We all know marriage (Christian marriage, Catholic Marriage, any religiously sanctioned marriage) involves making sacred promises to another.
But do we really get what those promises involve?
Do we really understand — meaning grasp, deeply comprehend — that we are not making promises about how we will forever feel towards the other person, but rather about how we will forever treat the other person. And that is with the utmost Love. We are promising that WE WILL Love, honor, and cherish. WE WILL respect and forgive and be present. In bad times, perhaps even very bad times; in poverty; and through all forms of sickness, be they physical, mental, spiritual, cultural.
When we say the marital vows, we are expressing very personal commandments that we have and are co-authoring with God. These I WILLs that we say in the marriage vows are our new THOU SHALTS.
But for most of us, our own inner Thou is something whose existence is tenuous at best, and who presence is very easily snuffed out or covered over in this world by the world, with all of its distractions and enticements and temptations, with all its deception and glitter and emotionally seductive and alluring offerings and false promises.
And yet against all of this the marital vows stand and take their stand, as do we with them.
The marital vows are moral obligations we freely and soberly take upon ourselves that predefine how we are going to consistently and reliably show up, and fight to show up, to the marriage, to this newly sanctified sacred relationship. We are stating publicly and before God what we can from here on out (till death do us part) be counted on to do — especially — especially — when the going gets tough. When the going gets tough — as it surely will — we are not going to cowardly bail out, cut our losses and run and save ourselves — save our smaller self; rather, we are going to stay and fight and if anything lose or willingly and heroically sacrifice our smaller self, our amoral or immoral ego-centered self, and instead rise to the occassion by putting on the garb of our future larger more saintly and virtuous self, the self steeped in the virtues, the virtues of Prudence, Justice, Fortitude, Meaningful Endurance, Forgiveness, Mercy, Faith, Hope, Charity, Patience, Understanding, Generosity, Conscience. No longer are we going to show up to life — and especially not our marriage — as a mere mortal, a mere human, or even as a scoundrel, as someone amoral or immoral. Rather, with the saying of the marital vows we are very publicly declaring that we are, from here on out, going to be showing up to life and our marriage as a saint — or at least as someone who is firmly and meaningfully on that path.
With the professing of the marital vows we are making a moral claim about who we are and who we deliberately intend to become. Not a coward. Not a runner-away-er. Certainly not an adulterer. Nor a scapegoater and abnegater of personal responsibility and agency. And definitely not a liar. But an upright, morally grounded and centered human being committed to becoming more saintly and more Godly, a person fiercely committed to being a conduit of God’s love to the other person and to the children.
Fiercely committed. Not lukewarmly committed. Fiercely committed. Marriage is a mission. It requires mission posture out of us. Mission focus. Mission execution. A mentality where we “sweat more in training so we bleed less in battle.” Anything less and we will backslide from future saintliness to being a liar and aligning ourselves with the Father of the lies. Or we will stall out, be dead in the water, and inertia will claim us, all because we were ignorant of the depths of what we have promised. And in that case, we are in need of serious moral and spiritual education and we need to surround ourselves with more Godly and saintly influences, and pray for the Holy Spirit to come to us and lead us to all truth.
Love is not a feeling. It is a capacity, an ability, an act of will because it involves a deep and meaningful submission to the Will of the only One who is Love, whose very Being is Love, and whose Will is the only Will under whose divine tutelage our will can learn how to actually and genuinely Love another, our spouse, our children, in a Godly way, a self-sacrificial (of the smaller self) way, and not in an emotionally exploitative and self-referential way.
(My abridged transcription. Parentheses and bold and italics are mine.)
Let me start with things that are true about the human primate. We are threat animals: if we do anything really really well we are good at scanning for threat in the environment, anything that could hamper our survival because that’s our primary directive is to survive as a species, as an organism.
And so forgive us if we pick it up where it may not belong — in the face, in the voice, in movements, in a string of words, in a word choice. But this is how we roll.
And we’re memory animals. That’s all we are. Everything we do is by memory. Very little is done with novelty, or very little novelty is actually being processed in any given day. Most everything we do is automatic. I’d probably say about 95 to 99% of our day is fully automatic, fully memory based. We’re not thinking much. We’re just the cruising along, conserving energy, as nature intended, and really not going out of our way to do much else.
That means that we automate everything. Everything that’s new becomes old soon, including our partners. So we have an automatic brain that automates each other, which means we stop paying attention — at a certain point we stop paying attention, we stop being present, and we think we know our partner.
But we really don’t.
We have an idea of our partner still and that idea is wrapped up in a memory system that goes all the way back to childhood…. And that is why this is a highly highly projective system, right? So forgive us if we don’t know that this is us re-experiencing something from my mother, my father, my brother, my teacher, the neighbor down the street.
But that is the kind of memory we’re dealing with. And this also is backed up by a recognition system that is very very energy conserved, extremely fast, and shoots first and asks questions later.
So what could possibly go wrong, right?
And that’s what we are dealing with.
It’s not a personality issue.
It’s not an attachment issue.
It’s not a historical issue.
It’s not a trauma issue.
It’s a human being problem. The human condition is such that we have a lot of features when it comes to survival, a lot of feature that pertain to hunting and gathering, protecting our own. All of these things are really important features there, but are bugs elsewhere. For instance, I compare and contrast all the time; that’s important for living out in the wild. But not so good in love relationships, because I could compare and contrast my way out of a relationship. I’m always aware of what’s missing. Very good for growing into more complexity out in the wild, hunting and gathering, seeking out food, new lands, but very bad in love relationships because it leads to disappointment, leads to a lack of gratitude, leads to being depressed…. So these are all features in one area and bugs in another area….
That’s just some of the problems, right? Because there’s more. Our communication and digital communication is horrible, even on a good day. We think we understand each other; most of the time we don’t. I think I’m being clear. I’m not. I think I understand what you said. I don’t. We approximate each other, which is a dangerous thing. But it’s the only thing we have, because we’re never really ever on the same page, because we’re two different minds, right? So we approximate each other. And if we’re really sloppy — which we are — and really lazy — we’re going to make mistakes, and we’re going to take a ball and run with it because our appraisal systems are based on misinformation. And so our perceptions are like fun house mirrors — I think I see an angry face, but no, you’re neutral and I’m angry. Our memory isn’t what we think. We try to remember things accurately but it’s never accurate.
And so we have two people arguing over what happened and who did what, when, and where.
And they’re both wrong.
So we have the slippery slope, this ground that is moving all of the time, where we can’t really know what the truth is exactly because there are too many moving parts and there are too many errors that we make.
But that is important for the therapist too. That’s why we have to work in a certain way and not be too sure, always be curious, always cross-check, always be corroborating information, dig deeper, look for evidence. That’s something in our field we have to do — move on proof, evidence. We check our hunches by testing and retesting, but we don’t go with our gut only. We go with our gut and our mind….
If we really just grounded ourselves in the truth about human primates we would be comforted by the knowledge that all of us are aggressive, warlike, fickle, moody, impulsive, opportunistic, we’re influenceable easily by a group — I’m affiliated this way, now I’m affiliated that way — (we’re influence easily by our feelings); we are racist and xenophobic.
This is the human (shadow) part of us we dont like to accept.
And we ignore it at our own peril.
