E-Squared

Nine Do-It-Yourself Energy Experiments That Prove Your Thoughts Create Your Reality

Hay House Insights

CHAPTER 1

Experiment #1

THE DUDE ABIDES PRINCIPLE:

There Is an Invisible Energy Force or Field of Infinite Possibilities

"Everyone else is waiting for eternity and the shamans are saying,'How about tonight?'"

— Alberto Villoldo, Ph.D., Cuban-born author and teacher of energy medicine

The Premise

This experiment will prove to you once and for all that there is a loving, abundant,totally hip force in the universe. Some people call it God. You can call itprana, "the all there is," or "Cosmo Kramer," for all I care.

The problem, up until now, is that we've had to take this force on faith. Weweren't allowed to see it or touch it. Of course, we've been asked to do lotsof things in its name, like tithe and meditate and put ashes on our head. I muchprefer the idea of an energy force that moves on two-way streets. Does give andtake ring any bells?

In this experiment, we're going to let the FP know that, baby, it's now or never. Weare done believing in something that gets its jollies by playing hide-and-seek. We wantirrefutable proof. And we want it now. You know those four little initials—A.S.A.P.Well, those are the ones we're shooting for. We are going to give the FP exactly 48 hoursto give us a sign, a clear sign, a sign that cannot be written off. Neon would work.

Because we bought this idea that the force is vague and mysterious, we don't reallyexpect to find it. Or at least we're not surprised when we don't. Because we haven'tbeen trained to notice, this inspiring, energizing, life-altering force is zooming in,around, and through us without our awareness.

What Me, Wait?

"If your medicine doesn't grow corn, of what use is it?"

— Sun Bear, Chippewa elder

For those who want to wait for the pearly gates, go right ahead. It's like a modern-dayperson refusing to use electricity. All you have to do to access electricity is find anoutlet, plug in an electronic device or appliance, and voilà! You get all sortsof cool stuff—toasted bread, music that's piped in from radio towers, movies andnews, and fellow humans performing all sorts of antics like eating slugs on deserted islands.

We have to retrain ourselves to think of this energy force the same way we think ofelectricity. We don't wonder, Am I good enough to plug my toaster oven into theoutlet? or Have I prayed long enough or deep enough to deserve the right toflick on the kitchen lights?

We don't feel guilty for wanting to turn on the radio and listen to NPR. The FP isjust as nonprejudiced and available as electricity once we make the decision toreally look for it.

And it's not that hard to find.

Anecdotal Evidence

"God is not the pushover that some people would like you to believe."

— Barbara Park, Alex Frankovitch in Skinny Bones

This is the section where we talk about the elephant in the room. Yes, I'm talkingabout God.

Unless you just crawled out from underneath a cabbage leaf, you've probably observedthat an awful lot of people talk about this guy named God. One out of every seven daysis devoted to worshipping him. Buildings of all shapes and sizes have been built tohonor him. Many newspapers have a religious section right next to the politicalsection, the local news, the weather, and the crossword puzzle.

Some version of "the dude" (to borrow a moniker from the cult-classic filmThe Big Lebowski) exists in every culture that has ever existed. Evenphysicists whose sole line of work is studying the properties and interactionsof matter and energy know about the invisible force. Most of them do not call itGod. Albert Einstein, for example, claimed no belief in the traditional God, buthe sure as heck knew there was something a whole lot juicier out there in the cosmos.In fact, that juice, he said, was all he really cared about. The rest, he claimed,was just details.

The God most of us believe in is an invention of man, fabricated for the sake ofconvenience. We accept this human-made God as an indisputable fact. But it makesno sense. If God is love, if God is perfect, and if God is all the other beneficentdescriptions we ascribe to him, why would he toss anyone into a lion's den? Furthermore,why would anyone in their right mind want to hook up with a capricious and unjust god whogets his jollies from punishing them? Even the ditziest of women knows theoreticallythat she shouldn't hang out with a guy who might hurt her.

I mean, who needs it?

God as Terrorist

"I don't know if God exists, but it would certainly be better for his reputationif he didn't."

— Jules Renard, French Author

No sooner had I mastered my ABC's than I was taught that I, little Pammy Sue Grout, wasa miserable sinner and had fallen short of the glory of God. It was a fact, same as twoplus two equals four and the reality that el-em-en-oh-pee is more than oneletter in the alphabetical lineup. The only redeeming part of this all-important lessonwas that at least I wasn't alone. Turns out, everybody else in the world was a sinner,too. Even Mrs. Beckwith, my tenderhearted kindergarten teacher who let me bring Pokey,my pet turtle, to class every other Monday.

