What is “Peace”?

Dr. Wayne W. Dyer via Hay House Daily Affirmations

Affirm: I attract only peace into my life. I say this silently to myself as an absolute truth with unbending intent on my part, and it works for me all the time.

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What is peace?

Is it the absence of conflict?

Is it a tension-free state of imperturbable external comfort and ease?

Or is it a state of nearly unflappable inner comfort?

Is it the ability to stay comfortable and centered and balanced in any situation, especially tense situations?

Is it the ability to deal with any difficulty with equanimity, inner evenness of mood and emotion, and not be run off the road by fear or derailed by stress?

What is peace?

Whitman wrote:

“There are those who teach only
the sweet lessons of peace and safety;
But I teach lessons of war and death to those I love,
That they readily meet invasions, when they come.”

　

And Dr. Wayne W. Dyer (via Hay House Daily Affirmations) wrote:

“Affirm: I attract only peace into my life. I remind myself of this affirmation many times on a given day, particularly with my children and other more distant relatives. I also practice this in grocery stores, when greeting flight attendants, when visiting the post office, and while driving my automobile. I say this silently to myself as an absolute truth with unbending intent on my part, and it works for me all the time.”

Not only does Dr. Dyer’s take on “peace” puzzle me, so does what motivated it.

Think about it.

What would motivate Dr. Dyer to need this sort of affirmation—what’s he really telling us?

Dr. Dyer projects, sells, and markets this aura of new agey grandfatherly bliss and radiant peace to a generally fairly affluent crowd. He peddles his wares in Hawaii, London, Vancouver, San Jose, on 10-day Mediterranean Cruises with rooms running from $2,650 to in excess of $10,000.

So I’m trying to understand what would motivate this jet-set guru to be in need of this sort of affirmation out of all possible affirmations.

I could understand a “Lord do not let this go to my head” affirmation, or a “do not let me lose touch with the little people around me” affirmation, or even a good ol’ fashioned “life is suffering affirmation” or “there but for the grace of God go I” affirmation.

But this “attract peace only into my life” affirmation is puzzling. It seems a little, well, indulgent to me, even decadent—

“Affirm: I attract only peace into my life. I remind myself of this affirmation many times on a given day, particularly with my children and other more distant relatives. I also practice this in grocery stores, when greeting flight attendants, when visiting the post office, and while driving my automobile. I say this silently to myself as an absolute truth with unbending intent on my part, and it works for me all the time.”

Not I want to sow peace into my life and the lives of those I interact with, but I attract only peace.  The “Law of Attraction” running amuck, making the ego even more self-absorbed.  What’s in it for me? et cetera. . . .

I just don’t see this as something the Dalai Lama would come up with, or the Buddha, or Pema Chodron, or Thomas Merton. I can see these spiritual biggies coming up with something along the lines of “Lord, make me an instrument of your peace” or “Make me an instrument of inner peace.”

But not this.

So is Dr. Dyer secretly on the brink of war with all mankind—or at the very least with his children, distant relatives, flight attendants, and those unfortunates who dare to be in the grocery store or post office when he’s there? Is he about to go postal? Is Dr. Dyer telling us that beneath his carefully manicured exterior there secretly lurks the cold dead heart of a misanthrope? . . .

What’s really going on in Dr. Dyer’s mind that he needs this sort of affirmation to get himself through the day?

I know that when I go to a grocery store or visit the post office, I generally have it together well enough that I am either in a decent (happy) mood or at the very least a neutral mood. I may be in a bit of a hurry and I may not want a to chitchat and mingle much with my fellow humans, but I am not in danger of going off on them—I am not going into a grocery store or post office with a chip on my shoulder, looking to pick a fight or vent my foul mood, waiting (hoping) for someone to tick me off or annoy me so I can let ‘em have it.

