Click here to go to the next issue
Highlights Home Page | Receive the Nonduality Highlights each day
How to submit material to the Highlights
#3505 -
The Nonduality
Highlights - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NDhighlights
Gwyneth Paltrow's
website, http://goop.com is well organized and informative for the
Back in the day, I had a
“frenemy” who, as it turned out, was pretty hell-bent
on taking me down. This person really did what they could to hurt
me. I was deeply upset, I was angry, I was all of those things
you feel when you find out that someone you thought you liked was
venomous and dangerous. I restrained myself from fighting back. I
tried to take the high road. But one day I heard that something
unfortunate and humiliating had happened to this person. And my
reaction was deep relief and…happiness. There went the high
road. So, why does it feel so good to hear something bad about
someone you don’t like? Or someone you DO like? Or someone
you don’t KNOW? I once asked the editor of a tabloid
newspaper why all of the stories about a famous British couple
had a negative bent. He said that when the headline was positive,
the paper didn’t sell. Why is that? What’s wrong with
us? I asked the sages to shed a little light.
Here’s to washing
our mouths out with soap...
Love,
--- Gwyneth Paltrow
Question:
I’m curious about
the spiritual concept of “evil tongue” (speaking evil
of others) and its pervasiveness in our culture. Why do people
become energized when they say or read something negative about
someone else? What does it say about where that person is? What
are the consequences of perpetuating negativity or feeling
schadenfreude?
Michael Berg
replies:
A:Speaking of...
Most of us don’t
give much thought to the things we say. We assume that once we’ve
said something, it’s over and done with. Spiritually, this
is not true. Words are energy and they live on. The comments
flowing out of our mouths do not simply disappear into thin air.
They remain with us at all times, hindering or helping our
spiritual growth.
When we speak positively
and refrain from evil speech, we surround ourselves with more and
more positive energy, therefore sustaining our spiritual growth.
Conversely, when we speak negatively about others, our words stay
with us wherever we go, blocking our happiness. For instance,
when we wake up in a bad mood for no apparent reason, Kabbalists
explain there is a reason. The energy we created by maligning
someone’s character yesterday adversely affects us today.
And if we don’t go through a process of cleansing that
energy by apologizing or committing to never do it again, it
continues to stay with and influence us in negative ways.
As a great Kabbalist once
said, “Pay more attention to what goes out of your mouth
than to what goes in.”
Furthermore, we each have
dormant, spiritual forces within – both positive and
negative. These forces are awakened depending on where we focus
our thoughts, words and consciousness. When we are busy focusing
on and discussing the positive aspects in others, we awaken the
sleeping beneficent forces within, enabling us to experience more
joy and fulfillment in our lives. However, when we focus on
others’ bad traits and gossip about them, we awaken the
sleeping forces of negativity within, which have a very real,
damaging effect on our lives.
The triggering of these
forces is what determines whether we live a life marked by chaos
and lack or joy and fulfillment.
Without a doubt, we are
each constantly thrust into interactions with difficult people,
leading us to want to judge and see their worst qualities.
However, it is in our own best interest to fight this innate
tendency of focusing on the negativity we so plainly see and
instead to speak only of the good.
It is my hope that by
understanding how evil speech damages us – not the person
being spoken about – we will all be a little more mindful of
the words we choose to speak so that we can experience greater
joy and fulfillment in our everyday lives.
Michael Berg is
co-director of the Kabbalah Centre.
Shaikh Kabir
Helminski replies:
A:Why do we gossip? Why
do we even listen to gossip? Why do we enjoy negativity? Why do
we do many things that result in our consciousness being veiled
or our hearts becoming corroded? Perhaps it’s because we
haven’t experienced the alternative fully enough. Perhaps we
can’t bear to live at a higher vibrational level, preferring
the habitual, the commonplace negativities that pass for normal
everyday life.
