Chapitre 1
The Universe Responds to Your Vibration: Unlocking the Power of Attraction
Have you ever noticed how some people seem to effortlessly manifest their desires while others struggle despite working twice as hard? What if the difference isn't luck or privilege, but rather an understanding of universal laws that govern how reality forms around us? "Ask and It Is Given" by Esther and Jerry Hicks presents a revolutionary framework for understanding how our thoughts and emotions directly shape our experiences through what they call the Law of Attraction. This isn't just another self-help book-it's been hailed by spiritual luminaries like Wayne Dyer and Louise Hay as one of the most transformative works of our time. Deepak Chopra keeps it on his nightstand, and celebrities from Oprah to Jim Carrey have credited these teachings with fundamentally changing their approach to life. Since its publication, this book has sold millions of copies worldwide and sparked a movement that has influenced countless other works on manifestation and spiritual alignment. At its core lies a deceptively simple yet profound message: you are the creator of your own reality, and understanding how to harness your emotional guidance system is the key to creating the life you truly desire.
Chapitre 2
Your Vibrational Relationship with the Universe
At the heart of "Ask and It Is Given" is the understanding that we live in a vibrational universe where everything, including our thoughts and emotions, exists as energy frequencies. Just as radio waves transmit information at different frequencies, our thoughts and feelings broadcast specific vibrational patterns into the universe. The book introduces Abraham, described as a "Collective Consciousness" or "Non-Physical Intelligence" that communicates through Esther Hicks, offering wisdom about how reality is created through these vibrational interactions.
According to Abraham, we are extensions of Source Energy (or God) who have chosen to experience physical reality from a unique perspective. Like individual waves in an infinite ocean, we remain connected to the whole while expressing our individuality. This physical world isn't separate from the spiritual realm-it's an extension of it, a projection of Non-Physical energy into physical form. While this might sound esoteric, the implications are profoundly practical: we remain connected to infinite intelligence and can access this wisdom through our emotions, which serve as our personal guidance system.
The book explains that we are constantly broadcasting vibrational signals based on our thoughts, beliefs, and feelings. These signals, like beacon lights in the cosmic sea, are immediately received and answered by the Universe through the Law of Attraction, which ensures that vibrationally similar things are drawn together. For example, when you consistently focus on gratitude, you'll notice more things to be grateful for. When you worry about lack, you'll encounter more situations that trigger scarcity thoughts. In other words, what you focus on expands in your experience, much like a magnifying glass intensifies sunlight.
This understanding reframes our relationship with desire. When we observe contrast in our lives-experiencing what we don't want-it helps us clarify what we do want. For instance, experiencing a challenging relationship might crystallize our understanding of the kind of partnership we truly desire. This clarification sends a vibrational "rocket of desire" that Source Energy immediately responds to. The gap between asking and receiving isn't because the Universe is withholding-it's because we're often not vibrationally aligned with our own desires, like trying to tune into a radio station while set to the wrong frequency.
"You are the vibrational interpreters of your time-space reality," Abraham explains. "You stand at the Leading Edge of thought, expanding the Universe through your preferences and desires." Each person's unique perspective and choices contribute to the collective evolution of consciousness. This perspective elevates everyday experiences from mundane to meaningful-each preference we develop, whether choosing a coffee flavor or a career path, contributes to the expansion of All-That-Is. Our individual journeys of discovery and growth are integral to the universal dance of creation and expansion.
Through this vibrational understanding, we recognize that we're not passive observers but active creators in constant dialogue with the Universe. Every thought, emotion, and choice ripples through the fabric of reality, contributing to the ongoing creation of our personal and collective experience.
Chapitre 3
The Three-Step Creative Process: Ask, Answer, Allow
Creation follows a simple three-step process that operates whether we're conscious of it or not. Understanding these steps gives us deliberate control over our experience.
Step 1: You Ask. This happens naturally through contrast. When you experience something unwanted, it automatically clarifies what you do want. Every time you declare "I don't like this" or "I wish things were different," you're sending a vibrational request to the Universe. This asking doesn't require words-it happens through your attention and focus.
"Your life experience has caused you to ask for constant improvement, and Source has answered every request," Abraham explains. "All manner of cooperative components have been gathered, and they're being held in a sort of vibrational escrow, waiting for you to become vibrationally aligned with your own request."
Step 2: The Universe Answers. This step is not your work-it's handled by Source Energy. The moment you ask, it is given-without exception, without judgment, without delay. Every request is immediately heard and answered, regardless of its magnitude or your perceived worthiness.
