Monday, December 17, 2012
The Intellect
The intellect is not to be used as an escape from dealing with real life, nor to be shunned as a block to spirituality, but to be embraced as a critical tool to bring us into a deeper understanding of the world.
The Greatest Commandmant
As a child growing up in a fundamentalist Christian household, I would sometimes try to piece together all the morality and rules I had been taught into one principle that could provide a foundation that would hopefully make sense of all the other "should's" and "shouldn'ts". As an adult, having long abandoned my childhood religion, that quest has remained - a desire to find and express a basic foundation upon which to build and orient my life.
Occasionally, I have gone back to look at what my religion had claimed to be the greatest commandment - to love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, soul, mind, and strength - but could no longer relate to the concepts there - commandment, Lord, God.
Independently, one day, I happened upon the concept of "loving life", and it struck a deep chord within me as the answer to my quest, the original motivation for all that we consider valuable. My mind went back to the concept of "loving God", and I started to wonder if what was meant by "God" in that verse might have been closer to what I meant when I used the word "life". "Loving life" is more universally understandable, and does not have the pitfalls that the word "god" creates. I decided to freely retranslate the rest of those verses, specifically Mark 12:19-21, and came out with this:
"The highest principle of all is this: Be mindful, all you living energies, that all of life is connected. And allow the love of life to fill all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your body. And the second principle is really the same thing: know that loving others is the same as loving yourself."
I think there is a disservice we do to all sacred texts: we assume they have some mystery that is not already inside of us. We assume that we are missing something, we are incomplete, and we have to search outside of ourselves to find wholeness, rather than searching deeper within ourselves and our direct experience of life. If we assume that all scripture is saying something that is universal and not new, something we already know and have access to, it gives us a greater freedom to take that internal core knowing as the true representation of the universal principles that religions have struggled to express.
Saturday, December 15, 2012
Completing our stories
Many of the wounds I have from childhood are from incomplete stories. A simple example: my mother used to punish me severely for things that I had no idea were “wrong”. Not only did I go through physical pain, but I was tormented by the abrupt withdrawal of love, and the horrible confusion over what had happened and why.
In a vain attempt to complete my story and make sense out of it, I concluded at various times that I must be bad and must have deserved the punishment; that the world was a dangerous place where I could never predict what would make someone angry and hurt me, that I was incapable of trusting my insides to tell me if something was right or wrong.
Incomplete stories carry a deep passionate energy to try to make sense out of them, an allure to bring them to some kind of resolution. And in our attempts to make sense of them, we recreate a scene, set it up with characters from the present without their permission, and start to act out the roles, looking for answers. Thus, those battered as children tend to unconsciously recreate the drama by becoming involved with someone where the feelings of being battered are present once again - hoping this time to do it differently, to find a happy ending. They hope to finally get mother to love them, or to be good enough this time, or to not be weak, or not be strong, and maybe this time they will get what they really needed.
The process to try to complete my story went on unconsciously in my adult life in forms of vague feelings and irrational beliefs. I did not have the benefit of the conscious mind to guide me, with its logic, accumulated experience of the real world, wisdom we have accumulated about relationships. Instead, the unconscious mind tries the old child-like solutions once again - we are bad, they are bad, life is unfair, don’t do anything to anger anyone, get them before they get you.
Today, I now see that the story was not complete. There were many pieces to the puzzle I did not know as a child. My mother was unhappy and lonely, having a husband who could not talk about feelings any more than her own father had been able to. In her world, men were incapable of bonding, and she desperately wanted a girl to share her life with. Being the last of two sons, I became her last hope for the family she wanted to badly - and thus a disappointment.
Another piece to the puzzle came from studying the harsh child-rearing system popular at the time, and espoused by the church, which she was devoted to. She believed that harsh punishment was the best thing to do, and unwittingly injected me with fear of anger and violence that hinders me to this day.
As I have worked through understand my past and its effect on my present, and applying adult knowledge and reason to it, the story starts to make sense. Instead of the story illustrating how dangerous the world is, or about how bad I am, the story illustrates the tragedy of lack of self-awareness, and the pathos of destruction and pain wrought by it. It is about a mother who make horrible mistakes in raising her child, and how her disappointment at having a son transformed into abusive anger, that caused unmeasurable pain throughout her son’s adult life. The story is a greek tragedy, not a good-guy, bad-guy story - it is not there to teach simplistic moralistic lessons. Instead, it is the tale of human weakness and ignorance, and the harm that can come from it. It is there so we can fully absorb the pathos of tragedy, to feel again our own pain, and ultimately to know that it is just a story.
Today, rather than continually questioning if I am okay, I grieve over the tragedy of our family. Today, rather than the insecurity of the unanswerable, there is peace after a good cry.
In a vain attempt to complete my story and make sense out of it, I concluded at various times that I must be bad and must have deserved the punishment; that the world was a dangerous place where I could never predict what would make someone angry and hurt me, that I was incapable of trusting my insides to tell me if something was right or wrong.
Incomplete stories carry a deep passionate energy to try to make sense out of them, an allure to bring them to some kind of resolution. And in our attempts to make sense of them, we recreate a scene, set it up with characters from the present without their permission, and start to act out the roles, looking for answers. Thus, those battered as children tend to unconsciously recreate the drama by becoming involved with someone where the feelings of being battered are present once again - hoping this time to do it differently, to find a happy ending. They hope to finally get mother to love them, or to be good enough this time, or to not be weak, or not be strong, and maybe this time they will get what they really needed.
The process to try to complete my story went on unconsciously in my adult life in forms of vague feelings and irrational beliefs. I did not have the benefit of the conscious mind to guide me, with its logic, accumulated experience of the real world, wisdom we have accumulated about relationships. Instead, the unconscious mind tries the old child-like solutions once again - we are bad, they are bad, life is unfair, don’t do anything to anger anyone, get them before they get you.
Today, I now see that the story was not complete. There were many pieces to the puzzle I did not know as a child. My mother was unhappy and lonely, having a husband who could not talk about feelings any more than her own father had been able to. In her world, men were incapable of bonding, and she desperately wanted a girl to share her life with. Being the last of two sons, I became her last hope for the family she wanted to badly - and thus a disappointment.
