How do you treat yourself? Like The Wind or The Sun?

Comment now » // February 26th, 2011

“Spirituality based on self-hatred can never sustain itself.” Sharon Salzberg, Lovingkindness (p 26)

There was a bizarre and confusing double-bind that existed in the cult I was involved with. We were taught by our cult leader that we were “God’s chosen people”; we were tremendously special because God had selected us – the few and the pure – to lead the world into The Light and therefore we were better than everyone else on the planet (for more about this “us vs. them” technique that all cult leaders use to manipulate their followers please see this blog post or this link to Robert Lifton’s Eight Criteria for Thought Reform).

And at the same time, our guru, the cult leader, covertly taught us a practice of self-hatred. We were never good enough. The spiritual goals we were aiming for were constantly moving so whenever any of us felt and voiced that we believed we had achieved something important in our spiritual growth, we were told that either a) that piece of learning didn’t matter any more or b) there was a much more important milestone to be achieved or c) both of these things. This was not a spirituality of openness, lovingkindness, gentleness and warmth. It was a spirituality of self-flagellation, self-doubt, inner and outer condemnation, fear and worry. And yet, we believed that we were the best and the brightest of God’s people and that everyone else should look to us as an example of the exalted spiritual life.

What a joke.

The endless quest for the impossible goal of self-perfection lead me to feel like a constant and colossal failure. Which was the cult leader’s purpose (although I didn’t know it at the time). She ensured that I felt like a worthless failure, which led me to seek my salvation through her. I grew to believe that without her I would not be able to be in a relationship with God. Without her guidance I would be entirely enslaved to my ego. If I was a worthless failure inside her group, and under her tutelage, then outside the group (if I left her) I would be not only a failure but a quitter and someone who had deliberately and consciously turned my back on God. This diabolical pack of lies is the cornerstone of every cult leader’s repertoire of manipulations because, sadly, it works. It keeps people tied to the cult even through the worst types of control, manipulation and soul-eroding abuse.

**
Now, with eleven years of freedom and healing under my belt, and a lot of practice thinking and feeling for myself, I can see the cult leader’s lies for what they are. And I am learning, with the help of practices like lovingkindness, that anything that we loathe or condemn about ourselves will simply persist. Our bodies, our minds, our thoughts, respond best and most willingly when we love them. When we love those things about ourselves that we are inclined to hate (“I’m fat”, “I smoke”, “I watch too much TV”) and lean into them with love and a gentle acceptance, only then do they begin to shift.

When I think of this topic lately, I am reminded of the classic Aesop’s fable, The Wind and The Sun. The wind and the sun are arguing one day about who is stronger, so they make a wager about who can get a man to remove his coat more quickly. The wind blows and batters the man, trying to force his coat off. The result is that the man pulls the coat around himself tighter and tighter and no matter how hard the wind blows, the coat won’t come off. The sun then has his turn and shines brightly down, creating a gloriously warm day. And of course you know what happens next….the man eagerly and happily takes off his coat.

Battering ourselves and feeling bad about ourselves achieve nothing, no matter how noble the cause. The truth is that love really is the answer. But a cult leader will keep this information from you because she is The Wind. Her only goal in life is to prove how strong, powerful and important she is and to keep you convinced that she is the answer and your only salvation. In order for her to achieve this, you must pay the price with your bruised soul and broken heart.

–

(photo courtesy of Filomena Scalise and FreeDigitalPhotos.net)