SELF-MOTIVATION TECHNOLOGIES -- JUNK-FOOD FOR THE SOUL

A professor was taking tea with zen master Nan-In.

As the first cup filled and began overflowing,

Nan-In continued pouring.

Tea trickled all over the table and onto the floor.

Finally, the professor could contain his discomfort no longer --

"Master", he said tentatively, ""The cup is filled."

"So it is," replied Nan-In

"Like this cup

You are full of your own opinions and expectations.

How can I show you anything

Unless you first empty your cup?"

I am grateful to the likes of Wayne Dwyer, Jim Rohn, Anthony Robbins, Zig Ziglar. Deepak Chopra, Stuart Wilde, Norman Vincent Peale -- 

They opened up gates of possibility

At a time when I was drowning in my own ordure.

I found that their philosophies and techniques worked -- except sometimes;

And then they stopped working for me -- except sometimes.

I seemed to be always, almost back where I started;

Nothing much had changed, 

Except I now had an extended vocabulary in more high-fallutin' bullshit.

What had gone wrong?

Nothing.

I was simply about to make another discovery,
Another blinding flash of the bloody obvious.......

There is more.
Aways.

When we find ourselves seemingly back where we started,

It's a sure sign that there is more to "get".

Got it?

Good.

Everything is an invitation to deeper, wider Awareness

The question is --

Am I going to come home and be present for this,

Or stay out on the world's longest lunch-break?

At its core,

The religion of self-motivation, self-reliance and self-service

Relies on integrity, shared humanity and alignment

For it to work.

That is, in and of itself, an enormous leap forward.

It's not deep, but it isn't silly either;

It's a lot more intelligent than the conditions of ignorance it replaces.

It awakens an awareness of Spirit

That is usually a lot more practical than that provided by traditional religion --
One of the reasons why many pentecostal churches have jumped on board
And integrated the techniques with their fundamentalist interpretations of scripture.

It's a lot easier, too, to go deeper
If the more basic needs of life -- food, shelter and some measures of intimacy and achievement are taken care of,
And you can manage a higher level of competence and success.

I also re-discovered some Hope in Personal-Growth-erism.
After years of covering up a sneaking, growing despair,
The simple possibility that there IS a way out, was liberating,
Even if that wasn't it.
And it wasn't. The despair didn't go away:
It just got covered over and driven deeper.
The adage "Fake it until you make it" doesn't work;
No matter how often or how earnestly we try,
Nothing fake will ever become genuine

The core problem I eventually identified with motivational whoop-ups
Arose from their lack of deep-soul nutrition.
The content of most of the seminars and conferences I took part in
Was junk food for the soul,
[Junk food being that which satisfies the act, but not the purpose of eating.]
To me it's a perfect irony that one of the breakfast groups I became involved with met in Maccas' stores.

The limitations of the teachings begin to show up when we reach the limitations of the mind.

The religion of self-motivation and positive thinking is (mostly) head-stuff.

It works on the mind.....

It is, in fact, the mind ....working on the mind.

It focuses on change for the better, instead of transformation.

Instead of first clearing the clutter and detritus of past, outdated beliefs and habits,

It adds more and "better" ones to the pile,

Then attempts to organise and control

The dog's breakfast that results.

The hot pursuit of Personal Growth is still based on:

• a belief in, and fear of Lack,
• A delusion-creating resistance to the inherent negative side of everything,
• A constant addiction to produce,
• An assumption of Scarcity, and
• A compulsion to Earn (money, love, forgiveness...), arising from an inability to get that Deservingness is our birthright. (I am, therefore I deserve.)

Self-motivation tempts it's followers to compete, rather than create.

It's goal is Achievement,

Often at the expense of peace, happiness and balance.
It allows achievement and success to substitute for fulfillment.

It is ultimately self-defeating,

Since a fear of scarcity and lack

Will never produce a harvest of abundance....

Thistle seeds do not grow wheat.

From within the scientific technologies of personal growth

Material, emotional and, yes, even spiritual attainments

Become the measure of how well we're doing.