The only thing that makes us better across civilization have been principles of governance, rules, religious laws, norms. That keeps us in check so we can get along with others. Otherwise we will go to war. Or we do something that’s terrible.
Same thing with the two-person system. They’re the smallest unit of a society or civilization. They too have to have (1) a shared purpose — Why are we doing this? It can’t be (emotionally-based) love; it’s got to be something that’s good for the long run. (2) What’s our shared vision? — Where are we going? Where do we want to go? Why? Then (3) shared principles of governance — What are we going to put in place? We’re two different people — animals — moving through time — what are we going to put into place that protects us from each other? If people do those three things, that’s really PACT — PACT is secure functioning, two-person system, shared shared power, shared authority, operating according to principles of fairness, justice, mutual sensitivity, collaboration, cooperation. That’s the goal. That’s what has to be orherwise people will not survive. They won’t thrive….
We’re very good at processing threat cues and then making our own interpretations / narratives which are always self-affirming, self-serving, (and self- justifying).
That’s how we roll.
It’s not good or bad, right or wrong.
The only thing that saves us is having a real shared idea of what we’re going to do and what we’re not going to do under any circumstances — any circumstances. These principles are considered perfect, even though humans are not.
When we have these principles — like we protect each other in public and private at all times — that’s a principle right? — we do that.
And if one of us fails the only thing that person can do is just kneel and beg forgiveness and make it right. That’s all.
That’s governing.
When you have agreements — prior agreements, prior permissions, when you’re looking forward to what could possibly go wrong — and you both want that thing even though it’s going to be the hardest thing to do, right? You’re picking what is going to be the best thing to do in these situations — the right thing to do when it’s the hardest — and we’re going to hold each other to it — that’s how two people can make each other awesome. That’s how two people can make each other grow up, be more, be better, be wiser, smarter, and be exemplars for their kids, right? — because they’re developing an ethos, they’re developing this is what we do in the social emotional world, this is what we don’t do, and if we fail, we fall on our swords, make amends, make it right if necessary, and then move forward.
From Zen Buddhist Monk Thich Nhat Hahn’s book “How to Love” —
“If you pour a handful of salt into a cup of water, the water becomes undrinkable. But if you pour the salt into a river, people can continue to draw the water to cook, wash, and drink. The river is immense, and it has the capacity to receive, embrace, and transform. When we are small, our understanding and compassion are limited, and we suffer. We can’t accept or tolerate others and their shortcomings, and we demand that they change. But when our hearts expand, these same things don’t make us suffer anymore. We havea lot of understanding and compassion and we can embrace others. We accept others as they are, and then they have the chance to transform. So the big question is: how do we help our hearts to grow?“
Is your heart the size of a small tea cup? Or is it the size of a mighty river?
In life, salt — and thus the stuff that might turn us salty — is unavoidable. What matters is the size of our heart.
Is our heart large and open like a river?
Or is our heart small and very limited and fragile like a tea cup?
Becoming wounded, hurt, angry, bitter, distrustful — in short, salty — depends in large part on the size of our heart and how large it can become.
Small hearts — not just young hearts, but those who are older yet still have small fragile hearts — cannot deal with much salt. Small-hearted people tend to get hurt rather easily and thus must be carefully kept and guarded.
A large capacious heart does not need to be as carefully kept and protected and guarded because it can take on more of life’s sufferings and more of this world’s pain without closing down or balling up like a pill bug. It can take in more salt without becoming salty.
Larger-hearted people will be much much slower to close down or wall up and self-protect when faced with legitimate relationship difficulties.
Smaller-hearted people, on the other hand, will be much much quicker to self-protect by shutting down and walling up when faced with legitimate relationship difficulties — i.e., learning to compromise, learning to seek first to understand, learning to both forgive when needed and apologize and make amends when needed, learning to be more able to Love without needing to first be loved or validated, learning how to do difficult right things instead of easy willful self-centered wrong or self-protective things.
And it’s normal legitimate relationship difficulties that, if stayed for and persevered through, are what actually help us grow our hearts larger and more courageous, that help us mature emotionally, and help us increase our patience and fortitude and generosity and kindness as well as our understanding of our self and the other.
The larger the heart, the more forgiving and persevering and courageous and Loving it can be.
In First Corinthians, St. Paul provides us with Godly guidance as to what large-heartedness looks like and requires:
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. (1 Cor 13:4-7)
Large-hearted people are patient, large-hearted people are kind. They do not envy, they do not boast, they are not proud. Large-hearted people do not dishonor others, they are not self-seeking, they are not easily angered, and they keep no record of wrongs. Large-hearted people do not delight in evil but rejoice with the Truth. Large-hearted people always protect those they love, always trust, always hope, always persevere.
Clearly one of the keys to helping one’s heart grow larger and becoming more Loving (more able to give and produce Love, i.e., Loving thoughts and words and speech, Loving intentions, and Loving behaviors) is to grow in the virtues.
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On the other hand, the small of heart will be the opposite of the large of heart because they will be suffering from either an excess or deficiency in the various virtues. The small-hearted will tend to be impatient, unkind, envious, boastful, and full of pride and vanity. The small of heart will tend to be self-seeking and ego-driven and thus ego-centered. The small-hearted will tend to dishonor others, be easily angered, and will keep really meticulous score of wrongdoings. Because of the smallness of their hearts, they may go so far as to even delight in evil, and reject Truth and Light. Lastly, because of a deficit in courage, the small in heart will likely self-protect, be distrustful, quit easily, and consistently opt for the easy wrong over the more difficult right.
And the small in heart are this way either because they are timid and afraid, or because they are large-egoed and thus have no room in their heart for anyone aside from themselves and their own ego.
Which begs the question: is it because they are large-egoed that they are small-hearted? Or is it because they are small-hearted that they are more easily susceptible to becoming large-egoed and ego-centered and ego-driven?
And are the large-hearted that way because their heart has grown so much in size that, in comparison, it now dwarfs their ego?
St. Paul, in First Corinthians 13:11, goes on to make a similar observtion when he notes that a large-hearted person is one who has succeeded in giving up childish ways of speaking, thinking, and reasoning and instead thinks in more God-centered ways.
Small-hearted people will think and speak and reason still in childish — petty, immature, egocentric — ways and may never be able to relinquish or outgrow such childish ways up.
And it’s not just that small fightened and / or egocentered hearts cannot forgive or forget, and that they keep score of other’s transgressions and failings meticulously. Small-hearted people also consistently misattribute innocent mistakes and errors by the other as attacks on them and their small fragile heart. And yet, hypocritically, they always excuse their own errors and misdeeds and hurtful self-protective behaviors. Small hearted people tend to have a rather pernicious double-standard they love by: they tend to go very easy on themselves, excusing and justifying everything they do in the name of emotional self-protection and as them doing their best, while invariably holding others to an impossibly high standard and attributing any slights from others as due to the other person being malicious or uncaring or hard-hearted. The small of heart write off their own mistakes as being due to ignorance and circumstance, and thus they are able to easily excuse their own bad actions and rash or uncourageous choices; whereas they consistently attribute the other person’s mistakes to malice (and not ignorance or innocent errors), and thus conclude thlse malicious actions to be unchanging evidence of the other person’s irredeemably bad character.
