Chapter 6: Personal Development is our Salvation

“Our spiritual vision, inherited from the official religion or from the spiritual traditions of the past few thousand years, is not merely inadequate; it may, in fact, be a great delusion based on the inflated, patriarchal instinct of a power-crazy species.”

– Diarmuid O’Murchu

Religions typically hold that human beings have a higher nature that exists in conflict with a lower nature, and that they offer ways to redeem the former from the latter.

Even within a single religious tradition, there may be different versions of this process. Some emphasize the separation of the spiritual part of the self from worldly attachments, while others emphasize living harmoniously in relation to nature, self, and divinity. The concept of religion has helped to expand our minds and thinking on one hand, but on the other it has suppressed and even denied truth and growth.

Freedom of inquiry

At times throughout history, you could have been imprisoned or even burned at the stake for speaking ‘truth’, like the well-recorded events of Galileo, who stands as a symbol of the battle against authority for freedom of inquiry, shows us. Galileo accepted the Copernican theory that the Earth revolves around the Sun, built a telescope with which he discovered that the Milky Way is composed of stars, and discovered the four largest satellites of Jupiter, which he published in March, 1610 in The Starry Messenger.

Professors of philosophy scorned Galileo’s discoveries and printed attacks, rejecting his physics. The belief in a moving Earth was heretical. Early in 1616, Copernican books were subjected to censorship by edict, and the Jesuit cardinal, Robert Bellarmine, instructed Galileo that he must no longer hold or defend the concept that the Earth moves. Galileo was summoned to Rome by the Inquisition to stand trial for ‘grave suspicion of heresy’. This charge was grounded on a report that Galileo had been personally ordered in 1616 not to discuss Copernicanism, either orally or in writing.

Galileo was nevertheless compelled in 1633 to abjure and was sentenced to life imprisonment, then swiftly commuted to permanent house arrest. Galileo’s condemnation has customarily been placed on the Roman Catholic Church. This conceals, however, the role of the philosophy professors who first persuaded theologians to link Galileo’s science with heresy. An investigation into the astronomer’s condemnation, calling for its reversal, was opened in 1979 by Pope John Paul II. In October 1992, a papal commission acknowledged the Vatican’s error.⁴⁵

Resistance to change

One of the greater tragedies in our society, organizations, and even our families today is their ability to suppress good, healthy growth and development. I do not believe that it is intentional, either, but a problem of human insecurity, ignorance, and resistance to change. Our arrogance is that our thinking is right, accurate, true, and not to be disagreed with – much less challenged – as well as our inability to support and encourage others to express themselves and their own view.

When people think ‘out of the box’, they are often faced with all kinds of deliberate, conscious, and unconscious opposition which suppresses healthy growth. It is truly sad because this is precisely where we need to continue to be: Pushing our envelope of beliefs and abilities, and stretching ourselves to grow and become the most that we can be. I often quote part of a portion of an address from the former CEO of IBM, Thomas J. Watson, Junior:

“I am not arguing for non-conformity in everything, I’m not urging you, for example, to refuse to be polite, to pay your bills, to stand in line at the supermarket, I’m not even suggesting that you should debate every issue, for if you take a minority position on everything, you won’t be a leader, you will be a crank.

“I am calling on you to take a stand on those issues on which you feel disagreement, and differences are not only possible, but necessary. Now, suppose you try to follow this course: What will happen to you? Well, Nicholas Murray Butler, the great president of Columbia University at the beginning of this century, said that the world is made up of three groups of people: A small elite group who make things happen, a somewhat larger group who watch things happen, and the great multitude who don’t know what happened.”

