WHAT’S WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE?
Virtually all Human Adults have gathered together in various groups in the back of the theater, each group trying to discover how to change their reality, usually with a leader providing guidance to the followers, often with some written text or rules or guidelines. Each Human Adult has achieved at least a modicum of self-responsibility at this point; and some of the groups even give lip service to “individual change,” although the main focus is still on “them,” “out there,” who continue to involve people like us in movies full of pain and suffering.
But as I said earlier, being a Human Adult is not a “bad” way to spend your life; and there are some amazing results that can be achieved by belonging to one or more of these groups.
It’s possible, for example, the content of the 3D movies in which you are still immersed might appear to change slightly after applying something you learned in a group. Some Human Adults might see more changes than others.
It’s also possible the movie content doesn’t change, but you find certain techniques of how to better deal with the pain and suffering inflicted by the movies. Some Human Adults might learn to deal with it better than others.
You can even have all kinds of mystical or extrasensory or paranormal or psychic experiences, moments of “union with God” or “oneness with All That Is” or “cosmic consciousness” or so-called “enlightenment.” You could learn to control your heart rate, lie on a bed of nails, move objects and bend spoons, make parking spaces appear where you want them, do psychic surgery, have out-of-body experiences, become telepathic or clairvoyant, even levitate.
If these are your goals, you can accomplish them all as a Human Adult in the back of the movie theater, assuming you find the right group and apply yourself diligently to the task.
But there’s a problem. A big one. Several big ones, as a matter of fact.
When they arrive at the back of the movie theater, most Human Adults believe, ultimately, life should not include any pain and suffering at all, that your reality could actually be one of constant and abiding joy, abundance, power, and love – Heaven on Earth, if you will. But you’re not there yet, despite all the work you’ve done and all the techniques you’ve learned and all the meditating you’ve “satsang” through.
Why not?
For two reasons. One is the belief in life without pain and suffering is just that – a belief; and there’s no evidence this belief is true. Have you ever met – I’m not talking about hearing or reading second-hand stories from the past – have you ever met anyone in present time living in constant and true and abiding joy, abundance, power, and love? (“Constant and true and abiding” eliminates those few who spend their lives trying to fake eternal bliss.) If it were possible, don’t you think it would have happened just once to some Human Adult in the back of the theater whom you know, or your friend knows, or your friend’s friend knows? After all, many of these groups claim it’s possible for everyone to achieve.
The second reason is that life inside the movie theater is not designed to include constant and abiding joy, abundance, power, and love, as we’ll see in a later chapter. It will never happen there.
True, you might be able to have more financial success, for example, as a result of joining some group; but your love life then goes to hell. Or you might find your “soulmate” and have years of marital bliss, but for some reason you can’t make enough money for the things you want. Or many circumstances around you can seem to be going well, but then you or a family member or a loved one suffer an unexpected accident or illness and everything changes again. You might even develop a mystical power or two and have moments of “oneness,” only to have the high wear off eventually and discover you’re still not happy with your life most of the time.
The truth is, as a member of a group in the back of the movie theater, you will never change the basic storyline of the movies, at least not in any significant and lasting way, or in the way you think you want to. Many have tried, but virtually none has succeeded; so you’re not alone in your desire or in your frustration.
Put very simply, a Human Adult in the back of the movie theater can never get all its ducks in a row at one time, no matter what it does or believes or pretends. It’s just not possible.
Why?
The first huge problem is that none of these groups actually work – none of them produce the results they claim they can.
Before you slam this book closed and try to defend your personal choice of a particular group or two, please take an honest and objective moment to consider…
~ when you look at the world today, do you really think the human race as a whole is more peaceful, more loving, more tolerant, more fulfilled, happier, safer, better fed and better housed than it was ten years ago? Or fifty or a hundred years ago? When you watch the evening news, doesn’t the opposite appear to be true? Doesn’t it seem like the world – as portrayed in the 3D movies surrounding you – is heading in the “wrong” direction, away from constant and abiding joy, abundance, power, and love and into greater depths of pain and suffering despite all the efforts of all the different groups that have grown exponentially over the same period of time?
~ after hundreds upon hundreds of years, of hours upon hours of meditation by millions upon millions of people, not much has been achieved, other than maybe a few very isolated cases. After that much meditation, where are all the so-called “enlightened ones,” and why don’t they comprise a bigger percentage of our population?
~ if The Secret or the “Law of Attraction” actually worked, we should see a large number of their followers manifesting wonderful things in their lives on a regular basis. I wouldn’t even require a 100% success rate to consider these kinds of techniques effective. If The Secret or the “Law of Attraction” worked 50% of the time for 50% of the people who tried it, I might deem it worthy of attention and praise. But when only a very few people get results only a very few times out of many when they use these techniques….