So I’m wondering if there is not some sort of rage that lies beneath the surface of Dyer’s carefully constructed smile and that has brought his life to this—to having to remind himself—MANY TIMES, no less, on any given day—to attract only peace into his life—and especially in regards to his children and flight attendants! (Yes, I know what you mean, flight attendants piss me off too! lol)  Is he hot tempered? Cannot he not handle not getting his way or not being the center of attention or having to wait in line like the rest of us common folk? Baaaaaah. Does he secretly just want to punch chirpy flight attendants when he sees them happy and smiling at him? Can he not stand their manufactured cheerfulness because it reminds him unconsciously of his own façade?

I know if I were to pray for peace, I would be praying for inner peace and for more inner capacity to better deal with the very few and far between difficult people in my life.

Or I would be praying for peace for myself as well as those I interact with.

So I have to wonder if perhaps Dr. Dyer might not be tapping into something else?

So many people seem to crave a very facile and escapist version of peace. They crave the simple absence of conflict and stress. They’re not interested in developing the ability to deal with stress and difficulty with grace and without being thrown off balance or knocked out of their center; they’re just seeking the absence of anything external that will stress them too greatly and send them over the edge or into a mommy or daddy meltdown.

And so perhaps Dr. Dyer is capitalizing on this. Perhaps this is a case of A-B-C, baby—Always Be Closing, always be making a sale and pushing product. Get busy selling or get busy dying. If his latest book is selling 2 mill he’s just trying to move 3.

Meaning that maybe Dr. Dyer actually doesn’t say his “peace” affirmation many times daily. Maybe he says it rarely. But—but—he knows that other people need it, that they need to be told 50 or more times a day to take a chill pill, relax, not sweat the small stuff, not seethe under their breath at people in front of them in line or not angrily storm out of a movie theater because someone 20 rows away was chewing popcorn with his mouth open!

And so perhaps Dr. Dyer is a genius. He knows that the vast majority of human beings hate being advised what to do (you know—human ego and all, no one likes anyone who remotely seems to have it all together or to be overbearing, et cetera), but if he (Dr. Dyer) pretends to be subject to the same lack of perspective and occasional idiocy and tantrum as his minions, and that this “peace” affirmation works “every time” for him, then by extension his readers and followers will be more likely to also want to do the same thing as he—this clearly great man—is doing and will want to see if it works its magic for them as well.

He is trying to lead by example—share what works for him—what works for him “many times” a day. The problem is he probably doesn’t even need this stuff. He knows that his readers and followers do. but he has to work around their egos, and so he has chosen to do so by this little “here’s what works every time for me” ruse.

But the bigger problem is that what he seems to be offering is little more than a superficial Band-Aid.

I’m assuming what he’s trying to counter is the tendency for others to explode into rage, be rude, discourteous, vent on others, be impolite, if not downright hostile, mean, et cetera. And so what Dr. Dyer would like to help create is a more kind and gentle world where people interact nicely with each other and play well together. And that is admirable. There’s nothing wrong with that. The Dalai Lama is trying to do the same.

But Dr. Dyer didn’t pray that he be more lovingly-kind to others, or more forbearing, or more compassionate and understanding. He affirmed that he wanted was peace. As in the world revolves around him. If daddy’s not happy, then nobody’s happy. Spread the misery and pain around. Dr. Dyer didn’t pray or affirm that he be peaceful necessarily to others, just that he attract only peace—that wherever he goes, that peaceable interactions only ensue for him. No conflict, no disagreement, no hostility, nobody pissing him off or pushing his buttons, just peace only. That is what Dr. Dyer wants for himself and expects out of us—or at least out of those who dare cross his path everyday or visit the post office on the same day that he does: that others be as peaceful to him as he leads on that he is in general.

But what is peace? What does Dr. Dyer mean by “peace”?

If I were to write an affirmation for all mankind and Facebook that sucker, I don’t know if I would be able to shorthand it down to “peace.” I would certainly want some measure of peace—some measure of inner composure and self-control. Maybe a lot of that. And I wouldn’t want it just for myself, I would wish it for everyone (even though I can only control me).

But I don’t know if I would want a lot of tension-freelessness. I don’t know if I would want a lot of strife-freeness, a lot of comfort and ease.

I think—know—I would want more than that—more that that sort of facile peace.

Yet is this not the very type of peace that most people want and that most people seem to mean when they invoke the word “peace”—the absence of conflict? Smooth sailing?