Another piece to the puzzle came from studying the harsh child-rearing system popular at the time, and espoused by the church, which she was devoted to. She believed that harsh punishment was the best thing to do, and unwittingly injected me with fear of anger and violence that hinders me to this day.
As I have worked through understand my past and its effect on my present, and applying adult knowledge and reason to it, the story starts to make sense. Instead of the story illustrating how dangerous the world is, or about how bad I am, the story illustrates the tragedy of lack of self-awareness, and the pathos of destruction and pain wrought by it. It is about a mother who make horrible mistakes in raising her child, and how her disappointment at having a son transformed into abusive anger, that caused unmeasurable pain throughout her son’s adult life. The story is a greek tragedy, not a good-guy, bad-guy story - it is not there to teach simplistic moralistic lessons. Instead, it is the tale of human weakness and ignorance, and the harm that can come from it. It is there so we can fully absorb the pathos of tragedy, to feel again our own pain, and ultimately to know that it is just a story.
Today, rather than continually questioning if I am okay, I grieve over the tragedy of our family. Today, rather than the insecurity of the unanswerable, there is peace after a good cry.
Regret vs. Shame
Shame has to do with giving authority to other people's opinions, and believing we are bad because someone else has that opinion. However, there is another kind of shame that we experience when we violate our own values, and it is important to see the difference between the two. When we find we have acted contrary to our own values, rather than the opinions of others, we may feel shame for lack of integrity. However, the deeper feeling is regret.
Regret is the acknowledgment that we have acted contrary to our values. We may also have shame, fearing that we will be judged for having acted contrary to the values of others.
It is easy to not recognize our regret, and become distracted by shame instead, and then become defensive. If we do this, we lose the most important point - an awareness of our own values and how much we are in integrity with them. For it is in living consistent with our own values that ultimately brings satisfaction, not living consistent with the values of those around us.
Regret is the acknowledgment that we have acted contrary to our values. We may also have shame, fearing that we will be judged for having acted contrary to the values of others.
It is easy to not recognize our regret, and become distracted by shame instead, and then become defensive. If we do this, we lose the most important point - an awareness of our own values and how much we are in integrity with them. For it is in living consistent with our own values that ultimately brings satisfaction, not living consistent with the values of those around us.
Monday, September 10, 2012
A Radical Proposal for Sustainable Manufacturing
In most of our history on the earth as human beings, the objects and substances we have created have not been significantly altered from their original forms. Building homes from logs was simply a rearrangement of wood, and given time, the wood did what wood would always do - decay, and become food for insects, and return to the natural cycle of things. With a few exceptions, such as pottery, metals, etc., all we created naturally returned to its original forms within a few generations, and the few things that did not were inert substances that behaved like rocks - simply stayed in their form, buried in the earth, having no effect on its surroundings.
However, in the last 100 or so years, we have started creating objects, substances, and life forms that have never before existed on the face of the earth, that have an impact on its surroundings, and that won't disappear, in some cases, for thousands of years. We have fundamentally altered the chemical nature of our environment, with effects and consequences we are only beginning to realize. We are rapidly creating change that nature was never designed to undo, and we are unconsciously re-engineering the composition of our planet with so far little thought of the results of those changes.
When we first started manufacturing substances alien to the earth, nature seemed so vast that it was hard to imagine that anything we could do would have a real impact. We were used to living in a world where any mistakes were rapidly forgiven by nature, and things would return to normal in a relatively short time. Even if we permanently destroyed some part of the earth, the planet seemed so vast that we could always move to another part that was not spoiled. It has taken us some time to grow powerful enough to overwhelm the ability of nature to recover from our changes, and then again some time for us to realize that that has happened. Today, we are trying to compensate and undo the effects of some of our "sins" against mother nature.
However, we still see this as a few mistakes we have made that need to be corrected, rather than a lifestyle change. Reduce carbon emissions, stop putting mercury into our soil and water, stop cutting down the Amazon, and everything will right itself again. Right?
Wrong. We are at a stage of power and growth where pretty much anything we do as a species will impact the planet, and there will always be some consequences that will be unexpected, and some of those consequences will be critical to the survival of the planet. It is not enough to fix the problems we have created; we need a new way of relating to the earth that prevents us from continuing to create new problems.
So, when it comes to the things we manufacture, here is the proposal: Everything - every object, chemical, life form, substance - everything we produce out of the natural elements of the planet must be made with a plan on how to eventually return that object or substance back to its natural form. Anything we do as a species, we do in large quantites, and if the effects cannot be reabsorbed back into the natural system, it will alter our environment, and that can always have unexpected consequences. Every object and substance must have a sunset clause - how it is going to be returned to nature, if it is not going to naturally biodegrade back to a natural form.
And since some objects and substances are very expensive to return to natural forms, the cost of doing so must be assumed by those responsible for creating the objects and substances in the first place. In other words, the cost of destruction must be built into the price of the cost of creation, which will get passed on to the consumer, who is the one making the manufacturing desirable.
So, you manufacture a new form of wooden kitchen spoons? No problem, they get tossed in a landfill and in no time they are like a branch fallen from a tree, and nature does the transformation for us. But you manufacture plastics? Just how are you going to make sure your creation will return to nature? The manufacturer could pay for the cost of all the plastic recycling efforts and a chemical process that returns plastics to a natural substance, like oil, plus the costs of storing that oil somewhere where it does not damage the environment. Originally that oil was deep under the soil where it did no harm. Someone has to put it somewhere, and make sure all the plastic trash of the world gets put somewhere, where it returns to its natural harmless conditions, or where it is treated in a way that does not impact the earth. The manufacturer needs to be fully responsible for anything they produce, from birth to death, and pay the costs to be sure the ending of the lifecycle of its products has no impact on the earth.
The effects of this? The costs of some manufactured objects would instantly skyrocket, because the costs of the cleanup of those substances are huge. But we, the world, are having to pay for the costs of cleanup now, through taxes to governments who are bogged down in political wrangling and who have too many vested interests to effectively make change to ensure a stable world. If the manufacturers are held responsible for the sunset of all of its products, their prices would made a radical shift in how we, the consumers, would choose what things to buy. It would reward companies that make biodegradable products by being able to have lower prices which would attract more buyers. And it would put the cost on the party creating the problem.
