‘To escape the self-trap, to be sane and decent and awake
and whole — that is all that matters.’ Vernon Howard.
and whole — that is all that matters.’ Vernon Howard.
You are
the problem---on every occasion. Yes,
you---and me for that matter. So,
what is the problem, you may ask?
Well, it can be any problem whatsoever, but the real problem is what the
American spiritual teacher Vernon Howard [pictured left] referred to as the
‘self-trap.’ Please read this piece of wisdom from Mr Howard:
‘The
attempt to escape a problem is the problem. There is logic in this. When a man
tries to escape, when he moves away from the problem, he divides himself into
one man with a problem, and another man who will escape the problem. In
reality, there is no such division, so the escape must always fail, as the man
sadly experiences. But, when seeing he is the problem itself, that he and his
problem are one, he stops trying to escape because he sees there is no other
course. In this state of intelligent acknowledgement of reality, he will not
have the problem.’
I often explain it this way. In each of us there
are many selves, and they are all false—false in the sense that they are not
the real person each one of us is. When we ‘have’ (an unfortunate word in this
context) a problem, there is the ‘self that wants to escape the problem,’ and
there are many other selves in
our mind as well, including the ‘self that doesn’t want to escape the problem,’
as well as the ‘self that thinks it will escape the problem,’ and the ‘self
that thinks it knows how to escape the problem.’ None of these selves have any
power in and of themselves, none of them can rise above their own level, and many of the selves militate, and even fight,
against other selves in our mind. You need to understand that all of these selves are simply mental
images in our brains. They wax and wane, they come and go, they vary in felt
intensity from moment to moment, but they are all transitory, temporary and for
that reason illusory. None of these selves are separate or independent from the
real person each one of us is. In his book Esoteric Mind Power Vernon Howard writes about what he calls the ‘self-divided man’
who ‘consists of dozens of "selves" which fight each other in taking him over
for a few minutes at a time.’ Howard writes:
'Living in a state of psychic riot, he is thrilled one minute and dejected the next. One part of him is a danger to another part. So what can be trusted? Nothing. The self-knowing man has cleared his mental streets of these rioters, leaving him with a whole and healthy mind, which can be trusted completely.'
'Living in a state of psychic riot, he is thrilled one minute and dejected the next. One part of him is a danger to another part. So what can be trusted? Nothing. The self-knowing man has cleared his mental streets of these rioters, leaving him with a whole and healthy mind, which can be trusted completely.'
Let’s say
you have an anger problem. There is anger in you, so to speak, but the reality
is you are angry because you have so identified yourself with the ‘self that is
angry’ and the ‘self that wants to be [and stay] angry’ that you have become
at-one with the anger. You and the problem are one in that special sense and,
as the onetime Archbishop of
Canterbury William Temple pointed out, ‘no effort
of the self can
remove the self from the centre of its own endeavour.’ Many others have said more-or-less the same thing. A couple of centuries earlier the French Roman Catholic archbishop, theologian, poet and
writer François Fénelon wrote,
'The entire root of your problem is that you cannot get out of yourself,' and
many more centuries earlier Jesus said, 'I can of mine own self do nothing' (Jn 5:30). Truth is truth. It never changes. It cannot
change. If it could it wouldn't be truth.
The reason 'self can't change self' (and therefore can't solve the fundamental problem of self) is simple---the ‘self that wants to escape an unwanted self’ is the
same thing as the ‘self that
thinks it will escape the unwanted self,’ the ‘self that thinks it knows how to
escape the unwanted self,’ and the ‘self that doesn’t want to escape the
unwanted self,’ and all the other damn selves as well. All of these selves are false and powerless---they're just mere images in our mind. The trouble is, we believe in them and act as if they were real. Now read what Krishnamurti [pictured
below right], the Indian spiritual philosopher, has to say about this dilemma:
'I am angry, is that anger different from me? Me,
the observer, who says "I am angry." Or that anger is part of me. It seems so
simple. No? And when I realize that, that the observer is the observed, that
the anger which I recognize is part of me, not something apart, then what am I
to do with that anger? I am not separate from that anger. I am anger.'
Dr Norman Vincent Peale wrote, 'There needs to be a shift in emphasis from self to non-self,' but how is that to be achieved given that self can't change self? Clearly, a major paradigm shift is needed---but how? (First, don't ask 'how.') The good
news is that you, the person that you
are, has power to change---when you see yourself as you really are, when you make
a decision that you really want to live differently, and when you are prepared
to ‘drop,’ so to speak, your strong identification with your false self or
selves. Krishnamurti would often say, ‘Stop trying to escape from the fact of
yourself.’ You can’t do it, but when you drop the false, that is, see the false as
false, and stop hanging onto and identifying with the false, the real is
revealed. In the case of anger, for example, you need to observe
the anger without recognition---without even using the word anger, which is a
form of recognition.
Self-observation is the answer. You need to see
yourself as you really are, without
identifying in any way with any of your multitude of selves, thoughts,
feelings, bodily sensations, or actions. Do not judge or condemn yourself. Be
impartial and objective, and simply observe without reaction and identification.
Only in this way will you, the person
that you are, be able to deliver the person
that you are from the bondage or burden of the problem of the false self. You, the
person who has chosen to be at-one with the ‘self that is [and wants to stay]
angry,’ and various other mischievous selves as well, must come to see clearly
that all such selves are false… no matter how much attention, identification, and
recognition you have given them in the past.
Vernon Howard would often say, ‘You don’t have to
create your deliverance, your freedom. You can have it, right now. It’s there
for you, right now. Who has bound you? Claim your deliverance and freedom, right
now!’ All that is needed, on your part, is what Mr Howard refers to as a ‘state
of intelligent acknowledgement of reality.’
I will finish with this. 'No self. No problem,' said the Zen master when asked to explain the deeper meaning of Buddhism.
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