“This means that the leaders – the makers of opinion in the world – are a very limited group of people, so as you stand and are counted, you will, firstly, run into the group who equate newness with wrongness: If it’s a new idea, they won’t like it – these are the conventionalists. Secondly, you are sure to meet the cynics: People who believe anyone who sticks his neck out is a fool. I’m sure you’ve heard of measures which passed the congress in a breeze voice vote and later went down to crash and defeat when some congressmen insisted that every vote be included in the congressional record. Thirdly, you will run into the group of people who believe that there are certain taboo questions that should not be debated: These suppressers of dissent think that once a stand has been taken, it is settled forever. Now, if you buck the power of the conventionalists, the cynics, and the suppressers of dissent, here is what may well happen:

“Sometimes you may look foolish, sometimes you may lose some money or even lose your job. Sometimes you may offend others, and there is no getting around it. Strangely, the expounders of many of the great new ideas in history were frequently considered on the lunatic fringe for some or all of their lives. If you stand up and are counted, from time to time you may get knocked down, but remember this: A man flattened by an opponent can get up again, but a man flattened by conformity stays down for good.

“Therefore, I would like to reverse a traditional piece of advice. You know it well, it goes: “Make no little plans.” Instead, I would like to say this: “Make no little enemies, people with whom you differ for some petty insignificant personal reason.” Instead, I would urge you to cultivate mighty opposites, people with whom you disagree on big issues and with whom you will fight to the end over fundamental convictions. And that fight, I assure you, will be good for you and your opponent. Follow the path of the unsafe independent thinker, expose your ideas to the dangers of controversy, speak your mind and fear less the label of ‘crack-pot’ than the stigma of conformity, and on the issues that seem important to you, stand up and be counted at any cost.”

The fear of public speaking – which is continually rated as people’s top fear – is a fear we were not born with but have learned as we grew as a child, fearlessly expressing ourselves until we began to get suppressed, slowly but surely, by our parents, people, and society. This suppression came mostly unconscious, as parents told us not to do this and not to do that.

Studies have revealed that the average child has heard the word ‘no’ 8 times more than the word ‘yes’ before entering grade school. Then, we get into school and the more we express ourselves, the more we begin to hear and experience ridicule, embarrassment, and humiliation, and feel the pressure to conform until we learn not to express ourselves anymore. Along with these experiences, our dreams are squashed and true growth begins to be suppressed. In Reclaiming Spirituality, Diarmuid O’Murchu describes a story about Ian, a young adult who was perceived as quite ordinary growing up and without any particular religious belief:

“Ian was blessed with a well-developed capacity to think and reflect. Ian was always a questioner and his parents encouraged him to be one. Fortunately, the education system – which thrives on making people think according to political and cultural expectations – did not succeed in undermining Ian’s searching mind and heart.”

O’Murchu says the inability to think deeply and imaginatively is one of the most serious, social, cultural, and spiritual deprivations of the contemporary world, and so strive to be an Ian.

Encouraging growth

This is one of the great problems with us human beings: We have a huge problem encouraging thoughts and ideas beyond our perceptions and world-views. We squash others’ ambitions, thoughts, and ideas usually before they have even been given the chance to clearly articulate just what it is they are thinking. Often, we need to say something once or twice before it even begins to become clear in our own minds. This is one of the reasons why I emphasize understanding and “seeking first to understand before being understood” as one of the four key principles to making our relationships work. It is also part of the way we help people grow.

Sometimes, I think that our schools and religions are the greatest hindrances to allowing us to reach our human potential, due to the box that they put us in and the underlying pressures they apply for us to conform. On the other hand, they are needed to engage us in the process of gathering knowledge, learning, and opening our minds to the wealth of knowledge this world has to offer, which is crucial to the process.

Maybe Gardner is on track with his view I quoted earlier:

“The purpose of school should be to develop intelligences and to help people reach vocational and avocation goals that are appropriate to their particular spectrum of intelligence. People who are helped to do so, I believe, feel more engaged and competent, and therefore more inclined to serve society in a constructive way.”

Without a doubt, this is a step in the right direction in helping us to not only begin to serve society in a more constructive way, but to fulfill more of our human potential and build the confidence and self-esteem which enables us to become better people.