And yet which is more likely? Thatthe other person is malicious and hard-hearted and a bad apple? Or that the other person is not malicious, has decent or even good character, and acted innocently out of ignorance, and was doing the best they knew how at the time?
The small of heart clearly are no saints, because only the very largest of heart can become Saints or Bodhisattvas. Rather, if the small of heart are letting themselves off the hook with their self-attributions of innocence and their self-justifications and denial of their own hurtful and harmful behaviors, they are doing so because of some combination of: they are very timid and frightened in general and so Truth and Light and even constructive criticism overwhelm and flood them emotionally, they have been hurt badly in the past and cannot tolerate criticism or feeling guilty, they are very willful and egocentric, or they sense at some level that they have done some very bad and hurtful things but they are afraid to feel the overwhelming guilt that would come with truly recognizing and owning their bad and even evil behaviors.
This quote is about people who are small-hearted
Looking at relationship difficulties from a perspective of small-heartedness v large-heartedness instead of hard-heartedness v soft- or tender-heartedness may be more productive because soft- or tender-heartedness may imply a level of naiveté or gullibility that when reframed in a large- v small-hearted framework is now subsumed under the category of small-heartedness. As in small hearts are often naive and gullible, and in response to being hurt because of this, small hearts tend to shut down and or break, whereas a larger heart would be able to forgive a similar occurrence.
One last point on how fundamentally differently the small-hearted and large-hearted people view and practice love. The small-hearted view love as a feeling and something to be sought after and received. They need their cup to be constantly filled and topped off and kept warm. The large-hearted, on the other hand, see Love as a verb and an action and an ability, as something to be generously given away to others to help them grow and be better able to Love similarly, meaning, less like a receptive and exploitative and frightened cup, and more like a magnanimous and generous and forgiving river.
From C.S. Lewis, “Mere Christianity,” at the end of chapter 2; my abridgement
One of the things that surprised me when I first started reading the New Testament seriously was that it talked so much about a Dark Power in the universe—a mighty evil spirit who was held to be the Power behind death and disease, and sin. This Dark Power was created by God, and was good when he was created, but then rebelled and went wrong. Thus this universe is at war, a civil war, a rebellion, and we are living in a part of the universe occupied by the Dark Power that is rebelling against good.
Enemy-occupied territory—that is what this world is.
Christianity is the story of how the rightful King has landed—you might say landed in disguise as one of us—and is calling us all to take part in a great campaign of sabotage.
So when you go to church you are really listening-in to the secret communications from our friends: that is why the enemy is so anxious to prevent us from going to church or reading the Bible. He does it by playing on our conceit and pride and laziness and intellectual snobbery.
I know some will ask me, ‘Do you really mean, at this time of day, to re-introduce our old friend the devil—hoofs and horns and all?’ Well, what the time of day has to do with it I do not know. And I am not particular about the hoofs and horns. Yet in other respects my answer is ‘Yes, I do.’ But I do not claim to know anything about his personal appearance.
If anybody really wants to know him better I would say to that person, ‘Don’t worry, if you really want to know him better, you will. Whether you’ll like him when you do is another question.’
“Only the best in us can talk about the worst in us; what’s worst in us lies about itself and its own existence.” — David Schnarch, author of “Passionate Marriage” and “Intimacy & Desire“
Also from David Schnarch, Ph.D. —
“[W]hether you’re a mental health professional or a ‘civilian,’ do everyone a favor: Realize you’re living with an emotional terrorist; someone who occasionally (or frequently) does things knowing it will hurt someone else, and who feels entitled to do so rather than guilty for doing so; someone who can be vindictive, punitive, and withholding.
“And then after you truly realize and accept that you have to deal with this kind of person day after day, you can turn your attention to your mate’s flaws too.”
“The first principle is that you must not fool yourself — and you are the easiest person to fool.” — Richard Feynman
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“Above all, don’t lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to such a pass that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love, and in order to occupy and distract himself without love he gives way to passions and coarse pleasures, and sinks to bestiality in his vices, all from continual lying to other men and to himself. The man who lies to himself can be more easily offended than anyone.” – Fyodor Dostoevsky, from “The Brothers Karamazov,” Part I, Book II: “An Unfortunate Gathering,” Chapter 2: “The Old Buffoon”
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The following excerpt was written by C. S. Lewis, from “Mere Christianity,” chapter 1, (it is my abridgement and arrangement) —
Human beings, all over the earth, have this curious idea that they ought to behave in a certain way — and they cannot really get rid of this idea. Furthermore, they do not in fact behave in that way. We know the Moral Law; we break it. These two facts are the foundation of all clear thinking about ourselves and the universe we live in.
This very day, and likely several times this very day, we will fail to practice ourselves the kind of behavior we would want from other people towards us.
And there will be all sorts of excuses we will make for ourselves.
— And I am just the same. That is to say, I do not succeed in keeping the Moral Law very well. And the moment anyone tells me I am not keeping it, there starts up in my mind a string of excuses as long as your arm.
The question at the moment is not whether they are good excuses. The point is that they are one more proof of how deeply, whether we like it or not, the Moral Law has been baked into us. If we do not believe in decent behaviour, then why should we be so anxious to make excuses for our not having behaved decently?
The truth is, we believe in decency so much— we feel the Moral Law pressing on us so much — that we cannot bear to face the fact that we are breaking it, and consequently we try to shift the responsibility. For you notice that it is only for our bad behaviour that we come up with all of these excuses. It is only our bad temper that we put down to being tired or worried or hungry or anxious; we put our good temper down to ourselves.
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“One of the Most Blessed Experiences YouCan Have“
— Maurice Nicoll, Amwell UK, March 17, 1950, “Reversal,” in “Psychological Commentaries on the Teaching of G.I. Gurdjieff and P.D. Ouspensky,” Volume four, p. 1378
The most external part of us is False Personality. The most internal part of us is Essence.
Essence can only grow through what is true.
False Personality leads (misleads) us by way of two giants, Pride and Vanity. And when we are being led — which is always the same as saying, when we are being misled — by Pride and Vanity, we will always be behaving in such a way that there is no truth in what we do.
The more we go with False Personality — i.e., the more we go with these false imaginations of ourselves that are governed by Pride and Vanity — then the more distant we will get from the internal part of ourselves called Essence, which can only grow through what is true and what is good.
Essence can only grow through exposure to what is true and what is good — i.e., what is virtuous.
Now if we can ever see / admit that we are in the wrong — that is, if we can ever step back interiorly and get a little behind False Personality with all its Vanities and Prides — then these moments of self-honesty and “confession” or separation from what is false will cause Essence to grow because we will be giving Essence energy that would otherwise have gone into self-justifying (lying, self-deception).
We all know people who are always expostulating and saying: “I did not mean that — in fact, I never said it.” And for such people, there is within them no internal perception of the truth.
The False Personality in each of us is served by a very unsavory low class of lawyers who always say that we are right and the other person is wrong.
But if we ever have an interior self-observation where we are sincere, then we know that actually it is we who are wrong and the whole thing is our fault.
Now False Personality would never admit this, owing to its low-class lawyers that it (which is to say, we) employ which are really just self-justifiers, self-twisters, self-deceivers. — And the presence of these unsavory low-class lawyers in us means a host of nasty little ‘I’s in us.
