There were warning signs aplenty. From the outset, the co-option of the Native American sweat lodge for the goal of achieving personal “success” was disrespectful, colonial and “spiritually materialist.” “Spiritual materialism” is a term coined back in the 1970s to denote teachings that conflate and confuse spiritual evolution with material attainment. With so much marketing of spiritual philosophy and practice nowadays, it would be helpful for people to recognize this corruption of spirituality.

In spiritual materialism, people enlist spirituality to reach material goals, such as success, money, fame, relationships, confidence or a book deal. In dedication to their goal, they rely upon the teacher, the “answer,” the secret, the manna, or the universal recipe for eternal wellbeing and protection, not to humbly better themselves for the sake of all, but to get what they want. As a compensation for the stresses of a success-oriented, but immature and often inhumane society, this “have it your way” spirituality may feel good. Temporarily, like any addiction. Yet the danger is that the inhumanity we flee can manifest in our chosen haven.

This is not to “blame the victim” but to reveal that the “real law of attraction,” is the law of unconscious attraction to repeat the same harmful patterns by selecting people (or groups) who will constellate them for us. Any authority (including spiritual ones) wields power, and all groups exert pressure to conform. Fortunately, in most cases, investing trust in teachers will not entail undue health risks. But in all relationships, it’s appropriate to acknowledge our needs, use critical thinking, see the other party’s clay feet, and avoid getting lost in fantasy and idealization. And we can still receive the gifts of the relationships, presuming that there are any.

Paradoxically, Sam Sommers, Ph.D., in his new book, “Situations Matter” (Riverhead, 2011) contends that much behavior is context dependent. People are also prompted to act more by group pressure than is commonly believed. This may account for those at the Ray event who went along with the miserable and deadly scenario in which fellow participants became ill, fell unconscious and died. Studies done by Stanley Milgram at Yale in the 1960s demonstrated that even so-called “independent-minded” Americans are all too ready to follow authority even to the point of seriously harming others. In the study, because they were told to do so, test subjects administered what they believed to be lethal shocks to someone with cardiac problems who was screaming in an adjacent room.

Under the leadership of someone like Ray, this conformist tendency can segue imperceptibly into unquestioning submission to authoritarian control. Specific techniques encourage it. It’s not just the Tea Party folks who feel tempted by the Kool-Aid. It comes in different flavors. Instead of cotton candy, it’s coconut. While those who describe themselves as spiritual are certainly not the only Americans vulnerable to giving it up for charismatics toting a microphone, we are not exempt from the tendency either.

Some warning signs:

• If everything has to be perfect, and positive, and anything less is banished, watch out. Life has many colors and they aren’t all pretty.
• Where someone else’s ground rules supercede yours, be alert.
• If people spend a lot of time rationalizing, reframing or denying the leader’s inconsistent or unkind behavior, pay attention. For example, he wasn’t acting punitively towards his ex, he was “helping her to know God.”
• If you don’t feel free to speak up, that should tell you something.
• If the crowd is going along, don’t assume that that means a teacher “must” be OK.
• If you have patterns or a family history of disempowerment, punishment or abuse and are unsure whether or not a new group is safe to participate in, check with friends or counselors to assure that you will be safe.

It also helps those seeking to evaluate a teacher, when spiritual teachers of integrity and established repute are selective in their appearances and programming. Participation in joint seminars with a questionable teacher, for example, will be interpreted as validation. There will always be some who criticize anyone they categorize as “new age.” But teaching some form of Buddhist or yogic wisdom is not a common risk factor for authoritarian leadership. But certain things are, such as having a substantial following bifurcated into two hostile camps: the “true believers,” and those requiring therapy, chat rooms and years to recover from their traumatic experience as the Great Hoo-Ha’s student.

If you see that a friend is investing money, damaging his reputation, leaving a relationship, neglecting her children, endangering his health, incurring substantial debt or doing other high risk behavior because of a divine call from someone high on a podium, consider how to considerately and calmly issue a caution.