To my mind, to equate peace with this sort of lack of conflict and with the presence of less external stressors is to wish for death. Not death of the ego, but actual physical death. It’s to wish to live as though one is dead. Life is dynamic, life is tension, life is friction, life is full of challenges and difficulties and immensities. (“Life isn’t pleasure, it’s constant struggle driven on by relentless tension.” – Richard Rose). Life is about learning how to swim and survive amidst churning roiling waters—even amidst the occasional class 5 and 6 rapids. That’s the type of peace I would pray for or affirm—and what I would wish for everyone—the type of peace and confidence and composure and grace and courage and equanimity that comes from having learned how to swim well in choppy swollen seas with 30 to 40-foot waves occasionally crashing all around and over us.

Because true peace will never come from sitting on the beach in life, avoiding the water, avoiding challenges and difficulties.

Such a peace will always be a fragile and tenuous peace. We will always be secretly fearing the next wave, the next hit, the next difficulty. And that fear will wear on us, make us small, make us weak—

What we choose to fight is so tiny!
What fights us is so great!
If only we would let ourselves be dominated
as things do by some immense storm,
we would become strong too, and not need names.

When we win it’s with small things,
and the triumph itself makes us small.
What is extraordinary and eternal
does not want to be bent by us.
I mean the Angel who appeared
to the wrestlers of the Old Testament:
when the wrestler’s sinews
grew long like metal strings,
he felt them under his fingers
like chords of deep music.

Whoever was beaten by this Angel
(who often simply declined the fight)
went away proud and strengthened
and great from that harsh hand,
that kneaded him as if to change his shape.
Winning does not tempt that man.
This is how he grows: by being defeated, decisively,
by constantly greater beings.

– Rilke, “The Man Watching”

Yet what so many people seem to want is to immure themselves in a safe small secure life of little victories and little comforts and pleasures. So many people say “peace” and what they are really saying is “avoidance” and “comfort”—they’re pleading for an easier less stressful life.

And they do seek this easier life without ever really considering whether what they need most is not less stress but better ways of dealing with stress and better ways of managing themselves and their emotions and fears and anxieties.

To me, this is what “peace” is shorthand for—the desire to rise to the occasion and become a better and more skillful mariner, it’s not a prayer for smoother and easier seas.

“The wise man in the storm prays to God, not for safety from danger, but deliverance from fear.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Do not pray for easy lives. Pray to be stronger men. Do not pray for lighter loads, but for a stronger back. Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers. Pray for powers equal to your tasks. Then the doing of your work shall be no miracle, but you shall be the miracle.” – Phillips Brooks

“Don’t wish things were easier; wish you were better. Don’t wish for less problems; wish for more skills. Don’t wish for less challenges; wish for more wisdom. For things to change, you have to change. For things to get better, you have to be better.” – Jim Rohn

Real peace is not the absence of conflict; it is the ability to deal with conflict maturely and squarely and without being knocked out of our center. This is the essence of differentiation.

If we attract only peace (as in the absence of conflict) daily into our lives, soon we will atrophy and soften into a puddle. We don’t gain physical strength or future strengths by attracting only peace or ease or comfort into our lives but by taking on difficulties and by finding a proper balance between pushing and exerting ourselves and resting and recovering.

Attracting peace, in the sense of comfort and ease, sometimes, and as part of a balanced spiritual diet makes sense. But attracting peace nonstop 24/7 in the way that Dr. Dyer seems to be using the word, amounts to spiritual escapism. It’s the psychological and spiritual equivalent of wanting to munch on Twinkies 24/7.

And that does not a skillful sailor or spiritual warrior make.

