Chapter 3 - The Sacred Cows of Self-Help

Whenever people seek enlightenment, there are typically a number of “principles” and “truths” we are taught in order to “help” us along the path. These ideas seem so valid, so helpful, so warm and fuzzy that few of us ever think to question them. This is unfortunate, because these ideas more often serve as obstacles to enlightenment rather than the steppingstones we’ve been led to believe. Here are some of the more common misconceptions that trip us up.

Enlightenment Changes Everything

Once you reach true enlightenment, life will never be the same. You will become a Master of your emotions, your health and your circumstances. Though the conditions of your life may not immediately change, you will have access to spiritual powers that you can soon use to manifest any situation or material object you desire. Sound familiar?

The truth is, as I mentioned earlier, enlightenment is simply an experience, not a permanent way of life. You don't "get" enlightened like you get a tattoo, get a college degree or get married. It is an experience. It begins, it ends, and another one takes it place. If there is a permanent change in one's life after an experience, it has as much to do with what one does with the experience as it does the experience itself. After all, any experience can change your life, not just enlightenment. A brush with death can change you. A severe beating as a child can change you. Winning the lottery can change you. And yes, an intense enlightenment experience can change you. But even these changes depend on you and the way you handle the experience. Enlightenment may change everything. But then again, so might almost anything else.

Change Your Beliefs, Change Your Life

This is one of the classic mantras from the world of self-help, and like most of the others, it contains just enough truth to wreak havoc on those who try to practice it. While I have absolutely no doubt that beliefs are one of the biggest determining factors in our lives, I question just how much of a role we really play in changing them. Think of it this way…

We believe the things we believe because they make sense to us given our current view of the world, not because we consciously want to believe them. Right? Our beliefs, by definition, are ideas we hold as true, not ideas we wish were true. In other words, beliefs represent our individual understanding of reality. They change when our understanding of reality changes – not when we want them to change.

Now, while the subconscious mind is capable of distorting reality in ways that can make us believe almost anything, this is done subconsciously and as such, is not a tool we can consciously use to change our beliefs. If you don't believe me, let’s try a little experiment.

Who do you believe was the seventh Vice President of the United States?

A) Daffy Duck

B) The artist formerly known as Prince

C) Millard Fillmore, or

D) SpongeBob SquarePants

Be careful not to select an answer simply because you “know” it is the correct one. Instead, pick the one you believe is right. Okay?

Okay, if you're like most people, you selected C. Now, if you are someone who can change your beliefs, I'd like you to do that now and believe it was A -Daffy Duck. Go ahead. I’ll wait. Write it down as an affirmation if you’d like and post it on your bathroom mirror. "Daffy Duck was our nation's seventh Vice President." It may take a few days, but I'm sure you'll get it down before long. Nonsense? Of course. The only possible answer is C. Why? Because it is the only one that makes sense. It can't be Daffy Duck, the artist formerly known as Prince or SpongeBob SquarePants.

So no matter what choice you wish you could believe, you can only believe the one that makes sense to you. Even if I offered you a hundred dollar bill to believe choice A rather than C, you might really want to believe it and even try to tell me you do, but you wouldn't. And you know it. Despite your best efforts choice C is the only one you can believe. It is the only choice that makes sense.1

Clearly, there are many different types of beliefs such as “I believe Clinton lied to the American people,” “I believe it will rain tomorrow” and “I believe I’ll have another beer,” and some of these beliefs are more malleable than others. But still, all of our beliefs share one common characteristic – we believe them because it makes sense to us to believe them, not simply because we consciously want to. Yes, changing your beliefs will change your life, but changing your beliefs isn’t up to you alone. It isn’t a question of willpower. It isn’t a question of affirmations. And it isn’t a question of understanding the benefits of changing your beliefs. It is a question of evidence. It takes evidence to change our beliefs, whether we find that evidence or it finds us.

The Truth Shall Set You Free

A man with inoperable cancer decides to attend an event led by a well-known faith healer as a last ditch hope to stay alive. Despite pleas from his family and his doctor to avoid the "charlatan," the man goes anyway. Though he is a little skeptical, he does feel a mysterious "something" go through his body when

1 This was actually a trick question. The real answer is not Millard Fillmore but Martin Van Buren. While the question as written helps illustrate our inability to consciously change our beliefs, it may also say something about the danger of accepting something as true solely because it appears to make sense in a given context.

the preacher pronounces him cured. The next day his doctor assures him the cancer is not only still there, but that it is, in fact, getting worse. But the man is confident he has been healed.

He begins to exercise daily, take his medication faithfully and even thanks God every day for bringing him in contact with the healer who made this all possible. Though the doctor is correct, the cancer hasn't disappeared, the man's sudden zest for life and newfound hope is truly inspiring. The doctor had given him just three months to live, he has now made it over six months and there's no end in sight. But then one day the man sees a story on television that exposes the faith healer as a fraud. His doctor and family members call him to make sure he saw the story so that he could now know the truth. He assures them he did. He feels foolish and ashamed but within days the truth sets him free; he dies in his sleep.

Though I have doubts about faith healers myself, I told you this story to make an important point. While there are clearly times when we need to know the truth about what is going on in our lives, there are just as many times when the truth is the worst thing we can know. Was the faith healer "wrong" to give the man false hope? Well, since the man experienced a sudden and miraculous new zest for life and lived twice as long as had been expected, it is hard to say it was "wrong." But what about the others the faith healer treated who weren't so lucky? Now surely he was "wrong" to give them false hope. After all, they didn't receive any benefit from his services.