However, if we have any good, honest lawyers in us —‘I’s that can form a Deputy Steward — they will say to us (to our False Personality and its nasty little ‘I’s): “You were in the wrong and you have not got a case and we will not take it up even if you pretend you have one.”
Now this “inner confession,” this giving up and surrendering of what you have always known to be a liar in you, is one of the most blessed experiences that one can have in this Work.
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Screenshot of the unedited and unabridged original material of Dr. Nicoll. (Highlights are mine.)
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“Masks.There are women who have no inner life wherever one looks for it, being nothing but masks. That man is to be pitied who lets himself in with such ghostly, necessarily vexing creatures; yet it is just these women who are able to stimulate a man’s desire most intensely: he searches for their souls — and he searches on and on and on.
— Nietzsche
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No man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be the true.
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“The Work means work—hard work—on yourself. Remember that this Work is for those who really wish to work and change themselves. It is not for those who wish to change the world.” — Maurice Nicoll, Birdlip UK, Feb 22, 1943, “Internal Considering and External Considering,” in “Psychological Commentaries on the Teaching of G.I. Gurdjieff and P.D. Ouspensky,” Volume one, p. 254.
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A few thoughts:
All of this False Personality — these negative and dishonest false ‘I’s — is a person acting out on their Chief Feature — their chief (or defining) ancient hurt or fear, their chief (or defining) root inferiority.
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When conversing with another human being it may be wise to assess to whom one is talking — an actual other human being who is reasonable, self-aware, self-observes, and can self-confront?
Or a mechanical cruel machine-like human who can only react and defend and deflect with little lawyers?
Are you conversing with another’s Essence — the Truth-loving, self-aware, self-examining, and self-confronting version of a person (which not everyone has; for not everyone has this Good Wolf nor feeds it)?
Or are you pouring water down the drain, casting pearls before a swine, and conversing with a hypocrite, with a closed-hearted exterior pseudo-self, with one of a person’s many false ‘I’s, with a pseudo-person’s nasty little inner-lawyers? Are you trying to have a conversation where no conversation is possible and no understanding is possible because you are talking to a psuedo-person, to their defenses, their False Personality, their Pride and Vanity and Self-Love, their Inferiority Complex, their Legion of Little Men, the Bad Wolf in them that lies and destroys truth and wants nothing to do with Truth, nothing to do with Virtue, nothing to do with what is Good and Right and Loving?
What follows is my abridgment from pp. 44-62 of “The Road Less Traveled.”
The third tool of discipline or technique of dealing with the pain of problem-solving, which must continually be employed if our lives are to be healthy and our spirits are to grow, is dedication to the truth.
Superficially, this should be obvious.
For truth is reality. That which is false is unreal. The more clearly we see the reality of the world, the better equipped we are to deal with the world. The less clearly we see the reality of the world–the more our minds are befuddled by falsehood, misperceptions and illusions–the less able we will be to determine correct courses of action and make wise decisions.
Our view of reality is like a map with which to negotiate the terrain of life. If the map is true and accurate, we will generally know where we are, and if we have decided where we want to go, we will generally know how to get there. If the map is false and inaccurate, we generally will be lost.
While this is obvious, it is something that most people to a greater or lesser degree choose to ignore. They ignore it because our route to reality is not easy. First of all, we are not born with maps; we have to make them, and the making requires effort. The more effort we make to appreciate and perceive reality, the larger and more accurate our maps will be.
But many do not want to make this effort. Some stop making it by the end of adolescence. Their maps are small and sketchy, their views of the world narrow and misleading.
The biggest problem of map-making is not that we have to start from scratch, but that if our maps are to be accurate we have to continually revise them. The process of making revisions, particularly major revisions, is painful, sometimes excruciatingly painful.
And herein lies the major source of many of the ills of mankind.
What happens when one has striven long and hard to develop a working view of the world, a seemingly useful, workable map, and then is confronted with new information suggesting that that view is wrong and the map needs to be largely redrawn? The painful effort required seems frightening, almost overwhelming. What we do more often than not, and usually unconsciously, is to ignore the new information.
Often this act of ignoring is much more than passive. We may denounce the new information as false, dangerous, heretical, the work of the devil. We may actually crusade against it, and even attempt to manipulate the world so as to make it conform to our view of reality. Rather than try to change the map, an individual may try to destroy the new reality. Sadly, such a person may expend much more energy ultimately in defending an outmoded view of the world than would have been required to revise and correct it in the first place.
This process of active clinging to an outmoded view of reality is the basis for much mental illness. Psychiatrists refer to it as transference. There are probably as many subtle variations of the definition of transference as there are psychiatrists. My own definition is: Transference is that set of ways of perceiving and responding to the world which is developed in childhood and which is usually entirely appropriate to the childhood environment (indeed, often life-saving) but which is inappropriately transferred into the adult environment.
Truth or reality is avoided when it is painful. We can revise our maps only when we have the discipline to overcome that pain, To have such discipline, we must be totally dedicated to truth. That is to say we must always hold truth, as best we can determine it, to be more important, more vital to our self-interest, than our comfort.
Conversely, we must always consider our personal discomfort relatively unimportant and, indeed, even welcome it in the service of the search for truth.
Mental health is an ongoing process of dedication to reality at all costs.
What does a life of total dedication to the truth mean?
It means, first of all, a life of continuous and never-ending stringent self-examination.
We know the world only through our relationship to it. Therefore, to know the world, we must not only examine it but we must simultaneously examine the examiner.
A life of total dedication to the truth also means a life of willingness to be personally challenged.
The only way that we can be certain that our map of reality is valid is to expose it to the criticism and challenge of other mapmakers. Otherwise we live in a closed system–within a bell jar, to use Sylvia Plath’s analogy–rebreathing only our own fetid air, more and more subject to delusion.
Yet, because of the pain inherent in the process of revising our map of reality, we mostly seek to avoid or ward off any challenges to its validity. To our children we say, “Don’t talk back to me, I’m your parent.” To our spouse we give the message, “Let’s live and let live. If you criticize me, I’ll be a bitch to live with, and you’ll regret it.”
For individuals and organizations to be open to challenge, it is necessary that their maps of reality be truly open for inspection by the public.
The third thing that a life of total dedication to the truth means, therefore, is a life of total honesty. It means a continuous and neverending process of self-monitoring to assure that our communications–not only the words that we say but also the way we say them–invariably reflect as accurately as humanly possible the truth or reality as we know it.
Such honesty does not come painlessly.
The reason people lie is to avoid the pain of challenge and its consequences, including revising or redrawing our maps.
We lie, of course, not only to others but also to ourselves. The challenges to our maps from our own consciences and our own realistic perceptions may be every bit as legitimate and painful as any challenge from the public.
Of the myriad lies that people often tell themselves, two of the most common, potent and destructive are “I really love my children” and “My parents really loved me.” It may be that our parents did love us and we do love our children, but when it is not the case, people often go to extraordinary lengths to avoid the realization.
I frequently refer to psychotherapy as the “truth game” or the “honesty game” because its business is among other things to help patients confront such lies.
One of the roots of mental illness is invariably an interlocking system of lies we have been told and lies we have told ourselves.
These roots can be uncovered and excised only in an atmosphere of utter honesty.
To create this atmosphere it is essential for therapists to bring to their relationships with patients a total capacity for openness and truthfulness. How can a patient be expected to endure the pain of confronting reality unless we bear the same pain? We can lead only insofar as we have gone before.