No one would buy products that are unhealthy for the earth unless they are available and cheap. And they are available and cheap because today, manufacturers do not have to pay for the deconstruction of the things they produce. They can produce something for one dollar that takes 30 dollars to return to its natural state. Who will pay the 30 dollars? You and I, through taxes. And our dislike of paying those taxes has no effect on the manufacturer's decision to continue to produce things alien to the earth, because they are not affected - they continue to follow the profit motive, and as long as it is profitable to produce some product, they will continue to do so no matter what the cost of undoing what they have created.
Yes, this is radical. Yes, it would cause turmoil to our world if suddenly implemented. Yes, no one can see today how many of our products could ever be returned to a natural state. But in the long run, doesn't it make sense that anyone doing something that would eventually cause destruction to our planet, also be responsible for undoing their actions before it actually does harm? Should not everyone, corporations included, be held responsible for the destruction of what is needed for the common good? And the beauty of the free market is that when the cost is passed on to the one creating the problem, the market will rebalance itself very efficiently to the new rules. No punishment is needed for what has been done - we simply need a new set of rules to live by and manufacture by. Place the cost for preventing damage to our earth on those who are causing it.
There is no way of recycling a laptop. All we can do is pass it on to others until it can't be fixed, then choose which landfill to put it in. Think of what a huge task it would be to return a laptop's parts to their original substances. It was obviously designed without a single thought given to recycling. Today, old computers wind up in third world countries, where they go to landfills to deteriorate and leech poisons into their land and water. "Recycling" is not possible when it comes to things like laptops - all you can do is move them from one country to another, so that someone else has the problem. Laptops contains a large number of poisonous chemicals, and no one has any plans on what to do with them.
Imagine for a minute that the costs of decomposing a laptop is built into the price. First, we would start to build laptops in a radically different way, with radically different substances, because prices on our current type of laptop would be astronomical. Perhaps parts would be made to be taken out and reused rather than tossed, and other parts would be made to naturally disintegrate. Recycling efforts would be paid for by the industry. Ingenuity would reign, and manufacturer would put their best engineers to work reducing the new costs to stay competitive. Maybe some parts will never be able to be recycled - then a fee could be charged for the space taken in a thousand year storage facility for unrecyclable items, or for shipping our trash to the sun for destruction. When money is involved, people will pull out all stops to create new solutions. Where governments are responsible for cleanup, there will be corruption, inefficiency, vested interests, wasted time, solutions that don't work, and the general failure we have come to expect of large bureaucratic governments.
We have a beautiful earth. In some ways, we as a species have been caught by surprise by our ability to destroy our own home, and terrified to realize we may have already done so to a disastrous amount. It is time we start to take responsibility for the impact we as a species now have, and start to make intelligent plans on how we can in the long run live on the earth in harmony with the natural cycle of nature.
Sunday, September 2, 2012
A Conversation About Awareness
I was in a conversation yesterday about awareness. We were all talking about how wonderful it was, and how the world needed it, and what philosophies were connected with it, and what methods we used to teach it and learn it, etc., etc., etc., - words, words, words, nodding, agreeing, all of us building a common story with which we could relate to each other and to the concept of awareness and to the world.
And in the middle of the conversation, part of me stepped back and noticed that none of us, not one of us, was even noticing what was happening beyond the concepts we were talking about. None of us were noticing, or commenting on, these four people, standing in a circle, with various emotions, motives, stories, fears, defenses, and egos surging inside of each person, that were actually happening in the current moment. Here we were, all students and teachers of awareness in various capacities, all talking enthusiastically about the philosophy of awareness, and none of us were aware of what was actually happening as we stood there talking words.
So I stopped, and listened for a while, and listened inside. I noticed a feeling, quickly growing in me, of wanting to run away. I watched myself smiling and nodding and agreeing, while inside, I noticed that I felt lonely, disconnected, alienated. As I zoomed in a bit closer on those feelings, I noticed that I had a huge fear of being honest with them about what was happening inside - here I was, looking connected, looking like I was "one" with everyone else, while the painful reality is that I felt very separate. And, being too afraid to speak out, now I saw that I was holding a secret from everyone else, a secret about who I really was in that moment, afraid to show it for fear I would disturb the wonderful glow of oneness everyone else seemed to be experiencing. And holding that secret was itself contributing to my feeling of being alone.
The discomfort built and built, and now I could barely stand it. Clearly, no one had a clue of what was going on inside of me - no one was aware of my turmoil. Everyone seemed so caught up in their fantasy that we were all in agreement that no one was even looking at my body language, or noticed that I had fallen silent, or noticed that I was no longer smiling or nodding. I felt shut into my own world, alone, unnoticed, and painfully aware of the irony of the situation.
Then I realized that I, by not sharing my reality, was contributing to the illusion. By standing there silently when I desperately wanted to run away, I was speaking as loudly as if I was saying, "Yes, we are all one, yes, isn't it wonderful", and my very silent presence was a lie. I did desperately want to share, but it was so intimate - intimate in the sense that revealing my alienation was very personal, and made me very vulnerable to rejection, misunderstanding, and even more loneliness than if I just remained silent. Did I want such intimacy? I always said I did. And I knew these were probably safe people. Yet I probably stood for 10 minutes, sweating, not daring to expose who I really was in that moment.
Finally, during a poignant moment, where it looked like people were basking in the full glory of the oneness of agreement, I spoke. I told them of my alienation, of wanting to run away, of not feeling at all one with them, of withholding my secret because I was so scared. I spoke of my fear of being rejected by them, of how hard it was for me just to be honest with them. I desperately wanted to explain, excuse, theorize, anything to get away from the intense personal energy of the moment, but instead, I stopped talking and let the awkwardness of the moment sit heavy in the air.