In Sufism, we try to
remember the advice of the Prophet Muhammad who said that gossip
is worse even than adultery! “But what if what we’re
saying is true?” someone asked. “That’s what I
mean by gossip!” he said, “If it’s not true then
it’s slander. Gossip is saying anything about anyone which,
if they were to hear you say it, they would be hurt and you would
be ashamed.”
Imagine a community of
people who would be fastidious about this, people you could trust
not to criticize you behind your back (They’re still free,
of course, to process problems or criticisms face to face). It’s
a very high standard to live up to. When you speak negatively of
someone and they learn about it, you become detestable in their
sight. Remember the Bob Dylan line, “I wish that for just
one time you could stand inside my shoes…you’d know
what a drag it is to see you.”
Talking negatively about
others is like leaving garbage inside and outside your own house.
Thinking and speaking kind and positive thoughts, as much as
possible, is like planting beautiful gardens around your house.
Our spiritual work is to transcend the petty ego and assume the
Divine perspective. Wise as serpents, innocent as doves, we
discern the good from the bad, but we don’t indulge in blame
or assume we have the right to judge the souls of others. Let the
Cosmos and Karma handle that. Let’s be a comfort to each
other.
Kabir Helminski is
Shaikh of the Mevlevi Order, Co-director of The Threshold Society
(sufism.org).
Cynthia
Bourgeault replies:
A:Hmmmmm...I wish I could
say that all this trafficking in negativity was bad for your
health, but I can’t honestly substantiate this. Based on my
own fairly limited sampling, it seems as if some of the most
maliciously evil-tongued folks live on to a ripe old age (but
then, they always said vinegar was a good preservative!!). That
legendary twentieth-century spiritual teacher G.I. Gurdjieff
would merely cluck his tongue and mutter, “Misuse of the
sexual center” – and it does indeed seem true that
negativity can become a kind of aphrodisiac. You can actually get
high on it.
All that being said,
however, the real damage done by “evil tongue” is that
living in negativity is like living in the basement of your home,
unaware that the view gets progressively better as you climb the
stairs. “Evil tongue” both reflects and maintains a
very low level of being, far short of what we humans are capable
of and what actually feeds our souls. Another wise modern
teacher, Maurice Nicoll, puts it this way: “As your being
increases, your receptivity to higher meaning increases; as your
being decreases, the old meanings return.” “Receptivity
to higher meaning” means your capacity to experience joy,
goodness, coherence and ultimately, divine compassion; it allows
you to live in a world in which you can actually personally
experience that “all things work together for good.” To
do this requires a fairly high level of being. The more you are
dominated by negativity, the more you will experience the world
as threatening, isolated, competitive, harsh and even
meaningless. And the more you lash out at others to shore up your
fragile sense of identity, the more firmly you chain yourself to
the bottom of the staircase. Your level of being dictates the
reality you perceive, not the other way around.
Thus, spiritual teachers
in all the great traditions have unanimously insisted that if we
want to know the good, the true and the beautiful as active
energies in our lives, we need to stop trafficking in negativity
(gossip, slander and evil tongue at the top of all lists). The
active practice of lovingkindness is not a Pollyanna-ish evasion
of reality; it is the surest and most time-tested way of
accessing that alternate – and higher – reality: like
moving up to the penthouse of your being rather than hanging out
in the basement.
Yes, evil tongue may be a
good pickling agent, but lovingkindness, consistently practiced,
gradually sculpts people whose faces shine with gentleness,
serenity and delight (just think of His Holiness the Dalai Lama).
It’s the most ancient and universal beauty secret in this
world.
Cynthia Bourgeault is
an Episcopal priest, writer and retreat leader. She is founding
director of the
Zen Master Dennis
Genpo Merzel replies:
A:Unfortunately, saying
or hearing negative things about others not only damages them, it
can have the effect of solidifying and building up our own ego.
The gratification of putting someone down, or even hearing or
reading such words spoken by others, gives us the sense of being
better than others and pleasure at somebody else’s expense.
