth in front of them and hopefully they will remember, remember the truth. And it’s for everybody because you know when David speaks of self-realization and other word that other people might be familiar with than self-realization or enlightenment, a word like that, and people would automatically think well that’s not for me. The Buddha was in lightened and all these incredible beings were enlightened but it is fear because it is who you are already. I have such an incredible love for humanity and the courage we have to be in this physical world, and as David said, playing this game of limitation, I think it takes enormous courage to play this game of limitation. And I want people to be free, and to be happy, and to have and to be returned to their natural state, and it’s for those that are ready for that, and there are many teachers in the book and that is deliberate. Teachers with all different wisdom because different teachers speak differently to different people at different times and but what I do want to say is that every single teacher in that book has changed my life. They are my journey from The Secret until 2020, and so all of them have changed my life in some way or another, and so my wish is that it will change people’s lives too and they will find the true happiness that they are.

 

Gideon – Beautiful. David thank you so much for joining us today. Rhonda thank you!

 

Rhonda – Thank you David, thank you David. It’s so wonderful to see you, really wonderful. And I’d love to know those other three things you were talking about, at some point or another, that we’re not good enough, they were really amazing. Thank you David very much. Gideon thank you.

 

Gideon – I wanted to just leave and let you guys talk for hours and be a fly on the wall. You’re both so incredible so thank you so much for sharing.