We stood in that silence for a while. Finally, someone else spoke heavily, as if they were trying to break through a fog. They also talked about their alienation from the conversation. They spoke of their anger at feeling controlled by others in the group. Awkwardness and tension grew more, at least inside of me. Okay, we were trying to be real, but what would come of it? This did not feel good at all. There were a few attempts to go back into our heads, where it had been so safe - saying how wonderful it was that we were able to express our feelings, how safe this must be to let ourselves do this - but the sense of hiding ourselves behind our words hung heavy in the air.
Slowly, painfully, inch by inch, each person started looking more inside, and noticed what they were doing, what they had been doing for the past 30 minutes without noticing. We started to tune into the actual energy pulsing between us, to what our minds and emotions were doing. We started to abandon concepts and theories and congratulations and hopes. Each of us started to speak of our state in the moment. You could see the struggle as each of us tried to deal with our own habits of mind, in order to live up to the goal we had silently set for ourselves - to be fully present to each other and to the current moment.
Then, slowly, we fell silent again - for myself, I started to feel how useless words were for our purpose. Something important was happening, but any words we drew upon to try to describe it took us immediately away from it, and it seemed that only by standing in that awkward silence could we stay fully present to ourselves, and to each other. And now when I looked inside, I discovered a calmness where there had been fear and separation - a silence where there had been tension and anxiety. We soon separated with few final words, I imagine to attempt to not lose the experience of what had just happened.
The experience left me with many stories and interpretations which I would love to expound upon. But underneath, remembering the final silence within, the ending of chaos, seemed to be what I needed most to learn. And even these words feel like a distraction, like the finger pointing to the moon rather than the moon itself. But I can't cut and paste the moon into this text.
Words are a damn poor substitute for experience.
And in the middle of the conversation, part of me stepped back and noticed that none of us, not one of us, was even noticing what was happening beyond the concepts we were talking about. None of us were noticing, or commenting on, these four people, standing in a circle, with various emotions, motives, stories, fears, defenses, and egos surging inside of each person, that were actually happening in the current moment. Here we were, all students and teachers of awareness in various capacities, all talking enthusiastically about the philosophy of awareness, and none of us were aware of what was actually happening as we stood there talking words.
So I stopped, and listened for a while, and listened inside. I noticed a feeling, quickly growing in me, of wanting to run away. I watched myself smiling and nodding and agreeing, while inside, I noticed that I felt lonely, disconnected, alienated. As I zoomed in a bit closer on those feelings, I noticed that I had a huge fear of being honest with them about what was happening inside - here I was, looking connected, looking like I was "one" with everyone else, while the painful reality is that I felt very separate. And, being too afraid to speak out, now I saw that I was holding a secret from everyone else, a secret about who I really was in that moment, afraid to show it for fear I would disturb the wonderful glow of oneness everyone else seemed to be experiencing. And holding that secret was itself contributing to my feeling of being alone.
The discomfort built and built, and now I could barely stand it. Clearly, no one had a clue of what was going on inside of me - no one was aware of my turmoil. Everyone seemed so caught up in their fantasy that we were all in agreement that no one was even looking at my body language, or noticed that I had fallen silent, or noticed that I was no longer smiling or nodding. I felt shut into my own world, alone, unnoticed, and painfully aware of the irony of the situation.
Then I realized that I, by not sharing my reality, was contributing to the illusion. By standing there silently when I desperately wanted to run away, I was speaking as loudly as if I was saying, "Yes, we are all one, yes, isn't it wonderful", and my very silent presence was a lie. I did desperately want to share, but it was so intimate - intimate in the sense that revealing my alienation was very personal, and made me very vulnerable to rejection, misunderstanding, and even more loneliness than if I just remained silent. Did I want such intimacy? I always said I did. And I knew these were probably safe people. Yet I probably stood for 10 minutes, sweating, not daring to expose who I really was in that moment.
Finally, during a poignant moment, where it looked like people were basking in the full glory of the oneness of agreement, I spoke. I told them of my alienation, of wanting to run away, of not feeling at all one with them, of withholding my secret because I was so scared. I spoke of my fear of being rejected by them, of how hard it was for me just to be honest with them. I desperately wanted to explain, excuse, theorize, anything to get away from the intense personal energy of the moment, but instead, I stopped talking and let the awkwardness of the moment sit heavy in the air.
We stood in that silence for a while. Finally, someone else spoke heavily, as if they were trying to break through a fog. They also talked about their alienation from the conversation. They spoke of their anger at feeling controlled by others in the group. Awkwardness and tension grew more, at least inside of me. Okay, we were trying to be real, but what would come of it? This did not feel good at all. There were a few attempts to go back into our heads, where it had been so safe - saying how wonderful it was that we were able to express our feelings, how safe this must be to let ourselves do this - but the sense of hiding ourselves behind our words hung heavy in the air.
Slowly, painfully, inch by inch, each person started looking more inside, and noticed what they were doing, what they had been doing for the past 30 minutes without noticing. We started to tune into the actual energy pulsing between us, to what our minds and emotions were doing. We started to abandon concepts and theories and congratulations and hopes. Each of us started to speak of our state in the moment. You could see the struggle as each of us tried to deal with our own habits of mind, in order to live up to the goal we had silently set for ourselves - to be fully present to each other and to the current moment.
Then, slowly, we fell silent again - for myself, I started to feel how useless words were for our purpose. Something important was happening, but any words we drew upon to try to describe it took us immediately away from it, and it seemed that only by standing in that awkward silence could we stay fully present to ourselves, and to each other. And now when I looked inside, I discovered a calmness where there had been fear and separation - a silence where there had been tension and anxiety. We soon separated with few final words, I imagine to attempt to not lose the experience of what had just happened.
The experience left me with many stories and interpretations which I would love to expound upon. But underneath, remembering the final silence within, the ending of chaos, seemed to be what I needed most to learn. And even these words feel like a distraction, like the finger pointing to the moon rather than the moon itself. But I can't cut and paste the moon into this text.
Words are a damn poor substitute for experience.
Monday, August 13, 2012
New Age Fallacy #3: "We chose our life"
A belief that has become popular in recent times is the belief that we chose the life we have lived. Some believe that before we were born, we looked at all the possible lives we could live, and chose one of them, including the pain and suffering, because we wanted to learn the lessons that were there; then we were born, and forgot our original intent, and struggled through the trials we had chosen without understanding why.
