I’ll go through your post one piece at a time and offer insights and solutions which you can contemplate, research, explore and adopt if you wish to. I’ll be brutally honest with you and won’t use flowery words to conceal what’s being said. Then maybe you’ll give yourself permission to crack the hard shell you insist on hiding behind and carrying around with you…

Even though not all will agree, it’s the most compassionate thing I can do. After all, there are no mistakes or accidents and I’ve observed that these themes keep popping up in your posts, so let’s address them thoroughly and get to the root.

"Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you." Jesus of Nazareth – (5 BC/BCE - 30 AD/CE) – obviously knew about the law of attraction.

Why I’m doing this

People ask questions and I feel inspired to answer. Spirit, through the Universal LOA has called me to answer because, apparently, I have the capacity to provide answers that people asking questions may want to or may be ready to hear. If that wasn’t the case, Spirit would not call me and I’d be on the beach or playing video games :)

In every day of my life there is happiness, feeling good, joy and ecstasy; there’s very little, if any, pain and suffering. And who I am is not different from who you are. Understanding that at the root we’re all one, I want all parts of me to live life in happiness and joy; to live in a world free of confusion, pain
and suffering.

So now from my perspective, which is my current point of view, one of an infinite number of Universal points of view and of which your point of view also is a part; I’ll begin.

My childhood was the stuff of nightmares.

Yes, we all (every facet of the one) have our story and we all have free will and can decide and choose to either hang on to it or to let it go. By continuously repeating your story to yourself and to whomever else will listen, you’re keeping your story alive in your mind and perpetuating your own misery and confusion; it’s an endless cycle.

Your story only exists in your mind; it has no reality outside of your mind. By your continual attention to it, you make it real; you give your power to it. You Love It!

Could it be time to let it go now? Do you even want to let it go now?

I wasn’t at the scene of the earthquake in Japan. Many were, but that’s their reality not mine. I have compassion for them and I donated towards their cause, but I’m not upset by their story. Observing another’s seemingly negative reality or story and offering assistance is not the same as taking their negativity onboard. Because...

By not taking ANY negativity onboard my being vibrates at a high rate. This causes vibrational resonance and in turn affects those around me; thereby naturally assisting them to Step Up their vibrational frequency as well.

Alternatively, by taking another’s negativity onboard, I unavoidably lower my vibrational frequency and feel bad. Pain and suffering has now begun. Then the LOA automatically brings more of the same to me and the cycle continues, until once again I choose to Step Up my vibrational frequency.

Furthermore: I know that those experiencing negativity wouldn’t have chosen to experience that unless there was something in it for them or that provided benefits, either individually or collectively and even if only exclusively on a soul level. Either way, it’s neither my business nor my concern!

Another's story is not your story and right there is a clue that will allow you to release your pain and experience far more happiness if you so desire it.

...in Heaven, where evil cannot be, agree to do evil after birth....

Here you make a faulty assumption. In truth there’s no such thing as good and evil. Someone told you or you’ve read it somewhere and have incorporated it into your belief system and now you believe it, but it’s not true per se!

Who will be the judge and the overseer that decides if something is good or evil, or right or wrong as an absolute; you, your church or your bible? And who will enforce that judgment; you, your nation or your army? Do you see how insidious it becomes?

"If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you. (Gospel of St. Thomas)" Jesus of Nazareth – a very wise man, but still only a man!

I need this explained to me, so I can truly embrace The LOA.

Are you sure? If you really wanted to understand the LOA you’d review every single LOA post on this forum and you’d read many of the excellent free eBooks on the psi site You can obviously read and you have an excellent command of the English language, so understanding is not the issue for you.

In my estimation, the issue is you’re coming from the perspective of a fixed belief system and trying to fit the LOA into that. And when it doesn’t fit, you say, oh, the LOA can’t be true, it must be wrong. Put differently, you’re only looking for evidence to support your already existing belief system and therefore, you probably only vote for answers when they confirm what you already know to be true.

...so I can truly embrace The LOA

Why would you want to embrace something that you don’t understand and you don’t believe in? Saying that you want to embrace the LOA is the same as saying that you want to embrace gravity. There’s nothing for you to do. Thankfully, both gravity and the LOA are here and are continuously working in our reality without any conscious effort from us, the end users.

