A More In-Depth Look at the Oprah Show on "The Secret" - Does The Secret Conflict With Religion?

On the follow-up episode of Oprah's show on "The Secret" (with guests James Arthur Ray and Reverand Dr. Michael Beckwith) a (religious) woman in the audience who had watched "The Secret asked how The Secret fits in with specific religious beliefs and practices.  Specifically, she was brought up with organized religion and was teaching her children to put thier faith in God and how if they are good they will go to Heaven when they die and if they are bad they will go to Hell.  The concepts in "The Secret" seemed to suggest to her that there is no Heaven and no Hell and you can and should do whatever you want - that no one, including a God, will judge your actions.  This was upsetting to the woman, probably for several reasons, but it seemed like she had a lot of respect for Oprah and knew that Oprah herself is a Christian woman who often talks about The Lord (God) while at the same time now praising the beliefs and practices of "The Secret," so the woman was not arguing for her position, but simply seeking reasonable answers.

While James Arthur Ray was very respectful of the woman's religious beliefs and not at all forceful - his approach seemed to support basic spirituality in and of itself slightly more than the combining of spirituality and a given religion.  He did bring up an excellent quote from the Bible, "The kingdom of Heaven is within you... Seek ye first the kingdom of Heaven and all things will be added unto you."  Most Christians believe in a separate entity called God and separate places called Heaven and Hell.  However, this quote seems to suggest that Jesus was saying that the experiences of Heaven and Hell are each within every individual and we should first look within ourselves to find our experience of Heaven, and once we've found that, we will be given everything we could possibly want.  (This concept relates to the popular self-help/spiritual concept that you must become happy first in order to acquire the things you want in your life - that you can't believe 'I'll be happy once I have x'.)

Rev. Dr. Michael Beckwith, on the other hand, while sharing similar beliefs with James Arthur Ray, explained how the concepts and spirituality in The Secret were merely underlying qualities for the God in any religion.  That is, you can pray to God or you can pray to yourself to accomplish the same things - when you pray to God you're praying in effect, automatically to both God and to yourself.  Having faith in God is essentially the same as having faith in something bigger/greater than you, like the universal energy that makes up everything in the universe that The Secret talks about.  Beckwith was saying that when you believe in and follow an organized religion, you don't have to abondon your beliefs to practice The Secret - you're basically already practicing most of it already.  The difference, he explained is what J. A. Ray was saying - don't postpone your happiness now, hoping to get to Heaven later - participate in the experience of Heaven now.

Does that all make sense?  I'd love to hear your comments!