Guilt, Anger, Apologies: A True Warrior’s Perspective

This is a poem I found on another blog—

No Apologies – written by Miro

Sorry is a word that we
Should try our best to lose
It’s a concept warriors
Should rarely ever use

We say it with no thought of how
The word’s truly defined
So let me take a moment to
Look it up and remind:

Regrettable, deplorable
Sorrowful, grieved or sad
Wretched, poor and pitiful
Without use to be had

Warriors are never sorry
For a single thing
They understand the consequences
Of the words they fling

They put thought into what they say
And also what they do
And when some feelings get hurt they
Still hold fast and stay true

To what they do believe in
Even if feathers are ruffled
They don’t make up excuses and
Let their voices be muffled

The goal is to be confident
In all you do and say
All “I’m sorry” serves to do
Is shows that you will stray

“I’m sorry” is a “too late” phrase
It doesn’t change the past
Resolve to make the next time that
You say it be your last

Resolve to not do anything
That you will soon regret
Do nothing deplorable
That will leave you in debt

Save yourself from the sorrow
From being sad and grieved
If you said or did something
It’s because you believed

Be not wretched, pitiful
You’re much better than that
Differing opinions don’t
Have to end in combat

Agree to disagree and let
Each side have their own views
Never let another’s ego
Make you sing the blues

By saying that you’re sorry and
Indulging “sensitives”
Tip-toeing on eggshells is
Not how a warrior lives

Replace “sorry” with “deal with it”
Or a similar phrase
Like “get over yourself” and watch
All of the eyebrows raise

Because it’s in that moment where
The ego shows its face
Showing no regret is how
We put it in its place

It’s a nice poem, and certainly there are some positive ideas expressed in this poem. But there are also several negative or troubling ones as well.

And so I wrote a response to this poem delineating what I saw to be the weak points in what he (Miro) had put out there—

You do have a point, and there are many admirable things you say in your poem, but . . . In my opinion sorry certainly still has a place in social interactions. . . . Regret, remorse, redress . . . these can all be very important things. They are part and parcel of having a working conscience. If our conscience is barely working, then we say sorry, but we don’t change our ways. But steps 4 through 10 or so of “The Twelve Steps” address this—don’t just say you’re sorry, but make your actual amends for the bad things you’ve done. Fact of the matter is, there are plenty of people in the world who OUGHT to be sorry and who NEED to be sorry. Of course, they’re probably not warrior poets . . . BUT . . . they may stray across this blog and use your words (or similar words and ideas) to justify continuing their lack of conscience.

As a fellow warrior poet, I know that I still make mistakes, misread situations and other people. Sometimes I misfire, say the wrong thing, overshoot, et cetera. And apologizing in those situations is not superiority bowing down to mediocrity or the like. It’s a simple admission of the facts: I don’t know everything; I’m fallible, human; I am not inside the other person’s head; I’m not God; I’m not omniscient; I don’t know the whole of what it’s like to be the other person and to have experienced what he or she has experienced. And so all of that seems to dictate some level of humility, it seems to automatically require that I temper whatever wisdom and insight I may think I have with a little bit of “but I could be wrong.”

My question is why are you or anyone else so afraid of saying sorry when (or if?) you muck something up? You’re not perfect. No one is. You make mistakes. We all do. So deal with it. Deal with the fact that you make mistakes. And deal with it by having the guts or the conscience to offer a sincere apology.

My sense is that there’s this new age warrior movement afoot (probably started by Castenada) where people are equating being enlightened or awake or mature with never having to say they’re sorry. And that’s cow poop. My thought is not feeling guilty, not saying you’re sorry when you eff up doesn’t make you enlightened or a warrior poet, it makes you a sociopath.

Society doesn’t need more people who can’t or won’t say they’re sorry, what it needs is more people who are in touch with their own fallibility, and who say they’re sorry and then mean it—i.e. try their darndest to not make the same mistake again, learn from the past, and become a better person for having made their honest amends. There’s something very dignified and noble and truly warrior-like about actually taking a searching and fearless moral inventory, and then making one’s amends, and continuing to refine and develop one’s conscience in a healthy and ennobling way.

These are two posts I’ve written recently that touch on this—

https://theplacesthatscareyou.wordpress.com/2012/01/31/when-pop-psych-advice-goes-amuck/

http://fullcatastropheliving.wordpress.com/2012/01/31/the-two-preliminaries-necessary-to-train-in-in-order-to-awaken-and-truly-change-grow/

Personally I’d much prefer to live in a society where when people make a mistake or do wrong, or when they snap at each other because they get stressed out, they apologize sincerely for it, and try to take actual steps to lessen the likelihood of overheating and snapping or doing wrong again, than one where people hide out behind “deal with it” and never really doubt their own fallibility.

