To my mind, one of the most dangerous and misused ideas in LGATs is the idea of [i:99fe49404e]You create your own reality[/i:99fe49404e].

Now, I understand that we create our lives, but, it seems, many LGATs would have us think that the reality we perceive is nothing more than an illusion - we don't need to buy into it!

Well, I know if I take a 20-pound hammer and hit 20 people as hard as I can on the big toe on their right foot, they will all feel pain. Why would they all react in a similar manner? Because reality exists. It is not an illusion!

Maybe a more accurate way at looking at what LGATs say is we [i:99fe49404e]interpret[/i:99fe49404e] our own reality.

But, surely, we all have intents and we all carry out actions according to those intents. However, if some person with malevalent intent should cross our path and hurt us, did we create that reality? I don't think so!

[i:99fe49404e]We create our own reality[/i:99fe49404e] comes across as a black-and-white thought-stopping technique used by LGATs.

I have heard a so-called metaphysician, who smokes a lot, say he will never get throat cancer, because he chooses not to! Well, then, we could stop cancer and AIDS and the like just by thought.

Get all the scientists out of the labs! Just think yourself better. Believe it, and you will be cured.

Think of the world as a peaceful place. No more wars. Love everywhere... You create your own reality therefore it should be so :shock:

I would love to hear other's input on debunking this drivel because it is a dangerous, all-encompassing idea, which once bought into really hinders critical thought.

Ideas, anyone?

I thought this. It is a really alienating notion and I think you are right in suggesting it is a thought-stopping technique.

To an extent, you can argue that we are responsible for our own individual successes in spite of our circumstances, but this idea of being responsible fully for our own, complete reality, the bad, the middle, AND the good, takes the notion to sociopathic levels.

It is interesting as a philosophic exercise. Groups that take this too seriously and ask members to pay and devote time to the "patented" notion are backward, money-spinning cons.

Quote
Brad69
To my mind, one of the most dangerous and misused ideas in LGATs is the idea of [i:43c142bee9]You create your own reality[/i:43c142bee9].

Now, I understand that we create our lives, but, it seems, many LGATs would have us think that the reality we perceive is nothing more than an illusion - we don't need to buy into it!

Well, I know if I take a 20-pound hammer and hit 20 people as hard as I can on the big toe on their right foot, they will all feel pain. Why would they all react in a similar manner? Because reality exists. It is not an illusion!

Maybe a more accurate way at looking at what LGATs say is we [i:43c142bee9]interpret[/i:43c142bee9] our own reality.

But, surely, we all have intents and we all carry out actions according to those intents. However, if some person with malevalent intent should cross our path and hurt us, did we create that reality? I don't think so!

[i:43c142bee9]We create our own reality[/i:43c142bee9] comes across as a black-and-white thought-stopping technique used by LGATs.

I have heard a so-called metaphysician, who smokes a lot, say he will never get throat cancer, because he chooses not to! Well, then, we could stop cancer and AIDS and the like just by thought.

Get all the scientists out of the labs! Just think yourself better. Believe it, and you will be cured.

Think of the world as a peaceful place. No more wars. Love everywhere... You create your own reality therefore it should be so :shock:

I would love to hear other's input on debunking this drivel because it is a dangerous, all-encompassing idea, which once bought into really hinders critical thought.

Ideas, anyone?

Great discussion, people! I would also urge people look into the corporate/political connections of the people pushing "Create Your Own Reality". Also, one should always consider how this philosophy dovetails PERFECTLY with a radical free market political philosophy.

After all, if you get hit by a car, you created that reality and should be able to create a reality where all your hospital bills are paid for. Why should society care? Joe Dispenza of the "What the Bleep" crowd is on record as saying that a child with Downs Syndrome "created his own reality". Lost your job and your unemployment is running low? Guess what, bucko, you created your OWN reality!

Many of these groups are known to put on a "liberal" peace, love, and vegetarian cooking face, but behind it they are far right to the core. Sorry to preach too much politics, but to me, they are inseparable when considering groups like these.

This concept is typically New Age beliefs. See some previous posts:

[board.culteducation.com]


Mike ;)

Thanks Midonov123. Strangely enough I was wondering today what had become of you on the boards!

Your link is indeed an interesting one.

On that thread there is a good explanation of existentialism by Coldnosesandfluffytails.

It makes for interesting and educational reading and is the kind of thing that one can use against the perversion of creating one's own reality that exists in LGATs.

I see the "What the Bleep" movies are sometimes used as sources for the idea that we create our own realities.

