SELF-IMPROVEMENT IS A MYTH!

At this time of the year many people make or have already made a resolution, which is often short-lived, to embark upon some sort of self-improvement program or to give up some bad habit. Now, don’t get me wrong. I am all for personal transformation, but there is a right, and a wrong, way to go about it, both in thought, word and deed.

Alan Watts

One of my all-time favourite spiritual teachers Alan Watts, pictured left, in his book The Wisdom of Insecurity, has this to say about the wrong way to embark upon self-improvement:

I can only think seriously of trying to live up to an ideal, to improve myself, if I am split in two pieces. There must be a good ‘I’ who is going to improve the bad ‘me.’ ‘I,’ who has the best intentions, will go to work on wayward ‘me,’ and the tussle between the two will very much stress the difference between them. Consequently ‘I’ will feel more separate than ever, and so merely increase the lonely and cut-off feelings which make ‘me’ behave so badly.

The reason the good ‘I’ can’t change the bad ‘I’ is because they are one and the same. Worse still, both ‘I’s’ are illusory. When I use the word 'illusory' I am not saying these 'I's' do not exist. They do exist—but only as self-images in our mind. The 'I's' are, however, illusory in the sense that they are not what they appear to be. They appear to be 'solid,' 'fixed,' and 'permanent,' but they are not. Nevertheless, all the 'I's' and 'me's' in your mind are brought about by thought, and they have no reality in and of themselves. They are, as the Indian spiritual philosopher J. Krishnamurti used to say, the product of thought which divides. They are certainly not you, the person that you are.

Yes, despite appearances to the contrary, and our own misbelief, these ‘I’s” do not have any separate, independent, discrete and permanent existence from the person each one of us is. The great Scottish philosopher David Hume came up with what is known as the ‘bundle theory,’ which postulates that our mind constructs hundreds of waxing and waning selves. None of these selves ever come together as a single unified entity. They are no more than a bundle of thoughts, feelings, perceptions and sensations. Neuroscience has shown that Hume, along with a considerable number of other eminent philosophers, was right.

Alan Watts explains how the phenomenon of self occurs:

The notion of a separate thinker, of an ‘I’ distinct from the experience, comes from memory and from the rapidity with which thought changes. It is like whirling a burning stick to give the illusion of a continuous circle of fire. If you imagine that memory is a direct knowledge of the past rather than a present experience, you get the illusion of knowing the past and the present at the same time. This suggests that there is something in you distinct from both the past and the present experiences. You reason, ‘I know this present experience, and it is different from that past experience. If I can compare the two, and notice that experience has changed, I must be something constant and apart.’

Over time our sense of self hardens, but it is never more than image—self-image—in our mind. And the bottom line is this: ‘I’ can’t change ‘me.’ You see, the ‘I’ that wants to stop smoking or drinking is the ‘me’ that wants to keep smoking or drinking. What’s more, all such ‘I’s’ and ‘me’s’ are in the past. They are all the result of past thinking and past conditioning. They can never result in the attainment of something in the now, let alone the future. When we work and rely upon only our ‘I’s’ and ‘me’s we will never, never succeed in our endeavours. As William Temple, a former Archbishop of Canterbury, said, ‘For the trouble is that we are self-centred, and no effort of the self can remove the self from the centre of its own endeavour.’

The only program of self-improvement that has any chance at all of being successful is one where the person that each one of us is makes a decision to invoke the power of one’s own personhood. That power is not of self; it is a ‘power-not-oneself.’ Self can’t change self, for all our mental selves are in and of themselves not only powerless but also contradictory and in opposition to each other. Hence the need to rely upon a power-not-oneself—the power that comes from being a person among persons.