~ after all the positive thinking and compassion and pilgrimages and prayers and altars and sweat lodges and stone circles and ceremonies and rituals and sit-ins and demonstrations and protests and endless Course in Miracles’ meetings, we’re still no closer to peace on this planet than we’ve ever been. Even the Hippie Movement had little or nothing to do with ending the Vietnam War, and at the moment we’re involved in two more wars just like it.
~ all the profound changes in human history have come from a single individual, not a group – both “good” (Jesus, Buddha, Muhammad, Moses, Confucius, Martin Luther, Copernicus, Einstein, Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, and Cai Lun – who invented paper in China in 105 AD) and “bad” (Ghengis Khan, Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, etc.).
I repeat, none of the groups in the back of the movie theater produces anything close to what they claim for the overwhelming number of their followers. I do not say any of this judgmentally; I am not blaming them, or criticizing them, or saying they are “wrong” for their lack of success. (In fact, I know their lack of success is perfect for the way the movie theater is designed.) I am merely stating fact, pointing to the elephant in the room, explaining that the emperor is naked.
Nor am I saying none of these groups work because they didn’t work for me. As you read, I was involved with a lot of so-called spiritual and self-help groups for more than forty years, involving hundreds if not thousands of people. I have never met one person out of those thousands whom I would say has achieved what the group promised. Have you?
I also want to remind you that I decline to be a guru, teacher, coach, mentor, or leader of any group, so I have no vested interest in making them all “wrong” and myself “right” in order to get you to follow me instead. I am not interested in “followers,” so I am completely free to tell you the truth as I see it, and as anyone else can see it if they look closely and carefully and honestly.
* * *
Some of the groups conveniently explain why they are so ineffective, offering reasons like, “No pain, no gain,” or “It takes years and years, and even lifetimes, for our technique to work,” or “You must be doing something wrong,” or “Your desire is not pure and sincere enough,” or “You’re not spiritual enough to make it work,” or “Remember, there are sixty-four levels to go through to be enlightened.”
The most common excuse a group makes for its ineffectiveness is, “we don’t have enough people in our group to make it work.” So every once in a while, one or more of these groups will go back into the main theater and try to get some of the Human Children up out of their seats to join them, with some success some of the time, on the theory more members in the group will make it more effective. Occasionally a few new Human Adult recruits make their way to the back of the theater as a result, but not enough to make any difference.
My biggest objection to things like The Secret and the “Law of Attraction,” for example, is that when they don’t work, we feel like it’s our fault, that there’s something wrong with us. After all, there are supposedly all these other people who use them successfully, so it must be me. I’m not good enough to make it work. I’m doing something wrong. I’m worthless. I’m a failure. The problem is “all these other people who use them successfully” don’t exist either. Sure, there are isolated cases where someone used The Secret and “manifested” a new car – we’ll find out later whether that was actually true – and, of course, Rhonda Byrne probably “manifested” a lot of money for herself when she made up The Secret.
The Truth is there is nothing wrong with you, and there never has been; the error is with the group and its philosophy, technique, ceremony or ritual. They simply don’t work consistently for even a small fraction of their followers.
If any group in the back of the theater were really successful in producing constant and true and abiding joy, abundance, power, and love, don’t you think word would get around quickly and everyone else would leave their group and join that one? If any one of them were even moderately successful in changing the movies or a person’s reaction to them, thereby providing real relief from the pain and suffering – rather than being just a temporary and well-marketed fad – don’t you think most Human Adults would be beating down their door to join? Instead what we see are new groups popping up like popcorn in our movie theater. What more proof does anyone need that the existing groups don’t work?
When Human Adults can step back from the groupthink and be honest with themselves, they know their group doesn’t work. The problem is we don’t want to admit it, because one of these groups has to work. We want them to work, very badly. We need them to work. We have to believe the group we’ve joined offers us the relief we seek from the pain and suffering. If none of the groups work, we’ll feel hopeless – no better off than the Human Children still sitting in their seats – and that’s the worst feeling in the world, to be avoided at all costs.
There comes a time for many Human Adults when they cannot escape or deny the obvious forever and decide the particular group they belong to at the time is not working – is not successful in creating the change they want. At that point they will simply move on to a different group, still convinced some group must work and all they need to do is keep looking for the “right” one. Over the lifetime of a Human Adult, they might belong to a few, if not dozens, of these groups, trying desperately – and futilely – to find one that works, that does what it says it can do, that offers constant and true and abiding joy, abundance, power, and love.