When you think of it, it is a rather odd belief - why would we choose a difficult life, knowing that we would lose awareness of why we chose it and then suffer in ignorance over our pain?
Most people do not "remember" agreeing to live the life they have lived so far. Most people find themselves in situations they did not expect, often painful and difficult, and have to learn on the fly how to handle it. And, judging from the number of people who fall into resentment, attempts at revenge, self-defeatism, apathy, depression, and suicide because of the trials at life, it appears that this strategy of learning the lessons of life is not widely successful.
If we cannot remember having made a choice, then our experience of suffering is the same as if we did not choose. A choice is a conscious selection of possible alternatives without coercement, and very few people who suffer actually consciously and freely chose to suffer.
We humans created this belief for some reason. Beliefs do not become popular unless they touch something deep inside. One possible reason is that it may help some people cope with the distress of seemingly purposeless suffering. But a more poignant reason may be to fight the feeling of victimhood that we tend to have when life does us wrong, and there is no one to blame. Victimhood is about believing we do not have any control or power to stop bad things from happening to us, and if we embrace that belief, we will tend to live in passivity and blame, rather than in power and love.
But the point is not about blame: it's about taking responsibility for doing something about our situation today. Just because you're responsible for your life doesn't mean that you're to blame for all that has happened to you. We often end up in the situations we're in through no fault of our own; however, it is our responsibility to use the power we have to make the best of our lives.
Let me give you an example. When I was being beaten up by bullies as a kid, I learned to become passive and not fight back. I would let them beat me up until they got bored and went away. It was a strategy that worked to some degree at that time, but does not work as an adult. There is a sense in which I had no other choice at that time. Given my background, my personality, and the religious beliefs I had been raised with, this was really the only option available to me. However, it was still a choice, my choice. I chose to become passive. I actively made a decision on some level of my mind not to fight back. This is the difference between blame and responsibility: because I made the choice, I took power in that situation, and that means that today, I have the power to unchoose that same decision, and no longer be passive. I can choose to act differently today because I own the fact that I chose my initial response back then. There is no blame in this picture. Instead, it is a position of power. By owning the choice I made, I claim power today over my own life.
The confusion lies in when we mix up making a conscious choice with being to blame. If I say it wasn't my fault, they hurt me, I cound't do anything - I become a helpless victim of the situation. And then I tend to live in victimhood the rest of my life. Saying we chose our lives is an attempt to avoid victimhood. But the implications of stating it that way are very dangerous. To say we chose a life of suffering and abuse is a hair's breadth away from saying we were our own abusers. Would we wish a life of suffering on those we love just so that they could learn something from it? If not, why would we do that to ourselves?
There's the possibility that this belief is so popular today because of unconscious guilt, low self esteem, and the desire to blame ourselves for what happened. By making ourselves the cause of our own suffering, we may be unconsciously satisfying a desire to be the guilty one, the one to blame for the suffering we have gone through. Now we have someone to blame, and it is ourselves.
The flaw in this thinking is the belief that if something bad happened, then someone is to blame for it. This is pure denial of the fact is that bad things sometimes happen for no reason at all. The rock that rolls down the hill and smashes your car did not do so because you needed punishment or needed to learn some lesson. The parent who abused you did not do so because you deserved abuse. It was actually not about you at all. You just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
There is often not a reason why something happened, and no pre-planned lesson to be learned. But given what we experience, good or bad, we have the life and capability to learn things from it so that our power is increased by the experience, not diminshed. We can walk out of a situation where we were truly helpless and learn how to gain power so that it will not happen again. The learning comes because we make good out of a bad situation, not because we chose to go through the suffering. There is unlimited suffering we could choose, if suffering were a good thing. It is not. But we can learn from it when it does happen to us.
So, claim your life, take responsibility for making the best out of bad things that happen, and let go of the need to blame or explain why.
When you think of it, it is a rather odd belief - why would we choose a difficult life, knowing that we would lose awareness of why we chose it and then suffer in ignorance over our pain?
Most people do not "remember" agreeing to live the life they have lived so far. Most people find themselves in situations they did not expect, often painful and difficult, and have to learn on the fly how to handle it. And, judging from the number of people who fall into resentment, attempts at revenge, self-defeatism, apathy, depression, and suicide because of the trials at life, it appears that this strategy of learning the lessons of life is not widely successful.
If we cannot remember having made a choice, then our experience of suffering is the same as if we did not choose. A choice is a conscious selection of possible alternatives without coercement, and very few people who suffer actually consciously and freely chose to suffer.
We humans created this belief for some reason. Beliefs do not become popular unless they touch something deep inside. One possible reason is that it may help some people cope with the distress of seemingly purposeless suffering. But a more poignant reason may be to fight the feeling of victimhood that we tend to have when life does us wrong, and there is no one to blame. Victimhood is about believing we do not have any control or power to stop bad things from happening to us, and if we embrace that belief, we will tend to live in passivity and blame, rather than in power and love.
But the point is not about blame: it's about taking responsibility for doing something about our situation today. Just because you're responsible for your life doesn't mean that you're to blame for all that has happened to you. We often end up in the situations we're in through no fault of our own; however, it is our responsibility to use the power we have to make the best of our lives.
Let me give you an example. When I was being beaten up by bullies as a kid, I learned to become passive and not fight back. I would let them beat me up until they got bored and went away. It was a strategy that worked to some degree at that time, but does not work as an adult. There is a sense in which I had no other choice at that time. Given my background, my personality, and the religious beliefs I had been raised with, this was really the only option available to me. However, it was still a choice, my choice. I chose to become passive. I actively made a decision on some level of my mind not to fight back. This is the difference between blame and responsibility: because I made the choice, I took power in that situation, and that means that today, I have the power to unchoose that same decision, and no longer be passive. I can choose to act differently today because I own the fact that I chose my initial response back then. There is no blame in this picture. Instead, it is a position of power. By owning the choice I made, I claim power today over my own life.
