The Practice of Authenticity - #7

No lies. No judgment. No forced change.

Here is how to practice authenticity:

Step 1: Never lie to yourself.

Step 2: Observe only, and without judging.

Step 3: Don’t use effort. Don’t force change.

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Step 1: Never lie to yourself.

Never lie to yourself. For instance, do not try to convince yourself that you are not angry.

Step 2: Observe only, and without judging.

Do not judge. Do not interfere. Observe only.

It is not easy to “not judge.” Just as observation, ideally, is effortless, non-judgment is also ideally effortless. It’s not about forcing ourselves not to judge. It’s about noticing when we start judging.

How do we achieve this? First, while observing ourselves, when we catch ourselves judging, we immediately switch to observing the judgment.

Then we ask, “What is the belief/‘story’/assumption behind this judgment?”

Next, we ask, “Why do I believe that ‘story’/assumption?”

The point is not to stop judging by forcing ourselves not to judge, but rather to notice when we start judging, then immediately switch from observing our thoughts, feelings, emotions, and actions to observing the judgment, and then to ask what “story” supports this judgment. Once you identify the “story” that makes the judgment possible, you ask yourself why you believe that “story.” Then, if you realize that “story” has internal contradictions or does not correspond to Reality, that “story” drops and the judgment is gone, too, because there is no “story” left to support it.

After that, you can return to observing whatever it is you were observing your thoughts, feelings, emotions, and actions.

The process of observing thoughts, feelings, emotions, and actions, then catching ourselves starting to judge, then switching to observing the judgment in order to identify the stories behind it, works for anything we may notice about ourselves, such as “Why am I so angry?”, “Why am I so selfish?”, “Why am I so compelled to please others?” or “Why do I feel the need to seek validation, attention, love, or success?” We are not saying that there is anything wrong with those things, and we are not making a moral condemnation. We are just saying that we want to be aware of the motivations – why we seek attention, love, etc.

For example, let’s say that you notice that you are acting in an angry way. What do you do? You only observe your own thoughts, feelings, emotions, and actions without judging them.

As you observe your angry thoughts, feelings, emotions, and actions, start asking yourself:

• Why are you so angry?

• What is your motivation/”story” for being so angry?

• How does being so angry make you feel?

Ask yourself those questions – but do not judge.

The purpose of your questioning is to help you to understand how angry you are, and the motivations behind the anger, not to judge. If you do start to judge, switch to observing the judgment by asking yourself what belief or “story” is needed in order to make that judgment.

Step 3: Don’t use effort. Don’t force change.

Many people will say that you ought to try to “change” yourself but that is the wrong thing to do. Why? Because when you force yourself to “change,” you are only pretending to change. In the example of being angry, even if you were to force yourself to behave as if you are calm, you would just be an angry person pretending to be calm.

Real change only comes from a realization. Pretending is not a realization. Any other kind of “change” besides realization is just pretending.

Realization produces real and permanent change. Realization is the only real change there is, no exception. Once you have realized something, no effort is needed to maintain it, and it is non-reversible. Once you have realized something, it has changed you. Realization is the closest thing there is to real change.

When Effort Is Useful

There is one exception when it is actually useful to put effort: Performing Step 1 (never lie to yourself) and Step 2 (observe only, and without judging) – and doing introspection. Those are the only cases where it’s useful to do effort.

Those three things require effort, and it is effort well spent. Effort itself does not lead to realization. It is instead useful to prepare for and create the habit of not lying to yourself, the habit of observing without judging, and the habit of performing introspection. Those habits could eventually lead to having a realization. Putting effort into anything else will only lead to pretending.

Why? Because once you start pretending (in this case, pretending not to be not angry), you will no longer be able to keep questioning why you are so angry in the first place. Pretending will prevent you from not lying to yourself, which will prevent you from observing without judging, which will prevent you from performing introspection – which will prevent you from understanding why you are so angry, which will then prevent the realization that could have followed, if you had not been pretending.

If, instead of doing effort to practice those habits, you try to force change by pretending, you will just end up being an angry person who pretends not to be angry, and you will never have any realization of understanding why you are so angry.