P F Strawson

Now, what is a person? Well, the well-known English philosopher P F Strawson, pictured right, wrote much on the subject. Strawson articulated a concept of ‘person’ in respect of which both physical characteristics and states of consciousness can be ascribed to it. Each one of us is a person among persons—a mind-body complex. We are much, much more than those hundreds of little, false selves---all those waxing and waning ‘I’s’ and ‘me’s’—with which we tend to identify, in the mistaken belief that they constitute the ‘real me,’ that is, the person each one of us is. Only the latter is ontologically real. Personal freedom and real personal transformation come when we get real, that is, when we start to think, act and live from our personhood as a person among persons. We need to get our mind off our ‘selves’ and rise above them if we are to get real. And remember this: there is no human problem that is not common to other persons among persons.

Now, here are the steps involved. You begin by making up your mind and make a decision to do X [X being whatever positive thing you wish to see actualized in your life]. Great power arises from the making of a decision. Then nail that decision up in your mind and don’t look back. A big part of not looking back means that when any thought, feeling, perception or sensation arises that is to the contrary of the doing of X, you proceed to reaffirm and thus strengthen your original decision and resolve to do X by performing some action—the important word is action—that is not only consistent with the doing of X, it will actually help to bring about X. In the words of the American essayist and minister Ralph Waldo Emerson, ‘Do the thing and you will have the power.’ The power is in the doing—the power of the person that you are. It’s the ‘act as if’ principle taught by the great American philosopher and psychologist William James, pictured below. He said, ‘If you want a quality [of personhood], act as if you already had it’ [emphasis added]. Now, who must act? You, the person that you are, must act.

William James

For example, if your decision is to give up smoking, and a thought arises that a cigarette would be nice right now, you immediately do something that is consistent with being a non-smoker. For example, you go somewhere, or mix with someone, where smoking is simply out of the question. Forget all about so-called will-power, for there is no such thing. The ‘will’ is simply your ability to make a decision; it has no power in and of itself. We will always do whatever is our strongest want. It’s want-power—fortified with enthusiasm—and not will-power that we need. Another problem with so-called will-power is this—it is simply the imposition of one illusory ‘self’ over another. It’s the old problem all over.

One more thing, motivation is essential for successful personal transformation. Motivation is motive plus action, the latter being the doing of all that is necessary for X to actualize. What is your motive for doing X? (There may, of course, be more than one such motive.) Your motive must relate to you as a person. For example, if you want to give up smoking, your motive may be to be a healthier person or a wealthier person (as smoking is, among other things, damn expensive). Keep your motive upfront in your consciousness. Your motive is your want-power. For all intents and purposes they are one and the same.

So, remember this. Self can’t change self, because self is image inside a person, but the person each one of us is can indeed change—and change for the better—if we want, that is, really want, change more than anything else and are prepared to go to any length to get it.

Note. This post was first published, in substantially the same form, as ‘The Myth of Self-improvement’ on January 11, 2015.

FREEDOM FROM BONDAGE: THE FIVE STAGES OF TRUE GROWTH

All of us are in bondage to something or someone, some of us more so than others. Some of us are in bondage to alcohol or other drugs. Others of us are in bondage to other sorts of addictions including being addicted to work and other people. (Oh, how we crave the useless attention and approval of others! But why?) Still others of us are in bondage to mental obsessions and physical compulsions, things that make even our moment-to-moment existence misery. What can we do about all this?

When we get right down to the bottom line all bondage is addiction to self. Yes, addiction to self. Self-obsession, self-absorption, self-centeredness, selfishness. Yes, there may be mental illness as well as physical illness involved as well, but deep down all forms of bondage are bondage to self, that is, to a sense of self that is illusory. We are not a ‘self,’ or those many, many ‘selves’ which are nothing other than mental images. They are not the real person each one of us is. So, what is the answer? We need to—wake up! We need to experience self-release, which is the ending of illusion. Once we see the false as false—and self is the ultimate illusion—a whole new world opens up for us.