Because it is a never-ending burden of self-discipline, most people opt for a life of very limited honesty and openness and instead opt for closedness, hiding themselves and their maps from the world. It is easier that way.
Yet the rewards of the difficult life of honesty and dedication to the truth are more than commensurate with the demands.
By virtue of the fact that their maps are continually being challenged, open people are continually growing people.
And through their openness they can establish and maintain intimate relationships far more effectively than closed off and dishonest people.
And because they never speak falsely they can be secure and proud in the knowledge that they have done nothing to contribute to the confusion of the world, but have served as sources of illumination and clarification.
And, finally, they are totally free to be. They are not burdened by any need to hide. They do not have to slink around in the shadows. They do not have to construct new lies to hide old ones. They need not waste effort covering their tracks or maintaining disguises.
Ultimately those dedicated to the truth find that the energy required for the self-discipline of honesty and transparency is far less than the energy required for secretiveness and dishonesty. The more honest one is, the easier it is to continue being honest, just as the more lies one has told, the more necessary it is to lie again.
By their openness, people dedicated to the truth live in the open, and through the exercise of their courage to live in the open, they become free from fear.
(End of abridgment and excerpt)
…..
My comments:
There can be no actual Love between two people if both are not firmly dedicated to truth. There can be infatuation, limerance, romance, but not actual Love. A fraud or liar cannot love, only use and exploit and then move on and abandon. — And totaldedication to the truth may not be a strong enough qualifier, total devotion may be what is required. A complete leveling up, sanctification, may be required. Truth must be that central, that essential, and that highly regarded and respected to both, if Love is to genuinely actually exist.
Dedication/devotion to truth requires many things, including that one is self-examining, self-observing, self-confronting, especially in disagreements. Or else there will be no Love. For to self-examine and self-observe and self-confront are in themselves acts of Love and self-extension. And they are based on us having a highly functioning conscience, that we are honest, self-aware, transparent, virtuous. The capacity to be genuinely Loving (and not just exploitatively and narcissistically crave being loved and receiving love) requires that we are basically a decent human being and not just a self-serving petty ego in a skin bag.
Devotion to truth means that we recognize something greater than us and are willing to submit to it. And most of us do not actually recognize anything greater than ourselves, than our own ego. We may say we do, but typically our actions betray us and show that we actually do not recognize or submit to anything greater than the self. For instance, when we argue and disagree, it’s ultimately about who is right, not what is right. When two people argue about what is right it means they are also humble enough to admit where and how they were wrong. In other words, devotion to truth requires that we are truly humble and teachable.
Most of us are not actually devoted to the truth, reality, courage, mental health. Rather most of us are devoted to comfort, our fears, our false personalities and our fraudulent self-images. And we do not want to be corrected or have it suggested to us that we are in any way blind to ourselves. The vast majority of us abhor it when others, especially those others like our spouse and friends who are ultimately optional and expendable to the ego, refuse to mirror back to us what we want (demand) they see of us, and instead try to mirror back to us what we refuse to see of ourselves. This refusal to see ourselves honestly and to see in ourselves what would be painful for us to see and confront is what makes a person what Peck terms in his follow up to “The Road Less Traveled” a “person of the lie.”
And the implication Peck makes here by labeling some people who at all costs will shield themselves from Truth and Light and scrutiny is crystal clear —
“You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desire. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.” – John 8:44
Peck even subtitled his book “People of the Lie” thusly: “The Hope for Healing Human Evil.” People of the lie are those who are devoted to their sick selves (Fromm’s term) and to avoiding Truth and scrutiny and any wounds to their vanity at all cost. And especially irrelevant and inconsequential to them is the cost to others of this avoidance.
This betrayal and abandoning and collateral damaging of others is inescapable when one is devoted to the lie and not to the truth.
But when one is devoted to the truth, one’s conscience is awake and involved in all aspects of one’s life; it monitors everything. Thus there is no place our conscience does not see us or see in us and confront us.
But when one is a devotee of the lie, then one’s conscience is either asleep or has been put to sleep and killed. For that is what the devil, the father of lies, the murderer from the beginning, is ultimately seeking to do — to have us destroy / kill / murder our own conscience — the “aboriginal Vicar of Christ” in us.
When our conscience is gone, the devil reigns in us.
When our conscience is awake and alert and active and fully engaged in our lives, Love and Truth and God are reigning us or we are well on that path.
First, defining the term. The ego as used herein is not used in the sense that Freud used the term ego (rational principle, reality factor, slave of the Id). Instead, the term ego is being used in a spiritual sense, as it is in Buddhism, Christianity, Sufism. So in Freudian terms, it’s more akin to the Id (i want what i want and i want it now and i dont care who else has to pay or suffer for it). This Freudian Id is more like the Buddhist use of the word ego — the ego (in the Buddhist sense) / Id is essentially a life-sucking and spirit-/soul-sucking black hole at our core; it is a black hole in the sense that it is a place of complete spiritual and psychological darkness. When various spiritual traditions and even esoteric traditions speak about we human beings being asleep, blind, machines, robots, automatons, playthings of circumstance (Frankl), falling leaves (Hesse, in “Siddhartha”), a zero and an empty box (Skinner), or in other epiphenominalistic terms, they are talking about us when we are engaging life primarily or solely from the Id (Freud, plus a little rational factor) / ego (Buddhism). Maurice Nicoll, throughout his writings, including his seminal 6 volume “Psychological Commentaries on the Teaching of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky” uses the terms “self-love,” “pride,” “vanity,” and “chief feature,” in a way that I consider to be synonymous with or very closely related to what I am describing here as the ego (im the Buddhist sense of the term, which is how I am using the term “ego”).
I wrote above that this Id (Freud) / ego (Buddhism) is a black hole in the sense that it is a place of complete spiritual and psychological darkness.
It is a black hole spiritually because the ego wants to allow no Light or Truth in or near it (and in fact is terrified of the Light and of Truth).
It is a black hole psychologically because it wants no real (or truthful) self-awareness / self-observation / objectivity regarding itself.
The only “self-observation” it wants is the observations/feedback of others that flatters it and momentarily satiates its vanity and its desire to rival God and be a substitute for God (the end in itself in terms of of our life energies and life direction; making a false idol of ourselves, our ego).
This black hole of ego (Buddhism, Sufism, Christianity) / Id (Freud) is one of constant craving and ambition, that hungers for fame and acceptance, affirmation and validation, and perhaps even acceptance (by trying to hoodwink and deceive God and or those who are trying to be Godly that the selfish unloving ego is actually good and Godly and Loving).
This black hole ego is the automated driver and the engine of the Freudian ego (the reality principle) and whatever little super-ego or “conscience” we might think we have. (The level of development of the “conscience” here is based only what is legal, acceptable, and what one can get away with and rationalize [rational+lies] to self and others. It is not a real conscience, one based on Truth and the virtues and on what is greater than the self/ego [Buddhism] / Id [Freud], it is a false conscience and another false ‘I’ / false persona that we try to use to deceive others and ourselves into thinking well of us and that we are good.)
…..
Ego v spirit
Our innate narcissism v soul
Personality v our Essence
Psuedo-self / false selves v our essential being
These are polarities within all of us.