Kindest regards, and I look forward to reading more of your poems!

John

But Miro elected not to approve and post my comment. Perhaps he didn’t want to let it mar the love- & validation-fest he has going on at his blog, because apparently only praise and happy comments are acceptable.  But criticism is not accepted.  And something that challenges the warrior-poet’s prevailing “wisdom” is not permitted.  Miro only seems to want yes-men and yes-women commenting on his poems.  Miro-Miro on the wall, who’s the fairest Miro of them all . . .

A Little Background: Some More Considerations

I will be very up front and admit that I have very little tolerance for that variety of soft-minded new age pabulum where misguided wannabe-sages and errant advice-givers like Wayne Dyer and Paulo Coehlo are trying to convince people to give up guilt and anger.

This is an ongoing problem with the new-thought / new-age movement in general (and in my opinion it is due in part to a really bad misapplication of Buddhism). In new age and new thought and meditation and yoga and stress-reduction circles anger, guilt, and thinking all tend to be seen as the enemy—they are all under attack, so much so that the image or ideal that is being put forth is that an enlightened or evolved person doesn’t get angry, doesn’t feel guilt, and doesn’t think.

Which is all bullshit.

An enlightened person thinks, but thinks in a way that is markedly differently from how most people think. An enlightened person thinks in a more objective and less egocentric way. An enlightened (or evolved) person thinks in a more sincere and focused and deliberate way, not a discursive and distracted or monkey-minded way. An evolved person has learned how to think well—how to think very clearly, very insightfully, and how to cancel out his or her own biases or “ego”—in other words, how to examine oneself and one’s own deeper motivations.

An enlightened or evolved person hasn’t thrown the baby out with the bath water when it comes to thinking. An enlightened person has just changed the bath water—i.e. learned how to think more truthfully and less fallaciously and less egocentrically.

The same goes for anger and guilt.

Anger & Guilt

Anger is what we feel when someone may have violated our boundaries or done something wrong or unacceptable to us. Just because we feel anger doesn’t actually mean that someone has done something wrong to us or that our boundaries actually have been violated. But it does indicate that something HAS HAPPENED and that we need to look into it and get to the bottom of it.

The problem is that most people refuse to do the work of anger and to actually investigate why they are angry. Anger is a powerful emotion. And we are right to be afraid of it. Because most people when they are angry simply act out on that emotion. And sometimes people acting out on anger do horrible hideous things to others—road rage, go postal, say nasty hurtful things, et cetera.

And so Wayne Dyer and Paulo Coehlo and other new age wannabe gurus see this and they (admirably) want to help people stop themselves from hurting others when they’re in a fit of rage or anger. So clearly anger has to go. As if that’s the problem. When really the problem is something more involved—a lack of self-control, a lack of thinking, or a lot of sloppy thinking, etc. But instead of tackling these more difficult and complex issues, they give the people what they want—an all or nothing throw the baby out with the bath water solution. Anger is bad, stop being angry, and chastise those who get angry around you; become part of the new and higher consciousness that is on the verge of being born and get rid of such an antiquated and low-brow way of living; become pure and radiant and anger-free like me . . .

No one wants to be told to think more and that getting rid of anger is only to make a mistake in the opposite direction. That type of advice doesn’t sell many books to the lowest common denominator or to what’s worst in us.

And, as for guilt, guilt is what we (ought to) feel when we have done something wrong or unacceptable to another—when we have done something to another that we wouldn’t want done to us—that we would get angry about if it was done to us. Guilt is what we’re supposed to feel when we have treated another in a way that would make us angry if someone else treated us or our child that way.