Given enough self-observation without judgment, eventually some realizations will come, which is the only way to achieve “real” change. Eventually, you will say, “Oh, that’s why I was so angry. Now I see things differently.” That’s a realization. It is by seeing the world differently that you become less angry.

A realization is simply seeing things differently than before, or understanding something that changes your perspective. As you realize the reasons behind why you are so angry (or any other feeling), you will be less angry. It will happen step by step.

Never put effort into trying to impose “change” on yourself – it is just pretending. When you make such an effort, you are lying to yourself, such as actually being angry but pretending not to be angry, or being selfish but just pretending to be generous. In both cases, you would only be pretending to be changed. When you lie to yourself and you put effort into pretending to be something you are not, you will not be able to do the steps that are required in order to reach any realization – Step 1, Step 2, and introspection. Pretending will prevent any possible realization.

Joy As a Symptom of Lack of Stories

As we noted in Chapter 6 (and as we will mention throughout the book), if you feel “joy” while doing something, that is a symptom that

• you are doing that thing because you genuinely feel like doing it (without “stories”) instead of pretending, and/or

• you are acting on the sense of “doing the right thing.”

By “joy,” we intend “joy” in its broadest possible sense, meaning some form of mental “pleasure.” However, one could also argue that you could feel that mental “pleasure” also when you are acting because of a “story” to tell yourself that you are special or important, which inflates your ego and makes you feel good – but this would be more like satisfaction than “joy.” Unlike joy, satisfaction is more related to the ego.

If the motivation for doing something is not “joy,” then why are you doing it? Because you believe you have to? Because you believe you will go to heaven? Those are all stories. Either you do something because you feel “joy” when you do it, or you’re doing it because of a “story.”

Even if you have to do a lot of effort in order to do something you genuinely want to do or that you feel is “the right thing to do,” you will still feel a certain degree of “joy.” However, the “joy” does not necessarily override the pain of effort.

Suffering As a Symptom of the Presence of Stories

Pain and suffering are not the same thing.

• Life doesn’t always go as we prefer. This is what we refer to as pain.

• Believing that there is something wrong with what happens to us creates mental stress. This is what we refer to as suffering.

Suffering does not come from Reality itself, but from the meaning we give to what happens through our mental maps.

Pain is not just physical pain. For example, losing all your money is real pain — emotional pain, but still real pain — because it goes against your preference: You would have preferred not to lose all your money. Anything that goes against your preference is pain, such as losing a pet. You will probably feel sad, not because you believe it should not have happened (which would be suffering), but simply because it makes you sad. Whereas suffering is mental and is usually related to anger because you believe something is wrong and it should not have happened. By removing the “story” that something should or shouldn’t have happened – which happens by realizing that no alternative reality is possible (as explained in Chapter 3) – the suffering disappears, but not the pain.

The easiest way to distinguish between pain and suffering is that the emotion you feel in relation to pain is more aligned with sadness, whereas the emotion you feel in relation to suffering is more aligned with anger, because you think there is something wrong with the universe — that what has happened should not have happened.

There can also be a hybrid situation where pain and suffering happen in combination. For example, losing all your money will cause pain, which is actual sadness/grief because of future consequences of having no money. There’s nothing you can do about that pain because it’s not due to a “story.” It’s not just imagination. You really could end up sleeping on the street. Losing all your money may also simultaneously cause suffering if you feel you shouldn’t have lost the money – for example, you feel you didn’t deserve to lose all your money. The feeling in that case would be anger. Or maybe it’s about your self-image. For example, you identify yourself as rich and now you lose your “identity.”

Restraint

There is another exception in which it is actually useful to put effort. We call it restraint.

Let’s begin with two definitions.

• Want/will is your primary intention. It is what you ultimately want and have chosen deliberately.

• Desire is inherited – it is not chosen – in direct contrast to the deliberate and intentional nature of want/will. Desire acts as a distraction/obstacle towards your intention.

