Techniques of Healing
The Story So Far
In using ultimate values-R"G1 you necessarily use humanity's 7 vehicles of goodness. However …
… goodness is limited by and releases inner strength.
In finding strength-R"G2, you conscientiously use humanity's 6 mantras of self-control. However …
… self-control is both limited by and releases pain and suffering.
In overcoming pain-R"G3, you spontaneously use humanity's 5 techniques of healing.
Now read on:
Safe Essential Techniques
The techniques of healing may be inappropriately or insufficiently applied. However, unlike the simpler components (vehicles of goodness-R"G1, mantras of self-control-R"G2), their use appears to have no intrinsic dangers. Intrinsic safety is also found in all higher components of this framework (R"G4, 5, 6 & 7).
Schema
The techniques are now taken one by one below and explained as follows.
- Function & Distinctive Features
- Internal Structure: The picture is spelled out in text. More: Because the bottom Level (g1) is necessary for the technique and so unavoidable, while the top Level (g3) is spontaneous, most commentators focus on the centre Level (g2). This requires conscientiousness, which is probably what makes it problematic.
- Failure: A Table shows mishandling of each internal Level of the technique.
- Issues: Some features related to appreciating or using the technique.
Purify Yourself: R"G35
Purification is the highest technique of healing, with by far the most positive and extensive effects on yourself and on others. However, in current times, it is rarely mentioned: perhaps because of the focus on submission-RL"6. More details here.
Internal Structure
g3: Purification is powered by a spontaneousunification-R"G17 with what is good and pure.
+
g2: A conscientious submission-R"G16 leads to an inner appraisal using your intuitive sense and genuinely held beliefs or doctrines.
+
g1: Purifying requires necessary exertion-R"G15 in relation to your inner states and your social situation, so as to remove, reduce, avoid or counteract specific impurities: i.e. negative, harmful or bad elements. Exertion is also necessary because, like cleaning in the physical world, there must be constant repetition.
Forms of Failure
| Failure of Spontaneous Unification
|
|
Failure of Conscientious Submission
|
|
Failure of Necessary
Exertion
|
• Claiming entitlement to flaws.
• Perversely valuing destructive attitudes, motivations or feelings.
• Identifying with the polluting element.
|
|
• Refusing to distinguish light and dark.
• Refusing to identify/unite with the light.
|
|
• Using splitting and projection to feel pure/good.
• Using brain-washing or thought-control.
• Using mindless rituals to purify.
• Bodily detox as a substitute.
|
The Magic of Detox
Purifying yourself is currently not a popular notion. Unlike the other techniques of healing, googling the phrase generates relatively few websites, and those are mainly religious or spiritual.
Its place appears to have been taken by the notion of «detox».
Detox refers to efforts to reduce and remove physical toxins from the body, by altering what is ingested and facilitating excretion of waste. It is a result of concrete thinking in which goodness = good food, and badness = cellular and bodily wastes (toxins).
Detox procedures have no medical or scientific basis. They operate at a psychological level to provide identity support and personal well-being. They do not provide directly for self-purification as described here.
See more in this blog
.
Make Sacrifices-R"G34
Sacrifice is one of the ways that we learn to move beyond ourselves, and demonstrate that we value some greater good. It is often a provider of meaning because the sacrifice indicates a purpose in life. Sacrifice should always make a difference and feel rewarding, or it is foolish and futile.
The central level here is exertion-R"G15, which explains why no substantial success in any aspect of life is possible without sacrifice playing some part. Benefit seems to be proportionate: the bigger the success, the greater the sacrifice. It seems likely that no great idea, no meaningful change, no bold goal, no accomplishment—indeed nothing of any significance—can be realized without sacrifice. When people speak of «the price that you must pay» for success, this is the reference.
Internal Structure
g3: Sacrificing is powered by spontaneous submission-R"G16 to the overt needs of another (or others) sharing a particular situation.
+
g2: As a result, there is conscientious exertion-R"G15, mental-emotional or physical-practical, to meet those needs.