The confusion lies in when we mix up making a conscious choice with being to blame. If I say it wasn't my fault, they hurt me, I cound't do anything - I become a helpless victim of the situation. And then I tend to live in victimhood the rest of my life. Saying we chose our lives is an attempt to avoid victimhood. But the implications of stating it that way are very dangerous. To say we chose a life of suffering and abuse is a hair's breadth away from saying we were our own abusers. Would we wish a life of suffering on those we love just so that they could learn something from it? If not, why would we do that to ourselves?
There's the possibility that this belief is so popular today because of unconscious guilt, low self esteem, and the desire to blame ourselves for what happened. By making ourselves the cause of our own suffering, we may be unconsciously satisfying a desire to be the guilty one, the one to blame for the suffering we have gone through. Now we have someone to blame, and it is ourselves.
The flaw in this thinking is the belief that if something bad happened, then someone is to blame for it. This is pure denial of the fact is that bad things sometimes happen for no reason at all. The rock that rolls down the hill and smashes your car did not do so because you needed punishment or needed to learn some lesson. The parent who abused you did not do so because you deserved abuse. It was actually not about you at all. You just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
There is often not a reason why something happened, and no pre-planned lesson to be learned. But given what we experience, good or bad, we have the life and capability to learn things from it so that our power is increased by the experience, not diminshed. We can walk out of a situation where we were truly helpless and learn how to gain power so that it will not happen again. The learning comes because we make good out of a bad situation, not because we chose to go through the suffering. There is unlimited suffering we could choose, if suffering were a good thing. It is not. But we can learn from it when it does happen to us.
So, claim your life, take responsibility for making the best out of bad things that happen, and let go of the need to blame or explain why.
Tuesday, August 7, 2012
A call to humility
I have heard many, many tales of evidence of the supernatural - phenomena that defy any rational or known scientific explanation. I myself have had experiences which I cannot adequately explain, and which could easily be used as evidence of spiritual forces beyond what is known or provable. Many of the people who believe seem very sure, even adamant at times, of the validity of their beliefs.
But conviction is often nothing more than the inability to consider alternatives, and those who argue with such passion for their conviction often are unwilling to truly entertain the possibility that they might be wrong, that there may be a much simpler explanation for what they have experienced than the existence of spiritual forces.
The world seems to consist of two kinds of people - those who tend to accept personal experience as significant evidence of forces beyond the obvious, and those who prefer to stick to what is proven, scientific, or rational.
The world is full of mysteries that have not been solved, at least not to everyone's satisfaction. From conspiracy theories to the existence of God to the belief that eating certain foods will cure cancer or that recycling will stop Greenland from melting, there are those who seem to want to believe in a world where special, exciting, extraordinary things can happen, and there are those who seem to find comfort in only accepting things that have rational, provable or at least likely explanations, and consigning everything else to coincidence or foolishness.
Extraordinary claims, in my mind, deserve a lot of respect. It is an all too common human fallacy to throw out inexplicable phenomena because it doesn't fit in with what we have already decided is true. The examples of conventional wisdom that turned out to be untrue are numerous. To keep an open mind means to consider everything, and to be very aware of the assumptions we carry that may cause us to discount beliefs that don't fit our comfort level.
But the flip side is also important to consider. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and it is definitely more exciting for many to live in a world of angels and demons and conspiracies and dark forces, than one that always consistently follows the laws of physics. Why else would sci fi and fantasy literature and games be so popular, if we did not find them exciting? That tendency can slant us towards believing something that we otherwise might dismiss.
In the end, humility is called for, both in skeptics as well as believers. It is a huge mysterious world, and none of us know it all. The conviction that the mystical is impossible, like the conviction that it is real, may be nothing more than the inability, or the unwillingness, to consider alternatives.
Sunday, July 8, 2012
New Age Fallacy #2: "You can manifest anything you want"
The belief that you can manifest anything you want has become very popular, and has motivated many people to believe in themselves more highly, to take more risks, and to overcome self-doubt. But like many similar grandiose statements, it can also cause tremendous suffering in those who accept it without critical thinking.
Let's start with the obvious. If anyone on earth has ever wanted to manifest flying to the moon, or living forever, or creating a pile of gold the size of a mountain, it is fairly obvious that no one has yet succeeded in doing so, or we would have known about it. If it were possible to live forever, there would be people thousands of years old still alive today. And while these and many other grandiose desires are fairly common among our race, it's pretty obvious that most people do not get what they hope for. Even if we believe these feats were possible, the chances that we will be the first person to manifest such a feat in the course of history are quite remote. Clearly, the belief that we can literally manifest anything we want is absurd.
However, there is a critical spiritual truth buried in this statement which we do not want to miss in our literal analysis. It is well known that having positive attitudes and expectations can increase the chance of certain desires and goals being met. The person who is confident in his ability to achieve what he wants is much more likely to succeed than the person who expects to fail. There are countless examples of people who have succeeded beyond odds at achieving something astounding that no one would have bet on. People have been ridiculed for attempting outlandish goals, sometimes facing scientific or rational thought "proving" it was impossible, only to have the "impossible" happen. And if we limit our beliefs, and give in to "common sense", we may actually prevent the outcomes that we dream about. Life is truly full of these kinds of miracles - people who can dance who were told they would never walk again, people from the ghetto rising to a high position, people creating technology that accomplishes what no one thought could ever be done. Clearly, we do not want to eliminate the possibility of some of the greatest miracles of our lives.
However, just because there is an occasional unexpected miracle doesn't suddenly cause us to have absolute power over the universe to make anything happen that passes through our minds. The person who believes he will win a game of tennis is more likely to succeed in his goal than the person who believes he will fly when he jumps out of a window. The outcome is not determined by confidence - no amount of faith will lift his body one inch above its default trajectory. A probability of zero is still zero after being multiplied by a million.
Miracles are by definition rare, and there are even more examples of people who have tried to accomplish something for years, only to learn the hard lesson that they must let go of their dream, and pursue something that is more realistic than what they wanted. This, too, is reality, and cannot be ignored. One of the hardest decisions for someone to face is whether or not to give up on a dream, or to try yet one more time. There is no one answer that fits all. Our decision is ultimately a judgment call, based on reality and intuition, and when we do finally decide to give up, we can never know what would have happened if we had kept going. It is part of the human dilemma to live with the question of what could have been.