Spirit, soul, Essence are all dormant or unborn and perhaps unfertilized and not yet conceived within us. Arguably in most they are never born, never conceived, or if conceived aborted. It’s not clear, meaning speculative, whether spirit, soul, Essence can be conceived into us more than once. Might be best to assume that it only occurs once so as not to squander it should it occur or when it occurs.
The stuff of the spirit and soul and Essence all takes place above the line, because it is full of Love, Understanding, Consideration, Truth, Goodness, Conscience.
The stuff of the ego and self-love and false personalities and pseudo-self regularly takes place below the line, because it is full of deceit, deception, entitlement, exploitation, manipulation, self over others.
What the ego wants the most is to avoid any truth, anything that threatens or opposes its agenda — self-agrandizement, emotionality and emotional impulsively, using others, willfulness, stubornness, pride, vanity, remaining blind and in asleep and in the dark and drunk on the things and allure of this world.
The eternal spiritual question is how best to “deal” with ego and conceive/impregnate and grow/release one’s higher self (Essence, spirit, soul).
Is it through Truth or Love?
In physics, Light is both particle and wave, in spirituality Light is both Truth and Love
The ego is hostile to both. Probably equally hostile. But maybe to the ego, Truth sounds like blinding harsh sunlight whereas Love is more like a soft gentle breeze on a perfect day.
The ego is terrified of the Light and Truth, of being seen for what it is (an ugly exploitative parasite, a poisonous plant-destroying caterpillar that wants to deceive others that it’s already a beautiful blossomed butterfly).
And yet the ego may be equally terrified of being Loved, as it senses that it is completely undeserving of being loved and may actually feel being loved (being vulnerable, open, trusting) as an incredible source of intense anxiety and trepidation. It is said in spiritual circles that the ego is nothing but an errant and fearful and loveless thought about ourselves and who we are.
Love, if one is Loved well, divinely, in a completely or near-completely healthy way is supposed to gentle our walls and gentle all of our blocks to Love.
But Love like doesn’t seem to be what even Nicoll is recommending —
“I speak gravely here because negative ‘I’s have to be taken with increasing gravity as one works…. [R]emember that all negative ‘I’s only wish to do evil and destroy your work. They seek to drag you deeper into prison. The trouble is that we continually strengthen these ‘I’s by listening by means of them and believing them, and do so little from our other ‘I’s…. The Work will look after your good ‘I’s. But, as regards to your bad ‘I’s (false selves, ego, pride, vanity, self-love), the way of release is in stripping and skinning them, in tearing from them the precious feeling of I that you have been so foolishly squandering and allowing them to steal from yourself all this time by allowing them your time and inattention and energy, without which they would beformless.“(Maurice Nicoll, Amwell, February 23, 1952; in “Psychological Commentaries on the Teaching of G.I. Gurdjieff and P.D. Ouspensky,” Volume Five, p. 1554)
That doesnt sound like Love but Truth. Thus the question: Truth or Love?
It’s said somewhat frequently in spiritual circles that God never abandons us, but it is we who abandon him.
More specifically, it is our ego that abandons God and wants to act as a substitute to or rival for God.
So how do we end this? Can we even end this or does something external to us need to intervene and end it for us? How to reconcile ourselves with God?
“The real difficulty, the difficulty which has baffled the sages of all times, is rather this: how we can make our teaching so potent in the emotional life of man that its influence should withstand the pressure of the elemental psychic forces in the individual?” – Albert Einstein
How does what’s best in us become more active and overcome what’s worst and weakest in us?
Through Truth?
Through Love?
Through some other way?
Meaning, perhaps through hitting rock bottom? –Through the complete an utter failure and bitter defeat of the ego by the world? Addiction and crises may rouse something more or different and larger than the ego in us.
Or is perhaps by the threat of death? Not someone actually threatening us physically, but a serious illness, a life-threatening diagnosis, walking away from a brush with death. Or us having enough intellectual honesty and integrity that we begin not just to recognize our own mortality but to actually feel it, to feel our own ephemeralness and transitoriness to our core.
Something to consider and ponder and reflect on.
We do know that for people who are primarily centered in their emotions (what Gurdjieff/Ouspensky/Nicoll refer to as Man 2/Woman 2) and not their intellect (Man 3/Woman 3) they have no interest in the Light of Truth, meaning no actual interest in self-awareness, self-observation, objectivity, personal responsibility or accountability, conscience, repentence and remorse, or in actually recognizing and submitting to something greater than the self/ego (God, Truth, Love, Conscience, Objectivity).
Why? Because the ego is a fearful lie that thrives in darkness and requires darkness in order to continue its errant existence.
What we, when living from our narcissism/ego/self-love, most want is to avoid is any encounter with Light or Truth, anything that would trigger in us feelings of inferiority or inadequacy or embarrassment or humiliation, any thing difficult that would unsettle us and make us anxious or frightened, any friction, any narcissistic injury.
But when we are genuinely living from something beyond the ego, the we (our spirit, Essence, soul) rejoices in the Truth, so we actually welcome criticism, we seek feedback, reality, truth, objectivity, to be purified, to become unbiased, honest, to become more holy, to become more Godly. Our spirit wants to know our sinfulness so it can be brought to light, dealt with, put away and outgrown (1 Corinthians 13:11). We want to grow, and part of growing means removing errors in our thinking — iron sharpens iron so with frankness and even critisism one person sharpens another (Proverbs 27:17) — so we welcome opposing points of view when they are clearly driven by Truth and not the lies and deception and spin of the ego.
The Buddhist prescription for dealing with the ego is basically to grow an actual highly functioning conscience.
This can only be done by becoming a completely devoted disciple of Truth, i.e., by becoming a philosopher in the truest sense (philo, meaning lover + Sophia, meaning Wisdom, Truth. The Love of Truth & Wisdom).
Truth and wisdom are in diametrical opposition to the ego.
Truth–and Love–are the foundation of a healthy functioning conscience. Conscience is our inner Light, our inner truth-detector and advocate for truth. When our conscience is asleep or non-existent or not yet developed, we are asleep, blind, internally dead, living the lie that is the ego.
Cardinal John Henry Newman wrote this about the Conscience:
“Conscience is not a long-sighted selfishness, nor a desire to be consistent with oneself; but it is a messenger from Him, who, both in nature and in grace, speaks to us behind a veil, and teaches and rules us by His representatives. Conscience is the aboriginal Vicar of Christ, a prophet in its informations, a monarch in its peremptoriness, a priest in its blessings and anathemas, and, even though the eternal priesthood throughout the Church could cease to be, in it the sacerdotal principle would remain and would have a sway.“
“Conscience is the aboriginal Vicar of Christ” in us. Conscience, Christ in us, is what must increase in us, and ego is what must decrease in us (John 3:30). Truth must increase, lies must decrease. Honest self-awareness and self-confrontation must increase, self-deception and self-justifications and rationalizations (rational + lies) must decrease. Regret and remorse and repentence must increase, blithely lying to ourselves about being sinless and blaming others and excusing ourselves must decrease.
From the First Epistle of John (my abridgment and arrangment):
This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are: Anyone who does not do what is right is not God’s child, nor is anyone who does not love their brother and sister.
Anyone who does not love remains in death.