+
g1: Finally, the sacrifice must provide a necessary helpfulness-R"G14 for the other.
Forms of Failure
| Failure of Spontaneous Submission
|
|
Failure of Conscientious Exertion
|
|
Failure in Necessary
Helpfulness
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• Compulsive masochistic behaviours.
• Giving up what you don't really want anyway.
• Submitting due to social pressure or forceful selling techniques.
|
|
• Compromising: seeking win-win.
• Giving to get: quid pro quo.
• Making pointless efforts or ignoring common sense.
|
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• Helping as a form of control or manipulation: e.g. «Jewish Mother» syndrome.
• Helping that is inappropriate or unnecessary or unwanted.
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Special Features
Who Judges Sacrifice?
Because sacrifice is a matter of value, it is impossible to use an outsider perspective to judge whether a sacrifice has been made. When it is written that someone has «sacrificed» their reputation for the sake of a sexual fling, it is assumed that they value sex over reputation. That may not be the case at all. There was no sacrifice: there was probably impulsiveness and stupidity.
You cannot sacrifice someone else. You can only send someone else to their possible, likely or certain death—and claim good reasons for doing that. Political leaders have doomed people from time immemorial, but the individuals concerned must judge for themselves.
Parents Sacrifice for their Children
Sacrifice in a family is common because a child's well-being is a valued goal of a parent. Children do not thrive just through parental hopes. Effort and work is needed, and that involves creativity. A person submits to their creative project and the self is used by it. Where raising a family is an important project, submission to the family is spontaneous. So egocentric concerns can be put to one side, and sacrifice comes naturally.
Death as the Ultimate Sacrifice
Death is the ultimate sacrifice in the sense that no further sacrifices by a person are possible. Martyrdom is a special case involving political or doctrinal values. Self-sacrifice occurs regularly in wars when one or more individuals will choose to die to enable others to escape death. Christianity has especially emphasized self-sacrifice, and doctrine treats Christ's death as a sacrifice. As noted above, a government sending men to war is sending many to their deaths. But most expect and dearly wish to survive: they do not want to sacrifice themselves at all. If they do, it is usually for their buddies, not for their country.
Be Generous-R"G33
Generosity is about willingly giving valuable things to help another with no expectation of a return. The giving may relate to money, time, advice, labour, useful objects, food &c, but what should be given may not be obvious. When there is a request, the effort (g3) in response may be different from what is requested.
Although there must be a conscious focus on helping (g2) so as to enhance the condition of another, there is no requirement to be altruistic. However, there may be a unity-based spiritual sense that the more you give, the more you are given to give.
The manner of giving determines being generous. It depends on knowing (g1) the circumstances, and appreciating the effects of whatever is given. Perhaps giving a chance or encouraging independence is all that is required. Being generous may manifest in everyday activities often and in seemingly small ways. Euripides noted: To generous souls, every task is noble.
Internal Structure
g3: Generosity is powered by spontaneous exertions-R"G15 on behalf of another (even while being concerned for yourself, your privileges and your property).
+
g2: A conscientious helpfulness-R"G16 ensures that the other person ends up genuinely in a better position to handle their situation.
+
g1: That means necessarily knowing-R"G14 about the conditions and needs of the other and the effects of your actions.
Forms of Failure
| Failure of Spontaneous Exertion
|
|
Failure of Conscientious Helpfulness
|
|
Failure in Necessary
Knowing
|
• Withholding effort.
• Avoiding being creative.
• Attempting something beyond your capabilities.
|
|
• Not relating properly to the relevant person or social object.
• Selfishness e.g. insincerity, vanity, manipulativeness.
• Giving insufficient in quantity or quality terms.
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• Giving without thought for the needs of the other or the effects of helping.
• Giving to a person or situation where the merit is lacking.
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Pseudo-Generosity
Being generous as a healing technique should not be confused with generosity, which is a virtue in most societies. Although the virtue may be a cover for less noble states, the social benefit of may be unaffected.