What is being missed here is that we are not the only force in the universe. We are not all-powerful, we do not get everything we want, we are not in ultimate control of how the universe operates. The belief that we are all-powerful comes directly from infancy, when we all had the magical belief that we were the center of the universe, and everything existed for our benefit. It can be a harsh awakening when an infant first realizes that there are forces that his life is dependent upon, which are nevertheless completely outside of his control, and that he is forced to be dependent on an external force that inexplicably tends to his needs. This is where we first learn undeserved love; we are cared for without doing a thing to earn it.
This belief in personal power is promoted partially to counteract our tendencies to feel and behave like a victim; and yet, the fact is, we *are* often powerless in the face of other forces and situations. Why is it so important to acknowledge our limitations? Because, just like the belief that suffering is optional, the belief that we can do anything creates shame, confusion, and self-judgment when something fails to materialize. We think we did something wrong if we did not get what we wanted, or tried so hard to get.
So how can we acknowledge and live with our powerlessness without falling into the trap of victimhood and apathy? By stopping our demands that the universe behave a certain way, and starting to engage in a dance - if we learn about life, we get to know its rules, and we start to discover the opportunities that life hands us, not the power we fantasize we have just because we want to be all powerful. Instead of demanding our way, we can "ask" - we can try, and believe, and move forward with hope, all the while keeping the humility of knowing that we are not all-powerful, and that the outcome is dependent on many things other than our own ego and desire.
We are in a dance with life. We are dancing with an extraordinarily complex and beautiful partner, and we can only experience that beauty when there is respect for both partners, not demands that the other do as we dictate. And when there is a flow between ourselves and life our partner, when we have learned the rhythm of the dance and how to put ourselves in sync with it, then we will know what is truly possible, and we will find ourselves asking only for what life is already prepared to offer us.
Let's start with the obvious. If anyone on earth has ever wanted to manifest flying to the moon, or living forever, or creating a pile of gold the size of a mountain, it is fairly obvious that no one has yet succeeded in doing so, or we would have known about it. If it were possible to live forever, there would be people thousands of years old still alive today. And while these and many other grandiose desires are fairly common among our race, it's pretty obvious that most people do not get what they hope for. Even if we believe these feats were possible, the chances that we will be the first person to manifest such a feat in the course of history are quite remote. Clearly, the belief that we can literally manifest anything we want is absurd.
However, there is a critical spiritual truth buried in this statement which we do not want to miss in our literal analysis. It is well known that having positive attitudes and expectations can increase the chance of certain desires and goals being met. The person who is confident in his ability to achieve what he wants is much more likely to succeed than the person who expects to fail. There are countless examples of people who have succeeded beyond odds at achieving something astounding that no one would have bet on. People have been ridiculed for attempting outlandish goals, sometimes facing scientific or rational thought "proving" it was impossible, only to have the "impossible" happen. And if we limit our beliefs, and give in to "common sense", we may actually prevent the outcomes that we dream about. Life is truly full of these kinds of miracles - people who can dance who were told they would never walk again, people from the ghetto rising to a high position, people creating technology that accomplishes what no one thought could ever be done. Clearly, we do not want to eliminate the possibility of some of the greatest miracles of our lives.
However, just because there is an occasional unexpected miracle doesn't suddenly cause us to have absolute power over the universe to make anything happen that passes through our minds. The person who believes he will win a game of tennis is more likely to succeed in his goal than the person who believes he will fly when he jumps out of a window. The outcome is not determined by confidence - no amount of faith will lift his body one inch above its default trajectory. A probability of zero is still zero after being multiplied by a million.
Miracles are by definition rare, and there are even more examples of people who have tried to accomplish something for years, only to learn the hard lesson that they must let go of their dream, and pursue something that is more realistic than what they wanted. This, too, is reality, and cannot be ignored. One of the hardest decisions for someone to face is whether or not to give up on a dream, or to try yet one more time. There is no one answer that fits all. Our decision is ultimately a judgment call, based on reality and intuition, and when we do finally decide to give up, we can never know what would have happened if we had kept going. It is part of the human dilemma to live with the question of what could have been.
What is being missed here is that we are not the only force in the universe. We are not all-powerful, we do not get everything we want, we are not in ultimate control of how the universe operates. The belief that we are all-powerful comes directly from infancy, when we all had the magical belief that we were the center of the universe, and everything existed for our benefit. It can be a harsh awakening when an infant first realizes that there are forces that his life is dependent upon, which are nevertheless completely outside of his control, and that he is forced to be dependent on an external force that inexplicably tends to his needs. This is where we first learn undeserved love; we are cared for without doing a thing to earn it.
This belief in personal power is promoted partially to counteract our tendencies to feel and behave like a victim; and yet, the fact is, we *are* often powerless in the face of other forces and situations. Why is it so important to acknowledge our limitations? Because, just like the belief that suffering is optional, the belief that we can do anything creates shame, confusion, and self-judgment when something fails to materialize. We think we did something wrong if we did not get what we wanted, or tried so hard to get.
So how can we acknowledge and live with our powerlessness without falling into the trap of victimhood and apathy? By stopping our demands that the universe behave a certain way, and starting to engage in a dance - if we learn about life, we get to know its rules, and we start to discover the opportunities that life hands us, not the power we fantasize we have just because we want to be all powerful. Instead of demanding our way, we can "ask" - we can try, and believe, and move forward with hope, all the while keeping the humility of knowing that we are not all-powerful, and that the outcome is dependent on many things other than our own ego and desire.
We are in a dance with life. We are dancing with an extraordinarily complex and beautiful partner, and we can only experience that beauty when there is respect for both partners, not demands that the other do as we dictate. And when there is a flow between ourselves and life our partner, when we have learned the rhythm of the dance and how to put ourselves in sync with it, then we will know what is truly possible, and we will find ourselves asking only for what life is already prepared to offer us.
Saturday, July 7, 2012
New Age Fallacy #1: "Suffering is Optional"
A popular statement going around in new age circles is "Pain is inevitable; suffering is optional". As with many clever sounding statements, it catches the attention - who wants to suffer? If suffering is optional, who wouldn't want to choose to avoid or eliminate it? It appeals to everyone, because everyone suffers sometimes, and this promises hope of delivery from that pain.