The bad thing about being a sinner is that it guarantees a one-way ticket to hell.It was a little hard getting a handle on hell, because I hadn't traveled much fartherthan the Kansas border. But, according to my dad, hell was not a place you wanted tobe. It was hotter than my Aunt Gwen and Uncle Ted's house in Texas the summer theirair conditioner broke. And, unlike that vacation that ended after four days, you stayin hell for eternity. To understand eternity, he said, you think of how you felt lastDecember 26 waiting for Christmas again.

The escape clause is that you can "get saved."

So when I was four years old, with the church organist playing "Just as I Am," Iwalked to the front of the little Methodist church in Canton, Kansas, plopped downon my knobby little four-year-old knees, and asked the good Lord to "forgive me formy sins." My family, from a long line of Methodists, collectively breathed a sighof relief. Dad and Mom called all the aunts and uncles that very night to broadcastthe good news.

"Well, our oldest is officially saved now," they crowed proudly. "At least, we canbe assured that Pam is going to heaven."

The best part, they figured, was that my conversion couldn't help but set a good examplefor my sister, Becki, who was two; and my brother, Bobby, who was only three months old,although I secretly hoped they would give him until he was old enough to talk.

Of course, you didn't want to take any chances. I mean, Jesus could come back atany time—night or day. He was like a thief in the night. He could come inthe morning while you were stirring circles in your Cap'n Crunch cereal. He couldcome at recess while you were hanging from your knees on the monkey bars. He couldeven come at 2 in the morning while you were sleeping, which could be a real problemif you happened to be a heavy sleeper. Jesus could snatch you up before you hadtime to get the sleep out of your eyes.

And that you didn't even want to think about. I mean, Aunt Gwen and Uncle Ted'shouse was hot.

At the same time that I was learning to accept my true sinful identity, I was being toldover and over again that "God is love." Never mind that the churches presented God as asort of hidden camera that watched over everything I did.

It made no rational sense. But, of course, I was only four. What did I know?

Even though I was yawningly close to being a perfect kid (I made straight A's, triednot to fight with my siblings, stayed away from drugs and alcohol, and even made mybed without being told), I felt I was constantly being critiqued by this "loving God" whowas sitting up in heaven, gleefully rubbing his hands together whenever I screwed up.Which, gosh darn it (oops, there I go again, using his name in vain!) seemed to be prettyoften.

What a legacy to dump on an innocent child.

God Looks Like Z.Z. Top and Other Annoying Myths

"Our ideas of God tells us more about ourselves than about Him."

— THOMAS MERTON, CHRISTIAN MYSTIC

Ask the average individual if he believes in God and he will probably say somethinglike, "Well, duh!" However, it's unlikely he will have ever asked himself exactly what hemeans by God. When pressed, he'd probably offer some cliché about "the guy upstairs."

Trying to define God, of course, is impossible. God isn't static, any more thanelectricity or light is static. God lies beyond the material world of matter, shape, andform. It fills the cosmos, saturates reality, and supersedes time and space. But thatdoesn't stop us from trying to construct definitions. Here are the top eight whopperswe've made up about God:

Whopper #1: God is a him. Even though the progressive churches sometimes referto God as she, the FP doesn't really have a gender. We certainly don't talkabout Mrs. Electricity or Mr. Gravity. The more appropriate pronoun would be it.The FP is a force field that runs the universe, the same energy source that grows flowers,forms scabs over skinned knees, and constantly pushes for wholeness.

God is more like the force in Star Wars, a presence that dwells within us, aprinciple by which we live. That's why Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader have becomesuch a phenomenon. Star Wars is a myth that speaks to us at a deep, gut level.Some part of us knows that "the force" is with us and that we, through our words,thoughts, and deeds, create the world.

Whopper #2: God looks like ZZ Top, makes black check marks after your name, and isbasically too busy working on world hunger to care about you. God, if you believethe accepted box, is a little like Boo Radley in To Kill a Mockingbird: thismysterious neighbor constantly peering out the window of his penthouse suite, waitingto catch us doing something "naughty, naughty." We can't really see him, but we've beenproperly warned that he's there. Watching. Judging. Monitoring our every move. If youdon't follow this commandment or if you break that rule, God just might send his angelSecret Service after you to bop you on the head like Little Bunny Foo-Foo.

Whopper #3: God plays favorites. The FP is a force field that's equally availableto everyone. It's a natural capacity in all of us, not an exclusive gift bestowed upon afew. In fact, that is the primary lesson Jesus taught. God is within. You are part ofGod. You can perform miracles.

To worship Jesus the way we do is a little like worshipping Benjamin Franklin because hefirst discovered electricity. Ben Franklin sent that kite up in an electric storm so wecould use the principle he demonstrated. He didn't do it so we'd build temples to him,paint pictures of him, and wear little commemorative keys around our necks. He wantedus to take the principle of electricity and use it—which we do to run radiosand computers and air conditioners. Had we stopped with Ben's discovery the way wedid with Jesus's discovery, we'd all be sitting in the dark.