Let’s say that you desire to eat all the cake in the family’s kitchen. At the same time, you want other members of the family to enjoy the cake, too.

You could act on your desire by eating all the cake, but instead you decide to prioritize the needs of others. Your wanting of the others to enjoy cake prevails over your desire to eat all the cake.

Sometimes there can be a trap where what we believe is a genuine want is just a “story.” For example, we might share the cake not because we want the family to enjoy it but because we want to tell ourselves we are special or generous, or we believe this will help us go to heaven. In that case, it’s not a true want. It’s just a “story.”

Restraint is when want prevails over desire. Unlike pretending, it is not the result of “stories.” Instead, it is the result of a deliberate decision prevailing over an inherited desire.

You have probably experienced this at some point in your life. For example, you might desire to eat ice cream but you also want to lose weight. In order to get what you want, losing weight, you must refrain from your desire of eating ice cream.

In order to refrain from the desire of eating ice cream, you have to put willpower towards restraining yourself from the desire of eating ice cream.

A good way to identify the want is that the want is what you put your willpower towards, while desire is what you fight against with your willpower. You don’t use your willpower to eat ice cream. You use your willpower in order not to eat ice cream (desire), because you want to lose weight.

The want is deliberate – it is your primary intention.

The desire is not deliberate and not chosen. It is potentially an obstacle to the want. In the case where there is a desire that is conflicting with an intention, restraint is the tool that allows you to successfully put your intention into action.

In order to restrain yourself from eating ice cream (the desire), you need willpower. You apply the willpower towards the intention (want) and against the desire.

Unlike restraint, abstinence and renunciation are about ego. You do those things for your ego – so you can tell yourself you are a “good” person and/or impress other people.

Restraint instead is not about ego. It is about acting against your desire in order to achieve your primary intention. It is not motivated by ego or stories.

What matters is your intention. For example, in most countries, the crime of killing someone has several distinctions:

• Murder means killing with intent;

• Attempted murder means attempting but failing to kill, also with intent; and

• Manslaughter means killing by accident, as in a car wreck due to your own carelessness.

You would expect the punishments to be strongest for murder and manslaughter, because in those cases, someone is killed. Instead, though, attempted murder is punished more harshly than manslaughter – a crime in which no one is killed is punished harsher than a crime in which someone is killed.

Why?

Because of intent. Whether it is a case of murder or attempted murder, the killer intended to kill. They were acting on their actual want – their sincere intention. This is a symptom of something “bad” about them. But in the case of manslaughter, there was no intent to kill, and could be due to circumstances or “bad luck.”

We often tailor punishment not just to the damage it causes but to the intent of the person who did it. Thus someone who intends to kill and fails is punished more than someone who really does kill someone, but by accident.

For another example, consider someone who does a truly horrible action, he physically abuses his family – he causes fear and physical pain to his family members.

There could be two kinds of such men:

• The man with a “bad” intention. This man wants to hurt his family and keep them in fear so he can control them. His cruelty is deliberate.

• The man with a “good” intention. This man has anger and violence issues. He feels the urge to hurt his family. Every time he does it he wants to stop but it is stronger than him. He seeks help to stop by praying and seeking counseling but he cannot stop.

The damage to his victims is the same. However, the man with a “good” intention wants to stop, he’s just not strong enough. His intention towards his family says a lot more about him than his actions.

Refraining is not pretending because it’s about intention, and intention says a lot more about you than action or desire.

Temptation

When we use the word “temptation,” we usually think of something “bad” in a moral sense. In classical Christianity, succumbing to temptation is considered “bad.” But in this book, we say that succumbing to temptation is only a matter of lacking the willpower to act on your intention – but the “good” intention is still there. A “temptation” is the inability to put into action your intention to refrain from your desire, usually for lack of willpower.

Returning to the previous example, let’s say you want the other members of the family to enjoy cake. Your desire to eat all the cake would be a temptation – not because eating all the cake is “bad” in a moral sense, but because eating all the cake prevents the other members of the family from enjoying the cake, which is your primary intention. Refraining from eating the cake because you want to share the cake shows something about you: It shows your actual intention. You really want to share, but you could fail in the case of temptation because of the lack of willpower if the desire is too strong.