Step 3: You Allow. This is where most people struggle. Allowing means achieving vibrational alignment with your desire so you can receive what's already been created. It's like tuning a radio to the right frequency-your desire exists on a certain frequency, and you must match that frequency to experience it.
The book emphasizes that the gap between asking and receiving exists only because of resistance-thoughts, beliefs, or emotions that contradict what we want. If you want financial abundance but constantly worry about money, you're not allowing your desire to manifest. If you want a loving relationship but focus on past heartbreaks, you're blocking what you want.
This understanding shifts our approach to manifestation from trying to "make things happen" to releasing resistance and allowing our natural state of Well-Being to flow. The Universe isn't withholding anything-we're simply not letting it in.
Chapitre 4
Your Emotional Guidance System: The Key to Deliberate Creation
Perhaps the most valuable contribution of "Ask and It Is Given" is its detailed explanation of emotions as a sophisticated guidance system. Your emotions aren't random reactions-they're precise indicators of your vibrational alignment with Source Energy and your desires.
"Your emotions are your indicators of how your Source Energy feels about the subject you're focused upon," Abraham explains. "When you feel good, you're allowing the connection; when you feel bad, you're resisting the connection."
This emotional guidance system works like the fuel gauge in your car. When you feel joy, appreciation, or love, your gauge shows "full"-you're fully connected to Source Energy. When you feel depression, fear, or powerlessness, your gauge shows "empty"-you're restricting the flow of Source Energy.
The book presents an Emotional Guidance Scale with 22 distinct emotional states, ranging from joy/knowledge/empowerment/freedom/love/appreciation at the highest end to fear/grief/depression/despair/powerlessness at the lowest. This scale isn't about judging emotions as "good" or "bad" but understanding their function as navigational tools.
When you feel negative emotion, it's not a sign something is wrong with you-it's valuable feedback that your current thoughts are taking you away from what you want. Similarly, positive emotions signal you're moving toward your desires. By consciously choosing thoughts that feel better, you can systematically improve your point of attraction.
What makes this approach revolutionary is its emphasis on incremental improvement. You don't need to jump from depression to joy in one leap-that would be vibrationally impossible. Instead, you can reach for slightly better-feeling thoughts that provide relief. Even moving from depression to anger represents progress, as anger contains more energy and less resistance than depression.
"The standard of success isn't money or things-it's the amount of joy you feel," Abraham emphasizes. This perspective reorients our entire approach to life, making emotional awareness the cornerstone of deliberate creation.
Chapitre 5
The Art of Allowing: Releasing Resistance to Well-Being
According to Abraham, Well-Being is the natural state of the Universe and all beings within it. It flows constantly, like a mighty river, and we need only stop resisting it to experience its benefits. This concept forms the foundation of what Abraham calls "The Art of Allowing."
"There is only a Stream of Well-Being that flows. You can allow it or resist it, but it flows regardless," Abraham explains. Just as there's no source of darkness (only the absence of light), there's no source of illness or lack-only the resistance to Well-Being.
This resistance takes many forms: worry about the future, regret about the past, criticism of self or others, focusing on what's missing rather than what's present, or holding beliefs that contradict our desires. Each resistant thought restricts the flow of Source Energy, creating negative emotions and eventually physical manifestations of that restriction.
The Art of Allowing involves consciously choosing thoughts that reduce resistance and increase alignment with Source. It's not about forcing positive thinking or denying reality, but about finding perspectives that feel better and therefore allow more Well-Being to flow.
"You cannot get sick enough to help sick people get better. You cannot get poor enough to help poor people thrive," Abraham states. "It is only in your thriving that you have anything to offer anyone. If you're wanting to be of an advantage to others, be as tapped in, tuned in, turned on as you can possibly be."
This principle challenges conventional wisdom about sacrifice and suffering. The greatest gift we can offer others is our own alignment with Source, as this connection allows us to be truly helpful, inspired, and uplifting to those around us.
The book emphasizes that allowing isn't passive-it's a deliberate choice to focus on thoughts that feel good. This might mean appreciating what's working rather than complaining about what isn't, looking for the positive aspects in challenging situations, or simply distracting yourself from negative thoughts when you can't find a better perspective.
Chapitre 6
The Power of Focus: Controlling Your Vibrational Offering
Our thoughts are magnetic, attracting experiences that match their vibrational frequency. The book explains that every thought we think becomes part of our vibrational offering to the Universe, and the Law of Attraction ensures that we experience more of whatever we focus on-whether wanted or unwanted.