But this isn’t what new age false prophets feed their lemmings. Instead they advise them to get rid of guilt altogether. Guilt is bad. Forgive yourself and move on. They don’t tell their fold, hey, if you’re feeling guilty, start examining that feeling; have you done to another something that you wouldn’t want done to yourself or that you would tolerate another person doing to your child? Or are you feeling guilty because you were mis-raised by an overbearing berating parent who didn’t love you or show you any warmth or tenderness, but who always seemed to criticize you for everything you did, and so you walk around as an adult with this dark “I’m not good enough” cloud hanging over your head that you interpret as “guilt”? These soft-minded false-gurus don’t offer much real insight or much real wisdom, they just dispense their all-or-nothing nonsense; get rid of guilt, stop feeling guilty and you’ll feel better. So what if you did wrong? So what if you cheated on your spouse because you were ungrateful, so what if you broke up the family and moved 2,000 miles away because you were unhappy and bored and wanted to start over and be true to you? So what? Stop feeling guilty about it; you’re doing the best you know how.

No, you’re not. You’re not doing your best. You have no real standards for yourself, you’ve lost your sense of right and wrong; but you’ve also lost your enthusiasm and passion (and so you’ve just been going through the motions), and so you are rightfully desperate to feel alive. But you don’t seem to care if you have to do wrong (or something you ought to feel guilty about) in order to feel more alive. But the problem is: the means matter! The journey matters just as much as the destination, if not more so. Because it’s in the means that we either really earn our worth (by really earning what we want in a legitimate way) or do grave injury to ourselves (by not living up to our values and what’s best in us).

So anger, guilt, thinking: these are all hot button topics for me. I see the current, I see what’s being dispensed, what’s being offered out there psychologically and spiritually on the open market—in books and blogs, et cetera—and it’s frightening! It’s Cheetos for the brain, Twinkies for the soul; it’s really bad and sloppy advice that’s being proffered.

And when you get down to the bottom of it—when you think about it—it’s also the same sort of stuff you find in a good portion of Miro’s “No Apologies” poem.

I will explain my thought processes and reactions in detail as I go—

“No Apologies”

Sorry is a word that we
Should try our best to lose
It’s a concept warriors
Should rarely ever use

I agree with this verse. A warrior should be leading a very conscious and deliberate life.

BUT, even a warrior is fallible, SO even a warrior may miss the mark occasionally and may need to apologize for doing so

We say it with no thought of how
The word’s truly defined
So let me take a moment to
Look it up and remind:

Regrettable, deplorable
Sorrowful, grieved or sad
Wretched, poor and pitiful
Without use to be had

“We” is a very tough word to use. Who is this “we” you are speaking of? I guarantee it doesn’t apply to me, because I am very thoughtful about how words are defined and used. The proof?—just read on, my friend . . .

Warriors are never sorry
For a single thing
They understand the consequences
Of the words they fling

This stanza is partly true, but also contains much that is false. For example, the use of the categorical “never’ is fallacious. I am a warrior, and I will say “sorry” when I muck something up.

And in this situation I lack a complete understanding of the words I fling (or post). And that was my point to Miro in my original comment on my thread that he refused (three times!) to post.

No one here is God; no one is omniscient or all-knowing; we’re all more or less in the dark; some more than others, some a bit less than others. But we’re all in the dark, living in the shadowlands. And that consideration alone ought to temper our arrogance and instead be a source of humility and openness and inquisitiveness for us.

But for some people it isn’t. Perhaps it frightens them and makes them even more desperate to pretend that they’re God and all-knowing. Perhaps their own shadow-side gets the better of them and makes them want to overcompensate for how lost and in the dark they feel. Perhaps they are so lacking in self-esteem that they simply can’t take the hit to the ego that admitting they’re wrong and offering a sincere apology entails.

I don’t know Miro. I only recently came across his blog. So I have no idea how the words I fling will affect him. I don’t know him well enough to know what his particular ego is like and how his particular defenses are arrayed.

I do, however, know the facts: that I read his “No Apologies” post, I saw how it could easily be misread, and I wrote a comment detailing that. He did not approve my comment. So I re-submitted it two days later. Again, he did not permit it to be posted. And so I tried once more. Again, he refused to post it.

So what does that tell me about Miro?—he signs his comments “peace & grace.” Based on the avoidant tendencies he’s displayed in regards to my (likely) very perceptive and valid and constructive criticisms, I’d say for Miro “peace” means the absence of conflict, not the ability to deal with conflict squarely and maturely.