Details of Pseudo-generosity.
| Generosity is pseudo- when it is provided: |
| |
● to feel self-esteem |
● out of vanity |
● for ambition |
| |
● as a bribe |
● without conviction |
● without care |
| |
● without empathy |
● without concern |
● to hide greed |
| |
● to gain attention |
● expecting a reward |
● with negativity |
| |
● quid pro quo |
● for social approval |
|
Charity is something else.
To overcome the resistance of acquisitiveness, there is often direct asking or begging for cash. There is also indirect asking via a mediating charity. Generous dispensing of cash for purposes which are only vaguely appreciated may be charitable and worthwhile, but this is not generosity as a technique of healing. The notion that charity is best when anonymous (e.g. as found in Judaism) is a method to purify-G35 the gift of any egocentric element.
Be Forgiving-R"G32
Forgiveness is something you must do to heal and purify yourself. When we suffer any injury, especially if deep and emotional, we do not recover unless and until we forgive. This usually targets a specific known person or oneself, but it may need to be directed to society or to some other entity. If the hurt was wholly accidental or inadvertent, you may still need to forgive. As part of forgiving, you cease demanding reparation or even an apology. Failure to forgive can lead to cycles of hurtfulness and blame.
Above all, you must forgive yourself: Excessive self-criticism and self-condemnation are attacks that cause wounds. Such attacks flow from inevitable failures in controlling personal imperfections, weaknesses or impulses. Attacks on yourself need to cease, and this requires forgiveness. Energies can then be directed to purification and how to handle the future.
Forgiveness exists because we must each aspire (g1) to a state of peace, goodwill and positive relations with others, including ourselves.
Gandhi wisely observed: If we live by an eye-for-an-eye, the whole world will end up blind.
Any ideal vision of mutual goodwill is shattered by the turmoil of living, as well as by mistakes, deliberate attacks and sheer thoughtlessness. So we must constantly maintain an attitude of forgiveness: to help ourselves and potentially help the other (g3).
Nelson Mandela explained it beautifully: Resentment is like a glass of poison that a man drinks: then he sits down and waits for his enemy to die.
The -giving element in «forgiving» must be a giving up: giving up claims, giving up bad feelings, giving up punitive wishes, above all giving up the fantasies of a different better past. As a result, your thinking then clears and you can reorganize relationships and re-energize activities with a new positivity. The focus for conscientiousness (g2) is on knowing-RL"2. Forgiveness involves caring for your self and for another via empathy. So you must know what has happened and you must know what you are doing to yourself by holding on to your resentment or self-condemnation. You must know that only forgiveness can release you from being imprisoned in the past.
Internal Structure
g3: Forgiveness is powered by a spontaneous helpfulness-RG"14 towards whoever you believe has wronged you. That is why explicitly expressing your forgiveness may be required to encourage and enable the other to make a fresh start too.
+
g2: It demands a conscientious knowing-R"G13 of the situation surrounding the hurt or grievance.
+
g1: Finally, a necessary aspiration-R"G12 to enjoy good relations—whether with another, yourself or the cosmos—is required. If there has been a deliberate hurt, you must seek an end to blame or recrimination. That means wishing the other well, and hoping for reconciliation and re-union to generate a new beginning with peace of mind.
Forms of Failure
| Failure of Spontaneous Helpfulness
|
|
Failure of Conscientious Knowing
|
|
Failure of Necessary
Aspiration
|
• Cycles of retaliation, as in vendettas and feuds.
• Accepting abuse or exploitation based on guilt and self-pity.
• Being forgiven but not forgiving oneself.
• Wishing for approval e.g. wanting the other to know and accept that they are forgiven.
|
|
• Promotion of forgetting, especially without forgiving.
• Obsessing about the past.
• Denying your own feelings.
• Condoning, excusing, denying the other's responsibility or justifying a harmful act.
• Being opinionated: using slogans and prejudice to forgive mindlessly.
|
|
• Holding on to the past e.g. by nursing a grievance, bearing a grudge, harbouring resentments.
• Expecting something from the other e.g. to be truly sorry or to verbally apologize or to understand.
|
Special Features
Forgive and Forget?