[A]nyone who hates a brother or sister is in the darkness and walks around in the darkness. They do not know where they are going, because the darkness has blinded them.
God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth.
If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.
If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word is not in us.
The one who does what is sinful is of the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the beginning.
[T]his is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another. Do not be like Cain, who belonged to the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own actions were evil and his brother’s were righteous.
We know that we have come to know God if we keep his commands. Whoever says, “I know him,” but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in that person. But if anyone obeys his word, love for God is truly made complete in them. This is how we know we are in him: Whoever claims to live in him must live as Jesus did.
This is love for God: to keep his commands. And his commands are not burdensome, for everyone born of God overcomes the world.
Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.
This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us.
We love because he first loved us.
God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus.
Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen.
[L]et us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.
There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.
One last remark about Conscience that seems appropriate here. In 2013, Pope Francis wrote in very simple language:
“So we also [like Jesus] must learn to listen more to our conscience. Be careful, however: this does not mean we ought to follow our ego, do whatever interests us, whatever suits us, whatever pleases us. That is not conscience. Conscience is the interior space in which we can listen to and hear the truth, the good, the voice of God. It is the inner place of our relationship with him, who speaks to our heart and helps us to discern, to understand the path we ought to take, and once the decision is made, to move forward, to remain faithful.“
(The following is excerpted and adapted and at points slightly modified from Venerable Master Hsing Yun’s book “Being Good: Buddhist Ethics for Everyday Life,” pp. 101-104, the chapter titled “Not Lying.” That same chapter can also be found here — https://www.fgsitc.org/not-lying/ )
“Deceit is the source of all evil. It destroys good practice. It brings harm to others and nothing good can be said about it.” – Suratapariprccha Sutra
It is a deep violation of another person to lie to them. Lies hurt others because they damage their trust and their sense of what is right and wrong. This is a very serious kind of damage. It wastes time, frightens people and causes them to doubt their basic intuitions and feelings.
Whenever we violate another, we also violate ourselves. Our lies hurt us terribly because they force us to waste energy maintaining an illusion that we know is not true. This waste of energy greatly decreases our capacity to function effectively in this world, and it greatly lessens our ability to absorb the truths of Buddhism.
“The Bohisattva has three practices that he must work on till they are perfected: he must never lie to the Buddha, he must never lie to himself, and he must never lie to anyone else.” – Questions of the Precious Girl Sutra
Lying is known by many names: deceit, duplicity, slander, distortion, fabrication, fraud, misrepresentation, falsification, forgery, and perjury. These are all generally recognized as being dishonorable acts. But lying can also be conducted under the auspices of lofty ideals. This kind of lying is called hypocrisy.
The Buddha said that lying is one of the ten evil deeds. Its purpose is to deceive others in order to get something from them or prevent them from getting something, or to harm them. If you lie, you will not be trusted. If you cannot be trusted, you will be ineffective in your own life and useless to other people.
Lies are serious offenses and one lie usually leads to another and then another. It does not take much thought to realize how great a burden a bundle of lies can be. They are hard to carry, and they weigh us down a lot. They bring harm to everyone involved and they never produce good results in a long run. Sentient beings generate much of their bad karma and attachment to samsara through lying alone.
“One who lies brings trouble to all sentient beings. A lie is like a blanket of darkness or like death among the living. To tell a lie is like cutting your own tongue with a knife; how can this not bring you harm? To lie is to disgrace yourself, it is like carrying a poisonous snake in your mouth…. The poison of a poisonous snake is bad, but it is not nearly as bad as the poison of a lying mouth, because a lie hurts all sentient beings and eventually leads the liar himself to descend into the realms of hell. When a person lies, it is as if pus from an infection were dripping from his mouth…. Lies are like shackles that bind us. They destroy the bridge of the Dharma.” – Saddharma Smrty Upasthana Sutra
According to the Mahaprajnaparamita Sastra, lying without regret or remorse or repentance will completely block the way to Enlightenment and bring the following unhappy results:
Not being included in the company of the wise, Not being trusted by others, even if what one says is true, Not being respected by others, Having frequent feelings of anxiety, Planting the seeds of ill repute, Rebirth in hell.
A lie works against the flow of truth and compassion; how could it lead anywhere else but to problems and suffering?
In its “Hell” chapter, the Saddharma Smrty Upasthana Sutra says:
“Don’t lie! Lies produce all manner of evil and lead to continuous entrapment in the cycle of birth and death. Lies obscure the good and conceal what is right; They lead to a bad rebirth, And an ugly appearance. Lies lead to loss and vacancy. When a person lies, it is as if he cuts off his own tongue with an ax. Lies are the banners of evil and they bind us to evil places. They are the sources of ignorance and darkness.“
When we don’t lie, we begin to use language rightly. Language is most beautiful when it is true. When we are honest, our speech and our attitude toward life reveal levels of commitment and profundity that transcend the samsaric flux of ordinary existence.
Truth is powerful. In the moment, it may seem to be more difficult to tell the truth than to lie, but in the long run, truth is always the better option. Nothing good can come from bad motives and nothing good can come of lies. The wise never lie because they can see the consequences of lying. There’s no right way to do wrong.
Screen grab from the 1993 film “Fearless,” starring Jeff Bridges, and directed by Peter Weir
Analyze yourself. Analyze any lie you may have ever spoken. Isn’t the twisting and turning of the mind as it tries and tries to justify itself an obvious burden that becomes much worse than simply telling the truth in the first place?
Remember, the Buddha is known as “the one of truthful words, the one of real words, the one who never lies.” Because of these qualities, the Buddha was able to establish the Dharma in this world for the purpose of leading sentient beings towards Awakening/Enlightenment. Those who follow the Buddha today should never forget the primary virtue of always telling the truth.
To be completely free from all expectations and demands from others or oneself is to be like a ship lost at sea, a ship without a captain or a navigator.
It is to be a ghost ship completely at the mercy of the waves and the wind.
It is to have nothing inside of oneself that can steer or direct or guide oneself with any understanding, prudence, or discernment.
For it is to have nothing inside or outside of oneself towards which to aim and chart a course.
To be this completely free
is
to be completely lost.
It is to have no real relationship with oneself
It is to have no guide inwardly or externally.
It is to not know who one truly is or is called to be.
It is to not know where to draw the line or lines, what to deny oneself, what to permit oneself, what will actually operate in one’s best interest, and what will undercut it and add to one’s karmic debt, what will ennoble oneself (and others), and what will demean and diminish and wound oneself (and others).
It is to not know where one’s own boundaries are or ought to be.
It is to not know what healthy boundaries are, and perhaps to not even want to know.
It is to be forever testing one’s own and other’s boundaries, to be free to undermine and diminish oneself by going back on one’s word and to cross boundaries one previously tried to set for oneself.
It is to not know what a healthy self-discipline is.
It is to not know what to say No to, what to say Yes to, what principles to internalize and submit to, because to internalize anything would mean to have submitted to something–to some ideal or principle–and to submit to anything other than one’s own freedom would mean giving up one’s freedom.
If one is willing to take nothing off the table in terms of what one denies oneself, if one cannot prioritize truth over pretense, genuineness over pretending, objectivity over lies and fiction, holiness over a superficial authenticity, if one cannot prioritize sanctification (verticality) above one’s own horizontal freedom, then one is already truly, deeply, and perhaps irredeemably forever lost.
