You’re special… SO special

Humanity is at a critical junction. One path is to chaos and destruction. The other is to a level of peace and harmony and abundance that is far greater than you can even imagine.What determines which path we take?

There are powerful energies that are beginning to become apparent, energies that can be harnessed to tip the scales in the favor of a new age.

The very fact that you’re reading this post means you are one of the people who is, or will soon be, accessing these energies, and evolving and raising your consciousness. Maybe you’ve been aware of these energies, maybe you’ve just been feeling that something is trying to shift inside of you, maybe you just have a feeling that something has been missing from your life. All of these are signs that you’re ready to be part of the most important time in human history. If enough of us awaken to our true potential, we can guarantee utopia in our lifetime!

Ever see or hear anything like this?

It probably sounds familiar to anyone who has read a New Age book or, lately, listened to Oprah and her new BFF, Ekhart Tolle.

It’s a common message. One that’s been taught for thousands of years.

And, in all the ways it’s been told over the millennia, it has never been true.

This one, in fact, I made up off the top of my head. Total fiction. But it has that “ring of truth” about it, doesn’t it?

The reason it has that ring is NOT because there’s anything true about it, but because it’s deliberately designed to make you feel included, special, and important. Link that feeling to a compelling story — good vs. evil in this case — and, viola, “ring of truth.”

Making people feel special (also known as arrogant and more cloying than patchouli) and part of an important universal mission is one of the best sales pitches in existence. Once you get people are on this ride you can, quite literally, sell them anything.

There’s a newly-popular teacher in the non-dual crowd who does a variation on this theme. He doesn’t have the “universal mission” part but, instead, uses the “inner circle” version. It goes like this:

People begin searching for happiness outside themselves, in jobs, relationships, money. But when they realize that doesn’t work, they then turn inside and do something similar, looking for spiritual experiences. But after years of collecting experiences with no benefit to show from it, you start to wonder, “Isn’t there something more? How can I truly get what I want?” And then we come to someplace like this, to finally find the Truth.

Can you hear it. It starts out with “THEM” and what those less evolved people do. And then it becomes “You,” and then “We.”

You can practically hear the warm blanket surrounding the crowd, seemingly validating their path and assuring them that their feelings are proof they’re part of this special crowd who will now experience “The TRUTH,” whatever that means.

The pitch is so comforting that, once we believe it, once we think, “Oh! I’m part of the cool crowd,” we ignore the reality our own experience. We are still the Them and the You. Our experience that tells us, “Well, actually, I still *do* think that more money and a better job and the right guru would make me happier. And I still do think that I need some different experience or, honestly, I wouldn’t have come here.”

In fact, the irony of the “you’re special” pitch is that it’s actually an insult!

It’s telling you that your NOT as special as the teacher, who has fully realized what you’re only beginning to understand. And that is the pitch… because if the teacher REALLY gets it, and tells me I can too, well, then, it must be true.” And then you search outside of yourself — to the table full of books and tapes and to the upcoming workshop — for some new inner experience that you believe the teacher is talking about (especially if it’s a “non-experience”), so that you can REALLY be one of the hip, happenin’ spiritual people… who, by the way, are necessary if we’re going to survive this pivotal time.

I’d say more about all this, but I have to go vomit now.