I’m in the middle of writing a report at the moment, but I came across something today and thought it was so important that I had to drop everything for a minute to share it with you. It was while I was looking around at other people’s ideas on basic human needs, I came across these forum posts from Tony Robbins Students. It’s so sad. They are trying so hard to do the right thing, yet making the biggest mistake that people seeking personal or spiritual growth make and doing the exact opposite thing that my report is crusades for. It comes across so glaringly obvious to me that I was actually going to write a commentary on this, but as I write I think it might be more insightful if you were to post below what you think is the biggest mistake these forum Posters are making. I just want to check rather than assume, you are not making the same mistake. After everyone’s had a chance to comment if you are interested, I will share what I see is the biggest mistake any of us can make in life.
My Updated Comment
The mistake that I see these Students making could perhaps be seen as living from the head versus the heart or overthinking as Mindy, Robert and John said. It is exhausting Tammy, to try to wrap your head around such distorted ideas. If you look at the initial post there wasn’t even a real problem to deal with. Deanna put it most clearly and closest to the words I would have used though.
Just stop screwing around reading other people’s ideas and go out and directly interact with Life yourself instead of Tony says this and Tony says that.
What’s behind all this is that people are so filled with fear and insecurity that they might get something wrong and it might hurt them that they fear life. And so the human wish is that someone either through divine right, applied knowledge or luck has found the secret to living and will easily teach it to them.
It is this fear that has founded all the world’s religions. Yet many of the people around whom the religions were built frustrated their Followers for their lack of specific instruction. Because they knew that life could not be prescribed, it can only be experienced through direct interaction.
Buddha said:
Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense.
Jesus gave only two guidelines;
Love the Lord God above all others and
Love your neighbour as yourself.
Yet since their death, Buddhists and Christians have spent their time at conflict on what specific dogma, actions and practices everyone must follow. Life will always give you the answer, but we are all so busy telling Life what the answer should be we can’t hear it.
Man has always sought meaning, but once he’s found it he’ll cling to it like a Child’s beloved comfort blanket. And God help anyone who tries to wrest him from his mistaken beliefs.
However, once you think about something you are no longer engaged with life, you are dealing with a stagnant representation of Life. And when you are thinking about what someone else thought about Life, you have become so removed from Life that it all becomes a complex and confusing mess to try to sort through.
It’s not that you can’t learn and grow quicker from people like Tony Robbins. Lots of people do. The wide sharing of lots of people’s specialised ideas is contributing to our increasing creativity and evolution. However you have to be responsible about it. You can’t just adopt someone else’s philosophy and belief system wholesale.
If you could you would just be living someone else’s life.
You have to test ideas out in your own experience and compare them with your existing views so that you are not just blindly replacing one idea for another, but are instead finding something truer and so upgrading your Operating System.
You don’t need a 6 Step Program, a Guru or a Priest. All you need is the willingness to open up to Life and listen to what it tells you. The solution to any situation is to get to the truth. Unfortunately most of us, most of the time aren’t willing to listen. That’s why I’m always saying, You can be right or happy, but not both.
You see, Life is dynamic and evolving. As we are. And so you cannot approach Life with some sterile prescribed techniques, you have to be open, vulnerable and willing to be hurt. And often you will get it wrong. And sometimes it will hurt, but you will have been alive. You will feel blood coursing through your veins. And you will grow into a truer understanding of Life.
Living from their “head” and not their “heart.” (??) I personally have found that a balance of both works best for me!
I’m with Mandy. I recognise that type of thinking. It’s want happens when you think you are pursuing something, but in fact you are running away.
amen to that!
Reading the comments from Tony Robbins’ students, it is very apparent that they are over-thinking everything. that’s not necessarily bad in some areas, but to try to over-think and direct your life with “certainty”, I think, creates more problems than it solves.