George S Arundale

Many years ago I read a little booklet penned by George Arundale. I can’t remember the title of the booklet—it was more of a pamphlet—but I do remember something of immense value in it, something has that helped me greatly in my own life, something that I want to share with you now. Of all the bits and tidbits of advice and wisdom I’ve read over many decades, this gem of spiritual wisdom from Arundale is perhaps the best and most useful of them all.

George Arundale wrote of the five stages of true growth—true spiritual growth, that is. The five stages are as follows: discontent, search, escape, discovery, and freedom. Let’s deal with them in turn.

First, discontent. This is the beginning of freedom. You know, there is a phrase ‘divine discontent,’ because discontent can be a most wonderful thing. Without a certain amount of discontent in our lives we would never seek to grow, learn, understand, or escape bondage. The Indian spiritual philosopher J. Krishnamurti had this to say about discontent: 

Only a mind that is in despair can find reality. A mind that is completely discontented can jump into reality, not a mind that is content, not a mind that is respectable, hedged about by beliefs. ... Though painful, it is a marvellous thing to be discontented ... .

Arundale calls discontent, which is the knowledge and recognition of bondage and limitation, an ‘angel-messenger of Light in the midst of all darkness.’ Take the alcoholic, for example. Alcoholics are never really happy. In fact, they live in misery, as do all addicts. Every alcoholic—and the same goes for any addict—seeks to escape an unwanted self. 

Actually, that is a very necessary thing to do, for we all must learn to escape our unwanted selves, that is, all those false and illusory images we have of ourselves that prevent us from seeing things as they really are. The problem with alcoholism and all other forms of addiction and bondage is that drugs and the like are never the answer. Indeed, they increasingly become the problem, and more and more of a problem, until the sufferer either dies or goes mad. That’s true. Don’t doubt it, even for a moment.

The second stage of true growth is search. Discontent, after varying periods of time, results in a search for a way out. A thought comes to mind— ‘There must be a way out!’ There is—always. So, we look for a way out. That may take a long time, although in most cases we make it longer than it need be. We may seek the views of others. We may join a new religion. We may read self-help books galore. I did all of those things in my own search for freedom. None of them really helped me to break free from bondage, but for some glorious reason I never gave up hope. But eventually I gave in—that is, surrendered, let go. Only then was it that a power-not-myself—for self can never change self, as self is forever the problem and never the solution—led me to freedom. Sadly, many people never get to this second stage. They die—discontented.

Discontent alone is not enough. Insight alone never changes us. We must want change—I mean, really want it above all other things—and we must be prepared to go to any length to get it. As Williams James used to say, we will always do whatever is our strongest desire. Search begins with desire. The stronger the desire for escape, the more likely the search will not be in vain.

George S Arundale

The third stage is escape. We exit the prison. We enter into a new world. Arundale called it a ‘garden.’ Lovely imagery. Then, we make a great discovery.

Discovery is the fourth stage. We take possession of our new world and we discover. We learn. We understand. Gone are the old beliefs that only helped to keep us in bondage. Once, we believed. Now, we know and understand. There is a whole world of difference!

The fifth stage of true growth is freedom. Arundale wrote that we need to be very careful here. Sometimes, if we are not ever-vigilant, we will find that we have entered a larger prison. True spiritual growth, he wrote, is often a case of freedom succeeding freedom as we draw nearer to Eternity—‘at least to an Eternity,’ wrote Arundale.

Discontent … search … escape … discovery … freedom. That’s it! In many ways these five words are all you need to know to be able to live a long, happy, and satisfying life. Arundale wrote that these five steps encapsulate a certain spiritual or metaphysical law—the ‘Law of Universal Growth,’ he called it. He also wrote that this law of growth is ‘God’s gift of Time.’ Perhaps, but for many people time is running out. We must act … now!

‘Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation (2 Cor 6:2), says the New Testament. Yes, right now! Salvation is all about wholeness and health of mind, body and spirit … and freedom from bondage and limitation of all kinds—in this life. Salvation is all about—waking up! It's about self-release. It's about freedom from bondage.