But the fundamental flaw often lies in the core philosophy. As Julian Walker points out in an excellent current article in The Elephant Journal, it’s no surprise that spiritually materialist beliefs, like “The Secret,” promote the

inaccurate, psychologically damaging and spiritually un-compassionate perception that victims of oppression, violent crime, poverty, incest, catastrophic illness etc are entirely to blame for their own plight, because they have at some level “created this reality” through the “power of their intention” and the “Law of Attraction. … (This is) an ironic distortion of what real spirituality should do — namely make us more humble, more honest and more compassionate toward the reality of suffering in our own and other’s lives.

>More ‘Connect the Dots’ on cultural attitudes, health, society and environment with blogs, radio shows and action links at: HealthJournalistBlog.com and on Facebook.

The signature of McTaggart’s journalism and writing is her keen interest in frontier science, and her ability to synthesize complex findings in a way that resonates with core human needs. In her previous books — the bestseller, “The Intention Experiment” — and book before that, “The Field” — McTaggart explored the farthest reaches of quantum physics. But in following the unfolding research at the pioneering edge of science, McTaggart learned that once science penetrates into the sub-atomic particles at the core of all matter, they found (surprise) “relationships.” The relationship between particles defines matter more than anything inherent in the particles themselves. “It’s a bond, a relationship so intrinsic and profound that you cannot separate where one thing ends and the other begins,” McTaggart explains.

This realization lead McTaggart back to sociology, psychology, human beings and relationships. The core of the modern dilemma, as McTaggart sees it is that “We see ourselves as individuals in competition, striving to the death for survival, rather than working together for survival.” She wondered, “Were we meant to be this competitive?”

When McTaggart investigated the scientific research, she found that the answer is that we aren’t.

The way we live is in contradiction with nature. We’re in crisis because we’re not living the way we’re designed to by nature. We’ve got it backwards. We believe we’re strong when we compete. But the truth is that we’re weak when we compete, and we are strong when we cooperate. Nature has a drive for wholeness, and when we ignore that, we operate against nature, and against ourselves. We’ve been operating on the wrong story.

We’ve been operating on the story that we are separate things, fighting for survival, but it’s not true. We’re designed to care, share, and be fair. It’s the survival of the Fairest, not the fittest. Unfortunately, we are living in the opposite way so it’s no wonder we’re trouble.

According to McTaggart, we’re neither relating, acting, nor seeing in ways that will allow us to survive and thrive. The way out? “To live as connecters, givers, car-ers, and shar-ers.”

“Taking our turn is wired into us. If someone is talented, and makes more money, people don’t mind that,” McTaggart says. “People mind when the banking industry executives pay themselves record bonuses after they engineer things that cost others their jobs and homes,” she says. “Right now, all Western countries are at the unfairest they’ve ever been in history. According to studies, we have the same levels of fairness as those countries in the Middle East that have just had major upheavals.”

Studies show that “The more unfair any society, the worse the health care, and the higher the rates of crime, violence, and mental illness, the worse the survival statistics.” McTaggart claims that this effects everyone in the society.

People’s natural tendency is to give and to share, but when someone is given to, but interrupts the give-and-take process by not giving back, greed develops. There evolves an ethos of ‘keeping what’s mine.’ This mindset undermines the cohesion of a society, to everybody’s detriment. We’ve been following the wrong story. Our heroes are the lone wolves — but they are perfect candidates for a heart attack.

Surprisingly, this increased heart attack risk is not due to known risk factors, like smoking, diet, or high blood pressure. The key factor is social cohesion. Social cohesion and support are stronger protectors, and the lack of them, stronger risk factors for developing heart disease than any of these other physiological determinants, according to a triad of studies McTaggart uncovers in “The Bond.”

Lynne McTaggart’s book, U.S. book tour schedule of events, and programs can be found on her website.

More Connect the Dots on cultural attitudes, health, society, and environment with blogs, radio shows, and action links, at: www.healthjournalistblog.com

This week, those who care about health had cause to celebrate, and also to gnash our teeth. Here’s why—

Along with gas roots activist pals, I’m celebrating because the film, Gasland, which powerfully depicts the threats to nationwide water aquifers from a new chemical laden gas drilling process called “fracking” was nominated for the Oscar in the Best Documentary category. The film has won every prize it has ever been nominated for, (including the John Lennon Peace Prize) and deservedly so. You can get the film on DVD here, and be ready to cheer and celebrate when it wins the Oscar.Millions Against Monsanto: Timely Action!