This is the tagline to his blog:

“Peace+strength+grace+intensity+resolve+patience+fortitude+selflessness+focus+balance+courage+love=wisdom”

I’m not sure I see the courage or the strength or the wisdom or the selflessness is his approach here. I think he sacrificed his own vision and values by not posting my comments. How hard would it have been for him to have posted my comment and have written something along the lines of, “Interesting perspective, John; I didn’t notice the cracks in my own formulations; what I had in mind was . . . ”

But instead he chose to be avoidant; he chose the uncourageous path. He let what was weakest in him chart his course.

Whitman wrote:

There are those who teach only
the sweet lessons of peace and safety;
But I teach lessons of war and death to those I love,
That they readily meet invasions, when they come.

Those are the lessons I teach as well. And to myself most of all. Don’t just stand for something, John, stand for what is good AND right. Stand not just for what is true, but stand for real compassion and understanding as well; stand not just for kindness, but for clarity and wisdom as well.

It’s a difficult balance to attain.

Rumi wrote: “Unkindness from the wise is better than kindness from the ignorant.”

Criticism from someone wise is to be preferred over praise from someone lost and unwise.

If you truly want to grow and learn in life, then these ARE important considerations.

But if you just want to live a comfortable life and never really deal with your own ego, then simply avoid people who challenge you, avoid people who have a different point of view than you, and hide out immediately behind “live and let live” and “let’s agree to disagree” and some vague and self-serving (ego-serving) (mis-)definition of “respect.”

They put thought into what they say
And also what they do

I agree wholeheartedly. And I am exhibiting all of that thinkiness in this post.

And when some feelings get hurt they
Still hold fast and stay true

I don’t agree. It’s just not that simple. Sometimes the correct response is to hold fast and stay true; other times it is to apologize and say you’re sorry and learn from your mistakes. We’re all fallible; even warriors.

To what they do believe in
Even if feathers are ruffled
They don’t make up excuses and
Let their voices be muffled

And considering that you didn’t post my comments, I can only assume that your feelings were hurt. So what are you, Miro, holding fast and staying true to? You are running from a contrary opinion, you are running from a challenge, you are hiding from criticism.

So what ought I do? Not apologize? Stay true and hold fast? You’re feelings have clearly been hurt, Miro, what would you have me do? You voice seems to have been muffled (other than the one passive-aggressive bard you left in your comment to one of your worshippers); and you seem more than willing to try and muffle my voice, Miro, especially since I “deserve” it since I ruffled the feathers of the little man hiding behind his curtain . . .

The goal is to be confident
In all you do and say

I disagree: the goal is to be truthful, not confident. The ego wants to play its little game of confidence; the soul wants truth. And the truth is we are all fallible; none of us is omniscient. And that should lead to some real humility, some real openness, not arrogance and faux-confidence. The goal is NOT to be confident in all that you do in say; the goal is to be MINDFUL, to be as AWARE as possible, and to be OPEN to admitting when you’re wrong when you are indeed wrong.

The goal is to be confident
In all you do and say

If you’re truly confident in what you say and do, Miro, then surely a confident person like yourself, Miro, should have the confidence to post an opposing point of view.  When you refuse to post a well-thought out and perhaps very valid opposing point of view, it suggests, Miro, that you are not very confident.

All “I’m sorry” serves to do
Is shows that you will stray

“All”? More all-or-nothing categorical thinking. All just doesn’t apply here. It’s sloppy thinking and a sloppy word choice; and it makes what Miro is trying to say fallacious or false.

“I’m sorry” is a “too late” phrase
It doesn’t change the past
Resolve to make the next time that
You say it be your last

Cute; it rhymes. But is it true? Is what he’s saying in this stanza psychologically healthy and spiritually “evolved”? Is it what a real warrior would do or say?

Resolve to not do anything
That you will soon regret
Do nothing deplorable
That will leave you in debt

Great advice! This is what we all ought to aspire to! Think of what a lovely social world we would live in if more people thought like this BEFORE they acted. It would be a wonderful thing.