Forgiveness heals. Forgetting does not heal: it papers over. Forgetting is a substitute for forgiveness. It takes strength to forgive. It takes similar strength not to forget. If you cannot learn from the event, then repeat cycles of pain are likely.
The Other Person
Being forgiving is something you do for yourself, not for the other person. The other person does not have to respond to your forgiveness, or even know about it. You cannot control the response of another in any case.
It is easier to forgive an enemy or even an acquaintance, than an intimate because so many hopes are embedded in an intimate, and so much time is spent together. However, the miracle in a close relation is that what is broken can be fixed, if the willingness is there and if there is a mutual exchange.
Ask Not for Forgiveness
Forgiving is something you should do for your own benefit. You may wish to ask someone for forgiveness, but whether or not you are forgiven by them, you still have to do the mental work of forgiving yourself. If you accept forgiveness but do not forgive the other or yourself, then you are not healed and the relationship is not whole.
The same applies to God. It is probably best not to worry too much about God, whose ways are mysterious and who knows everything anyway. Your task remains yours and cannot be fobbed off on to a supernatural being just because you think it is their job. Just get your act together and forgive yourself &/or the other—then purify whatever provokes continuing self-condemnation or resentment.
Apologizing, asking forgiveness and repairing may be part of the self-purification process (R"G35) if you are aware of causing unnecessary hurt.
Be Grateful: R"G31
Gratitude is often a natural impulse, especially in good times. However, the temptation to take things for granted or as an entitlement exists and must be resisted. It may take just a little effort to realize that you receive far more than you give, but once you do, that is a source of comfort and even joy.
Whatever good thing was received may have turned up by chance, or been deliberately provided, or obtained via your efforts. Like forgiveness, valuing what you have and counting your blessings is something that you do because it is intrinsically beneficial for you. Expressing felt gratitude to someone is a separate issue.
Eric Hoffer: The hardest arithmetic to master is that which enables us to count our blessings.
No-one succeeds without the help of the system within which they function, and that system depends on a myriad of unknown others, past and present, not to mention the physical universe. All of this can be combined as «providence».
Gratitude often needs activation in hard times when providence seems deficient, and unity with the cosmos feels broken. Being grateful can then provide a comfort that brings peace of mind. Our life then moves from something miserable to something wonderful, from being impoverished to being sufficient. You are then poised for good things to happen.
G.K. Chesterton: Gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder. You say grace before meals. All right. But I say grace before the concert and the opera, and grace before the play and pantomime, and grace before I open a book, and grace before sketching, painting, swimming, fencing, boxing, walking, playing, dancing and grace before I dip the pen in the ink.
Internal Structure
g3: Gratitude is powered by spontaneous knowing-R"G13 that there is a lot of goodness in the universe and that you have been given much by many.
+
g2: You require a conscientious aspiration-R"G12 to experience joy in the abundance of existence and everyday events, and to discount difficulties and misfortunes.
+
g1: Finally, it involves a necessary enjoyment-R"G11 of the situation that you find yourself in. You should experience a sense of satisfaction at the instant of being thankful.
Forms of Failure
| Failure of Spontaneous Knowing
|
|
Failure of Conscientious Aspiration
|
|
Failure of Necessary
Enjoyment
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• Taking everything or too much for granted.
• Attitudes like pessimism or cynicism.
• Counting miseries carefully while ignoring blessings.
|
|
• Looking to be grateful for what you don't have.
• Waiting to be grateful till you get what you want.
|
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• Emotions that poison pleasure and satisfaction: like envy and greed.
• Victim-thinking: self-pity; grieving for what you don't have.
|
Special Features
The Opposite State
The opposite devastating state is envy: nothing one has is then good, or good enough, and the possession of anything good by others is intolerable. Destructive urges to spoil may then emerge. Greed comes in here too: if we are not grateful for what we have now, it is unlikely that we will be grateful for what we are going to get. Nothing will ever be enough to make us happy.