We begin to define ourselves by one or more of the following --

• My career
• My social status
• My family status
• My possessions -- material and non-material
• How I feel
• What I think

(Thou shalt have no other gods but "Me")

In the midst of a burgeoning business life,

I found myself, more than ever,

Still a victim,

And a victim of more pressures --

• A victim of a need for More, Better and Different
• A victim of a need to Succeed
• A victim of a need to Achieve
• A victim of a need to be Right
• A victim of a need to be Positive
• A victim of Social Consciousness; and
• A victim of Ego, my own and those of everyone I wanted something from.

At this point,

May I proffer some notions that you may like to sit with for a while? --

• Ideas have an inherent tendency to transmute themselves into being and into experience, which then becomes your reality. Sometimes a little personal input is called for; sometimes it works better if we get out of the roadway.
• All achievement began as an idea.
• All lasting achievement began as an idea evolving from a desire to create an experience, not from an urge to avoid another, feared experience.
• If you're getting what you don't want, part of the reason is that you're unknowingly harbouring an idea that is overriding the idea of what you want. There's an experience you need that you will not acknowledge. Your wheels are spinning. Traction begins with acknowledging and owning both positive and negative ideas.
• Creating is the act of producing something out of nothing -- out of no-mind.
• At the higher vibrational levels, it is the subconscious no-mind that is connected most closely to the forces of the Infinite Intelligence -- the Intelligence that is so creative that it created all that is. Maybe, if we looked at how that Intelligence goes about the job of creating, we might learn something?
• You are not the thinker. Thoughts are not yours to own.
• The Source is abundant. The range and variety of available ideas and thoughts is infinite. Any perception of limitedness or lack is self-generated, an impoverishing state of affairs that Abundance allows us to indulge in.
• Lower-level thoughts appear out of the soup of thoughts we swim in.
• We surround our self with a "mood" -- a filtering atmosphere that lets through thoughts that reflect and reinforce the emotional condition we've set up for our self. Whether the atmosphere is "heaven" or "hell" is down to each of us.
• The thoughts we adopt and entertain have the power to open us up, or close us down to contact with the sources of abundance.
• The sources of abundance and freedom often come heavily disguised. There's a good reason for that. Go figure for yourself.
• Our internal self-image acts like a thermostat. We live up to our own most deeply felt expectations, and no further. Unless and until we deal with that, we're always going to be hauled back, kicking and moaning, to where we're coming from.
• Our past and our present environment -- physical, mental, cultural, and emotional -- do not fully determine our present behaviour. There is always a Point of Choice, a point at which the cycle can be broken. Just because we cannot see that point at the moment does not mean that it's not there. If you cannot see it, get help; there's plenty available.
• Our present environment is useful feedback on the nature of our deep, unconscious levels of self-image.
• No-one can change either his self-image or the resulting environment until he has deeply recognised his responsibility in it. The extent of change is directly proportional to the level of that acceptance.
• Others are worthy, too. All of them.
• Justified or not, resentment is an expensive emotion. It costs the sufferer everything -- happiness, power, freedom and possibility are just some of the goodies thrown out to make room for more resentment, victimness, inhibition, anger, frustration, guilt and righteous justificating.
• Emotions are neither good nor bad. How we use them determines how appropriately and effectively we respond to the present.
• Resentment, fear and guilt fixate us on a past that is dead, forcing us to disinter the body every moment in an effort to change that which cannot be changed. They are, therefore, inappropriate. They also cause inhibition.
• Worry and anxiety fixate us on an imaginary future which, in turn, is inexorably pre-ordained by our present state of mind-thinking/feeling.
• All separating emotions pull us out of the the only reality there is -- the present.

BEYOND THE RAH-RAH-RAH....

If we haven't already done so,
Some time before death, life will see to it that we move
Beyond the sciences of motivation and success

And into grander experiences of Growing;

We will shift focus from personal development

To Evolving as human beings.
My choice is to do it now and take time to really experience these transitions,
Rather than be forced to whip through them just before "lights-out"
While my life flashes before my eyes.