"The Universe doesn't know if you're observing something you want and saying 'Yes' to it, or observing something you don't want and saying 'No' to it," Abraham explains. "It just receives your vibrational offering and responds in kind."
This understanding reveals why simply opposing unwanted conditions often perpetuates them. When we fight against poverty, disease, or injustice, we're still focusing on those conditions, inadvertently contributing to their continuation. The solution isn't to ignore problems but to focus predominantly on the solutions we wish to see.
The book introduces the concept of "dominant thought"-the vibration you offer most consistently on any subject. These dominant thoughts become beliefs, which are simply thoughts you continue to think. With enough attention, any thought can become a belief, and any belief manifests as your experience.
"Your life is simply a reflection of your thoughts-all of them, the conscious ones and the unconscious ones," Abraham states. This doesn't mean we need to monitor every thought, which would be impossible. Instead, we can use our emotions to gauge the quality of our thoughts and make adjustments when necessary.
The book offers practical guidance for directing focus, such as:
1. Segment Intending: Setting clear intentions before entering different "segments" of your day
2. Pivoting: When noticing unwanted thoughts, deliberately turning attention to what is wanted
3. The Book of Positive Aspects: Deliberately documenting the positive qualities of people and situations
4. The Focus Wheel Process: Gradually shifting thoughts on a subject to improve vibrational alignment
These techniques help us become more deliberate about what we give our attention to, recognizing that attention equals invitation in an attraction-based Universe.
Chapitre 7
Practical Processes for Shifting Your Vibration
The second half of "Ask and It Is Given" presents 22 practical processes designed to shift your vibration and release resistance. These range from simple appreciation exercises to more structured visualization techniques, each suited for different emotional states.
For those already feeling relatively good (in states of joy, appreciation, or positive expectation), processes like The Rampage of Appreciation or The Creative Workshop help maintain and enhance that positive momentum. These involve deliberately focusing on what's working well and expanding that focus to attract more positive experiences.
For those in mid-range emotional states (like boredom, pessimism, or frustration), processes like Pivoting or The Focus Wheel help redirect attention from what's unwanted to what's wanted. These techniques acknowledge where you are vibrationally while gently guiding you toward better-feeling perspectives.
For those experiencing more challenging emotions (like anger, fear, or depression), processes like Moving Up the Emotional Scale or Meditation provide relief by reducing resistance. These don't attempt to force positive thinking but offer incremental improvement through gentle shifts in focus.
What makes these processes particularly effective is their adaptability to individual circumstances. The book emphasizes that there's no one-size-fits-all approach to vibrational alignment-what works depends on your current emotional state and the specific subject you're addressing.
One standout process is The Prosperity Game, which helps shift beliefs about money and abundance. It involves imagining receiving increasingly larger sums of money each day and deciding how to spend them. This mental exercise activates the vibration of abundance and helps release scarcity thinking.
Another powerful technique is Segment Intending, which involves setting clear intentions before entering different activities or environments. By deliberately establishing your vibrational stance before engaging with situations, you become less reactive and more creative in your experience.
The Wallet Process offers a simple but effective way to shift financial vibration by carrying a $100 bill (or whatever denomination feels significant) in your wallet without spending it. This creates a constant reminder of abundance and security, gradually shifting your point of attraction around money.
Chapitre 8
Redefining Success: Joy as the Ultimate Measure
Throughout "Ask and It Is Given," Abraham consistently reframes our understanding of success. Rather than measuring achievement through external markers like wealth, status, or accomplishments, the book proposes a radical alternative: the amount of joy you feel is the true measure of success.
"The basis of life is freedom; the purpose of life is joy; the result of life is growth," Abraham states. This perspective shifts our focus from acquiring things to cultivating states of being that feel good.
The book explains that behind every desire-whether for relationships, money, health, or achievement-is the belief that having it will make us feel better. Yet it's not the manifestation itself that brings joy; it's the alignment with Source Energy that both feels good and attracts our desires.
"You cannot have a happy ending to an unhappy journey," Abraham emphasizes. This insight challenges the common belief that we must struggle and sacrifice to achieve our goals. Instead, the journey itself can and should be joyful, as that joy is both the purpose of life and the means by which we attract what we want.
This reframing helps explain why some people achieve external success yet remain unhappy, while others with modest circumstances experience profound joy. The difference isn't in what they have but in their vibrational alignment with Source Energy.
The book also addresses the misconception that desire itself causes suffering. "Desire is the natural response to living in this environment of contrast," Abraham explains. "Pure desire contains no feeling of lack." It's only when we focus on the absence of what we want that desire becomes painful.
