I am sure many have heard of this sentence many a times and taken it for granted. Many have asked and never get what they asked for. So is it a fallacy or is it the truth? Ask and you shall be given is in tandem with the law of cause and effect. What you intent is what you get. Every moment you are sending out intentions, whether you like it or not. And the experience you get is what you intent. The existence that you are having is all just intentions – either from ignorance or from wisdom – that is all it is.
My teacher used to remind me that what I want I can’t get. This statement seems contradictory to what the title of this entry is about. Only now, after a moment of aha, did I realize that he is coming from the same statement but with a hidden message. You see each time when you want something, you “want” is because you don’t want what is already here in your experience. For example, I want to be rich because I don’t want to be poor. I want more money because I don’t have enough money. I want a good relationship because I am not having one now. You get what I mean?
The “wanting” we have is “because of” something. And that something is what we don’t want. In other words, you want something else because you don’t want what is here. Do you realize the “don’t want” is a kind of want? You want the “don’t want” to exist. Similarly with dislike. When you dislike something, you are actually “will like to have that dislike removed”.
Let’s look at the want first. Want is what you are asking for. When you ask for something, you want something. So you want the “don’t want” to happen. So the law of cause and effect is pretty fair – ask and you shall be given – you will keep getting “don’t want to happen” as your experience. In other words you will keep having experiences that will invoke you to don’t want it to happen since that is what you ask for! If the opposite was to be your experience then there is fault in the law governing “ask and you shall be given”.
What about dislike? As I have mentioned dislike is to mean intending to “have that dislike removed” – and that is exactly what you will get – you will get the effect or the experience of “have that dislike removed” as your experience in the mind. You don’t get the opposite as you only get what you ask for. So if you wish to get the opposite, what is it that you have to intent?
You can’t intent white and get black. The law of cause and effect is just. It gives you experience as you exactly ask for. Can you intent riches without having the prior thought that you are poor? Yes. Only through acceptance and not seeing poor as not what you want, in other words you don’t see poor as wrong.
There is a difference between forward creation and reversal creation. Forward creation is from lack – wanting something because of what one does not have – it is a creation from what is already here – the dislike, hence dislike effect has to follow. Reversal creation is from recognizing with wisdom that the lack mentality is an error. It is a result of ignorant. Nothing can be disliked as it is already an effect and there is nothing for you to react on it. Hence if you think you are lack, your effect has to be lack since all thoughts are intention for the next. Cause and effect is not a separated two experiences but rather a followup of next.
Only if you can see lack as a mis-creation can true creation comes into being again. Give it a try the next time you ask and if you don’t get what you intended, sorry – you are still intending from ignorance – there is something that you are not seeing that is making you experience again what you have experienced before as that is what you have intent! Just be a little careful with what you asked for!
Can one ask for enlightenment? Not possible as enlightenment is not something or some place except a realization. So do you now see the value of the statement, thy will be done instead of my will be done? Forget about yourself and everything takes care of itself, beautifully.