Generosity and Gratitude
On the one hand, others are being generous all the time if you only notice it. On the other hand, gratefulness for an act of generosity by a benefactor is a special case. There is no requirement to express gratitude to get the healing benefits of being grateful. So ingratitude is not the opposite of being grateful—envy and greed are.
Ingratitude is neither virtuous, nor personally beneficial, and must sometimes be a vice. When one has a benefactor, then being ungrateful would certainly be a form of impurity, especially if the giver deserved thanks. On the other hand, an accusation of ingratitude by another suggests some defect in their generosity: perhaps a desire for a feeling of dominance or some other goal when giving to another.
Summary of Failures in using the Healing Techniques
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| Purify Yourself
|
Failure of Spontaneous Unification
|
|
Failure of Conscientious Submission
|
|
Failure of Necessary
Exertion
|
| |
• Claiming entitlement to flaws.
• Perversely valuing destructive attitudes, motivations or feelings.
• Identifying with the polluting element.
|
|
• Refusing to distinguish light and dark.
• Refusing to identify/unite with the light.
|
|
• Using splitting and projection to feel pure/good.
• Using brain-washing or thought-control.
• Using mindless rituals to purify.
• Bodily detox as a substitute.
|
| Make Sacrifices
|
Failure of Spontaneous Submission
|
|
Failure of Conscientious Exertion
|
|
Failure in Necessary
Helpfulness
|
| |
• Compulsive masochistic behaviours.
• Giving up what you don't really want anyway.
• Submitting due to social pressure or forceful selling techniques.
|
|
• Compromising: seeking win-win.
• Giving to get: quid pro quo.
• Making pointless efforts or ignoring common sense.
|
|
• Helping as a form of control or manipulation: e.g. «Jewish Mother» syndrome.
• Helping that is inappropriate or unnecessary or unwanted.
|
| Be Generous
|
Failure of Spontaneous Exertion
|
|
Failure of Conscientious Helpfulness
|
|
Failure of Necessary
Knowing
|
| |
• Withholding effort.
• Avoiding being creative.
• Attempting something beyond your capabilities.
|
|
• Not relating properly to the relevant person or social object.
• Selfishness e.g. insincerity, vanity, manipulativeness.
• Giving insufficient in quantity or quality terms.
|
|
• Giving without thought for the needs of the other or the effects of helping.
• Giving to a person or situation where the merit is lacking.
|
| Forgive
|
Failure of Spontaneous Helpfulness
|
|
Failure of Conscientious Knowing
|
|
Failure of Necessary
Aspiration
|
| |
• Cycles of retaliation, as in vendettas and feuds.
• Accepting abuse or exploitation based on guilt and self-pity.
• Being forgiven but not forgiving oneself.
• Wishing for approval e.g. wanting the other to know and accept that they are forgiven.
|
|
• Promotion of forgetting, especially without forgiving.
• Obsessing about the past.
• Denying your own feelings.
• Condoning, excusing, denying the other's responsibility or justifying a harmful act.
• Being opinionated: using slogans and prejudice to forgive mindlessly.
|
|
• Holding on to the past e.g. by nursing a grievance, bearing a grudge, harbouring resentments.
• Expecting something from the other e.g. to be truly sorry or to verbally apologize or to understand.
|
| Be Grateful
|
Failure of Spontaneous Knowing
|
|
Failure of Conscientious Aspiration
|
|
Failure of Necessary
Enjoyment
|
| |
• Taking everything or too much for granted.
• Attitudes like pessimism or cynicism.
• Counting miseries carefully while ignoring blessings.
|
|
• Looking to be grateful for what you don't have.
• Waiting to be grateful till you get what you want.
|
|
• Emotions that poison pleasure and satisfaction: like envy and greed.
• Victim-thinking: self-pity; grieving for what you don't have.
|
It is you, yourself, who uses these techniques to overcome pain and suffering. So the quality of your self, the character that you have developed as you matured from a child to adulthood, is crucial in how and when they are brought into play. If your focus is on self-development, then it must engage with the task of building your character in a way that functions virtuously.
Originally posted: 26-Apr-2013