Yes, there is a power-not-oneself that can make all things new. That power, as Norman Vincent Peale has written, is 'a spiritual giant within you, which is always struggling to burst its way out of the prison you have made for it.’ The power can restore you to health and vitality, release you from all bondage, and make your life worth living. The power is your 'real self'—that is, the life in you manifesting itself as you ... your very ground of being ... the source and essence of your life, health, strength, and vitality.

May you come to know this power today ... indeed, right now!

TWO POWERFUL IDEAS THAT CAN TRANSFORM YOUR LIFE

‘Life is real only then, when I am.’ G I Gurdjieff. 

There are some ideas that, by their very nature, are truly life-changing. These ideas are powerful and transformative. Certainly I have found that to be true in my own life.

One such idea, which I write about regularly in this blog and elsewhere, is ‘Self is illusion---only the person is real.’ Of course, an idea like that is not likely to change anything in or for you until you understand its meaning and significance. Then you must internalize and actualize the idea.

I first read some of the ideas of the Greco-Armenian mystic G I Gurdjieff [pictured left] when I was 19 or 20. I must say I couldn't understand what the hell he was on about. To this day I have grasped only some of his philosophy, but two ideas forcefully expressed by the man---as recounted by his most famous pupil P D Ouspensky [pictured below right]---I do understand and know to be true. Those ideas are as follows. First, a person has no permanent and unchangeable ‘I.’ Only the person himself or herself is ontologically real. Secondly, ordinarily it takes a major crisis or some traumatic event to bring a person to a point of self-surrender and complete transformation and to come to know and experience their inner power as a person.

In 1912 Gurdjieff appeared in Moscow where he introduced the ideas, teachings and practices that have become known as ‘the Work.’ (To this day, Gurdjieff’s teaching is very much an oral tradition transmitted under special conditions from person to another. Such is the nature of so-called ‘occult’ [that is, hidden or secret, as opposed to Satanic] or esoteric teachings.) In 1922 Gurdjieff began his work in France but he also made several well-publicized trips to the United States of America. He died in France in 1949. To this day there are Gurdjieff groups, societies and foundations in many countries including Australia where I live. The Gurdjieff Foundation (known as such in the USA, and by the names ‘The Gurdjieff Society’ in the United Kingdom, and ‘Institut Gurdjieff’ in France) is the largest organization directly linked to Gurdjieff and was organized in the early 1950s.

Now, before I go any further I need to deal, ever so briefly, with the issue of whether or not Gurdjieff was a fake, a fraud, a con man. Much has been written on the subject and there is more than a little evidence that Gurdjieff’s capacity for self-deception was exceeded only by his ability to deceive others. It’s rather ironic. A major theme of Gurdjieff was that we spend much of our lives in a state of hypnotic ‘waking sleep.’ In other words, we deceive ourselves and a result others as well. Perhaps Gurdjieff was no different, even if he did have considerable insight into the problem. Perhaps his deception was more conscious, even fraudulent. Perhaps he was just a clever hypnotist. That’s all I’ll say, because I really don’t know where the truth lies as respects the matter.

G I Gurdjieff and some of his pupils

However, despite some lasting qualms about the man and his methods, I am very much of the view that Gurdjieff had some very important and true things to say including but not limited to the two ideas expressed above and discussed further below. For starters, he rightly understood that most religions have corrupted the teachings of their respective founders---teachings that are for the most part psychological in nature. He expounded the ancient wisdom that underpins all of the world’s religions and mythologies. And he stressed the importance of constant self-awareness and self-observation---that is, psychological wakefulness---without which there can be no insight, no understanding, and no psychological mutation. However, there are some ideas of his---for example, the idea that there exist higher levels of consciousness and higher bodies---that I simply cannot accept.