The teeth gnashing? Over the new erosion of Organic Food Standards.

Do you eat organic food? Then it’s time to step up and protect our organic food supply!

If every single citizen, practitioner, and health health conscious person who safeguards their health by eating organic food, took action to safeguard Organic Standards, we’d be healthier and more spiritual besides. Well, the time has come to step up.

According to Ronnie Cummins, the founder and Director of the Organic Consumers Association, “In the wake of a 12-year battle to keep Monsanto’s Genetically Engineered (GE) crops from contaminating the nation’s 25,000 organic farms and ranches, America’s organic consumers and producers are facing betrayal. A self-appointed cabal of the Organic Elite, spearheaded by Whole Foods Market, Organic Valley, and Stonyfield Farm, has decided it’s time to surrender to Monsanto. Top executives from these companies have publicly admitted that they no longer oppose the mass commercialization of GE crops, such as Monsanto’s controversial Roundup Ready alfalfa, and are prepared to sit down and cut a deal for “coexistence” with Monsanto.” Groups across the country are horrified by this capitulation which will have a domino effect, undermining organic integrity in food after food.

Founded in 1998, Organic Consumer’s Association (OCA), remains a steadfast voice with high integrity for maintaining Organic Standards. They are now mounting a new campaign to challenge the “Biotech Bully.” Will you be one of the millions? Sign up here!

In my new radio show, Connect the Dots, every Saturday at Noon ET, along with a great roster of guests, I’ll connect the dots between personal health, environmental health, and societal health– with regular opportunities for you to become a Health Activist and take action. In upcoming weeks and months, I’ll be featuring and covering the upcoming Sages and Scientists Symposium, hosted by Deepak Chopra, coverage from the Integrative Health symposium, plus interviews with a leading environmental health researcher, expert on women’s health, and many, many more.

So please sign up for regular notices, and also please pass the Health Outlook along to others who care about health, and want to receive regular action alerts, and blogs about health concerns like these. Please sign up in the box to your right. Also don’t forget to pass this along to your friends. Thank you for being a Health Activist!

And what about the curiosity of the seeker? Can long-sought wisdom, once found, also limit? Do our questions about ultimate realities lead us into mystery only to colonize it with our names or our beliefs? Perhaps religion has inspired so much distrust, conflict and war because ultimately, every coat covering infinitude must be shed.

Somehow the hope was that an inward-turning spirituality was innately incapable of hardening into the iron-clad, established belief system of a religion. After 30 years or more of the current Western “spiritual” movement, we can now take a look and see if that is so. Many spiritual/scientific core beliefs are now well articulated and recognized — if not by a majority, at the very least by a very sizable number of people. Even as we seek to extend that wisdom to others, let’s open ourselves to ask whether some of our firmly held tenets, called forth in a past moment, without our noticing, may have grown opaque. Are our favorite tenets of inner spirituality still transparent, or might they have developed into barriers to the changes called forth by this current of time?

For example, does the core of spirituality reside within us in our own inner state? It may be all that most of us can know or experience, but is it all that is?

Is the outer world a mere projection of the sum total of all our states? Or is it a reflection, a barometer, or a feedback loop, in which we can see the world we are manifesting, and make adjustments in attitude and action? I sometimes sense that the unexplored underbelly of inward-turning spirituality is a hidden belief that the world is on its own trajectory from which we must retreat in order to maintain a joyful state. Are we using spiritual understanding as a coping mechanism, as an indispensable safe harbor for remaining sane in a challenging world in disarray?

Even as we take comfort in spiritual understanding, could that very comfort, that very certitude, so shelter us that we evade acting in the moment for its present need, be it restoring the environment, assuring democratic institutions, or safeguarding food, health, and water?

Similar to the instructions given by flight personnel, perhaps it’s essential to first don our own “spiritual air mask” before we take action to help others. But at what point does that self-care rigidify into something akin to narcissism with a spiritual cast? Is the calling to hear and respond to the cry of the world urgent and reflective of a compassion with or without a perfected inner state? Or is it fruitless, ineffective, and driven by the negative emotions of anger and fear until and unless we address those inner tendencies first?

