Arguing

What is it that we are trying to accomplish when we get into an argument? What is the goal of this competition? We are trying to change the view of another to our own. We are trying to make another person see things our way, and we take it very seriously, indeed. We throw logic at them. We raise our voice. We may even insinuate something negative about the character of that person if they continue to resist. But what, ultimately, do we gain if we are successful?

Well, unless consensus is required prior to taking some kind of action (like deciding on where to go on vacation), arguing is usually about winning. And winning is all about self-validation. In Ch. 3, I talk about the self, and how it is an idea and nothing more. That is, it is a collection of ideas that are bundled together, called "me", and are mistaken for the source of one's consciousness. However, since any and all of these ideas can change without the consciousness going away, they are not the source, but merely experiences that we choose to identify with.

When we argue to win, we create conflict in order to protect this illusion. When someone suggests that our ideas are wrong, there is a threat to self; and since self is mistaken for the source of our consciousness (and therefore our very existence) we feel instinctively obliged to defend it.

In reality, though. Nothing is defended, and nothing changes. If you are 100% successful in changing another's mind, reality is unaffected. What was the truth continues to be the truth, and your self is still just an idea. No safety or strength has been enhanced. If you fail, the same is true. However, since in all contests there is a loser, insecurity (and therefore suffering) is introduced where none existed before. This is all that is achieved by arguing: the creation of bad feelings between people.

So, before being sucked into an argument, ask yourself, as objectively as your emotions will allow, "What is really to be gained here by arguing?"

Jim

Spirituality Without Faith

I think we've all heard someone say, at some point or other, that their faith helped them through a difficult time, or to make sense of the terrible things that happen in the world. And I think we also have heard people say in response, "I wish I could be like you, but I just can't accept something simply on faith". This is a problem for many of us. We all face the great mysteries of existence, from existing itself to the inevitability of death, but not all of us are capable of deriving guidance and succor from religion because our minds, insistent upon reasonable explanation, rule out the choice.

So what happens to us, the ones incapable of faith? Are we doomed to accept the other alternative, that once you die you go in the ground, that there's nothing more to our lives than meaninglessness, that anyone who believes in higher powers is a fool? Of the faithless I have met, there does seem to be a ubiquity of smugness at the religious "nuts" who can't accept that there's nothing there.

It seems to me that that answer to things doesn't involve any more thought than "simply accepting things on faith." To say it is irrational to believe that beliefs based on faith are irrational because of lack of evidence is true. But to believe that there must be nothing to believe in is just as irrational. The fact is, we don't have all the answers. However, there are some areas of the discussion that have been neglected.

I have tried to address these ideas in my book, "You Are God." I take a logical approach to explain phenomena in life that we all experience on a regular basis, and tie those ideas together to bring into focus a spirituality that does not require faith. It is a vision in which every person's consciousness is the same consciousness, only apparently separate, and that consciousness is what makes existence itself possible. And since there is only one consciousness, and you are conscious, that consciousness must, necessarily, be YOURS. And existence, therefore, must be your creation.

If you haven't had a chance to read it, please take the time. It's not a quick and easy read, but the time invested will transform your idea of the world and your place in it.

Jim

The Experience Is...

As we know from Ch. 3, the Self is nothing more than an idea; an idea we mistake for the origin of our consciousness. I think that part of the reason it can be difficult to let go of the Self, however, and accept that it is only an idea, is in the mechanism of our thought.

Thought is an exercise involving language. When we think about things, we do so by "speaking" to ourselves, in our minds, listening to what is spoken, then responding. And the way we structure ideas is the same way we structure language, in a Subject-Verb-Object form. For example, when you say, "I walked to the store", the subject is "I", the verb is "walked" and the object is "store."

When we apply this structure to experiencing things, it follows the same logic: "I (subject) see (verb) a tree (object)". Just "see a tree" doesn't make sense. There must be a subject to carry out the verb of experiencing, and that ends up being the Self.

Aside from reinforcing the need to accept this idea of Self, this presents another problem. It distorts the process of actually experiencing things, by superimposing a complex idea on everything we experience. Experiences aren't experiences in themselves, but rather experiences as they relate to self. This tends to conceptualize the experience pretty quickly. Instead of just taking in the moment as it comes, there is a process of identification, evaluation, and relationship creation (all ideas) to "make sense" out of the experience. Instead of being in the moment, you are lost in thought.

