[John Freestone]

Yikes, here comes another essay. What are you guys doing to me?

wolfgang, thanks for saying

sometimes i wonder that pd is in direct conflict with spiritual growth.

if one is stiving and leanring how to be "better" at something, is that not an ego based pursuit?

competition, stiving, wanting, getting more, being on top, becoming excellent - what are those pursuits?

Those are my sorts of concerns, too, with this LoA/I-M religion.

I think there's something of a semantic problem as well: saying that personal development is in conflict with spiritual growth is putting spiritual growth outside of pd. I would say that pd includes spiritual dimensions, but we can practice pd with or without it (and without it is a sorry state of affairs).

I think Dharma and I have very similar views on this (although he uses 'PD' to mean 'PD practiced without spiritual discipline', I think); Dharma said:

From what I've seen, PD doesn't really embrace the concept and the reality of denial. Believing that you're not something (not healthy, not wealthy enough, not tall enough, etc.), or will "make it" when I attain this goal, or that my life depends on me following a process to get it to come out right, says you're still in denial of what is. And life may be as simple as a change in perspective to focusing on what is vs what isn't.

As I've said already, probably enough to annoy, my spiritual belief centres around the idea of truth (in the sense of moment-by-moment reality), clear apprehension of it, acceptance of it just as it is, and the rooting out of all that gets in the way of that perception of reality. Denial is an important hindrance to that perception. Also, Dharma reminds me that this go-getting kind of pd is rooted in a Deficiency Model of reality: intending to get abundance implies that now is not abundant enough for our requirements. This kind of attitude is 180 degrees from the majority of teachings in the spiritual traditions of the world.

The link you posted, RT Wolf, made me aware how much of a spiritual dimension there is in Steve's "teachings", and I admire the fact that he aligns himself with permanent or absolute values like service, and tries to identify him-self with those spiritual values, as separate from any measurement of worldly personal development like how many hits his site gets, how much money he's making, how popular he is, etc.. This, he seems to suggest, frees him to engage in any of these worldly pursuits without being attached to their outcomes. Now, that is all well and good if it is the truth of his nature, but I suspect that such a radical separation of Self and ego requires a person to have become (almost) fully Enlightened, (pretty darn near) Divine. Steve may be more of a mensch than he seems to me; I may be wrong about him; certainly I have missed a great deal of important things he has written; but it is also possible that he is just very deeply in denial, very convincing. He says, for instance, that his period of success and popularity may end (in fact, he says it will end); he says that he is the kind of person who would be happy living on a park bench; this non-attachment is the paradigm he is preaching. I suspect, however, that if his site began to be abandoned, or he lost his money and status, or he actually was homeless and destitute, begging for spare change from spitting passers-by, his reputation as a personal development guru in ruins, perhaps even despised by the children who now come to him for cookies, he would discover just how attached to success he actually is, and how aspirational, how in-an-ideal-world-this-is-what-i'd-be-like his teachings are.

As far as I'm concerned, he's free to follow whatever path he chooses as long as he's not too damaging to others' freedom, and the truth of his life is between him and whatever Deity might be watching, but as an observer, I do wonder if there is a lot of denial going on, and a deep attachment to worldly measures of success. In the extreme, he could be a selfish, deliberate liar, a hard, surface-focused person with no spiritual depth at all, just finding it useful for his purposes of internet empire building to pretend he is altruistic and loving. He is so sure of himself in the things I've read so far, that's what gets me, to the point of being cocky. People whom I admire for their spiritual awareness, although they may have a deep, quiet confidence, are usually tortured with self-doubt as they uncover deeper and deeper levels of denial. They don't brag about how sorted and clever and rich they are. That's a clue I can't ignore.

I'm afraid I see the same denial and self-delusion in tk's post:

That is correct. Until we accept the moment is perfect no matter what is happening, then we can't shape the moment to be the moment we choose.

Resistance is the biggest stumbling block of all manifestation for resistance is focusing on what you don't want and then you get it. If the moment isn't how you wish it to be, by default, observing it keeps it alive.

As all physical reality is illusionary, then it's a matter of accepting that the moment is an illusion that can be changed via choice very simply

You can't change the moment until you accept it the way it is.

I have seldom read a set of statements so full of apparently unwitting self-contradiction (as opposed to self-aware paradox). If "we accept the moment is perfect no matter what is happening", why would any sane person wish to "shape the moment to be the moment we choose"? Now, in a longer time frame, I would agree that acceptance of our circumstances does lead to greater ability to take control of them and change things, but in the moment, what does this mean? If I accept a moment as it is (at least in my observation and that of many spiritual teachers), it is only by appreciating my utter and complete lack of ability to do anything to it whatever. This is one of the most profound insights for helping us transcend the ego: life is a gift; every moment is a gift; our current breath and every breath we have ever taken and ever will take - it is all happening without our willing it or intending it. Do you need to intend to breathe? Do you have to intend to comply with the law of gravity and not float off into space? Do you need to instruct your guts how to digest food? We are so obsessed by agency, and the spiritual path is about letting go of it, indeed recognising that we never really had any to speak of. If God is All-Powerful, what the hell are we doing thinking there's some power left for us to use to manipulate reality to our ends? No wonder certain critics see fiendishness in this style of pd, and even call Steve Pavlina satanic.

It is understandable - this kind of letting go is frightening, and it is incredibly tempting to retreat into the kind of doublethink I read here. <<If I only make sure I'm pure in spirit and working for the benefit of the whole world, I can have any damn thing I really really want>>(paraphrase). Steve has the secret to being 'spiritual' without having to give up greed, selfishness, denial and all the other attachments of the ego; he has the knack of pretending that they can't affect him. It's like me: I could give up smoking if I wanted. I'm not addicted to nicotine. I don't stop because I like it. Yeah John. <<I could just give up meat, or cooked food, or television, things I don't really like much anyway, and then I can amass fortunes and be a real big winner. I'll wear a tie and give talks and people will congratulate me on how amazingly advanced I am as a human being, almost a God.>> No, there's no ego there at all.

Steve is just doing his best, trapped in ego as we all are. The best we can do is what Ram Dass describes as using thorns to dig other, bigger thorns out of our feet as we make our way along the path. In other words, journaling is a good thorn, a good tool for digging out all sorts of other thorns, hindrances to enlightenment, but it is still a thorn and will embed itself in our ego structure, becoming another hindrance and having to be given up. Advanced gurus warn us that even meditation, one of the most wonderful thorns, can become our latest ego-attachment, and monks will waste the rest of their lives in blissful samadhi rather than leave the ashram to do some good work in the world. The spiritual path, to my mind, is ultimately about becoming nothing, no-one (and paradoxically finding that that nothing is the Universal Divine Consciousness). The Cosmic Joke of it is that you don't get the cookie until you have stopped wanting it (even the desire to become enlightened has to be transcended). We ascend only through self-sacrifice, a personal crucifixion, complete prostration before The Moment. Pretending humility (acceptance of the moment) doesn't cut it. Steve doesn't even pretend to be humble: he's so clever he can outsmart karma.

Acting Like God is more believable. At least he says he's not that interested in the spiritual path at the moment. If Steve said that I'd trust him a lot more.