Deepak Chopra, MD - When You Help Yourself, Which Self Are You Helping?
Americans are great believers in self-help, and with good reason. There are more tools for personal growth today than ever before. Books, seminars, weekend workshops, and support groups of all kinds flourish in abundance. Cynics decry this as a symptom of narcissism, the navel-gazing of the Me Generation. Actually, self-help spans all generations, and according to studies, around 75% of people who improve their psychological state do so, not with a therapist’s help, but by themselves.
Yet the more one looks into the self-help movement, the more confusion seems to reign. It’s common to meet people who tell the same story of being adrift. Having read many books, visited many teachers, and joined many groups, they continue to feel unfulfilled. Why? If self-help burgeons year after year, where are all these good intentions and well-meaning advice getting us?
I think a god deal of confusion can be cleared away if you stop for a moment and apply some realistic standards. In order for self-help to work, you need to know a few things with some certainty:
– Who am I today?
– Where am I heading?
– What do I want my future to look like?
These are not abstract or airy-fairy questions. At bottom, self-help exists to offer a new direction. For that to happen, the old has to give way to the new. Old habits and conditioning need to be transformed, and that isn’t possible except at the level of consciousness. “Who am I?” really means “How do I see myself?” Self-help doesn’t work because you found a wise, all-knowing teacher or a quick fix for a tough problem.
Self-help works if it wakes you up, either a little or a lot. The best way to wake up is to know who you are, where you’re going, and what the future could be. Present reality is the foundation. The future is a vision open to all possibilities.
The enemy of self-help is whatever closes off your consciousness and narrows your vision. Skeptical friends and people around you who are stuck in various ways are no help. A family that wants you to stay safe and secure in your box are no help. The reason that the human potential got off the ground is that the yearning to break free is innate in everyone, yet society is arranged to resist and quash that impulse.
Once you see the gap between who you are today and what you could be — I mean, really see it, with your heart as well as your brain — awareness will begin to expand. Nothing can stop it, in fact, because there is a hidden dimension to self-help. On the surface you seem to be improving the self you know, the one that gets depressed, overeats, or gets entangled in a bitter divorce.
But at a deeper level you are uncovering your true self. This self is at peace; it lives in silence, and its greatest joy lies in simply being. The true self is your source. At some point you find that self -help isn’t really about self-improvement. It’s about self-discovery. When that stage is reached, much of the confusion and frustration that now exists will change. With a clear purpose in mind, seekers can use self-help as a tool to reach their real goal, which is liberation in fulfillment.
Published in the San Francisco Chronicle
“The kingdom of heaven is within.” -Jesus Go beyond ego and a fulfilling transpersonal relationship with yourself and everything emerges.
Thanks again for sharing DEEPak.
Love,
Michael
Self discovery is truly all that matters & whatever it takes to find yourself in this busy world is important to you. That’s all that matters….everyone processes things differently & different techniques work for different people. It’s not important how you do the work to discover yourself, it’s only important that you do the work.
Hugs,
Bill
What words can do!! So well said / written. I see this in a few of the fellow journey seekers I know. Reading this actually opened my heart which unfortunately doesn’t happen often enough!
Who am I today?- Any day, you are your ideas, beliefs and concepts. Where am I heading?- You obviously head in that direction your thought( especially while making a decision) takes you. What do I want my future to look like?- This you had to think before you addressed the first 2 questions. It is one’s ideas, beliefs that govern his response to a given situation. Your responses make your destiny. One need not discover oneself, he knows his story; but it is very important that one is AWARE of oneself. Self awareness breaks the pattern of your story controlling your response to life. When you are aware, you give right responses that aim in creating a great future.
I just love the typo: “I think a god deal …”. To think of God so much that your mind trips you up into typing “god” whenever it can is a good sign.
I agree with you Deepak. No therapist has been able to do for me, what I have done for myself with yoga and meditation.
Things start working in your favor with ease and you will be amazed to experience this change.
All the greatest deeds of humanity began by looking into one’s deepest self and asking what do I really want, what does the world need, and how can I make it real. This self-conception originating in the Self has the power to attract the infinite into this finite life.
I need to congratulate you for this fine way of you serving the world community. BRAVO!
… With all due respect,
“A family that wants you to stay safe and secure in your box are no help.” If my wife reads these lines she certainly would go ahead and leave me and my 12 year old kid and walk away from the family because she finds married life already suffocating … just last week I suggested her to go on your web-site for some enlightenment *. She is in a deep soul-searching process and our family life is in deep turmoil and me personally I think the reason is that she resists the idea that; it’s the accumulative effects of the little choices in everyday life that makes the biggest difference… depends what you read, who you hang out with, what you discuss and hear, places you go (Talking about thoughts control) after all, choices, not chances, determine our destiny and adversely she is falling into self-rejection because never measuring up to her personal image of perfection, which automatically leads into rejecting me and my family/married life , I find her everyday lifestyle deeds and her goal don’t come into the same alignment . And frankly I don’t know how to clearly manage all these yet, but I will.
*I have lived a miraculous “visualization” experience at an early age of 19; I know for sure that Faith can move mountains!
1