So, here's an idea about re-connecting with experience, either in a meditative sense or in any moment. Instead of asking yourself, "What am I experiencing?" instead try, "The experience is..." and let the attention move directly into looking, listening, etc. Treat the experience as if that's all there is, and there is no Self experiencing it. The experience is... and THAT is all there is to reality, no complex structure of ideas necessary to support it. Just the experience.

Jim

What Psychopaths Have Taught Me

I've been learning about an eye-opening subject lately: psychopathy. For example, I learned that approximately 1% of the population are psychopaths. That's pretty startling. Of course, they aren't all murderous psychopaths, like Ted Bundy or John Gacy. They are your run of the mill psychopaths: people devoid of empathy, compassion or conscience who prey upon others to get what they want, living emotionally shallow lives of manipulation, lying, and deceit. In fact, there's a checklist of behaviors that psychologists use to identify whether a person has a psychopathic personality, and it is from reading this list that I had a revelation about the way I look at others, and myself.

As I read this list, I experienced what most people do: a tendency to look through my own life and wonder, "Was this person a psychopath?" And I found it especially tempting with people who I haven't liked very well. The behaviors listed include: callous, narcissistic, manipulative, pathological lying, irresponsible, etc. I could think of a lot of people these traits applied to, going back to my earliest memories, and I was tempted to label a lot of people. As I learned, though, I realized that for all of these people, there was some exception that probably ruled out their being psychopaths.

However, what I also realized was, that this list represented the behaviors associated with every action a person had ever taken that had really hurt me. And this is what the revelation was for me. It was someone who didn't care whether they hurt me or not that made me cynical and guarded, it was someone who callously betrayed me that made me not want to trust, it was someone who treated me like a means to their ends that made me resent authority, and so on. It wasn't accidental harm, or sad events, or differences of opinion that left lasting scars. It was the people who behaved in ways that are associated with monsters.

Now, here's the thing. People judge themselves, and each other, over a lot of things. Things that, when you look at what really has brought pain into your life, seem pretty trivial. People worry about their weight, and their crows feet. They worry about whether they have a nice home or car. They worry about the status their job provides them. And all these worries amount to the same thing: what is my worth as a person? Well, ask yourself this: if you add together all the "unacceptable things" that you've ever experienced from others, how much pain have they caused you compared to one act of callous betrayal, or intentional humiliation, or belittlement? I'll bet all the people with shitty jobs, muffin tops, bad breath, crooked teeth, poor social skills, big butts, crappy apartments, and all the rest that you've encountered in your life didn't cause you a tenth of the anguish that being laughed at would... That being publicly humiliated would... That being hurt by someone indifferent to your pain would.

That was what struck me. I am an empathetic person who genuinely cares about people's feelings. If you tell me a secret, I will not use it against you. I am a good friend. I am a safe place for anyone who needs to be seen and listened to. I'm not perfect. I have shitty credit, am overweight, and I make a crappy living. But how can I judge myself negatively, when I know that no matter what superficial flaws I may have, I am part of the solution, not the problem?

There are people out there who feel nothing for others, and see them as objects to be used. Some of them are psychopaths. Others just think it's okay to act like psychopaths sometimes. And they are the reason that sayings like, "Life's a bitch and then you die" are so popular. Not the people who don't "measure up" socially. Those values are just trivia. This realization changed my feelings about myself and others quite deeply, and I haven't had a day with self-doubt since. I am MORE than "good enough" as a person.

I hope that my insights inspire you to reconsider your own negative self-judgments, and to see yourself in a new light. I have known the kindest people who yet felt unworthy, and it is a great tragedy since it is they, and people like them, who are solely responsible for life being worth living, and even, occasionally, wonderful.

Jim

Questioning Ourselves

What makes us unique as animals is our ability to think. That is, our ability to ask ourselves questions about the world, and things in it, and create new information that answers those questions. We look at the sea and ask ourselves, "How can I cross this?" and from that question, the idea of a boat is born. "How can I feed myself, and my family?" and the ideas of hunting and farming are born. "How can I be happy?" and many the many ideas that make a life are born.