Only Now I Can Begin

If I may suggest: forget about the LOA and find out who you really are. Then all of this stuff will become easier and your life will be one of happiness and joy.

There’s only one step on the path of awakening to the knowledge and truth of who you really are. That step is the desire and the willingness to begin examining and observing your own mind. That is conscious awareness and that one step leads to all others.

And so I ask you: what is it within you that’s hanging on to a fixed belief system and hanging on to an old story and to being right? And are you truly ready to allow yourself to move beyond that and get to the truth of greater reality? Go to the root of your storyteller, really examine it and you’ll discover that it isn’t even real to begin with.

"Greater is He that is in you, than he that is in the world." Jesus of Nazareth.

And of course, this work can only be done in the present moment; not yesterday or sometime in the future, it has to be done right here and right now. Start becoming aware of your thoughts, words and actions in real time as they arise and see where that leads you.

Buy ‘The Power of Now,’ by Eckhart Tolle. Read it over and over and then you’ll understand all you ever need to know about pain and suffering and you’ll be able to move beyond it easily.

Wishing you peace in your every here and now ♥

Disclaimer: everything I just wrote may be wrong, so find out for yourself :)

EDIT. In response to the comments and for clarity, rather than edit the text I’ve added everything below:

I sincerely thank you for asking me to meet the challenge of answering your question in full and
here’s why...

"It is one of the most beautiful compensations of this life that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself." Ralph Waldo Emerson – 1803 – 1882

Isn’t it true that The LOA fails to explain childhood trauma, birth defects, the abuse of children, and murder of children, etc.?

I arrived at my understanding by inquiring deeply into the nature of reality and by joining many dots. To satisfy your curiosity, I’ll attempt to explain my understanding by using as few words as possible in my answer. You may like to watch The Red Pill before you begin:

Vibration

At the root there is only vibrating energy in varying degrees of negative/fear = low frequency through to positive/love = high frequency. The LOA works at this level and as end users we control our personal vibrational frequency (the only power we have and need to have) by our thoughts + beliefs + words
+ actions.

Kind of like the layers of an onion as in this image.

Hence remaining positive is residing in the state of love and wallowing in negativity through pain, suffering, judgment, blame, guilt etcetera is residing in a state of fear. The LOA manages all vibration and attracts more similar energies to us by matching our current vibrational state or our state-of-being.

For example, while you may say “don’t worry about it :)” to a friend, while secretly harboring anger and blame towards them; the LOA doesn’t care. You can’t hide your true vibrational state from the LOA and it will match your vibration and bring similar people, things, events and circumstances to you through your experiential reality.

Thus, we may never know why another is attracting what they’re attracting because we cannot enter their minds to see and to change their thinking, but we do understand that, YES, every being attracts ALL events and circumstances to themselves and the LOA manages all of that vibrationally.

However, we can get an idea of what someone’s thinking due to their actions, words, beliefs and thoughts and we may be able to assist them, if they are asking and willing, from that level.

Why does it matter to you what others are attracting? People are born and people die every second on this planet. Do you believe you have any control over that? Obviously you don’t. The only control anyone has is in how they’re personally vibrating and that is determined by our thoughts, so that’s the only place to start – the first step.

Imagination

Using the channel of imagination we decide upon the future reality we’d like to experience. Our higher self, which is our vibrational counterpart that only exists in non-physical, goes forth and vibrationally prepares and becomes our future reality for us. Again, through the channel of imagination, our higher self calls us towards our already existing desired future through inspiration, intuition and feeling etcetera.

"Life is only a dream and we are the imagination of ourselves." Bill Hicks – 1961 - 1994

Emotions

We all have an emotional guidance system built into our being. When we vibrate in the vicinity of our higher self we always feel good and all things wanted are near and then manifestation is imminent. When we’re feeling bad, it’s due to the vibrational difference between what our higher self, our source, has become and our current thoughts which are out of alignment to what we say we want.