Wow! I found it so mind-boggling that I had to stop reading. LIVE people, live! Humans can get so self(improvement) centered that they’re missing out on the best things in life. Live your life, give your love, face mistakes, forgive yourself and others, dream your dreams, give credit where credit is due. Don’t get so caught up in the process that you lose sight of the purpose(:D
Everyone has their own path they follow – whether it be, as these students, Tony Roberts methodology or someone else’s, or their own authentic plan of listening to that ‘still small voice within’.
What I perused starts to read more like psychology than spirituality. After a bit, I decided I neither had the time nor energy for analyzing all that! So no one ‘mistake’ becomes obvious to mention…..or maybe I already have?
Hi Rob and All,
I completely agree on what you are speaking about.
In 2003 I had a “glimpse” of what some call the Truth…. what we are, and that came through making Love the “importance” in my own life.
Not a romantic Love but from a LOVE IS place.
It meant saying “never mind” a lot more often, letting go of “stuff” that really didnt matter and it was not because of any theology…. I had of course heard of Jesus and Buddha and saw them giving a very simple message …. Love / Compassion for all ….. via saying “never mind” …. not holding grudges and making each other more important than the “material world” …… for me that was enough and in 2003 as I say, remembered SELF…… God Love Infinity. …… call it what you will.
Now there are theologies that say it very well, Buddhism, ACIM, Bahai to name but a few but ultimately what they all point to is a place where you live from the Heart ……
So I see Jesus and Buddha speaking the same thing and pointing to the same place …. yet appearing to differ in message ONLY because of perspectives ….. what they point to is the SAME.
When you “See” God and share Everything that IS, It is looking through the Higher Vision…………. and that is LOVE.
The ego wants to understand….. Thats like trying to explain LOVE ……
Very well put Tony.
This is an interesting discussion because I spent a good part of my life chasing “Secrets and Techniques”. I found that they never really registered, partly because they were other people’s experiences. In effect I was always trying to insert my life into the end result of another’s journey. Over time though I realized that a lot of my searching came from a fundamental ignorance of my place in the world.
What I eventually came to realize through a traumatic life experience, was that I’d been ignoring the incredible wealth I’d always had. I realized that even if I were destitute, hated and on my death bed wracked in pain, that I could still look up with gratitude and feel lucky, just for having the love of my teenage daughters. I’ve come to believe that this is true. “If you’re not Grateful for what you have, you will never be happy with what you want”.
We come into this world equipped with all we need to have everything we could ever want, and yet somewhere along the way we feel slighted. We let a little fear that we’re not good enough hold us back, and then layer by layer these thoughts and the subsequent in-actions convince us beyond a doubt that all of life’s goodness was made for someone else. The truth is that we have in each of us, all the ingredients for happiness that we spend our lives chasing.
You already have a well of kindness to give to others that would bring countless positives to your own life. You already have experiences, no matter how young you are, that could help guide another through a difficult time. You have the ability to see the good in others when no one else will, and impact that person in a way they will never forget. You have the power just by the way you act, to light up a room or suck the energy out of it. Most important we all have the ability to choose love, rather than choosing to expend the endless negative energy it takes to be right.
It is from these simple knowings and a grateful heart that our journey to happiness begins. In recognizing the totality of our riches, we become a little more humbled and a little less self absorbed. We begin to soften and open up. Rather than look for ways to our own enrichment, we look for ways to enrich others and in turn become enriched on a greater scale. Even the saying “Live each day like it’s your last” may be flawed. “Living every day like it’s their last” is truer to our own individual purpose in life.
There is a subtle shift between wanting to be helped and wanting TO help. You begin to get there as soon as the hyper focus on your lack subsides. Recognizing the truth of your abilities to affect the world around you is empowering. It will seem counterintuitive at first, but in time you will begin to feel the difference. It is here you’ll find your own secrets and unravel the ties that bind.
Even the saying “Live each day like it’s your last” may be flawed. “Living every day like it’s their last” is truer to our own individual purpose in life.
I love this.
I’ve often observed that people don’t seem to learn from others who missed out on time with loved ones and thought they should consider it could be their last interaction, but I’ve never articulated it or connected like this.
Thanks Brian.