This understanding liberates us from the endless pursuit of things, revealing that what we're really seeking is the feeling of connection, alignment, and joy that is our natural state. External manifestations then become the delightful byproducts of that alignment rather than the goal itself.
Chapitre 9
The Broader Perspective: You Are Eternal Consciousness
Underlying all the practical guidance in "Ask and It Is Given" is a profound spiritual perspective about our true nature. According to Abraham, we are eternal beings who have chosen this physical experience for the joy of creation and expansion. This physical life represents just one chapter in our eternal journey, offering unique opportunities for growth and creative expression.
"You are not here to fix a broken world," Abraham explains. "The world is not broken. You are here to create-to add to-to expand-and to enjoy." This perspective shifts us from problem-solving mode to creative mode, recognizing that our purpose isn't to correct what's wrong but to envision and experience what's possible. When we view the world through this lens, even challenges become opportunities for creative expansion rather than problems to solve.
The book describes physical life as the "Leading Edge of thought," where Source Energy expresses itself through unique perspectives. Our individual preferences and desires aren't trivial-they're the mechanism through which the entire Universe expands. Each person serves as a unique vantage point from which Source Energy can experience life, making every individual perspective valuable and necessary for collective growth.
"Every preference you hold, no matter how small, is adding to the expansion of the Universe," Abraham states. This elevates even our simplest desires to cosmic significance, as each preference contributes to the evolution of All-That-Is. Whether choosing a favorite color, pursuing a career path, or selecting a life partner, these choices are part of the Universe's continuous expansion.
This broader perspective also reframes our understanding of death. According to Abraham, what we call death is simply a shift in attention from physical to Non-Physical consciousness. There is no end to consciousness-only a transition in focus. Just as changing television channels doesn't destroy the previous program, transitioning from physical to non-physical doesn't end our existence. This understanding helps release the fear and anxiety often associated with mortality.
"You cannot die; you are Eternal Consciousness," Abraham assures. This understanding removes the fear of death and places our current physical experience in the context of eternal being, allowing us to approach life with more lightness and joy. When we truly grasp this concept, it transforms how we view both life's challenges and opportunities.
The book also addresses the question of why we sometimes forget our connection to Source when entering physical form. This "forgetting" isn't a mistake but a deliberate choice that allows us to experience the thrill of rediscovery and the joy of consciously choosing alignment with our broader perspective. Like a master player choosing to start a game anew, this temporary forgetting creates the opportunity for fresh discoveries and experiences.
Understanding our eternal nature doesn't diminish the importance of our current physical experience; rather, it enhances it. Each moment becomes an opportunity to express our connection to Source Energy, to create joyfully, and to contribute to the expanding universe through our unique perspective and choices.
Chapitre 10
Embracing Your Creative Power: The Journey Forward
"Ask and It Is Given" concludes with an invitation to embrace our role as deliberate creators, consciously shaping our experience through the power of focused attention and emotional awareness.
"You are, in this moment, the creator of your reality," Abraham reminds us. This isn't just a philosophical statement but a practical call to take responsibility for our vibrational offering and therefore our life experience.
The book emphasizes that this creative power isn't something we need to develop-it's inherent in our being. We're already creating our reality through our thoughts and emotions; the only question is whether we're doing so by default or by deliberate choice.
"Be easy about all of this," Abraham advises. "You tend to take life so seriously, and yet, as we view your life creation, we feel only love and appreciation for all that you are." This gentle reminder helps us approach the practice of deliberate creation with playfulness rather than pressure.
The journey of conscious creation isn't about perfection but about incremental improvement-gradually releasing resistance and allowing more of our natural Well-Being to flow. Each small shift in perspective, each moment of appreciation, each better-feeling thought contributes to this process.
As we practice the principles and processes outlined in the book, we become more sensitive to our emotional guidance system, more deliberate in our focus, and more allowing of the Well-Being that is our birthright. The result is not just the manifestation of specific desires but a fundamental transformation in how we experience life itself.
"Our powerful desire is that you return to your self-appreciation," Abraham concludes. "We want you to feel love for your life, for the people of your world, and most important, for yourself." This return to self-appreciation isn't selfish but essential, as it's only from this place of alignment that we can truly contribute to others and to the expansion of All-That-Is.
In embracing these teachings, we reclaim our power as conscious creators, not just of our individual experiences but as contributors to the evolution of consciousness itself. And in that recognition lies the ultimate freedom-to create joyfully, to expand eternally, and to experience the delicious unfolding of life from our unique and valuable perspective.
