SOME OF PITFALLS AND PROS OF “SELF-HELP books and audios”, I EXPERIENCE
THE DEEP INDULGENCE:
It was summer of 2021 when I was deeply indulged in reading, listening to books, watching many many programs on self help. Some years before that I was aware of Mindvalley in 2014 or 2015. Then I was considering whether this company is assessing and looking for talented people for jobs. Later I learned that it's about healing people's stress by meditation, mind control and other psychotherapy type techniques. I listened to the founder of the company who often starts his story with being jobless, wandering in silicon valley, sleeping on the sofa not enough to sleep straight in his friend’s house for a few months and then how he becomes successful just following silva mind control methods and many other techniques and meditations he sells.
BACKGROUND OF ATTRACTION TO MODERN SELF-HELP:
Meditation to me was sort of a spiritual practice. I have read books on it by Shamsuddin Azeemi, a Pakistani spiritual guru named ‘Muraqba’ and by Osho. Later engaged in listening to other self help motivational speakers who turned out to be different from him.
I do not remember the exact time in my childhood or young age when I was involved in spirituality but after reading children’s magazines, Sunday magazines of newspapers, books on sufi poetry, I found a magazine called ‘Roohani Digest’. (spiritual digest). And during that time my relative and I came from Saudi Arabia. We both tried telepathy and some types of practices for these kinds of things like observing the candle light for half an hour to an hour time, reciting verses from holy books in opposite directions etc. just for fun and seeing the unknown or magic things or trying to make objects or bodies invisible. When I went through that spiritual magazine, I saw many people writing their meditation experiences of going into a world far from this earth, galaxies, space, meeting people from the past, the sages and the dead, angels and prophets.
These experiences amazed me and instigated me to go through the process of excitement. In that I was also passing through psychological issues. It's a big story and I will write in another blog. I was in rage and wanted to beat or hurt my relative because he is more liked due to his cleverness or sharpness and I was disliked due to my politeness and non social attitude. But I recognized the mental issue I was facing and went to the hospital and they just gave me pills for sleeping. I was not satisfied with that so I went to the clinic, specified in spiritual digest. Actually the owner of this digest owns a clinic, a meditation center and he was son of a spiritual guru or a Sufi personality. His name was Shamsuddin Azeemi whose son Waqar Yusuf Azeemi started the clinic and digest. I went to his clinic, he gave me some medicine and told me to eat some 250g ‘jilebi’ , a sweet daily after receding something on it. Also I bought a book on meditation called ‘Muraqba’ written by his father. That was a great insightful book.
Gradually I became a follower of him and I was given a task of 21 days of meditation and I had to send my experiences. I was excited to see some strange things, tour of space etc. but all this I was experiencing only at the level of imagining during meditation. Therefore, I left the practice but continued to read the digest every month. I was religious so after being fanatic like Wahabi, i became soft after reading this digest and books on Sufism and sufi personalities like ‘Kashful mahjoob’, poetry by Shah Latif, Sachal Sarmast, Baba Farid, Abdul Qadir jellani and many others. I was fond of Khalil Jibran books also but Khalil jibran, Osho and Rumi were presenting slightly different views of life and this world. Anyway, Later from 2008 I was following Ghamidi, Zakir Naik type of religious preachers, programs on tv like ‘alif’, ‘mazahib aur aqle insani’(religions and human intellect) etc and in 2015-2016 I read ‘Power of now’ and then ‘The new earth’ by same author Ekhart Tolle. I watched a full series on her book by Oprah Winfrey show. I was watching ‘Leo gura’ , a YouTube channel that was influenced by Hindu philosophy.