As respects the illusory nature of the self, the following quotations of Gurdjieff are taken from Ouspensky’s book In Search of the Miraculous: Fragments of an Unknown Teaching, which recounts his meeting and subsequent association with Gurdjieff:

One of man’s important mistakes, one which must be remembered, is his illusion in regard to his I.

Man such as we know him, the ‘man-machine,’ the man who cannot ‘do,’ and with whom and through whom everything ‘happens,’ cannot have a permanent and single I. His I changes as quickly as his thoughts, feelings and moods, and he makes a profound mistake in considering himself always one and the same person; in reality he is always a different person, not the one he was a moment ago.

Man has no permanent and unchangeable I. Every thought, every mood, every desire, every sensation, says ‘I’.

Man has no individual I. But there are, instead, hundreds and thousands of separate small ‘I’s, very often entirely unknown to one another, never coming into contact, or, on the contrary, hostile to each other, mutually exclusive and incompatible. Each minute, each moment, man is saying or thinking, ‘I’. And each time his I is different. Just now it was a thought, now it is a desire, now a sensation, now another thought, and so on, endlessly. Man is a plurality. Man's name is legion.

I have said this so many times, but I will say it again because it needs to be said again and again. Most of our psychological and emotional problems, as well as problems in our interpersonal relationships, arise because we tend to identify with any one or more of those hundreds and thousands of separate ‘I’s, many of which are not only hostile to each other but downright antipathetic. Over time these ‘I’s solidify, so to speak, in our consciousness---indeed, they tend to set like concrete---and we mistakenly believe that they actually are the real person that each one of us is, one of the results being that we tend to perceive things from the completely subjective and distorted perspective of our own self-images. This state of affairs, as Gurdjieff pointed out, is a form of self-hypnosis, but we are all very good at it. Sadly.

Of course, these self-images (‘I’s and ‘me’s) are definitely not the real you, or the real me. They are nothing more than images in our mind which we have conned ourselves into believing are the real ‘me’ (that is, person) that we are. A timid person identifies so closely with the ‘timid me’ in herself that she becomes and acts timid. An angry person identifies with the ‘angry self’ in himself to such an extent and on such a regular basis that he becomes a person who is angry much of the time. And so it is. The point is this: there is no such thing as a ‘timid person’ or an ‘angry person.’ In truth, it is simply the case that there is timidity or anger ‘in’ the person such that they act and behave that way. Yet it need not be that way. People have within them the power to change. Self can’t change itself, but the person can change.

Once we come to understand that we are not any one of those hundreds and thousands of ‘I’s that we generate from moment to moment, and start living from the power and presence of the person each of us is, our lives will undergo a radical observation. We need to see illusion for what it is---illusion. Self is illusion. See the truth of that. Observe your illusory selves in operation. Notice how they clamour for your attention. Each one of these ‘I’s is saying to you, ‘Buy me, identify with me, be me.’ The truth is---we are not any of those self-images. Only the person that we are is ontologically real. So, next time the ‘angry self’ or whatever raises its ugly head, just watch it come and go. Say to yourself (that is, the person that you are), ‘That self is not me. It is not the person that I am. I choose not to identify with that self. I let it go.’ And do just that.

Now, the second idea referred to above, namely, that it generally takes a major crisis or traumatic event to bring a person to a point of self-surrender and complete transformation. Recovering alcoholics and other addicts known this to be true. The founders of Alcoholics Anonymous, who had read some of the writings of the great American philosopher William James [pictured left], understood that ego deflation at great depth was essential for real personal transformation and recovery. Most of us only change in a big way when we are forced so to do. A spouse leaves us, convinced that we will never change and fed up with the way we have been living for decades. Or we lose our job or our finances. In the words of Gurdjieff, ‘Only conscious suffering has any sense.’ I know that to be true. The suffering in my own life, and the pain caused to others as a result, had no meaning or purpose but in the light of recovery and a changed life the suffering does make sense. Well, at least up to a point.

