Have any of you seen the documentary film “Kumare”? I watched it on Netflix last night and was blown away by the audacity of the filmmaker. It is the true story of a false prophet. The filmmaker, Vikram Gandhi, impersonated a fake guru and built a following of real people. Along the way, he learned to connect with people more deeply than he ever had before, and they learned that they don’t need a guru – their greatest guru is already within themselves.

This film clearly illustrates, however, that there is something amazingly transformative that happens when someone we think of as a guru mirrors back to us all that we have inside. People’s lives were transformed, even though the guru was a fake. As  humans, we are unable to see ourselves objectively – we’re always looking from the inside out, and rely on what we are told by others to form our opinion of ourselves. If the others around us are truly caring, they will tell us what they see with love, which then causes us to blossom like a flower that’s just been watered. On the other hand, if we have internalized negative messages about ourselves, they can remain hidden and wreak havoc in certain areas of our lives. It is then we need to hunt them down and weed them out, so that we can create a beautifully blossoming garden to enjoy.

The fake guru’s most powerful tool was simply loving attention. How many of our friends or family have the time or patience to give us that? Attention is a very powerful tool – what we focus on grows. To access more Personal Power, I invite you to watch where you put your greatest amount of attention in the coming week, and see if that is truly what you want to grow and expand in your life.