* * *
Jed McKenna doesn’t have very nice things to say about the yogis and swamis and shamans and gurus and leaders of all these ineffective groups, calling them “snake oil salesmen,” as if they were doing something “wrong.”
“Gurus and meditation and spiritual teachings are all gentle deceptions meant to soothe the inner coward, not forge the inner hero…. Gurus are the worst egotists the world has ever seen. All gurus are welfare organizations providing petty experiences to their followers. The guru game is a profitable industry: try and make two million dollars a year any other way.”1
While all this might be factually accurate, I don’t share Jed’s judgment that goes along with it. Yes, maybe there are a few leaders of these groups who are out to make a name and fame and fortune for themselves, and realize leading a group of Human Adults in the back of the theater can produce exactly that for them, even if the group doesn’t produce any results for its followers. But even that isn’t “wrong.”
On the whole, I like to think many of these leaders are sincerely trying to find some answers. After all, someone has to be able to figure this out, don’t they? Please?
But all leaders of all groups end up hitting an impasse, mainly because their philosophy or technique or practice contains major and irreparable inconsistencies.
There is a theory in social psychology called “cognitive dissonance2,” which is “an uncomfortable feeling caused by holding two contradictory ideas simultaneously. The theory of cognitive dissonance proposes that people have a motivational drive to reduce dissonance by changing their attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors, or by justifying or rationalizing them.”3
As a Human Adult, for example, you may be opposed to cruelty to animals, but you still want to eat meat. This causes you a problem you must resolve in your mind somehow.
“An early version of cognitive dissonance theory appeared in Leon Festinger's 1956 book, ‘When Prophecy Fails.’ This book gave an inside account of belief persistence in members of a UFO doomsday cult, and documented the increased proselytization they exhibited after the leader's ‘end of the world’ prophecy failed to come true. The prediction of the Earth's destruction, supposedly sent by aliens to the leader of the group, became a ‘disconfirmed expectancy’ that caused dissonance between the cognitions, ‘the world is going to end’ and ‘the world did not end.’ Although some members abandoned the group when the prophecy failed, most of the members lessened their dissonance by accepting a new belief, that the planet was spared because of the faith of the group.”4
Jed McKenna suggests a Human Adult will experience something similar which he calls “Spiritual Dissonance”….
“A common example of Spiritual Dissonance would be: If God loves us, why does He allow so much suffering? The certainty of God’s love is the internal belief. The obviousness of human suffering is the external reality. Is God unable to end suffering? No, we must answer, because He can do whatever He wants. Therefore, He must allow or even cause suffering. But how can that be if He loves us? Something somewhere has to give or, preferably, we avoid asking the question in the first place.”5
Different groups offer different solutions for this Spiritual Dissonance. One common technique is to create a new belief that builds a bridge between the two conflicting ones:
Internal belief: “God loves us.”
External reality: “There is suffering in the world.”
Bridge belief: “We only suffer because we are not worthy of God’s love.”
Or…
Internal belief: “We were made in the image of God, who is perfect in every way.”
External reality: “We do bad things as human beings.”
Bridge belief: “Life is a school, a training center, where we are supposed to learn and mature into perfect souls.”
My favorite example comes from my recent experience in the intentional community of Tamera in southern Portugal. One of the spiritual leaders there knows, deep in her heart, “judgment is wrong” – her first contradiction, for to say “judgment is wrong” is a judgment itself. But because of her compassion for others, she wants to change the world and make it a better place to live. She’s smart enough to realize wanting to change the world is a judgment things are wrong and need to be changed, so she comes up with a solution: “We must accept things just as they are, without judgment, and then we can change them.”
What ?! Simple logic says if you don’t judge something as “good” or “bad,” or “right” or “wrong,” you will see that “something” as perfect exactly the way it is. Any action you then take will not be motivated by the need or wish to change it at all. (We’ll talk a lot more about this concept in later parts of the book.)
But none of the groups in the back of the theater is completely logical. Glaring contradictions show up very quickly in all the groups when an honest and objective mind shines the light of reason and discernment on them.
Some groups simply pass off their inconsistencies to a higher authority: “The Lord works in mysterious ways,” or “It’s the job of the clergy to grapple with such imponderable issues.” Or they tell their followers to ignore the tough questions altogether, or deny them, or simply stay occupied and distracted so these kinds of questions and countless others like them can never gain a foothold in our awareness.
The main objective, however, is to stop the discomfort….