These questions call us to consider: Where is the nexus of transformation? For some it seems obvious that the focus is on changing outer reality, other people, or social forces that are having a negative effect on people or on the earth. Whether the focus is on bombing the hell out of a perceived enemy in a distant country or on preserving food, water, and the environment from certain policies or companies, the focus is the same — on an outer world that’s a fixer-upper.

Yet many regard these outer concerns as buying into illusion. The outer world is less real than we perceive it to be. As such, the nexus of change resides within. All we can perceive is filtered through our inner state, anyway, so it’s pointless to seek to act elsewhere.

Within this wide cosmos, it sometimes seems that people are disposed to seek in different dimensions of this manifestation, inner and outer. Everyone is fascinated by the territory they’ve mapped out to explore — or been confined to explore.

My question is, where do the inner and outer meet and co-create in true integrity and balance? Can we safely omit either inner intention or outer action? And my next question is: Can one genuinely evolve, and is it truly spiritual, to take refuge in the inner domain of the transpersonal, without first doing all that is possible to resolve pressing concerns in the outer domain of the personal, the interpersonal, and the collective?

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Yet he was eighty-six-years old, so his passing was in some sense to be expected. Early in his illness, one of his close friends, a retired cardiologist reassured me, “A man on a mission cannot die before his goal is achieved.”

Both of us wanted to believe this. But it proved not to be true.

After a beloved relative suffered a stroke in his late eighties, his adoring wife confided, “I’m shocked. I never imagined that something like this could ever happen.”

But what surprised me was that death is such a big surprise to so many of us. While our sense of loss and grief is entirely natural, why do we somehow believe that the inevitable can’t happen to us or to those we love?

Many spiritual traditions advise that we keep the end in mind throughout life. But in this culture, contemplating death is seen as “heavy,” a downer. We’re less like Hamlet holding the skull of his family’s court jester, Yorick, and more like Scarlett O’Hara. We plan to think about death not today, but tomorrow or the next day. As a result, when the bell of mortality strikes, we’re totally unprepared.

“Shrinking away from death is something unhealthy and abnormal which robs the second half of life of its purpose,” said Marianne Williamson quoting Carl Jung. She was speaking at the Art of Dying conference jointly sponsored by the New York Open Center and Tibet House, and held at Menla Mountain Retreat Center. http://www.tibethouse.us with Williamson, and preeminent Buddhist scholar, Robert Thurman, Ph.D., who offered plenary talks and workshops, the conference featured a number of experienced leaders in spiritual hospice work.

Practitioners and healers who regularly bring presence, caring and spiritual contemplation to people in the transition between life-in-embodiment and death, see vital spiritual lessons for all of us in this inevitable passage. A recurring message throughout the three days, was that we are missing out on an precious opportunity for spiritual growth, when we avoid confronting and contemplating what we call death.

“Who do I need to be to be a trustworthy presence and compassionate person?” asked Frank Ostaseski. A co-founder of the Zen Hospice Project, the first Buddhist hospice in America, and founder of the Metta Institute’s End-of-Life Care Practitioner Program. Ostaseski shared the inner contemplation that living daily with the dying had awakened in him.

Therese Schroeder-Sheker advises a daily practice of metanoia — contemplating and dying every day to the aspects of ourselves that don’t serve. Schroeder-Sheker has played the harp, and sung at the bedsides of those in transition for over three decades. She founded the palliative medical field of music — thanatology and the Chalice of Repose Project, which trains teachers in palliative music vigils with the dying.

A transparent joy exudes from those who attend the dying. Apparently, the active awareness of death can prompt us to live life with greater integrity, authenticity and purpose, knowing that our actions, thoughts and intentions count.

In our “materialist culture, people think that after death they go to the great Halliburton nothingness — and they are out of all consequences … ” said Robert Thurman, the author of “Why the Dalai Lama Matters.” He warned that “You are not getting out of the consequences of your actions by dying. Everything you do in life matters because it has an infinite resonance in the universe. [Facing up to death] gives us the power to be incredibly caring at even the tiniest level — it’s what guides our practical steps.”

