Can Aladdin help us succeed?

Often there are great truths hidden in the fairy tales of childhood. 

One of these is the story of Aladdin and his magic lamp from the Arabian Nights tales.  Aladdin lived alone with his mother. One day a sorcerer approached him, claiming to be his uncle. The sorcerer convinced him to work for him promising he would become wealthy. Aladdin's mother supported his decision. 

His first task was to find an old oil lamp hidden deep within a cave filled with traps. The sorcerer gave him a magic ring to protect him. 

In the story the cave represents our conscious mind. Aladdin finds himself trapped within this cave. The conscious mind is the mental prison that you unknowingly create not realising that you're a slave to an uncontrolled mind. 

The unpredictable cave represents the labyrinth that you must travel to find your way in and out. Our greatest life lessons come from being trapped in a situation in which we believe there is no way out. Aladdin's desire to escape the cave is so great that he finds his way out.

The deeper part of the cave is the subconscious mind.  Aladdin represents our true self, the real self that is inside of all of us, not the many different personalities or traits created in your consciousness and that you identify with, the real, true self is the person inside you - who you truly are. 

The sorcerer/Uncle represents the false self, the trickster of our personality.  He knows the lamp is ineffective if he finds it himself and does not tell Aladdin that lamp must be given to him by another. This reminds us of the way we give away our power to others. It is also reminiscent of the way that one can present a false sense of self to the world, seeking approval, hiding our true self. Presenting a false self dissipates our power because we are focused outside of ourself, trying to play a role for which we were not cast. If you embody a false self your true power and ‘magic’ is inaccessible.

As the tale continues, we discover there are two genies, the genie of the ring and the genie of the lamp. The former represents the laws of karma, (cause and effect) or reaping what you sow. It represents the psychological looping of thoughts and feelings which keep creating the same results over and over again. The genie of the ring is working towards a mental or psychological principle. Working towards something deeper can help create change.

The Genie of the Lamp uses the higher laws - rubbing the lamp to evoke its genie, represents spiritual practice. Here Aladdin represents our conscious mind and the genie our subconscious mind. The rubbing of the lamp represents prayer and meditation and deep desire. For Aladdin this desire was to come out of bondage. The second power that came from rubbing the lamp was the power to move the world in the subconscious mind. When the genie tells Aladdin “your wish is my command”, it shows us how the creative process of the movement of consciousness and thought begins with a specific mindset. That mindset then brings new thoughts which originate as cause in the conscious mind. These thoughts then move through the subconscious mind. 

Rubbing the lamp sets the dominant conscious thoughts into action which influence the genie, the subconscious mind. When you're trying to affect change in your life, we tend to act upon whatever is our strongest, most dominant desire. 

E.g. if you're trying stop drinking, you won’t drink as long as your strongest desire is not to drink. You rub the lamp and set your dominant conscious thought. I will not drink interacts so that it influences the genie, which is the subconscious mind. 

The interpretation of the tale of Aladdin's lamp illustrates the creative utilisation of our mind and thoughts through imagination. Your magnificent mind can respond to the desires of your true self, the real person who you are, found when you remove all the obstacles to the false personality and the false self by identifying these traits to set yourself free. That's when true creation in the subconscious mind begins. 

If you had three wishes, what would you wish? 

Simple, I would wish for infinite wishes! Any wish that Aladdin makes whilst he's in possession of the lamp is granted. To possess the lamp you must harness the conscious and subconscious mind before wishes can be granted…