Of course, some people still don’t change when those sort of things happen. Indeed, I have come to believe that there is no one rock bottom. There is simply a bottomless pit for each one of us. Some people keep falling and falling until death or insanity is the result. Gurdjieff said, ‘Man lives his life in sleep, and in sleep he dies.’ But it need not be the case. We can and must ‘wake up.’

Self can’t change. The person can. Let it happen now.

RELATED POSTS

THE MYTH OF SELF-IMPROVEMENT

THE ILLUSORY MIND [Part 1]

THE ILLUSORY MIND [Part 2]

THE MYTH OF SELF-IMPROVEMENT

At this time of the year many people make a resolution, which is often short-lived, to embark upon some sort of self-improvement program or to give up some bad habit. Now, don’t get me wrong. I am all for personal transformation, but there is a right, and a wrong, way to go about it, both in thought, word and deed.

One of my all-time favourite spiritual teachers Alan Watts [pictured below left], in his book The Wisdom of Insecurity, has this to say about the wrong way to embark upon self-improvement:

I can only think seriously of trying to live up to an ideal, to improve myself, if I am split in two pieces. There must be a good ‘I’ who is going to improve the bad ‘me.’ ‘I,’ who has the best intentions, will go to work on wayward ‘me,’ and the tussle between the two will very much stress the difference between them. Consequently ‘I’ will feel more separate than ever, and so merely increase the lonely and cut-off feelings which make ‘me’ behave so badly.

The reason the good ‘I’ can’t change the bad ‘I’ is because they are one and the same. Worse still, both ‘I’s’ are illusory. When I use the word 'illusory' I am not saying these 'I's' do not exist. They do exist---but only as self-image in our mind. The 'I's' are, however, illusory in the sense that they are not what they appear to be. All the 'I's' and 'me's' in your mind are brought about by thought, and they have no reality in and of themselves. They appear to be 'solid,' 'fixed,' and 'permanent,' but they are not. They are, as the Indian spiritual philosopher J. Krishnamurti used to say, the product of thought which divides.

Yes, despite appearances to the contrary, and our own misbelief, these ‘I’s” do not have any separate, independent, discrete and permanent existence from the person each one of us is. The great Scottish philosopher David Hume came up with what is known as the ‘bundle theory,’ which postulates that our mind constructs hundreds of waxing and waning selves. None of these selves ever come together as a single unified entity. They are no more than a bundle of thoughts, feelings, perceptions and sensations. Neuroscience has shown that Hume, along with a considerable number of other eminent philosophers, was right.

Alan Watts explains how the phenomenon of self occurs:

The notion of a separate thinker, of an ‘I’ distinct from the experience, comes from memory and from the rapidity with which thought changes. It is like whirling a burning stick to give the illusion of a continuous circle of fire. If you imagine that memory is a direct knowledge of the past rather than a present experience, you get the illusion of knowing the past and the present at the same time. This suggests that there is something in you distinct from both the past and the present experiences. You reason, ‘I know this present experience, and it is different from that past experience. If I can compare the two, and notice that experience has changed, I must be something constant and apart.’

Over time our sense of self hardens, but it is never more than image---self-image---in our mind. And the bottom line is this---‘I’ can’t change ‘me.’ You see, the ‘I’ that wants to stop smoking or drinking is the ‘me’ that wants to keep smoking or drinking. What’s more, all such ‘I’s’ and ‘me’s’ are in the past. They are all the result of past thinking and past conditioning. They can never result in the attainment of something in the now, let alone the future. When we work and rely upon only our ‘I’s’ and ‘me’s we will never, never succeed in our endeavours. As William Temple, a former Archbishop of Canterbury, said, ‘For the trouble is that we are self-centred, and no effort of the self can remove the self from the centre of its own endeavour.’