Later I read books by Wayne Dyer, Gary Zuko, listened to Deepak Chopra, Brian Tracy, Sandeep Maheshwari and many others. When I read books by Vishen Lakhiani of mind valley, listened to his talks in addition to talks by Tom Biliyu, Tony Robbins and then read books ‘Atomic habits’, ‘Think and Grow Rich’, ‘I will make you rich’, ‘I will make you thin’, ‘Monk who sold his ferrari’, ‘Budha and Badass’, 5 Seconds Rule, and books like these’, I found them very different than the writers and speakers i was listening before. But I was addicted to listening to them very often and tried what they suggested. For many months I was confused between the first series of people who recommend calmness, patience, everything come by its own, law of attraction, selfless behavior, service to people, detachment etc on the other hand the later incite to go hard with yourself to achieve goals, success, fame, scheduling, strict routine. During all those many years, I was amazed and felt at top when listening to them. It was like I made a bubble of utopia and I was visiting there while listening to these or reading such books. But in reality nothing has changed.
I remember in childhood or young age, I had a set routine and I was doing the stuff regularly but when I read a few books by Dale Karneigi, it intrigued me to leave the routine and become free from doing stuff regularly. Many years later, I realized that his teaching ruined my life. I became lazy, lethargic and found refuge and crux of life in just release of dopamine by watching comedy, sensual type of videos and addicted to porn. I had a directionless life. These books incited me to give it direction but the ‘Why’, meaning and purpose of life’ etc. was still not clear to me. I was making plans, goals but double minded and thinking to pursue or not pursue and importantly why pursue when some other spiritual guru says another thing.
Then just taken away by the talk, a book and after that back to the same feeling of unease. It was like a booze time which elevates me and then when I wake up to see what has changed in my life. It was less than nothing. I was with my family, had to survive and support them but could not devise any way to make money. When one searches for motivational speakers, google opens a list of some of the above people but in the same category . But I would say that there are two categories; spiritual and self help. Spirituality to me is ‘you are not yourself but a being. Here the ‘self’ means ego form which you can get rid of .You have to just surrender, be kind to yourself and others, be passionate, love what you do, and be what you naturally are and there is a higher power who will take care of all the other matters including survival and financial. On the other hand, self help is ‘help or take actions no matter if it's against your bodily or mental nature, be hard on yourself to become something you want. There is no higher power but you and only you who can change your trajectory’. Briefly If I write what I learned from both the categories, i would say what spirituality offers is:
Stress-free life.(If you understand and experience deeply, you will find a space in you, which is so huge that it can take all your worries, tensions, anxiety and it left you empty to react to any matter or person. It's a complete surrender. It regard life as a dream, a game or an experience)
On the other hand all the later personalities I have stated above incite you to do things for which you are not destined to do or reach there. It may sound like it is deviating your thoughts from rationality but it defines rationality in a different broader perspective.
If one looks for solutions and way out to problems and worries of life. Self help only motivates you to plan and act but one never knows how it elevates or boosts you for some time like a virtual reality. This time can be years. If I talk about my experience with it, it wastes my time of many years and energy. It has taken my precious time which I could spend with my family. It has played a vital role in disconnecting me from the people around me. It restricts me from making genuine friends and engaging with them. I felt a false sense of pride and uniqueness which differs me from others regarding my behavior to other people. Even it may hinder one to serve others selflessly because it encourages to always look for ‘material benefit’ in whatever you do and incites to look for ‘what's in it for me’ in every walk of life. It may encourage serving but it is more related to self importance .
THE CONFUSION OR CROSSING PATHS:
Some spiritual gurus make you believe that being polite, truthful, down to earth, kind to one’s self and others thinking that nature has devised some laws which if followed, one can be satisfied with life and be in a state of joy all the time.
My advice on all this after experience of years that stop wasting time and energy listening, watching and doing what all they say. Just read some books, conclude it in your own way and continue doing what is your passion from childhood, not let it be nurtured by fake goals, objectives, ambitions or purposes which are far or against or different from your nature. It includes your both mental and bodily natural inclinations. It doesn't end here. This is a very vast subject to be discussed, debated and explored.
Thankyou for reading. Comments and suggestions will be highly appreciated which give rise to the engagement I deprive of in my life.
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