When it comes to being with a loved one who is dying, Frank Ostaseski reminded participants that “We each have the capacity to embrace another’s suffering as our own. We’ve been doing it for thousands of years. You know how to do this — it’s in your bones.”

But he asked, “How did we turn this intimate act of caring for each other into an obligation, duty or profession? Dying is not a medical event — it’s about relationship with the self. We’ve forgotten this, and so we’ve become frightened. Too many people are dying in fear.”

The fear arises because “We see so much pain and suffering. We see genocides, holocausts and Hiroshimas,” says Robert Thurman, but he counsels, “They are real — but not really real. Bodies are incinerated — but souls are not.”

“On some level, we know that,” says Marianne Williamson, who pointed out that we sometimes turn away from death out of denial. Yet we also, on some level, know that the core of who we are does not die.

Fearfully avoiding the reality of death increases suffering at the approach of this inevitable life passage. And, paradoxically, so does the belief that we are nothing but a body.

“We’re born and we die,” Ostaseski noted, inviting us to “sit down with death and have a cup of tea.”

Williamson posed a question for that tete-a-tete:

“What would you do right now if you did not fear death?”

For health, psychological, and spiritual insight, and activism, and radio programs with Larry Dossey, and other thought leaders, please go to: www.healthjournalistblog.com

I promise, not too much, only what you can handle. And it’s for your own good. Honestly.

Does that make you feel better? Good, good. Because God forbid you should feel the least bit uncomfortable while atoning.

Let me tell you something. All of you. You want it nicey-nice. You don’t want to feel bad about yourself. Not for a minute, not for a New York second. And why should you? What did you have to do with this mess we’re in? Nothing, right? Oil, me? Just a drop, enough for salad dressing, and that’s it.

Did I spend resources on some vanity while people elsewhere starve? Was I too busy to vote?

Did I profit at another’s loss? Well, maybe, once, maybe twice, well who’s counting, but I didn’t know about it. That makes it all okay. Doesn’t it?

Ah, ah, ah! Don’t shoot the messenger because you felt a twinge of something. If you want to feel bliss all the time, go find yourself another religion.

I know you did that already. Do you think I don’t know? The Holocaust was too scary and unpleasant. America was rich with opportunity. For all the good it did you.

Am I upsetting you? Well, please, be my guest. Sit down, meditate, focus on the love and light. Where’s your yoga mat?

Don’t worry, don’t worry. I’m not going to try to make you take personal responsibility. God forbid that anyone should suggest that you had anything to do with this horrible mess.

You had nothing to do with it– the Gulf Oil spill, the wrecked economy, the teetering democracy, climate change, rising rates of illness, electing shoddy politicians.. buying into the consumer culture.

It just happened while you were going about your life. Can we agree to that? I know you recycle plastic. Yes, you made a donation. Very nice, You stood up and gave your seat. Your boss isn’t the easiest…you did a juice fast? Twice? I’m sure every little bit counts but— listen, listen, it’s not me you have to convince. I’m on your side, remember?

I know that you were just trying to get by. You even did some good, like– well whatever it was. That thing, whatever, that you’re so proud of. You know the one I mean.

Well don’t let me burst your bubble, but since we’re atoning here, just one word. Whatever it was you did, or tried to do, Big Deal that you are, it wasn’t enough, was it? Because we’re still in this pickle.

That’s why I’m suggesting atonement, repentance, taking stock, whatever you want to call it. Make up a new name, I don’t care. At-onement. See, almost as good as forgiveness– except for yourself. You don’t even have to feel genuinely sorry about your contribution to this big mess. All you have to do is “work on yourself.” Easy, right?

Americans. Always want to be happy. No matter what. The worse environmental accident in the history of earth– I’m still feeling good! Deadlock in government. I’m one with the universe. No health care for millions of people. Hugs and blessings! The next generation is beset with sickness. La-di-da! Tomorrow will be a better day.

God forbid, that you should atone, that you should repent, that for one minute you should look at the whole picture and how you are part of it and see what it adds up to.

Why break your heart? What good would it do?

You only pray for a shoo-in. A tough job, like setting the world right and doing our part every day, rather than phoning it in to some group grope love fest– that’s too hard.

Tell me something, do you even know how to ask for help?

