Who you are really… AS IF!
Life is like a bowl of cherries.
NOT.
I just walked outside and life was in no way like a bowl of cherries. In fact, it was so unlike a bowl of cherries I can’t even list the differences between life and a bowl of cherries.
All the world’s a stage…
Ummm… not really.
As far as I can tell, the world does not exist in a theater, there’s no audience whining about how “People used to get DRESSED to come to the theater.” No scalpers outside the world giving people access for a hefty “surcharge,” and no intermission.
Now, I know you don’t believe these metaphors are literal. But, man, I’m getting tired of spiritual sales-people who don’t know when they SHOULD be using a metaphor or, worse, don’t know when they ARE using one.
My more specific bitch-and-moan of the day refers to the use of the utterly meaningless phrases: “Your True Nature” and “Who you REALLY are.”
Want to fill a room with eager-to-spend-money spiritual seekers? It’s simple. Tell them that, in your presence, thanks to your woo-woo technique, or due to the grace of your guru they can “experience their true nature,” and “discover who they REALLY are.”
We all have a sense that something’s not quite right in our inner Denmark, and these phrases offer the promise of making it all okay.
Frankly, once you make this sales pitch, you could take money from the people that show up, keep them in a stuffy hotel room for 48 hours straight, do NOTHING else and, guaranteed, some people would end up giving you testimonials like, “I released thousands of years of karma, got my chakras spinning at an octave of the frequency of the universe, reclaimed my soul energy from 2,300,000.38 past lives, and met my soul mate… oh, and I discovered who I really am. I give this workshop 4 Pleadian stars! Two chi-filled thumbs up!”
But, if you feel guilty taking money for letting people have a weekend projection-fest, here’s what you do instead to assuage your guilt (and win this episode of American Guru-Idol):
1) Lead them to a paradoxical experience
2) Tell them that what they’re experiencing is THEIR TRUE NATURE, who they REALLY are
Don’t know how to do #1? Then, see a urologist.
(Sorry, I was channeling Bart Simpson for a moment.)
Here’s how to give someone a paradoxical experience. It’s simple. Give them these instructions:
a) Look straight ahead.
b) Place your hands near your ears; about 2-3 inches away from the side of your head.
c) Notice that BASED ON WHAT YOU SEE in front of you, you have no hands. You can see your elbows, you can see your forearms, but because your hands are behind your eyes, you can’t see them. It’s as if they’ve disappeared into space.
So far this is pretty straightforward, right? I mean, it’s not news to you that you can’t see something that you’re not looking at, is it? It doesn’t keep you up at night that you can’t see the back of your head, does it?
Okay, here’s the “paradoxical part”:
d) Now notice that you are aware of the “space” where your hands are.
e) Without moving your eyes or head, look for the location of that awareness. Notice that “the part of you which is aware of seeing” seems to be in the same space as your now-invisible hands.
All you’ve done there is looked at something physical, so you know how to look. Then you used that same tool to “look” for something that isn’t a “thing.” It’s not possible to see a not-thing. Trying to do so creates a neat, spacious feeling, a paradoxical experience. A “feeling of knowing” without an object.
Okay, ready to lock your attendees into your new religion? Proclaim: “That spaciousness is WHO YOU REALLY ARE. That is your TRUE NATURE.”
Bow to the applause, put out the collection plate and take your saffron robes to the dry-cleaner.
Let’s check this out again, in slow motion. TRYING to LOOK at something you cannot see can generate a feeling of spaciousness, of emptiness. Realizing, then, that you cannot see your SELF transfers that feeling of spaciousness and emptiness to your sense of “me.”
The idea that this IS who you are, or that’s the TRUTH of you… is just a metaphor (and not even a good one).
Our 100,000+ year old brains are constantly searching for the answer to the question, “What do I need to do in order to be happy in the future?” Tell people that their suffering comes from not knowing who they REALLY are and convince them that a paradoxical experience is the TRUTH, and you’ve got a new seeker. Give them a more elaborate cosmology to go with the experience and you’ve got a convert.
The more accurate way to describe the experience would be, “When you look for yourself, doesn’t it SEEM LIKE you are invisible, spacious and empty? Doesn’t it SEEM AS IF you are a big void?”
If you say that, though, people will respond, “Well, yes, it seems that way. That’s interesting and cool, I guess.”
But, for experiencing a metaphor or an analogy, nobody will reach into their wallets to buy your books and CDs, they won’t come back the next week complaining that they LOST the experience of who they really are and need you to give them another hit, they won’t beat themselves up for having their regular ole’ feelings and thoughts and see you as the solution to humanity.
And without that, you don’t get to be the special amazing person who introduced them to who they REALLY are.
Damn.
September 24th, 2008 at 4:32 pm
Oh, let me add the first comment (I’m not in the mood to edit the post and, in a way, this comment is better as something separate from the post itself).
Some of you may recognize my “experiment” as a variation of something taught by the late Douglas Harding.
Let me be clear. I love Douglas’s experiments. They’re great fun. I appreciate Douglas’s ability to create these state-changing experiments.
I’m not trying to single out Douglas (who did a great job of being non-guru-ish, as far as I know).
I’m merely pointing out that without the “AS IF”, without the language explaining the experience-as-metaphor, it’s easy to make up these silly stories about “true nature” and “really am.”
Paradoxically, WITH the understanding of the metaphor, the experience of this mystery of the experience of “me” becomes MORE interesting, more curious, and more fun to explore than it is when you have the silly stories.
September 24th, 2008 at 6:46 pm
We seem to have a great need for complexity where none may exist. I remember being told once to ‘follow my nose’–I couldn’t accept that as a simple instruction, there had to be more to it and I plumbed every possible connotation of those words. My brain, being an answer-seeking machine even when the question is non-sensical (as in ‘How do I follow my nose?’), produced some very weird stuff but it still took me weeks to realise that I literally couldn’t do anything else-ever-than to follow my nose.
I think that one was lifted from Douglas harding too.
September 24th, 2008 at 6:55 pm
Duh,
As soon as I hit the button my brilliant brain said ‘Ever tried walking backwards?’
September 24th, 2008 at 7:34 pm
You reminded me, Ellen, of something my father said, WAAAAY past the point it stopped being funny, “You can pick your friends, and you can pick your nose… but you can’t pick your friend’s nose.”
It was a quite the day when he tried to prove that theory to my sister and me… resulting in 30 stitches and a restraining order.
September 25th, 2008 at 12:35 am
This “sales pitch” is used, as you know, by about 99.9% of the non-dualers out there today. Including some of the very few who I have respect for. But you’re right, the “as if” is always missing.
There are a few canny ones who will add “and not even THAT” (emptiness).
September 25th, 2008 at 6:52 am
My brain is now desperate to know who got the stitches and who the restraining order, but I am taking a stern tone and wagging my finger; ‘We do not need to know this, not our concern.’
September 25th, 2008 at 8:26 am
(it was a joke
)