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We’re born completely authentic. But something happens as we grow up; our authenticity is broken. Growing up we naturally want to please our parents. When we do something “good” we are told we are a “good boy” or a “good girl.” But when we do something “bad” we are told we are a “bad boy” or a “bad girl.” Our parents love us and are just trying to do what’s best for us. But behind their praise and chastising we hear a hidden message: it’s not okay to be who I am.
We are told this in school as well “You had better work hard and get good grades if you want to make something of your life.” Our teachers have the best intentions, but we still hear the hidden message: who I am right now is not good enough.
Our parents, siblings, friends and teachers all have an opinion of us. They think we would be best if we were this way or that way. We should be a certain way, but we are not. This is the beginning of our image of perfection.
Before long we don’t need our teachers and parents to give us this image of perfection, we now have our own judge and our own victim inside our minds. We judge ourselves according to this image. We’re not good enough, we’re not smart enough, we don’t do enough, accomplish enough. We see what we should be, but we are not. In this the drama begins to unfold and the judge and the victim inside our head begin to rule our life.
This voice in our heads (otherwise known as the Voice of Knowledge) is constantly judging us and judging everyone else. But it is based on an image of perfection that we will never achieve! We are born perfect, nothing we do can ever make us perfect. We’re searching for a false image.
Imagine you’re building a house and you need a certain amount of wood to put up the frame. You know you need a certain amount of two by fours, four by fours and plywood. If you run out of wood for a certain part of the frame, you don’t blame the two by fours for being too short. You also don’t blame the plywood for being too flat.
We don’t judge the different pieces of wood for not being anything other then they are. But we do this with ourselves all the time.
Let’s look at the example of the movie “A Beautiful Mind.” The main character in this movie is a schizophrenic, but he’s also a genius. The problem is he sees people who don’t exist. The people he sees are controlling his life because he listens to them and does whatever they want him to do. After his wife discovers his condition, she puts him in an insane asylum. It’s not until he is given medication that he is able to see his hallucinations aren’t real.
The drug, however, gives him side effects so he stops taking the medication. Now he is faced with a choice, he can either go back to the hospital, lose his wife and accept his mental illness, or he can face the visions and overcome them.
He makes the choice to stay off the medication and battle his hallucinations. He decides “Whenever I see these people, I won’t listen to them. I won’t believe what they tell me.” The more he persists, the less power the visions have over him and he regains his personal freedom.
The beauty of this story is that it shows that if you don’t believe the voice in your head, it loses the power it has over you. So how can we conquer the voice in our own head? How can we conquer the tyrant that is ruling our life?
Don Miguel Ruiz offers two simple rules for conquering the voice in your head:
1. Don’t believe yourself. But listen to the voice of knowledge because sometimes it might have a brilliant idea. Don’t believe yourself mainly when you are using the voice against yourself. How many times have you said “yes” when you really wanted to say “no”? In the same way, how many times have you said “no” when you really wanted to say “yes”? You didn’t listen to your integrity because the voice in your head wouldn’t let you. The voice in your head is the ability to judge. Because of that, it will always say two different, conflicting things. Listen to the voice, but don’t believe it.
2. Don’t believe anybody else. Just because someone else is telling your their opinion, doesn’t make it true. Realize that they are speaking from the perspective of their own story. When people are talking to you, don’t judge what they have to say, don’t believe what they say. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t listen to them. Listen to their story and follow your own integrity. When someone is speaking from their integrity, our own integrity will be able to recognize it.
As I’ve said earlier, knowledge is the ability to judge. The voice in our head is the voice of knowledge. But that voice is like a wild horse, taking us wherever it wants to go. Once you tame the horse, you can ride the horse. With it, you can take yourself wherever you want to go.
Using these two rules has helped me find inner peace. Searching for answers, I knew my image of perfection was unrealistic. I knew that striving for that would never bring me freedom. Knowledge is a valuable tool, but like all great tools, they have their disadvantages. And the principle disadvantage of knowledge is that we confuse it with reality. In reality, everything is perfect. Judgment is a part of reality, but reality itself is beyond judgment.