Allowing the Flow

The flow of our life is created by our perception of the contrast of that which we’re currently living and our wanting of and choosing of something different; which is expansion into something new. The speed of the flow of our life increases exponentially as we experience more contrast and more wanting.

And the only things that keep us from what we want are our resistant thoughts and beliefs. And that’s the primary reason for all dis-ease as well. That’s why examining the nature of the personality construct of the physical mind enables us to release all resistance and reside in a constant state of well-being.

Both imagination and emotions are feedback loops between our higher self and our physical self. Using different words, we can say that your imagination and your emotions are the steering mechanism that You and You use to navigate through infinity and to create the vibrational manifestations which feel good to you.

That’s why it always pays to feel good no matter what; no one helps anyone else by feeling bad!

Reality

At the root there is only vibrating energy... All realities, including life on Earth, only exist as potential until and unless a conscious observer is present; nothing is real per se. When we pay attention to something, we appreciate it and make it real by giving it our love; we Love It!

This image represents my idea that we choose which version of two probable Earths, represented energetically, that we want to experience. Focusing on either positive or negative ideas, is deciding which version you want to experience. However, after a certain time frame not all probabilities will be available to us…

Now Love Time Space

At the root there is only vibrating energy... which really, is Love. Time is only used as a tool for us to be able to experience any reality sequentially in a linear fashion. Our past and future only exist in our minds. The only real time is Now.

Space is inseparable from time; one cannot exist without the other. Therefore the only true place is Here. Whatever idea you have about life after death, that reality already exists right here and right now; it always has and it always will. You’re free to believe what you want to, but I believe we all return to heaven after this life experience :)

Each of us obviously exists and we exist right here and right now; there is no other time or place. There never has been and there never will be; thus we’re eternal beings existing in the Now forever.

Birth and death, Beginning and end; Another dream? An eternal trend?

If you see the above: why choose to focus on past negative events, non-realities, when you can choose to experience passion, joy, bliss, ecstasy and love in every moment that you’re actually aware of and are living in the Now or the present moment?

Does It Really Matter?

With the idea of any ending or any real death out of the equation, life being eternal and heaven being the only real place to return to after this life experience; does it really matter what other people
are experiencing?

The LOA is impersonal and its job is to reflect back to us who we are currently being through the Universal mirror of our life. It doesn’t matter what you say to another or what action you take in any direction to try to conceal who you’re really being. Vibration has no way of lying, it’s your true state and it just is and the LOA will reflect that back to you through your life experience, no matter what.

So while you may believe that by comforting a depressed friend by agreeing with and buying into her reasons for her depressed state; you can’t fail to lower your vibration by sinking to her level. And the LOA has no choice but to reflect more of that back to you and before you know it, you’re surrounded by depressed people all feeding off of each other’s pain. (sorry about that, but I wanted to get this
point across.)

See those abused children and those people in Japan as eternal beings of light, who, from the perspective of their souls know exactly what they’re doing and know exactly what’s best for them at this time and in this place (God doesn’t make mistakes). In other words see them as the highest possible version of them that they actually are and don’t see them as anything less than that.

Believe and/or know that at some level of their being they’re fine and that they don’t need your help and they don’t want you to suffer on their behalf. Anything else is due to your own ignorance, or your arrogance - which again is fear; so look into that and explore that :)

"We cannot teach people anything; we can only help them discover it within themselves."
Galileo Galilei – 1564 – 1642

It seems to me that some people want to be at the end where they’ve really understood much about life on Earth, without having done the mental work necessary in order to get to said end. Ironically, from the end perspective these kinds of questions do not need to be asked or answered :)

I love exploring the Big Stuff so much that I created a website devoted to understanding it and going into much more detail than I can cover here.

Ultimately, it makes no difference what anyone else says and believes, because unless each individual starts with the first step, which is the only step as indicated earlier in this post, the truth will probably remain elusive to them.

Peace – Love – Understanding – Forever... 8-)

unfortunately, we can't know the wisdom of the "All knowing" All things happen for the benefit of the greatest number. For example, a soul may choose to be born to a mother that needs to experience a situation where certain choices need to be made. She chooses to abandon the new born in a dumpster. This incident, affected a whole community of people and they came together with love and compassion, where prior to that, there was dicension among the community.