The only program of self-improvement that has any chance at all of being successful is one where the person that each one of us is makes a decision to invoke the power of one’s own personhood. That power is not of self; it is a ‘power-not-oneself.’ Self can’t change self, for all our mental selves are in and of themselves not only powerless but also contradictory and in opposition to each other. Hence the need to rely upon a power-not-oneself---the power that comes from being a person among persons.

Now, what is a person? Well, the well-known English philosopher P F Strawson [pictured right] wrote much on the subject. Strawson articulated a concept of ‘person’ in respect of which both physical characteristics and states of consciousness can be ascribed to it. Each one of us is a person among persons---a mind-body complex. We are much, much more than those hundreds of little, false selves---all those waxing and waning ‘I’s’ and ‘me’s’---with which we tend to identify, in the mistaken belief that they constitute the ‘real me,’ that is, the person each one of us is. Only the latter is ontologically real. Personal freedom and real personal transformation come when we get real, that is, when we start to think, act and live from our personhood as a person among persons. We need to get our mind off our ‘selves’ and rise above them if we are to get real. And remember this---there is no human problem that is not common to other persons among persons.

Now, here are the steps involved. You begin by making up your mind and make a decision to do X [X being whatever positive thing you wish to see actualized in your life]. Great power arises from the making of a decision. Then nail that decision up in your mind and don’t look back. A big part of not looking back means that when any thought, feeling, perception or sensation arises that is to the contrary of the doing of X, you proceed to reaffirm and thus strengthen your original decision and resolve to do X by performing some action---the important word is action---that is not only consistent with the doing of X, it will actually help to bring about X. In the words of the American essayist and minister Ralph Waldo Emerson, ‘Do the thing and you will have the power.’ The power is in the doing---the power of the person that you are. It’s the ‘act as if’ principle taught by the great American philosopher and psychologist William James. He said, ‘If you want a quality [of personhood], act as if you already had it’ [emphasis added]. Now, who must act? You, the person that you are, must act.

For example, if your decision is to give up smoking, and a thought arises that a cigarette would be nice right now, you immediately do something that is consistent with being a non-smoker. For example, you go somewhere, or mix with someone, where smoking is simply out of the question. Forget all about so-called will-power, for there is no such thing. The ‘will’ is simply your ability to make a decision; it has no power in and of itself. We will always do whatever is our strongest want. It’s want-power---fortified with enthusiasm---and not will-power that we need. Another problem with so-called will-power is this---it is simply the imposition of one illusory ‘self’ over another. It’s the old problem all over.

One more thing, motivation is essential for successful personal transformation. Motivation is motive plus action, the latter being the doing of all that is necessary for X to actualize. What is your motive for doing X? (There may, of course, be more than one such motive.) Your motive must relate to you as a person. For example, if you want to give up smoking, your motive may be to be a healthier person or a wealthier person (as smoking is, among other things, damn expensive). Keep your motive upfront in your consciousness. Your motive is your want-power. For all intents and purposes they are one and the same.

So, remember this. Self can’t change self, but the person each one of us is can indeed change---and change for the better---if we want, that is, really want, change more than anything else and are prepared to go to any length to get it.

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ALL THINGS ARE NOT ONE

We often read or are told that all life and all things, including all people, are one. It’s a nice, comforting, New-Agey idea … but it’s not true. Not at all.

Now, look. Nothing in this world is simple. Whatever exists in this universe is complex and has internal differentiation, involving numerous differences and relations. Each thing is ‘a multum in parvo plurally related,’ to borrow a phrase from William James [pictured left]. ‘Things are with one another in many ways,’ wrote James, ‘but nothing includes everything, or dominates over everything.’ 

Not only that, whatever exists does, however, do so in situations. Those situations are themselves complex and are also in complex relationship to other complex situations, and all these complex situations exist in the one space-time, belong to the one order of being, and exist under certain invariably complex conditions. For example, a table consists of wood, nails, glue, etc, not to mention the carpenter with his tools who ‘made’ the table. The table sits on the floor of the room. The floor is supported by the foundations of the building, and so on. Yes, whatever exists does so in situations which are in complex relationship to other situations.