And yet people continue to suffer, and often suffer horribly. If suffering is optional, it makes it seem that those who are suffering are suffering needlessly, and thus foolishly. If suffering could truly be easily eliminated, who would not eliminate it?
This belief can cause much more suffering than it relieves. Tell someone dying of cancer that they are suffering needlessly. If they make the mistake of listening to you, they may wonder what is wrong with them that they continue to suffer when they don't need to. They may wallow in guilt believing that they could do something, and they should know how to do it, and thus are to blame for not stopping it. If one believes that continued suffering is the result of something they are doing wrong, the suffering is compounded. To suggest to a suffering person that their suffering is needless is horribly cruel if there is in reality little that can be done.
There is, of course, a truth that this philosophy is trying to express, although it does so very poorly. Sometimes, our suffering comes from beliefs we hold about the world or about ourselves, and it is very possible to free oneself from that suffering through letting go of our story. In some situations, it may be true that all of our suffering around a particular situation comes from our own beliefs and attitudes, and letting go of those beliefs can create instant relief and freedom. This is indeed a precious and wonderful truth to learn, and the person who learns this can live a much happier life.
However, it is a bit absurd to claim that "suffering is optional", which implies that all suffering is optional. Even when our beliefs are the cause of our suffering, beliefs are often deep, unconscious, and difficult to change, sometimes difficult to even discover, and it is a rare thing indeed that anyone achieves a mindfulness that causes no suffering whatsoever. And as for other conditions like cancer, eliminating suffering through mental control is a herculean feat that very few people will ever accomplish.
Suffering is a natural part of life. There is no reason to blame ourselves or others for suffering - some suffering is normal and inevitable. Too often we blame suffering on the victim. Sometimes, it is true we do cause our own suffering, in part or in total. Sometimes, suffering is just a part of life, and we have no control over it at all. But glib statements such as "suffering is optional" are at best misleading, at worst horribly cruel. Pause and think before you spout your favorite one-liner to someone whose pain you do not fully understand.
And yet people continue to suffer, and often suffer horribly. If suffering is optional, it makes it seem that those who are suffering are suffering needlessly, and thus foolishly. If suffering could truly be easily eliminated, who would not eliminate it?
This belief can cause much more suffering than it relieves. Tell someone dying of cancer that they are suffering needlessly. If they make the mistake of listening to you, they may wonder what is wrong with them that they continue to suffer when they don't need to. They may wallow in guilt believing that they could do something, and they should know how to do it, and thus are to blame for not stopping it. If one believes that continued suffering is the result of something they are doing wrong, the suffering is compounded. To suggest to a suffering person that their suffering is needless is horribly cruel if there is in reality little that can be done.
There is, of course, a truth that this philosophy is trying to express, although it does so very poorly. Sometimes, our suffering comes from beliefs we hold about the world or about ourselves, and it is very possible to free oneself from that suffering through letting go of our story. In some situations, it may be true that all of our suffering around a particular situation comes from our own beliefs and attitudes, and letting go of those beliefs can create instant relief and freedom. This is indeed a precious and wonderful truth to learn, and the person who learns this can live a much happier life.
However, it is a bit absurd to claim that "suffering is optional", which implies that all suffering is optional. Even when our beliefs are the cause of our suffering, beliefs are often deep, unconscious, and difficult to change, sometimes difficult to even discover, and it is a rare thing indeed that anyone achieves a mindfulness that causes no suffering whatsoever. And as for other conditions like cancer, eliminating suffering through mental control is a herculean feat that very few people will ever accomplish.
Suffering is a natural part of life. There is no reason to blame ourselves or others for suffering - some suffering is normal and inevitable. Too often we blame suffering on the victim. Sometimes, it is true we do cause our own suffering, in part or in total. Sometimes, suffering is just a part of life, and we have no control over it at all. But glib statements such as "suffering is optional" are at best misleading, at worst horribly cruel. Pause and think before you spout your favorite one-liner to someone whose pain you do not fully understand.
Monday, February 20, 2012
Many healing paths
I am often dismayed at how much negativity there is in healing communities towards other healing paths. I recently listened to a conversation putting down the Landmark Forum. I did Landmark, and while I did not find it remarkable, and did not like the pressure, there are certainly good things to be learned there, and I have many friends who point to the Forum as the significant changing point of their life.
Likewise, 12 steps programs, as tame as they seem to me today, were my turning point, and I will forever remain grateful to them. It was the first time in my life that I was ever really heard, and it transformed me, perhaps more than anything else I have done.
There is a tendency to develop a loyalty towards whatever system has provided us with healing, and we forget that there are many paths out there, any of which can lead to healing and transformation.
Another story from my fundamentalist past - when I was growing up, there was a controversy in my church about Bible translations, and there were some more liberal translations being circulated which our church railed against because some favorite verses had been changed. We actually went out and told people not to read "The Good News Bible", one of those translations we didn't like. We even spent money printing "tracts" that told people why they shouldn't read it. Get that? A fundamentalist church discouraging people from reading the Bible? You would think we would be glad that people read *any* version of the Bible, but no, we were too stuck in our little world to be able to see that. It had to be our way, and none other.
I've known so many wonderful healing systems, including RC, New Warrior, Shalom Mountain, Seven Oaks, New Culture, 12 Steps, on and on, each of which think they are the only ones with the truth, or the best truth, and the only ones saving the planet psychologically, each of which has wonderful things to teach, but each of which sticks to themselves because no one else has the truth like they have it. Healers wind up isolated from each other, ignorant of the other methodologies out there, unaware of the huge mass of people on this planet all working for healing, thinking their little group is the world's only hope.
How much better if we could just see and acknowledge the huge force for healing and growth that is inherent in us as humans, and that comes out in this wonderful variety of ways? How much more connected would we feel if we understood our little group was not the only one doing good on this earth? How much more hope would we have if we could see so many "competing" systems as really all wanting the same thing - the healing of humankind? Yes, we have all been wounded by systems that haven't worked for us - but they have worked for others. Let's heal from our prejudice first before we tear others down.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)