For to be this free is to be free of even God. It is to be free of conscience. It is to be free of all boundaries and expectations. And it is to be completely feral. Free like the wind, like a wind that can only pass over the surface of things and bring disruption and leave a path of damage and destruction in its wake. To be free in this way–meaning not free to do the Good and freed from doing what is unfruitful–but equally free to do good or bad–means that everything is permitted of oneself and one can do whatever one wants and will have no difficulty justifying one’s actions to oneself and others under the twin omnibusses of “freedom” and a very superficial “authenticity.”
To actually be truly free means to be free of the power of sin, the want of sin, the allure of sin, free from the confusion where everything seems equally permissible and valuable, where one’s fears and feelings and impulses determine one’s action and one’s course, and not divinity. To be free means to be free of the confusion that compartmentalization and personal dis-integrating are equally meritorious and as profitable as the ennobling of oneself that comes through acting in congruence with the virtues and honoring one’s commitments and obligations (and in an upright way, like a true adult, and not begrudgingly and hard-heartedly like an emotional child in an adult body).
For is it not clear that if one is not willing to submit and be a servant to uprightness, to holiness, to sanctification, then one is a slave and servant to everything, including to every impulse or whim one has, be it noble or ignoble, kind or malicious, decent or indecent, honorable or reprehensible, constructive or destructive, profitable or unfruitful (what raises one’s karmic debt)?
To be truly free means to have a conscience and guide and divine navigator within oneself. To be truly free means to no longer be one of Hesse’s “falling leaves,” to no longer be what Frankl terms “a plaything of circumstance,” to no longer be Skinner’s “zero and an empty box.” To be truly free means to be able to accept certain invitations and influences while rejecting others, to know which invitations and influences originate from above (Gurdjieff’s “B” and “C” influences) and which originate from below (Gurdjieff’s “A” influences), from false promises, which invitations and influences are but a mirage, glitter, candy, temptation, seduction.
For is it not self-evident and obvious that the tyranny of low expectations and low demands never strengthened a mind, body, or soul? That the absolute freedom of gluttony and over-indulgence never strengthen a mind, body, or soul? That lying and deception and false pretenses lead at best to short-term gains, but always exact a heavy price in terms of corrupting and damaging the heart and mind and soul of the person who continuously lies?
My writings on this blog thus far have largely focused on differentiating Genuine Love — willing and acting towards the best and deepest and highest interests of the other person as an actual distinct and unique human being in their own right, and not as an extension or reflection/projection (narcissism) of ourselves — from the myriad forms of Fake Love we find all around us in society wherein the other is not encountered as or treated like an actual distinct and unique human being or person, but as an extension of ourselves (as a means only, and not also as an end in themselves).
Love is not actually love if ultimately it is self-refential or self-serving.
Love is genuinely Love when it operates for the psychospiritual growth and betterment of the other, and does so in a way that passes the objectivity test — that outsiders of good will and good conscience would see the acts to be Loving and not purely self-centered.
Is it possible to Love another in a way that is genuinely loving to another and that also benefits us?
Of course it is. Genuine Love is always ultimately win-win in terms of psychospiritual growth.
M. Scott Peck, in pp. 81-83 of “The Road Less Traveled“:
“I define Love thus: The will to extend one’s self for the purpose of nurturing one’s own or another’s spiritual growth….
“When one has successfully extended one’s limits, one has then grown into a larger state of being….
“[This] definition of love [also] includes self-love with love for the other. Since I am human and you are human, to love humans means to love myself as well as you…. Indeed, as has been pointed out, we are incapable of loving another unless we love ourselves, just as we are incapable of teaching our children self-discipline unless we ourselves are self-disciplined.
“It is actually impossible to forsake our own spiritual development in favor of someone else’s. We cannot forsake self-discipline and at the same time be disciplined in our care for another. We cannot be a source of strength unless we nurture our own strength…. [N]ot only do self-love and love of others go hand in hand but … ultimately they are indistinguishable….
“[T]he act of extending one’s limits implies effort. One extends one’s limits only by exceeding them, and exceeding limits requires effort. When we love someone our love becomes demonstrable or real only through our exertion through the fact that for that someone (or for ourself) we take an extra step or walk an extra mile. Love is not effortless. To the contrary, love is effortful….
“Everyone in our culture desires to some extent to be loving, yet many are not in fact loving. I therefore conclude that the desire to love is not itself love…. Love is an act of will…. Will also implies choice. We do not have to love. We choose to love. No matter how much we may think we are loving, if we are in fact not loving, it is because we have chosen not to love and therefore do not love despite our good intentions. On the other hand, whenever we do actually exert ourselves in the cause of spiritual growth, it is because we have chosen to do so. The choice to love has been made.”
In not so many words, Genuine Love is not a feeling, rather it is an action or series of actions that occurs whenever we have chosen to psychospiritually grow and exert ourselves effortfully in order to also nurture another’s or others’ psychospiritual growth.
And the idea that self-love and love of others is ultimately indistinguishable and go hand in hand is not new:
“Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” He said to him, “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments.” (Matthew 22:36-40)
I would only amend this by noting that our loving of our neighbor as our ourselves must be a love of our neighbor as we ought to be loving ourselves (in a psychospiritually healthy way), and must also still recognize that the other is not a mere extension or projection of ourselves (narcissism, ego-centricism), but is an actual distinct and in many ways unknown and unknowable human being in their own right, separate from ourselves.
An inescapable part of our own psychospiritual growth and nurturing another’s psychospiritual growth involves the growth and development and awakening of our own conscience and the other’s conscience. This is inescapable. There is no real personal psychospiritual growthpossiblewithout also our own conscience developing and growing.
And what is meant by conscience? Our conscience is our internal determiner and advocate for virtue and goodness — for moral courage, physical heroism, honesty, perseverance, fortitude, prudence, compassion, understanding, self-discipline/self-control, fidelity, respect, Love. Our conscience is what’s best in us, it is the most Godly/divine part of us. A huge function of our conscience is that it serves as our internal truth-teller and truth detector, which also means it knows when we are lying or deceiving ourselves and calls us out on it.
If we lie frequently and habitually to ourselves and others, or if we habitually lie about ourselves to others by being fake and putting on false faces and pretending to be someone we are not, then our conscience is either not wired/working properly, or is asleep.
And no personal psychospiritual growth will be possible in us.
And we will not be able to Genuinely Love others, no matter how much we may wish to appear to ourselves and others that we are loving. It will all be pretend, fake, fraudulent. It will be the opposite of Love. It will be anti-love that we are giving ourselves and others.
Thus this slight turn for now in the focus of this blog from Genuine Love to that of Conscience and Truth v Lies.
“This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God.” (John 3:19-22)
For an alternate reading of it, substitute “truth” for “light,” and “lies” for “darkness” —
This is the verdict: Truth has come into the world, but people loved lying instead of the truth because their hearts were dark and evil. Everyone who does evil hates the truth, and will not come to the light of truth for fear that their deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God.
Jesus said to them, “You are unable to hear what I say because you belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires…. [T]here is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies.” (John 8:43-44)
Lying is incompatible with Love and with psychospiritual growth.
Truth is a fundamental component of any Genuine Love and any Genuine Psychospiritual Growth.
What Is Real True Love? 