However, there are certainly many questions surrounding them. They were, after all, funded by the School of Ramtha and the very questionable JZ Knight.

See the following link: [www.culteducation.com]

Also see the following thread: [board.culteducation.com]

Some of the so-called experts used in the movies appear to be questionable sources, while others used in the movies have claimed they were quoted out of context and have distanced themselves from the way their ideas were portrayed.

'Creating Your Own Reality'

This is a belief that will initially make people feel good, especially if
inculcated in an exciting crowd setting.

However, one may not even need to be in a group or influenced by
a teacher. This notion has taken on a life of its own. If you hang
around in certain social scenes, this 'create your own reality' is
part of the soup of unexamined ideas that float around.

But if people pick up on this and are not aware of it, it can make them vulnerable to indoctrination if they later cross paths with certain teachers or groups that teach this doctrine in more high-octane forms.

This create-your-own-reality can actually derail adult development.

It is a throwback to a tiny child's belief that he or she is all powerful. This is a necessary developmental stage when one is a toddler, but will get a person into great trouble when adult.

If the indoctrination is done skillfully, this belief that we create our own
reality will often have an intoxicating effect and make people feel liberated and marvellous--which makes it very appealing at first. (Little kids go through this same grand feeling when achieving and mastering such tasks as learning to walk and talk.)

A lot of people feel powerless, depressed, and will become passionately loyal to anything that makes them feel terrific.

**The problem is this same notion that 'you-create-your-own-reality'
often comes hitched to a very cruel belief that 'there-are-no-victims.

(This 'there are no victims' mentality can also be picked up as a free floating unexamined notion in certain social scenes--and it too can make people vulnerable to recruitment into hurtful groups)

As soon as the 'high' fades and the indoctrinated person encounters
some kind of heavy life misfortune or realizes he or she has been harmed
by the group or leader that taught 'you-create-your-own-reality'

they will find that the group and teacher have a streak of cold cruelty.

This 'you create your own reality'

and 'there are no victims'

1) Offers a way for powerholders and groups to evade accountability for their mis use of power. by shifting the burden of accountability to the
person who was given false empowerment and then harmed.

2) Offer a way for the irresponsible teacher and group to shame people into silence, thus enabling the leader and group to deny the consequences of their actions.

3) It is a way for a group or leader who are unable to cope with human suffering to protect themselves and maintain a facade of all knowing power while silencing people whose testimony and tears might otherwise trigger anxiety-- and reveal that the teacher or the groups's doctrine is incapable of offering real support when tragedy strikes.

That way the people who actually have the power have all the pleasures of power with no accountablity for its proper use

And the subjects who are low on the totem pole and who are harmed by this misuse of power are shamed into silence and told by the powerholders that they are totally responsible.

The saddest thing for many seekers is there is hidden cruelty in some sectors of the 'spiritual' scene. As long as they share the ecstacy, they will only see the smiling face of the scene.

But as soon as they try to report that they have suffered severe personal misfortune or were harmed by a powerholder in that scene, they will suddenly face a very heartless cruelty and a very sophisticated rhetoric of invalidation.

Any time you hear 'you create your own reality' find out how the group or teacher respond when someone reports misfortune or tries to talk about spiritual abuse.

If the response is some variation of 'there are no victims'-- you're ventured into a scene that hides cruelty behind its smiles.

Its better to find this out before you've been wounded, rather than after.

Good to see you on the boards again, Corboy!

This idea of "you create you own reality" and "there are no victims" goes hand-in-hand with another commonly used expression: "There is no right and wrong".

I have a problem with that.

If I venture out into the street with a gun and shoot someone, does "there is no right and wrong" apply?

If I drink and drive and cause an accident, resulting in the death of someone, does "there is no right and wrong" still apply?

As mentioned before, unethical practioners of these ideas will take possession of anything good that happens in a victim's life, saying they created it (which raises an interesting paradox about creating one's own reality), but if something bad happens, they are quick to put the blame on the victim.

This assertion that there is no right and wrong

It is a distortion of Eastern teachings on nondual reality.

Properly understood, there are three types of reality and they remain
equally valid.

* Conventional dualistic reality

*Nondual reality

*The level of skillful means in which someone who understands both levels of reality continues to function in society in a manner and does so in a way that remains responsible, compassionate and ethical.

Competant teachers of non dualism will tell you that even if someone has realized nondual reality this does NOT cancel out dual reality.