I believe this is to be the main role of a parents’ job in raising children: To help identify what the child’s gifts and skills are and support and encourage growth. It is a difficult thing to do for parents, teachers, and even managers and leaders: To encourage those coming up behind them to learn all that they know and be encouraged to take that knowledge and understanding and rise to greater heights and success. Most, it seems, cannot let go, let alone encourage and support others – and how could they, if they are not even committed to their own growth?

This is one of the greatest sins we can commit – to prevent or block growth – for our entire future depends on us growing to new levels of awareness and understanding. All too many seem to just be trying to get through the day instead of getting from the day what can add more value to themselves, their jobs, and their families. We need to be personally committed to deeper levels of understanding for the health and well-being of our individuality and organizations, alike. I believe personal growth to be even more profound than just our health and well-being.

I do not believe that the salvation of our souls has to do with a set of words that we said in front of the alter, or a belief system that we formed by the information we learned from a particular church, nor from the experience we had at a spiritual retreat. In fact, more often than not, the preaching we heard or experiences we had can put us more squarely into a box, limiting growth and awareness. O’Murchu says:

“Religious faith, today, does not follow a linear progressive process of gradually expanding understanding.”

Sadly, the more we follow a limiting set of beliefs, the more we believe them and the more that growth is retarded, all the while believing our thinking is absolutely right, which only leads us into human arrogance. This is our human capacity to be brain-washed, and in some cases, to our deaths, as in many scary stories of the cults of our world.

The ongoing process

The bottom line is that we see through the glass darkly, in which case we need to be careful to support growth instead of limit it. Salvation is not an event but a process, a process of becoming fully human, as M. Scott Peck says:

“Some part of us is always in the process of healing. Consequently, the condition of health is not a static state of perfect wellness, it is among other things a condition of ongoing healing. Physicians are increasingly coming to think that most disease may best be defined as a failure of the healing process.”

Peck said this is crucial because “the principle applies not only to our physical health but also to our mental health, and the health of our institutions and our organizations.” He continues:

“Health is an ongoing process of becoming the most that we can be. The words ‘health’ and ‘healing’ come from the same Anglo-Saxon root: To be ‘whole’ or ‘holy’. Becoming the most that we can be is also the definition of ‘salvation’. The term literately means healing as we apply a salve to the skin to heal it just as we can learn to apply the principles of mental health to our lives to heal, to make us whole, to save our souls.”⁴⁶

These principles are the process of growing in awareness and consciousness, just as we have been for however many thousands or millions of years. It is our human evolution. Peck concludes his chapter, saying:

“We cannot go back to Eden, we cannot – except at the peril of our souls – reverse evolution. We can only evolve for our salvation into ever more conscious beings.”

More and more people are embracing this kind of thought: Not totally rejecting the religions of today, but recognizing their limitations and seeking to grow to new levels. It is a great shame when any organization, group, or even family resists the broadening of their perspective, the growing of their understanding, and the encouragement of its members to reach new heights and fulfill more of their human potential.

I feel the mainstream churches’ biggest shortcoming is their lack of providing and encouraging personal development, along with putting too much focus on the subjective experience and not enough focus on the principles of growth. One thing that is very clear from my experience with various churches and denominations – especially the Evangelical church – is that those individuals that grow personally find greater sense of peace, stronger faith, greater understanding, and greater compassion for others. It is a great shame to see the types of people that cling to a set of doctrines created by their denomination, believing they see things rightly while others do not, that they understand life correctly while other views are wrong. They are in great danger of failing in life, failing to grow because their narrow view blocks them from gaining more wisdom and understanding.

It is here that I hope not to offend anybody, but challenge people to open their minds and seek greater understanding. Grow a little personally and see how that begins to change you and your views, and become a greater human being.

Chapter 6 Application

Start investing in your mind. Engage in personal growth activities, training, books, and tapes that expand your creative abilities, human emotions, and belief systems. Set a personal development goal and create a plan that invests a certain amount of time, energy, talent, and money to become the most that you can be as a person.