Not help for you to attract love, power, money, success, a parking spot, or even a coincidence, as in wink, wink, now I can believe that there is something greater than myself. No. Not asking as if all you have to do is design it in your head and picture it and that automatically turns it into your divine right, Mr or Ms Big Shot. Is the world here to convince you?

Repenting means to get down on your knees, to say oh I am so so sorry if I only knew, dear God whomever or whatever, please, please, please help me make it right.

Can you find the tears? Can you see the dead sea creatures, the shifting ocean currents, the sick children, the changing tide of these times and not shed a tear? Your own little plans for your self? What would it feel like to kiss them goodbye? Is there just one little tear you can offer to the earth as a promise. Did anyone ever teach you how to do that..?

Don’t do it for me. Don’t do it even for God. But through your tears or through dry eyes too frozen to weep tears, look, look, look at the little ones, the ones under the age of six. They are the next generation. Look at the world we are giving them. Look at all that needs to be made right.

Do it for them, for all the creatures, for wildlife, plants, and all living things. Do it for the living rushing waters. Offer atonement to all life on earth.

Do it to be honest with yourself. Not happy with yourself, but honest with yourself.

Then look into the eyes of one child, for their sake, can you find a way to say:

If I have contributed
If I have forgotten
If I have failed to protect you,
I repent, I repent, I repent,
and I promise before all I hold most dear
to do not one small thing,
but to do big things, uncomfortable things, tough things, every day.
I promise to use the life and breath I’ve been given
to do Everything
to make it right
for thy sweet sake.

Amen.

Click the Play button to listen.

But suppose the hero wasn’t a knight in shining armor, or all-seeing officers at an omnipotent military command central–no, suppose that the hero, or heroes, came from every corner of the earth, spoke eight languages and represented thirteen different traditions. Some traditions portray them as thirteen grandmothers, indigenous healers, called forth by dreams and prophecy to join together in prayer for the earth and its people.

There is in fact a counsel of thirteen elder wise women– called the Thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers. They have circled the globe, meeting with the Dalai Lama, leading healing ceremonies and prayer circles in India, Nepal, the Amazon, Alaska, Mexico, and Nicaragua. Last week they came to New York City. On Friday night, the film, For the Next Seven Generations in which filmmaker Carole Hart documents their extraordinary work, made its New York debut at the Urban Zen Center, the welcoming downtown gathering place, founded by Donna Karan. Over the weekend, the Jivamukti Yoga Center hosted the grandmothers in two evenings of prayer and healing.

In welcoming the grandmothers to Urban Zen, Donna Karan revealed that, “To be able to celebrate this film and be with the Grandmothers is a dream come true for me. Urban Zen nurtures the wisdom of the past (in wisdom and indigenous traditions), the present (in health and wellbeing), and the future (through empowering our children). The Grandmothers remind us to celebrate the spirit of Mother Earth.

spoke with a number of the Grandmothers.

“We’re in a time of many alarming events and life crises that involve the basic elements of life: water, earth, sun (fire), and earth–the foundations of life are our concern,” Mona Polacca, a Hopi and Havasupai healer and counselor from Arizona told me.

“We’re being a voice for the voiceless,” said Agnes Baker Pilgrim, a Rouge River Indian elder from Oregon. “Mother Earth is calling us back. We’re covering her face with concrete. We’re polluting her waters with garbage. Enough is enough. When the trees and water are gone, how can the world banks manufacture money?”

There is one enemy: greed, they agreed.

“We pray for peace for all people,” Said Julieta Casimiro, a Mazatec elder from Oaxaca, Mexico.

Clara Shinobu Iura, who runs a healing center in the heart of the Amazon where she uses herbs to heal, points the way to peace. To create it, we first must create it within ourselves, she says.

“It’s very important for us to hear our own soul. You have to open the door to your own heart.”
she said. “Our time in this planet is so short. It’s important for us to clean ourselves.”

“Together, the grandmothers have almost nine hundred years of experience,” said Flordemayo a Mayan healer from Nicaragua, “We are thirteen voices strong to remind humanity that we must unite to move into this new millennium. We’re in the process of birthing a new way of being, a new way for all of us to be gentle with each other. We should connect our hearts and become one.”