There's a bonus to doing moving on now rather than leaving it to the last half-minute --
People who are healthy, interdependent and developing as human beings

Are naturally fulfilled in all that they choose to do

To express who and what they think they are.

They don't need to go looking for success;

Because there's no emptiness to fill.

Personal development systems in the pursuit of success 

Are just a spring clean and paint job.

They are technologies for tinkering around with one's ego --

Moving ideas, beliefs and concepts around the house

And slapping on a new coat of varnish

And maybe hanging some new curtains,

While the house and all its lean-to's are leaking every time it rains,

And crumbling at the foundations.

Personal growth is not intrinsically bad;
It just doesn't go nearly far enough.

It's just an ego-devised short cut

That fails when it takes no account of Real Self.

Satisfaction is intrinsic in living the Whole of Self.

It cannot come from little fragments of self-ishness,

Or from anywhere else.

If the mechanisms of personal development are exercised
In a context of Conscious Exploring,
They can be invaluably enlightening.
When they work,
They succeed, not because of what they are,
But because of the willingness, purpose and integrity
Of the person.
Without that willingness to know all of self,
The mechanics are of very limited value.
When they produce a modicum of success,
That very success, without self-realisation, becomes destructive of Self.....
We all know stories of people who have acquired sudden fame and success,
Only to self-destruct.
Most of them come through to the other side,
But not all.
Some don't make it.

Outside of the ranks of the highly-publicised and famous,
The force-fed growth of personality without a commensurate growth in awareness of self
Has produced the kind of monstrous ego-freaks
That show up at stock exchanges, parliaments, pentecostal churches,
And phony TV "reality" productions like "Survivor", "The Apprentice" and "The World's Greatest Race",
And other sideshows.

Closer to home,
Personal development programmes can trigger a spurt of growth for us,
But if we start to believe in them and hang on for too long,
They'll stunt the same growth,
Well short of ripe maturity.

There is more.
Always.....

A realising Self does not take positions of right/wrong, or good/bad;
Real growth is not personal, therefore it does not traffic in offence -- giving or taking.
True Self chooses to respond creatively,
Rather than react robotically.

Success and Motivation teachings and disciplines
Gave me some sense of relief, hope, purpose and gratification:
I thought "This is it". I thought I'd got it. But I hadn't.
Some situation would arise, or someone would say or do something
That I would react to self-destructively.
I lost it, in more ways than one.

What's the difference between development and growth (in this context)?
Gratification doesn't last;
Satisfaction always Is,
Whether we realise it or not.
Gratification is a filling-up;
Satisfaction is an emptying-out, creating space.
The switch from gratification to satisfaction
Is a switch from Mind to True Self.

Success and Motivation disciplines are highly palatable and reasonable
And may even be inspiring;
Conscious Growth may be un-reasonable and highly intrusive,
But it will be empowering.
The purpose of Human Growth is enlightenment;
The result of Personal Improvement is enheavyment.

Personal Improvement may have its place in your Becoming,
As it did in mine,
But don't dwell there any longer than you need to.
Learn from my mistakes.....
The technologies won't take you where you want to go.
Self-Motivation is a side-street that leads to a heap of stuff you can't take with you;
It's a cul-de-sac you're eventually going to have to back out of.
Sure, it gives you goals to aspire to,
But only filling gaps.
It takes you on a search for fulfillment
When you are already, and always filled-full --
Full of "missing".
You've heard the expression Less is more?
We don't need more of any thing to make life work,
We need less.

Michaelangelo was once asked how he designed his sculptures.
He replied "I don't design them, they already exist within the stone.
I saw The David locked in the block of stone;
I simply chipped away at the not-David,
To reveal the perfection of what lay hidden within,
Of what already was."

In conscious growth there is nothing missing at any point;
We're already full-up.
We've just forgotten who we are, and what we need,
And slathered all of that with layer-over-layer of "Not-Me".
Human Growing is a process of chipping away at the "Not-Me"
To reveal once more the perfection of all that we really are.