This is a crude example, but I think it gets the meanig across. The soul of the child provided a service for lessons to be learned for the whole. To begin to understand how our little lives affect the whole is beyond comprehension as an incarnated soul.

I think we do create our own reality BUT other peoples reality can spill over into our small universe.

If we lived on this earth on our own then all of our experiences would indeed be created by us. We would only ever reap the rewards of our own actions and thoughts. In effect we would 100% create our reality.

The last time i checked however 6500 million people were sharing this earth with me. No man is an island are they? Like it or lump it we are all,to a certain degree,effected by others. Sure we can stick to our guns and see great things happen in our lives,but there will always be another factor involved,and that factor is other people!

Does LOA always work...yes...but other peoples LOA works too and this effects our results in life.

You could be the best football centre forward in the world,you could play a perfect game and still loose the match. The reason being that your part of a team of eleven. And they will determine to some extent the final score.

Bit unfair i know, but who would want a perfect life on a world where only they lived?

Graham

We are not in control or to blame for other people's actions. Everyone is responsible for their own actions. That being said, we do attract people into our lives based on our own vibrations. Our vibrations are affected by events that happen while we are still in our mother's womb. The vibration is one that is not of our concious choosing, but by our environment. It is not until we have self awareness and conciousness that we can control our own vibrations and also the LOA. Most people are not aware of their vibration, or that they are attracting like vibrations. If a fetus is exposed to violence in the womb, hearing people fighting, even just giving bad vibes, etc... this affects the baby's vibration. Then this vibration attracts people with this vibration and the child keeps being in violent situations. Then they grow up and attract partners who are abusive, etc... It's not until they change their vibration that they will attract different people. This could be called a victim mentality. It is not their fault they are just in the wrong place at the wrong time. So the LOA doesn't just bring us what we want, it brings us what is in our vibration. If we don't like what it is bringing us, then we need to tune in to receive different people and things. We need to make our vibration match that what we want to attract. EFT or Two Hands Touching can help with this. I wish I knew about it before I ever got pregnant. It would have meant a whole different life for my son.( When my step dad said he didn't believe in the LOA, I didn't get into it with him, but later read to my son, "In the beginning... God said, 'Let there be light.'" So I hope he takes what he is learning and creates a wonderful life for himself. His children will benefit from what we are learning today.) So during pregnancy, our experiences start our vibrational tuning in to the LOA, determining the vibration we will attract.

Another thing to keep in mind is that disease is not a manifestation of the LOA, but a disruption in the flow of energy which is usually caused by emotional trauma. So the mother could have suffered emotional trauma that caused a birth defect.

Also, the mother attracts people into the lives of the mother and the baby. So even thought we are always attracting people and things, so are the people around us. Some manifestations around us are ours, and some are manifestations of others.

According to Bruce Lipton in this article, children take on the beliefs and vibrations of their parents to prepare them for that particular environment. So young children attract according to the vibration they inherited from their parents. Like @Satori said, "We are our parents until we conscientiously choose to change."

Edit 1/6/12 Here is a video I just started watching and Teal addressed this issue near the beginning.

The LOA is in existence here on earth to help us consciously/unconsciously co-create in a positive/ more pleasurable or in a negative / more stressful way. We have a choice here...Wake up and reclaim our true Power through positivity or sleep with constant negativity. Either way the LOA will create for us, through our thoughts.

Each soul here on earth came in to this world to experience for him/her self some fundamental experiences and in some cases to use their lives to be the touch stone for others to connect in a more loving/compassionate/forgiving way. Regardless of other people’s choice of body/disease/circumstances, it is not our business to try to unravel why things happen that do not directly affect us , but to show empathy/compassion/non-judgemental to the things/situations we do not and cannot fully understand. Look from a distance and send Love and Light. If the experience is close to us ie:family/friend, then there is something here for us to experience. When the time is right and once we ask for guidance , we will get the information we need for US and not necessarily for the person that brought the challenge/lesson into our little world.