A person who fully understands that he or she is non-separate from everything will not immediately react by demanding special treatment or by seeking an easy out from ethical and relationship commitments.

Responsible teachers will also remind us that someone who has actually realized nondual reality will be compassionate and make every effort to avoid harming anyone. Such a person will willingly behave in a manner that is kind and ethical.

Zen teacher Kodo Sawaki said that the way to tell if someone's Zen practice is going well is to see if they are kbecoming more kind and helpful to everyone--including their families.

A Buddhist teacher with 35 years of experience told us that there are people of all levels of maturity at a practice center. Even if you have come to realize that ethics are sometimes arbitrary, you'll not want to behave in ways that could provide a misleading example for new students.

She said that it dangerous to ever imagine one is exempt from conventional ethics--no matter how far along in practice one has become.

In the soto zen tradition when people take lay ordination they vow, in public, that even if they later become enlightened, they will continue to follow the Buddhist ethical guidelines, which amoung other things forbid
intoxication, stealing, lying, killing, misuse of sexuality, greed, hurtful speech and harboring ill will.

It is no accident that in genuine Buddhism and Hinduism, they tried to reserve teaching nonduality to senior students who had already demonstrated good characer and had made a commitment to behave in an
ethical manner.

Problem is too many people picked up bits and pieces of this material without having the kindness and honesty to ensure a stable understanding, and over the past 35 to 40 years, a lot of toxic and distorted applications of nondualism are now part of the soup of unexamined ideas that float in the atmosphere in some sectors of the human potential and spiritual scene.

The disdain for disciplined study and critical thinking has made matters worse.

Quote
corboy
3) It is a way for a group or leader who are unable to cope with human suffering to protect themselves and maintain a facade of all knowing power while silencing people whose testimony and tears might otherwise trigger anxiety-- and reveal that the teacher or the groups's doctrine is incapable of offering real support when tragedy strikes.

That way the people who actually have the power have all the pleasures of power with no accountablity for its proper use

That's the terrible truth. When I was active in the [b:64daebd08c] est [/b:64daebd08c] courses... the "added value" things you did after the core [b:64daebd08c] est training [/b:64daebd08c] ... I witnessed some things that disturbed my conscience badly, sprititually sickened me... although the majority of the attendees were emotionally up to the game and could take away the parts that served them and leave the parts that didn't serve them, there were some people who obviously, declaratively had severe issues.... not overt behavioral manifestations that would get you "disinvited" for non conformist acting out or "failure to get with the program" ... but persons silently, and devastatingly suffering from depression and hideously dysfunctional domestic situations.... there was one case in particular that I will never forget... a pitiable woman, in a violently abusive relationship... during our "communication breakthru" she confides the specifics of this miserable travesty of a marriage to me... it is also painfully obvious that major, highly trained intervention expertise is called for... far, far outside of my knowledge of how one proceeds... and I go up the our omniscient trainer and take her aside, and she is so inflated with her omnipotent grandeur, her [b:64daebd08c]Werner Incandescence... [/b:64daebd08c] and I explain, as rationally, as patiently, as above board... you must do something here, this woman is in a terrible, and probalby dangerous situation, and I have no right to be advising her, you really have to take charge and use your knowledge and get her on track.... this is way beyond me... and the trainer, with the smuggest, most dismissive, conceited all knowing wave of her hand says of course, we'll deal with this, there's no problem... and I trusted her reassuring words, by implication she had seen such cases and she knew how to ethically handle them, well, I trusted many things back then.... and our trainer, filled with her [b:64daebd08c] Werner Incandescence [/b:64daebd08c] flew right back into her training and completely ignored this woman, as if our conversation had never taken place, she just ruthlessly blew her off... "it's actually not our problem you see"... and at the end of the evening, [b:64daebd08c] the trainer had no courage, no integrity, no fucking spine [/b:64daebd08c] to go up to this poor creature, to approach her, to give here one ounce of comfort, or compassion, or suggestion that she get therapy or counseling or go to the police or anything, she just [b:64daebd08c] ever so conveniently dissappeared her from the "imcomplete list" [/b:64daebd08c] and let her wobble off to solve her own issues.... Disgusted ? Sometning clicked in me at that moment that has made me a lifelong activist of sorts, that moment of cowardice, that cheesy loss of nerve, cloaked in some hollow fine sounding theory, something truly Godless in that, so nauseatingy self centered... for all I know that woman is dead, or damaged, or living in terror... and the great shining trainer could not bring herself to give a flying fuck.