Points to ponder:
In the next series on Truth I’ll be talking about the Four Agreements and how you can use them to recover your personal freedom.
What are your thoughts on the Voice of Knowledge? Has the voice inside your head been ruining your life?
note: This is a summary of much of what can be found in Don Miguel Ruiz’s book The Voice of Knowledge. If you would like to read more about it, I highly recommend checking out his book (any of them for that matter).
Great point Jonathan. I think we're actually very much in agreement on this issue of absolute morality. I'd probably argue the source of it is higher than our own personal integrity, but that's another discussion unto itself.
It was simply that one line that tripped me up, and it seems as though I might have misinterpreted it. Thank you for the clarification. Once again, you put it very well ;-)
Couple things..
First you assume there is no right or wrong. Our parents punish and reprimand us because there is right and wrong. This is where we learn to act appropriately, to be civilized.
second, we don't judge a piece of wood because it has no conscience, no being. We have a responsibility to ourselves and society to act within a certain bounds. A piece of wood as no control.
Being judgmental is an important part of society. It keeps people in check. Imagine what people would do if no one told them right from wrong, or no one told them they were not doing well enough.
Hi Brandon,
There is only right and wrong in the minds eye. In reality, there is no right and wrong. They are two ends of one pole. Just as you need black to see white, you need right to see wrong. Explicitly they are two, but implicitly they are one (they imply each other).
We do have responsibility, that is the beauty of being human. However, we often use our ability to judge to go against ourself. Because we can see that there is good and bad, we see that some of our actions are good and others are bad. It doesn't make sense to use this knowledge to go against yourself though.
An example: If you don't like what someone else has to say to you, you can walk away. But if you don't like what you have to say to yourself, you can't walk away. It makes more sense then to be nice to yourself.
This may seem overly simplified, but like all common sense, it is simple.
I hope this helps clarify a few things.
Jonathan
One of my favorite quotes on being yourself:
"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."
- Marianne Williamson
Interesting post Jonathan. However, I have to disagree with this point in your latest comment:
"There is only right and wrong in the minds eye. In reality, there is no right and wrong."
If you see a 90-year-old woman about to cross the street, you essentially have three options:
1. Help her cross the street
2. Don't help her and keep walking
3. Push her into oncoming traffic
One of those choices is clearly wrong. No one in the world would argue to the contrary (unless he or she is truly deranged).
That said, I believe there is a real moral truth inside all of us. Many of us ignore it or choose to do go against for a whole host of reasons. But that does not make it any less real. You put it very well yourself – “The truth is the truth whether we believe in it or not.”
Breanne,
that is a beautiful quote. I've heard that one before, I'm going to save it this time.
Ryan,
Absolutely there is truth and essential moral compass for life. But that is not determined by the mind, that comes from your integrity, which is something else entirely.
Your mind could tell you any of those three options, because your mind makes up what is right or wrong. But your integrity knows intuitively what the "right" choice is. In short, it doesn't have to think about it. It doesn't think it's right or wrong, it's just natural to help her.
The point I agree with is the beginning, about our parents urging us to always be better. This is a double edged sword: if we are told we aren't doing enough, we will be hard workers. However, we also might be torn to the ground, thinking we always have to go one step farther until we eventually fall off the cliff.
When I was young, if I studied for an hour it should have been for two. If I got a B how come I wasn't good enough to get an A? I think at some point my mother realized she pushed me too far and saw that I was pushing too hard for perfection. I'm happy it has molded me to be such a hard worker, but at the same time I always feel I'm never working hard enough. Though I do consider my ambition and work ethic to be some of my best qualities. Interesting moral dilemma.
Don’t judge based on popularity or blind reciprocity, instead make sure they “get it” and just as importantly, that their followers “get it”. More...
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