However, the real power of asking oneself questions doesn't come to pass until one begins to question oneself. Until that point comes, we are simply using this amazing tool of thinking in a reactive way, to satisfy primitive needs and live the lives of enhanced animals. "How can I defeat my enemy?" is asked, and new weapons are devised for this purpose. For an animal, defeating one's enemy is a matter of survival. However, for a human, it eventually becomes a recipe for disaster.

It is when we ask ourselves questions like, "Why is it so important for me to defeat my enemy?" or "Why does it make me so angry when I lose an argument?" or "Why do I feel the need to judge others?" that we make the leap from enhanced animal to divine being. At that point, we create for ourselves a power of choice that no other animal has ever even conceived of. We can put aside our instincts and operate on a higher plane of being. We not only learn ways to live with the enhanced power our thinking capacity has harnessed for us, we also transcend the confines of an animal nature to live lives that only our imagination could conceive.

When we learn to question ourselves, we gain our true humanity, and our greatest potential.

Jim

It All Points to You

In Chapter 2, we talk about reality as an experiential phenomenon. That is, experience is an essential quality of reality, and without it, there is no reality at all. Quantum physics describes this as superposition, where all possible realities potentially exist together, but none of them actually exists. From a personal level, it means that experience is the outer boundary of reality. There is nothing that is beyond it. Even the idea of something beyond it exists within experience.

But what can we say about experience, and experiencing? What are its significant elements? In the book we talk about experiences which are always present, such as locality in time and space (everything is experienced here and now), but what stands out about experience itself?

Every experience is YOUR experience. The entire Universe exists because YOU are experiencing it. The experience is literally directed toward you. Consider the most distant galaxies, and their light, travelling billions of light years directly toward where you will be when it arrives HERE, NOW. Now you might be inclined to think that there's a lot of light that travels everywhere else, too, but that's not the relevant matter. It's the fact that everything out there has reached out to YOU that matters. From every direction, the Universe comes to you.

You are always in the middle of everything pointing inward, reaching back to here and now and YOU. You might be inclined to think that there are many of us, all subject to equal attention by experience, but the experience is the same for each of us. We all are touched by Everything through the phenomenon of "I experience". The whole of existence is a first-person phenomenon in this way. Even if you forget that we are all one "I", we are all still One in that each of us is at the center of time and space, reached out to from all directions by the entire Universe through the connection of experience.

Remember this the next time you feel insignificant, or like you don't matter. You are God, and you can see it all around you, the Universe pointing at YOU.

Facing Inner Problems

We are often inclined to think that the problems we face within ourselves are not nearly so difficult to overcome as those that come from without. And I believe that most of the advice we receive, be it from friends, self-help books, etc. tends to reinforce this idea.

When we face an outward problem, like looking for a job, solving a dispute with a friend, or coping with a major setback, we are facing not only things that are within our control, but many things that are not. On the other hand, goes the conventional wisdom, inner problems contain only elements we can control, so they should be much easier to deal with. Whether that problem is an addiction, a fear to be overcome, or low self-esteem, it can be dealt with by a simple change in attitude, being willing to take the time to get organized, or "getting off your butt" and changing yourself.

Well, after 44 years of life, I'm fairly convinced that that is nonsense, and that our inner problems are, in fact, the most difficult hurdles we will face in life. And I believe that the idea that they should be easy to solve only contributes to that difficulty.

Consider the alcoholic, or the procrastinator, or the nervous eater. It seems like all they would have to do is stop participating in their bad habits, exert a little willpower, and their problem would be solved. However, if this is the case, why do each of them continue in their self-damaging habits, in spite of a great deal of guilt and painful feelings of failure? These problems are more difficult because they involve our relationship with our self (Ch. 3). We take these behaviors and we identify with them, and if we do not like them, we experience the pain of not liking ourselves. This pain undermines our confidence, which in turn weakens our resolve to battle our bad habits. This pain also demands comforting, which our bad habits, more often than not, were taken up to provide in the first place, setting the stage for a vicious cycle. Adding a belief that it should be easy only adds fuel to the fire.

The good thing is, when we do overcome our inner problems, we move forward toward the greater happiness we desire in our life. And while it does require great courage and determination to win these battles, one shouldn't have to fight unreasonable beliefs that they would be easy to solve if not for some personal shortcoming.

Jim