“The most sincere seekers are … not seeking truth or answers; they’re seeking relief from Spiritual Dissonance. Providing this relief is the lifeblood of the religious and spiritual marketplace. It has nothing to do with truth or awakening. In fact, just the opposite. In the final analysis, stripped of all its holy pretensions, the entire spiritual marketplace is really nothing more than an existential quick-lube shop, and while there may be an endless variety in packaging, there is really only one product. Spiritual Consonance is what all seekers seek; an end to discomfort…. But the consonance they seek can only be found in deeper unconsciousness…. To the best of my knowledge, spiritually-inclined people, from all walks and disciplines, at all stages, are really doing nothing more than maintaining or deepening their entrenchment, and maybe piddling around with mildly altered states.”6
I still have many, many people I call my friends in all of the groups I’ve belonged to – intelligent, well-meaning, well-intentioned Human Adults who care a lot about this world, probably a lot like you; and somehow it becomes easy to overlook these contradictions in order not to rock the boat the group is sailing in. The truth is we don’t want our group to have inconsistencies and contradictions; so they don’t, as far as we are concerned, even though they are written all over the elephant in the middle of the living room.
Recently one of the leaders of a group I belonged to declared its Jewish members should no longer observe Shabbat, supposedly to help them break old patterns of religious tradition on the way to creating a new culture. However, the main group itself – basically Christian – continued to hold their Sunday morning services, complete with Amazing Grace as a hymn, and even called one of their daily meetings the “Gospel Hour.” No one spoke up or asked questions or issued a yellow card for hypocrisy.
When you’re outside one of these groups looking objectively at their beliefs, it’s relatively easy to spot many of the inconsistencies and contradictions. When you’re inside the group, however, it’s very difficult not to succumb to groupthink. After all, there has to be some group that can produce what they claim, doesn’t there? You’ve looked everywhere and decided the group you’re in is the best you’re going to find, so who are you to question the wisdom and authority of the group leader, even in the face of obvious illogic? And you still have an overwhelming need to be part of a group and not be “out there” all alone, so you will swallow almost anything that sounds half-way plausible in order to justify and explain away the fallacies in their thinking.
One of the best techniques any group can use to cover up their inconsistencies and contradictions is called “Crimestop,” as defined by George Orwell in his novel 1984….
“Crimestop means the faculty of stopping short, as though by instinct, at the threshold of any dangerous thought. It includes the power of not grasping analogies, of failing to perceive logical errors, of misunderstanding the simplest arguments if they are inimical to Ingsoc, and of being bored or repelled by any train of thought which is capable of leading in a heretical direction. Crimestop, in short, means protective stupidity.”7
* * *
Can all these groups be “wrong” about everything all of the time? On the surface, that sounds quite ridiculous and impossible. But think about it for a minute.
Imagine you’re trying to solve a long and involved math problem, and the first equation is “2+2=?”. If you get that answer wrong, every other calculation you make after that is going to be wrong, too.
Well, technically I guess that isn’t exactly true. There may be other equations within the problem that don’t depend on your first answer, and you could get them right. You could also make other mathematical mistakes in the process and just happen – by chance – to arrive at a right answer along the way.
But your final answer is always going to be wrong. There’s no way around that. In other words, if your basic premise is faulty, all subsequent results that depend on that basic premise will be faulty as well.
“In life, contradictions do not exist. Whenever you think you are facing a contradiction, check your premises. You will find that one of them is wrong.”8
“It means there aren’t millions of things wrong, just one, right at the source, and everything else that appears wrong stems from that single core error.”9
This is not just true of math problems; it’s also true of every religion, philosophy, spiritual practice, self-improvement technique, belief system, ceremony and ritual.
Every group in the back of the theater is “wrong” and cannot and will not produce the results they claim they can; and the simple reason is that they all begin with the same incorrect premise. In the next few chapters, we're going to find out what that incorrect premise is.
* * *
Everyone is looking for solutions to lessen the pain and suffering of life, to change the reality they feel subjected to in the 3D movies surrounding them. The problem is those answers cannot be found in the movie theater. Some have come close at times, but no one has put it all together, because it cannot be put all together. No Human Adult is going to find constant and true and abiding joy, abundance, power, and love as long as they are in the back of the movie theater. It doesn’t work that way.
I’m sure by now you have figured out the most important reason why: All the Human Adults and all the groups they belong to are still inside the movie theater. Not one freed prisoner has ever left Plato’s Cave at this point in the metaphor; and with very few exceptions, everyone still considers the shadows on the wall – the 3D movies they are watching – to be “real.”
Once in a while, someone will look up at the black ball hanging from the center of the movie theater and see those bright lights shooting toward the wrap-around screens, wondering what the hell that’s all about. But almost no one seems to know.
And the sign on the door in the back wall says, “Do Not Enter – Extremely dangerous.”