For self development addicts.

Where the revolt against the older world got us

October 2nd, by Attila Borcsa in Conscious living, Self development, 6 Comments

Regarding personal development trends, I came to notice a paradoxical situation. By definition, it is all about building up a successful person. In time, there were major influences on the discipline, although its major characteristic is to come up with something new and revolutionary as often as possible. Just to be in touch with modern times. Even if it’s the same old recipe, a repackaging makes it shiny and lots of new adepts are gathering around it. Also, some of the recipes are standing strong on scientific grounds, many are simply based on the strong belief of the follower. Thus, approaching such adepts with some regular conversation, I was surprised how easily and normally we handled even sensitive religious matters. But not the ones related to their own, accepted and followed personal success recipes or paths. Seemingly, these systems of personal success beliefs give something more that even religions fail to deliver.

It looks like a new religion was born and we did not even noticed it. Such an intensity in believing the infallible efficiency of the success recipe makes it resemble to what we used to know as dogma. The authoritarian presence of the teacher is also there, whether in person or by books, DVDs and nowadays on-line seminars. It is just striking how belief plays such an important role here. Just like in religion, except no god(s) are involved. Same old, maybe better, maybe worse. If this is where the revolt against the older world got us, then we got nowhere.

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Comments on "Where the revolt against the older world got us":

  1. Marcus says:
    October 4th, 2007 at 7:54 pm

    There is an old adage that says something like; “Believe in nothing.”

    I feel that is a good thing to strive for, because all else is illusion and dogma.

    I…believe in nothing. It’s funny because people as so conditioned that many can’t even accept the idea of “no belief”.

    No belief, means no recipes. Just throw the whole lot out, and see what remains.

  2. Marcus says:
    October 4th, 2007 at 10:07 pm

    Another aspect to this: Many people are stuck with the idea of believing that everything is theoretical. To such people, all methods, ideas, concepts etc. are merely theories to understand, try out or to reject. In these cases, people are unable to distinguish between theory and experience. But experience and theory are not the same things.

    Attachment to theory (even if it is your own personal theory) leads to dogma. Where as interpretation of your own experience leads to possibilities.

    You mention about people becoming attached to their own “personal recipes” (personal theory / personal method), in a manner much like a religion. These sorts of people are like those in the movie “The Secret”. Their Ego creates a dogma.

    Then there are other people who try and shatter the entire notion of “theory” and “recipe”. I always make effort to try and show people how to learn to use their own personal experience (not my personal experience), in order to further their development. If they don’t do this then they are in constant search for the next method or theory; for them everything becomes an -ism. Being attached to the idea that everything is a theory, method or recipe - is a belief system itself. To people who think like that, I would say; “Break that belief, and chuck it all out…before it becomes your religion.” Belief-ism…

  3. Attila Borcsa (author) says:
    October 5th, 2007 at 8:53 am

    Using personal experience is crucial. And the only way to get there is through personal experience (?!).
    Let’s not forget about the intelligence (or what) behind, that creates the dependency. Especially on the personal development level with all the marketing involved, but often on the spiritual one too (which might be considered even worse).
    “Just throw the whole lot out, and see what remains.” Good advice, I couldn’t agree more. Just dare to say it out loud directly :)

  4. Razvan says:
    October 5th, 2007 at 10:56 am

    most people are always expecting the next Budha, the next Jesus …

  5. Marcus says:
    October 5th, 2007 at 12:40 pm

    Yes, you need personal experience to understand personal experience. Which includes personal experience of intelligence etc.

    You cut yourself on some glass. You learn from that experience that glass cuts, and that getting cut hurts. No teacher or book needed there. You learn that when you exercise you get out of breath, so you sit down to recover. Again, no teacher or book needed to learn that. Experience is the greatest teacher.

    How else are you supposed to learn about experience? You can’t learn experience from a book, or from a teacher, you can only learn about other peoples experiences, which is third hand - and so has to be classed as knowledge. And so it is only knowledge that you can learn from books and teachers, because knowledge is taught.

    Conversely you gain experience, through action, consideration and awareness. If I went to live in the mountains on my own for the next 10 years, I would still learn from experience. Even if I previously had no survival knowledge, I would learn how to get food, I would learn how to find shelter etc. It would all come from trial and error (i.e. personal experience). The alternative would be death.

    Intelligence comes into play when you learn how to match up your knowledge with your experiences. But even the ability to match the two up, can’t really be taught - you have to discover how to do that yourself.

    But as you say - there are a lot of people and marketing plans out there which create a dependence; teaching us - that we need them in order to gain experience. That is where the entire system is messed up. We have become dependent upon the idea of authoritative knowledge…and believe we need someone else to teach us what our own senses are telling us. And you are quite right; many people hate to hear that, and will even get very hostile about it.

    People want someone else to save them. They want to believe that they don’t have to help themselves. They don’t want to claim responsibility for their own lives. By claiming they can only learn from being taught by others, they are giving up self-responsibility.

    Most people don’t want to admit that their life situation is 90% of their own creation. They would rather blame someone else.

    And because of that belief - we are taught that we have to be dependent upon other people, upon the marketing and education systems.

    What a way to destroy any sense of self-worth!

  6. Theo says:
    November 14th, 2007 at 7:07 pm

    As I get older, I find the kind of instruction books I like most useful are the ones which contain exercises and experiments to carry out. Indeed, they might contain a bit of theory to introduce you to what the exercise might achieve, and some criteria to help you evaluate what happens, but the crux of the matter is the exercise. When you try something out (many times, hopefully), record the results, then reflect on them over time and try to apply them to other problems and situations, you can really say you’ve learned something. And I don’t think Socrates himself would disagree with that.

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