The difficulty and confusion arose when we grew further and further away from our true connection. We bought into beliefs /systems/religions in search of the Truth and looked to others to find the answers. We have access to all we need and can cope with... Within ourselves.

With the LOA in our outer world and access to the power Within, life has the promise of a more pleasurable journey.

The Law of Attraction cannot explain those things directly. It is a power that we have because we are endowed with the gift of destiny and freedom. The Karma that we bring with us is necessary for our journey and is more responsible for the conditions we find ourselves in. It is an accumulation of LOA actions. We chose this time period for our advancement, regardless of the level of suffering, it is a requirement. It was no picnic for me growing up either, and I could have cashed my chips in a long time ago, but I could have made it worse. We analyze things without regard to time outside of our reality. There are variables outside of our time that we are missing that would explain some of the suffering of innocence. Heaven and Hell is what you make of it. It is not some final resting place where you will burn or be saved. It is a part of you, and it is holding this Universe together. We Are Heaven, we Are Hell. We are all, and we are nothing. We are the Universe with the power of creation given to us by the creator.

All the explanations here that I've seen could simply just be mere rationalizations or made-up unproven man-made's wacky theories only.

Occam's Razor principle, guys.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam's_razor

Reality (everyday's reality) is often not as interesting & 'cool' as our imagination/fantasy

This is what Abraham said about it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-yhCO76xEU&list=UUnBfVA-8WFwOXACivW1rPyA

I was just thinking about this last night and I think that you are right on the money. LOA does fail to adequately explain this, and a few other things as well. Is that to say that LOA as a thought system is untenable? I don't think so.

The line of thinking I concluded was this. We are in a plane of existence commensurate with the level of spiritual progress. That does not mean that everyone in this plane is evolved to the same point in the same way that not everyone who attends the same college has the same level of intelligence. Along with that we all have a karmic debt that we need to work off. I tried for a long time to get around this, but this is the only way (for me, if you feel different I respect that) to adequately explain and balance the idea that there is some form of higher power that is good and intelligent AND the fact that there are babies who are born with terrible diseases in terrible places to terrible people. I respect the fact that you can't accept that people choose these trial before they are born. Here is my take on that. Those people who are choosing may have perpetrated similar injustices in their lives past. The people who are in our life, those that shape our major life events both good and bad are not making their first appearances in this present life. Instead we have known them as they have known us in many lives and in many different bodies. We are intricately tied to them for better or worse. We go through many lives together not by chance.

Consider this as well, that baby has also had many lives and though you see them as tiny and helpless (which they are) their soul is another story, their soul is ancient and multifaceted and they are here, just like us to learn. Is it better to believe that God arbitrarily allows children to get cancer, be molested, be abused or murdered without the consent of the soul, OR that we, in collaboration with a power higher than us, chose the path of the life that would best help us and those incarnated with us (the parents would also have to choose to have the trial of having a child who is killed, has cancer, etc.). I think the latter is a more acceptable situation.

Finally, consider that this life is not all there is. Anything that happens to us here no matter how seemingly awful is just a blip against the backdrop of forever. LOA does fail here because in a way they attempt to say that we can have a perfect life right here right now when that may not be why you are here. Consider the fact that every single LOA teacher will die. Jerry Hicks got cancer. Is that because he was not true to his teaching? I don't think so. His cancer was something he agreed upon and it was not only for him, it was also perhaps for his students to learn from as well. I lost my own father to cancer when I was a child. Is it better to think that his cancer, my loss of a father was just a cruel and arbitrary quirk of the universe, or, that his cancer meant something? Did it serve a purpose or is he and my family simply unlucky? There is truth in LOA but as with any teaching if it doesn't resonate with you for some reason, there is reason for that. Dogma is accepting other people's ideas as your own without critical thinking. Is LOA dogmatic? Take what is useful and leave the rest behind.

If LOA, the way it is taught is 100% true, we should be able to never to be sick, really to never die. Yet we can see that this is not the case and that is alright. We live in this cycle to be reborn and to learn, not to find our comfort zone and exist there forever. We can only do so much here in these bodies because they are finite, and for a good reason. That is to say you can have the best Ford Fiesta out there, top of the line, but it's still a Ford Fiesta.