In realist philosophy this state of affairs is known as ‘situationality.’ Yes, everything that exists has some relation with some other thing that exists, but it is not true to say that everything is related to everything else nor is everything one in some overall monistic sense, and nothing in quantum physics proves otherwise. Co-existing situations often comprise or constitute a system, and some systems are very much connected to other such situations. However, while some situations have connections with other systems, not all systems are connected to all other systems. We know all this to be the case.

Traditional Buddhism, for the most part, is empirical and realist in its overall thrust and content (even though you will find in many places a considerable amount of superadded superstitious nonsense). A cardinal, perhaps the core, teaching of Buddhism---arguably the only thing that holds all Buddhist teachings together---is this: all phenomena are arising together in a mutually interdependent web of cause and effect. This is known as the teaching or principle of interdependent relations. 

Perhaps even more importantly, this teaching more accurately states that things arise dependent on conditions and cease when those same conditions cease. Buddhism sees causation as a complex phenomenon going far beyond mere constant conjunction in the nature of some ‘regularity’ theory. The emphasis is on causal connections, or the relationship, between two events that are separated in space-time. (Note. At the sub-atomic level phenomena such as quantum entanglement show that connections can at times survive even physical separation, but it remains the fact that those connections exist under certain conditions even if we don’t fully understand the nature, extent and scope of those conditions.)

Causation is never a simple thing. Invariably, multiple factors are necessary to produce any given effect. In light of this complexity and plurality, it is never as simple as selecting one such factor from a set of jointly and severally sufficient conditions and taking that factor to be the cause of the particular effect, for we are dealing with a complex system whose parts, as previously mentioned, are at least to some extent interdependent.

Buddhism goes further and seeks to distinguish causes and conditions In that regard, the English word ‘conditionality’ encapsulates essence of the Buddha’s teaching of (in Pāli) paţicca-samuppāda (in Sanskrit, pratītya-samutpāda), or ‘dependent arising’. Now, conditionality and causality are not the exact same thing. Conditionality is a much broader concept of causality. When we speak of the ‘cause’ of some event we are referring to something that is directly and immediately responsible for the occurrence of the event, whereas the word ‘condition’ is wide enough to embrace supporting and contributing factors as well. Buddha Shakyamuni is reported to have said on many occasions, ‘This being, that becomes.’ In other words, the most general quality or a thing is that it is the condition for another. More fully, the Buddha would say:

This being, that becomes; from the arising of this, that arises;

This not being, that does not become; from the ceasing of this, that ceases.

This conditionality---that is, all things are ‘conditioned things’---was said by the Buddha to be universal, underlying all of reality, irrespective and quite independently of anyone noticing it.

Now, there is a sense in which all life is one. I am not advocating monism or pantheism. When I say that life is one, I am trying to say a couple of things. First, a single logic applies to all things and how they are related. Secondly, all things exist in the same order or level of reality, and on the same ‘plane’ of observability. If these two things were not the case, it would be impossible for us to be attentive to, and otherwise aware of, what happens from one moment to the next, let alone speak meaningfully about things. Just think about that for a few seconds, and it should be obvious to you that such is indeed the case.

Call it the ‘interconnectedness of all life’ or, if you like, ‘InterBeing.’ The latter wonderful term comes from the Vietnamese Zen Buddhist monk and teacher Thich Nhat Hanh [pictured right]. I love that word ‘InterBeing.’

The bottom line is this. Although all things are not one, there nevertheless is only one life manifesting itself in all things and as all things. And if that be the case, we owe each other certain ethical duties. Those ethical duties (for example, the golden rule) do not depend for their existence on any religion---not even Buddhism, for which I have the greatest respect. They flow naturally and inevitably from the very nature of existence itself.

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THERE WAS NO FIRST CAUSE---AND NO NEED FOR ONE

InterBeing