Save yourself from the sorrow
From being sad and grieved
If you said or did something
It’s because you believed

Be not wretched, pitiful
You’re much better than that
Differing opinions don’t
Have to end in combat

No, not at all, just silence and avoidance, right? That’s your example, Miro: the high road of avoidance, which is really the lowest road there be. You refused to post an opposing point of view and you tried to illegitimately sweep it under the carpet. How many other voices have you tried to muffle, you warrior poet, you? Run and hide is not a very effective or warrior-like strategy, Miro.

Agree to disagree and let
Each side have their own views

Just not on your site, right Miro?

Never let another’s ego
Make you sing the blues

And what about the truth? Would it be okay to let the truth make us sing the blues?

And agree to disagree? In my experience, that’s what the ego loves to put out there, because for the ego there really is no such thing as Truth, only lots and lots of “what’s true for me.” But for people who are really trying to “get over themselves” and truly be psychological and spiritual warriors, they have a different maxim that they live by: It’s not who is right but what’s right. It’s not all about this ego versus ego cage match. There’s truth, and there are points of view that are either more or less true, more or less in tune with the truth. Each side can have its views, but sometimes one or both sides’ views are wrong or false or fallacious.

By saying that you’re sorry and
Indulging “sensitivities”
Tip-toeing on eggshells is
Not how a warrior lives

Replace “sorry” with “deal with it”
Or a similar phrase
Like “get over yourself” and watch
All of the eyebrows raise.

Okay, so this rhymes. So what? The more important matter is: is it true? Is this psychologically healthy? Just because it rhymes doesn’t make it true. These are Miro’s words; these are the phrases he chose: “deal with it,” “get over yourself.” —Who honestly wants to live in a society where well-meaning people say that to each other and where this is the type of all-or-nothing advice that people live by? You don’t like what I have to say? Deal with it! You don’t like my poem? Get over yourself! How very Dalai Lama-like!

Replace “sorry” with “deal with it”
Or a similar phrase
Like “get over yourself” and watch
All of the eyebrows raise.

This stanza just seems kinda childish, kind of like someone’s ego wrote it. Maybe Miro needs to get over himself first and lead by example? Just a thought. . . . Put up my response, Miro, and deal with it!

Because it’s in that moment where
The ego shows its face
Showing no regret is how
We put it in its place

We put another’s ego in its place by not showing any regret? I don’t know, Miro. I’m not sure how much Miro knows about the ego. What I’ve learned is that what the ego most seems to hate is scrutiny, challenge, truth, light, exposure, criticism of ANY SORT.

What the ego wants is comfort and control and the comfort of surrounding itself with a bunch of mirrors who only reflect back to it what it wants to see of itself.

The ego doesn’t want to see itself as it is; what the ego wants is to see itself as it wants to be seen and as it dreams of being.

And so it banishes (or doesn’t post the comments of) anyone who doesn’t flatter it, who doesn’t fawn over its rhymes or sing its praises.

A real warrior is focused on truth and wisdom, not praise and positive feedback. The ego is not interested in truth and wisdom for their own sake, but only in relation to getting the ego more of what it craves—praise, flattery, positive mirroring, being told how awesome it is.

The ego doesn’t want reality, it wants distortion; the ego doesn’t want to be seen as it is and for what it is, it wants to be seen in a distorted and flattering way.

A false warrior is not open to challenge and is not open to criticism and contrary opinions and differing points of view.

But a true warrior is: he is open to challenge; he is open to criticism. A real warrior puts himself out there and offers the world a standing invitation to disprove his point of view, because a real warrior is dedicated to the truth and to reality at all costs, and not just the costs that his ego is willing to pony up.

And a real warrior does all of this because a real warrior knows it’s not about who’s right but what’s right.

A false warrior is an inwardly insecure and weak person who is pretending to be strong, a false self trying to prop itself up on positive feedback and by receiving positive blog comments. Sometimes it takes much more strength to say “I’m sorry, I was acting like an avoidant coward; I wasn’t living from what’s best in me” than it does to say “Deal with it.”