Your intention to share the cake and in consequence not to eat it all yourself was a “good” intention: You understood that resisting the desire to eat all the cake would allow other people to also enjoy the cake. But if the cake looked so good that you ate all of it, you succumbed to the temptation, so there would be no cake left for others. Still, there was intention to share the cake, so ultimately that intention says a lot about you, even if you lack the willpower to put it into action.

Being too weak to resist “temptation” means you have intention to resist the desire but are unable. Your intention was to share, but you were too weak to refrain from eating all the cake. But at least you had intention, which says a lot about you. This failure means the family will not get to enjoy the cake, however you still intended to share it.

Real Change

The approach described in this chapter is the opposite of the classical self-improvement trend.

Many self-improvement gurus endorse the idea that you should push yourself and force change. However, pushing for change will require constant effort because you’re trying to change something that you do not understand. Real change instead comes naturally once you understand the underlying reasons for your anger, regret, or other unwanted states of mind. Real change is irreversible and does not require any further effort beyond the initial effort of understanding. On the other hand, forced change will revert to its initial state as soon as you stop making the effort. Ultimately self-improvement is a trap because it recommends forcing change without attempting to understand the underlying reasons. It discourages self-reflection, which is the only driver of real and long-lasting change. Once you start forcing change you will stop self-reflection which will prevent any real change.

Real change is about understanding/realizing.

Pretending is acting without understanding/realizing, like a parrot.

A parrot can say “I love you” but that doesn’t mean anything.

Understanding is 1) about realizing that “stories” are just “stories,” or 2) coming to realize (understand) certain aspects of reality like, for example, the single Sentience (as we will see in a later chapter).

Intention can be seen as a symptom that a certain understanding is there, regardless of whether action follows or not.

Intention says a lot more about you than action because intention reflects understanding, whereas the ability to transform intention into action only reflects power when it’s about others and willpower when it’s about you. Intention reflects understanding, and understanding is a better reflection of you than your power or willpower. It is “better” to have a “good” intention and lack the power/willpower to implement it than to have a “bad” intention.

Consider the most extreme example, genocide. The person committing genocide has both a “bad” intention and the power to act.

Now imagine someone watching on TV and saying of the victims, “They deserve it.” This person is probably approving of genocide because he lacks understanding of how it feels to be a victim of genocide – to be harmed, tortured, and killed. His intention that these people should suffer and die reflects that lack of understanding. Both this person and the person committing the genocide have in common a same lack of understanding. However, these two people have very different degrees of power: one has power to act on his intention (derived from his lack of understanding about the feelings of the victims), the other has no power.

(If someone were to have full understanding about something, judgment would be an impossibility, because judging can only arise when understanding is limited, and based on an oversimplification of reality. For example, “us versus them” is an oversimplification caused by grouping like “we are the good guys” and “they are the bad guys” and “they deserve to die.” This might arise in wartime because instead of considering the individuals on the other side as individuals, we oversimplify the individuals on the other side by assuming they are all the same, and they all possess some similar quality we hate, instead of understanding that they are all different individuals, with different lives, hopes, dreams, and wishes, etc. If we had full understanding – if we knew the actual life story of each one of those people in its full detail, it would be impossible to judge them.)

What matters is intention. Not having power is not a virtue. It’s just a circumstance. The person who does not act on the “bad” intention because he cannot – because he lacks the power to do it – is no better than the person who actually acts on the “bad” intention if or when he has the power to do it. What matters is intention because it reflects understanding or lack of understanding.

If someone with a “bad” intention does not act on it because he cannot act on it because of lack of power, that doesn’t make him “good.” It just makes him powerless.

Genuine intention guarantees the presence of understanding, but action alone does not.

Why?

Because behind action there can be understanding but not necessarily – whereas behind intention there is always understanding, because intention arises from our understanding. Actions instead can also be motivated by “stories” or ego – that is, without understanding (action without understanding).

Thus action is less important than intention.