In Zen Buddhism we have
the Ten Grave Precepts. These Ten Precepts fall into three
categories: body, speech and thought. Of these ten, four are
concerned with Right Speech, because negative speech seems to be
one of the major traps that we as human beings fall into, and it
is so detrimental and affects karma.
Participating in slander
and gossip is a symptom of how inadequate we feel. If we truly
felt whole, complete and okay – which is the awakened state
of mind we wouldn’t need to fall into the trap of negative
speech. When we see that our own true nature is not lacking in
any way, we ultimately want to rejoice and celebrate other
peoples’ success and well-being. When we do not see our own
true nature, we mistakenly believe our ego-centeredness, which I
call the small and limited self, is who we really are. We do not
realize the True Self, which transcends the limited ego self and
the limitless Big Mind.
When we go beyond the
limited and the limitless and realize our True Self, we can
embrace our own ego. Recognizing that we can’t be completely
free from ego, we are no longer in denial of the ego. At this
point, we are coming from an awakened state of mind that includes
and yet transcends the ego.
We normally fall into the
trap of either trying to get rid of the ego – which is
virtually impossible because we need an ego to function – or
denying the ego and believing we are selfless or egoless. And
still it is ego. The key is to recognize and be aware because it
is only by recognizing and through awareness that we can truly
transcend the ego, which means embracing and yet moving beyond
ego-centeredness.
From the perspective of
our True Self, we hold no preference for our own
self-centeredness or selflessness. This is what it means to
include and go beyond the self. As soon as we hold a preference
for one over the other, it is the ego that is at work. As long as
the ego is in charge, then we delight in speaking ill of others,
putting others down or rejoicing in their misfortunes because we
don’t see that we are all one and connected, that
intrinsically I am you and you are me, that your good fortune is
my good fortune and your misfortune is my misfortune.
Zen Master Dennis
Genpo Merzel is the founder of Big Mind Big Heart, A Western Zen
Practice and head of Kanzeon Zen International. His latest book
is Big Mind, Big Heart: Finding Your Way. For more on Dennis
Genpo Merzel’s work, visit www.bigmind.org.
Dr. Karen
Binder-Brynes replies:
A:I have been giving a
great deal of thought to why people feel a need to speak badly
about others or become energized and excited when they become
aware of negativity surrounding another. I have been doing yoga
now for several years. My teachers are constantly repeating that
in order to elevate one’s self in a yoga pose, one must root
down into the ground in order to lift up. I feel this metaphor is
applicable to this question.
When a person does not
feel good about himself or herself, they will look for ways to
elevate their self-esteem, even momentarily. By looking down at
others or deriving glee at the misfortune of others, they feel a
sense of lifting up of their own self-view. Often, this works
even for groups of people, as in cliques or gangs. By being
negative about the “outsiders” to the group, a sense of
commonality and bravado develops within the group.
Sometimes, this need for
putting others down is also generated by fear of people or groups
who are different and therefore “threatening.” Some of
this need for negativity is probably evolutionary in origin as a
way that clans of people bonded together to protect themselves
from harmful outside forces. However, in general I believe that
the need to speak “evil” or to relish in other’s
problems is a fast and cheap way to falsely raise one’s own
self esteem. A much more positive and long-lasting esteem booster
is to feel positive energy toward others and develop empathy and
compassion when one comes upon the suffering of a fellow human. I
think if we are truly honest with ourselves, we all know that
when we wish others well, whether close relations or strangers we
hear about in the media, we get a more glowing and positive
feeling than the temporary and superficial rush of wishing
negativity or relishing in their suffering.
Over the years I have
worked closely with many types of people as a therapist. I have
no doubt that good energy put out into the world will always be
reflected back in positive ways. We tend to attract what we
generate...I am sure that all of us would rather attract
lightness and well-being than darkness and negativity.
Thank you,
Dr. Karen Binder-Brynes
Dr. Karen
Binder-Brynes is a leading psychologist with a private practice
in