Believing that something called “the truth" is the ultimate goal of enlightenment and that knowing it will set you free presents some interesting questions.

Who will decide what is ultimately true and how can we be sure they aren't lying to us? And once the "truth" is determined, how can we be certain there isn't another discovery just around the corner that will prove our current "truth" to be false? Can we ever know what is "really" true or can we only believe certain things to be true given our current understanding of reality?

And how do we address the issue of truth in art? If the goal of enlightenment is to discover “the truth,” that is, the model of thought that most accurately maps to physical reality, then wouldn’t a crystal clear photograph be more valuable than, say, a “sloppy” portrait by Van Gogh? Too bad Van Gogh didn't have a camera. He could have created a more valuable (i.e. more useful) work of art and saved himself a lot of time, and perhaps an ear, in the process.

Of course this is ludicrous. There are times when a photograph is more “truthful” than a painting and vice versa. A police officer would probably find a suspect's photograph more "truthful" than an artist's rendition, whereas a patron of the arts would be the other way around. Who’s right? Whose “reality” is more true? Who knows. Who cares. Perhaps the better question is, whose “reality” is most useful at the moment?

So will the truth set you free? It can. But free from what? Just remember our hypothetical cancer patient and how well the truth served him. Perhaps there are times when a beautiful illusion beats reality hands down.

We Can Always Choose How to Respond

Imagine for a moment that I set two blocks of wood in front of you. One marked "A". The other "B". Now, I ask you to choose one. How likely are you to choose block A? How about block B? Okay, now here is the hard part. How likely is it that you will choose block C? Remember, the only choices you have in front of you are A and B. The answer? You can't possibly choose C because you aren't even aware choice C exists!

When my son, Zachary, was in the second grade, I took him to a party at a local arcade. At the day’s end he had collected a handful of tickets he could redeem for prizes. As he and his friend, Rebecca, tried to pick out their prizes Zachary became upset. He discovered he didn't have enough tickets to get anything he really wanted. All he could get were a few items he couldn't care less about. Rebecca had the same problem. They stood there, struggling with their decision. I told Zachary it was time to go and to quickly make up his mind. If he couldn’t, he would have to save his tickets for another time. When he asked if I thought we might ever actually go back to that arcade, I told him I didn't think so but that we might and to please hurry. He was now really stuck. Should he spend his tickets on junk or save them for a time that may never come? After a few minutes I suggested that he might give his tickets to Rebecca. That way at least she could get something nice. In an instant his dilemma was solved and he eagerly gave his tickets away. Rebecca used them to get a little bear which she promptly named after my son. Zachary was ecstatic.

Please realize, I didn't teach Zachary the concept of "giving" to him that day. He knew what giving was all about and knew that it was possible for him to do so. The problem was he wasn't aware of that as he was struggling to make his decision. For him to have the ability to choose giving, I had to bring that option into his awareness. Until then, he could only choose between two alternatives. And he didn't like either one.

We are no different. We do not always have a choice about how to respond to life. How can we make a choice when we aren’t consciously aware that we have any options? We can’t. We can only choose among the alternatives that we are aware of at any given time. And unfortunately for us, that number is often very small. Why? Because we aren't aware of very much of anything at any give time. Which leads us to our final half-truth.

We Are Conscious Beings

This one is my personal favorite. How can anyone argue with this? Isn't it our very consciousness that separates us from the lower animals? Of course we are conscious beings. Well, sort of.

Ask yourself, at this very moment, how many things are you consciously aware of? Not how many things are you aware of now that you think about it, but how many things were you aware of at the instant I asked the question. Aside from the ideas being discussed, were you aware of the font these words are printed in or are you only aware of it now that I bring your awareness to it? Were you aware of the various background noises around you or are you only aware of them now that I bring your awareness to them? How about those things that are “really” important to you? Were you aware of any issues from your work or family life? Were you aware of the latest fluctuations in the stock market? Were you aware of the fact that there are only so many shopping days till Christmas?

Of course not. While something other than the subject of this book may have been in the background of your conscious thought, the odds are there wasn't much else there. The fact is while it is possible for us to be aware of virtually anything, at any given moment, we can only be conscious of a few select things.

So while it is true that we are conscious beings, that doesn't mean very much until we ask ourselves, what are we conscious of? And perhaps more importantly, what aren’t we conscious of?

Now what good has it done for us to reexamine these commonly held "truths" about enlightenment and human nature? It has hopefully given us some insight into why, despite our greatest efforts, so many of us fail to better our lot in life. As long as we believe in these half-truths and strive to live up to them, we will be doomed to a life of frustration and failure. And since we cannot live like this for long we must seek relief. Is it any wonder then that there are some who promote these misconceptions and then turn around and offer "solutions" to the problems they cause?

The only "solution" to this situation is to wake-up to the insidious nature of this never-ending cycle and refuse to play the game any longer. But this "solution" doesn't have nearly the appeal of the false-promises we've been raised to believe in. If we accept it we have to resign ourselves to being powerless little pawns in a world where unseen forces will determine the outcome of our lives. Or do we? Remember, there’s always enlightenment. Not the fantasy we’ve been led to believe in, but the real thing. And even though it isn’t the end all be all of human existence, it is enough. Actually, more than enough.