In their meeting in Dharamsala with the Dalai Lama, portrayed in the film, the Dalai Lama warmly greeted the Grandmothers and affirmed their goal, “The mother is the first real teacher of compassion. In creating a compassionate society, the mother is crucial. You are sharing the wisdom of that experience,” he told the Grandmothers.

And then His Holiness smiled and said, “If were not a monk, I would be a Grandfather.”

For more information on the Grandmothers, please go to their film’s website.

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If you answered “all of the above,” you might understand why I went to a weekend retreat on fear with Pema Chodron, the noted Buddhist teacher and author of When Things Fall Apart– held in upstate New York at the Omega Institute. Through the yellow leaves of a beautiful New England autumn, hundreds of people flocked to this finale of Omega’s fall season.

Pema (as she invites people to call her) immediately dispelled many common misunderstandings about fear:

Myth # 1: The way to overcome fear is by acting fearless

Whistling at our fear, assuming a brave stance, “vaccinating” ourselves with affirmations, seeking out the psychic police for protection, or even pole-vaulting headlong into fear like would-be Olympians are the common strategies many of us use to overcome terror. But whether we seek protection, or try to prove how brave we are, we miss fear’s true opportunity to teach us authentic courage.

When people ask, “why are you afraid?” or assure us that, “You don’t have to be afraid,” they aim to be helpful. But invalidating our reason for being fearful, subtly implies that it’s shameful to have feelings of fear. From childhood up, many of us have received these kinds of messages.

That’s why we declare fearlessness, or even sky dive to conquer fear– bypassing the creepy descent into the fearful feelings that are nature’s only fear medicine.

Psychologists call it “counter-phobic” to engage in risky behavior, walk down dark alleys, or do other scary things to demonstrate courage. A woman friend and I once went on a group tour to Tunisia. Soon bored by the droning tour guide, we decided to drive off to explore a scenic region, congratulating ourselves on our spirit of adventure. That was before the ninety mile an hour road chase in a deserted rural area with a carful of screaming men racing to catch up with us.

“We don’t have to put on courage like a tough protective armor,” Pema told the group. Instead of banishing fear, or making ourselves wrong for feeling fearful–allowing ourselves to go into fear and deeply feel it is the way to become spiritual warriors.

Truth # 1: The way to overcome fear is to feel fear

Myth # 2: Safety first: Avoiding fear is the only way to feel safe

Loss of love, health, home, cognizance, money, power, control. Abuse, physical danger, disease, injury, and death. These are some of the things we naturally fear.

In childhood, we skulk away from the playground bully, strange people in cars, fringe neighborhoods, and rollercoaster rides. In adulthood, we may try to avoid horror films, foreigners with strange names, the news, contagious germs, bureaucracies, or even airports. I’ve fallen out of contact with certain acquaintances who, following 9/11, became too fearful to visit my home town of New York City. Eight years of one way visits unbalanced the reciprocity in the relationships.

Seeking safety at all costs has two obvious pitfalls:

1. We limit our potential when we fail to challenge ourselves to grow–and wind up bland, bored, addicted, and/or stuck–and yes, even overweight or obese as we stuff down our feelings with bland “comfort” foods
2. We project our fear onto outside things or people, dub them terrorists, and give them power to not only scare us but to turn us, our lives, and even our country into a padded prison, (even a cushy one) surrounded by barbed wire, our bombs tossed from a safe distance, as we turn our heads away to deny the harm we do.

If we cannot run towards fear to assert our bravery, if we can’t run away and avoid what makes us fearful, how can we deal with fear? According to Pema Chodron, we can stand our ground and be with our fear. Just that is the basis of fearlessness.

Truth # 2: Be with fear

In the retreat, inspired by Smiling at Fear, a newly published book by Chodron’s teacher, Trungpa Rinpoche, we practiced checking in with ourselves to experience fear right there and then. Making this a regular practice has had an astonishing effect, exactly as Pema predicted, “When you learn to smile at your fear, to be with your fear, you become an authentic friend to yourself, and thereby develop confidence.”

It’s not that you become confident that you will encounter a germ-free world, access the strongest drugs, possess the smartest bomb, or hold the secret to love, fame and fortune.

The confidence is that you will be there for yourself always, come what may.

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