Benjamin Franklin didn't invent electricity any more than Jesus invented spiritualprinciples. Lightning and the resulting electricity have always been available. Wejust didn't realize it or know how to access it. Galileo didn't invent gravity whenhe dropped the wooden ball off the leaning tower of Pisa. He just demonstrated it.

Likewise, Jesus demonstrated spiritual principles that he wants us to use and develop.We've wasted 2,000 years worshipping this idol of him instead of using the principleshe taught us. Look through the Bible and nowhere does Jesus say, "Worship me." Hiscall to us was "follow me." There's a big difference.

By making Jesus out to be a hero, we miss the whole point. Jesus wasn't saying,"I'm cool. Make statues of me, turn my birthday into a huge commercial holiday."He was saying, "Here, look what is possible. Look what we humans are capable of."

Jesus is our brother, our legacy, the guy we're supposed to emulate.

What Jesus was trying to tell us is that the churches, the religious leaders, andall their blaring rhetoric has drowned out God's truth. They've pulled the woolover our eyes by failing to mention the fact that the FP is not an object ofworship, but a very real presence and a principle by which we should live.

Whopper #4: God rewards our suffering and gives brownie points for our sacrifice(better known as "Life sucks and then you die"). Many of us think life is some sort ofboot camp for heaven. We believe this short life span is "only a test" for the paradisewe're eventually going to earn. If we hang on and bear it, we'll someday walk throughthose pearly gates and be happy. These errors in thinking have been condensed intoliving facts. Nothing is plainer than the inevitability of sorrows and trials.

But what if it isn't necessary? What if there is no reason to be poor? Or get sick? Ordo anything but live an abundant, exciting life? What if these tragic, difficult livesare another rumor made up by the churches and cemented into our consciousness by yearsand years of conditioning?

What I'd like to suggest is that this heaven you're waiting for is available now.And that you've been sold a bill of goods about who you are and what is possible.

Whopper #5: God is just so demanding. The FP doesn't judge. It doesn't punish.It doesn't think, Well, Sammy C. was a good boy yesterday, helping that little oldlady cross the street. I think I'll answer his prayer about winning the lottery. Thoseare thoughts Clarence Thomas might think. The FP doesn't need anything. It requires nothingof us. It makes no demands. It doesn't like Mother Teresa more than Celine Dion. Onlymisinformed humans, scrambling desperately to make sense of their world, came up witha God who plays eenie-minie-mo with our lives, a God who likes and dislikes the samepeople we do. Our fear has trapped us into a box that plays out our very limited perception.

Whopper #6: You don't want to ask too much from God; you certainly wouldn't want to bughim. As I've already pointed out, the FP is not a person; therefore you cannotbug him. The FP is a power, an unseen energetic force. It isn't finite or limited, so youcertainly couldn't ask too much of it. As the old saying goes, you can take an eyedropperor a bucket to the ocean. The ocean doesn't care. If anything, we don't use the FP powernearly enough. This is an all-powerful force we're talking about here, not some last-minuterelief team that comes in to pay the mortgage. The FP is not an adversary that has to becoaxed to the bargaining table.

Whopper #7: God is just so vague. Au contraire. Once you get rid of theblack cloud of rumors and half truths that hide your awareness, you'll find the unseenforce communicates just as clearly as Dr. Phil. Once you rid yourself of the blocks, you'llbe shown exactly what to do and how to do it.

We need to condition ourselves to think of God more like we think of electricity.Electricity doesn't care who plugs in a curling iron. Electricity doesn't ask usto prove we're good enough to make toast.

Whopper #8: God only answers when he's good and ready. There is never a timewhen God or "the force" isn't guiding you. And you do not have to wait for any greenlights or "get out of jail free" cards. The big guy is available 24/7 once you'reready to focus your full attention on it. The FP's guidance, happens (as they sayabout ... well, something else)—through a song lyric on the radio, by a phonecall from a long-lost friend. The trick is to pay attention, trust, and as Iwill continue to repeat, focus your full attention on it.

And while we're on the topic of God's will, let's get this out on the table. Thereis no place in our updated picture of God for a hell of everlasting torment or fora sadist who would or could attempt to put you there. Nor is there any room for theidea that sickness or deformity or death or poverty or limitation of any kind isthe will of God. The will of God, for those who insist on using that term, is theceaseless longing of the spirit in you to become all you're capable of being. Amen.

The Method

"Allowing myself to become a little nutty and irrational did open me up tocertain mystical experiences."

— D. Patrick Miller, Founder of Fearless Books

In this experiment, you're going to devote 48 hours to looking for evidence of thisall-knowing, all- perfect FP. Call it God, if that feels more comfortable. Luckily,the FP exists every single place you could ever think to look.
(Continues...)Excerpted from E-Squared by Pam Grout. Copyright © 2013 Pam Grout. Excerpted by permission of Hay House Insights.
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