Do me a favor, do yourself a favor, do all of us a favor and stay the heck out of the self-help section at Barnes & Noble.

Strolling through the bookstore the other day I was astounded by the sprawling expanse of the self-help section. Multitudes of self-help titles jammed the shelves promising instant relief from the daily suffering of embodied life on this planet. Doctors, therapists, psychologists, spiritual guides, shamans: everybody it seems has the goods on how to fix yourself up and find that blissful, perfect life we were promised in all those Disney films we watched as kids. As a culture, we have become obsessed with fixing ourselves. So much so that a multi-billion dollar industry has sprouted up in order to help us do just that.

However, that multi-billion dollar industry is not so much about fixing us up as it is about taking advantage of our thirst for being fixed up. Booksellers, publishers, and others have recognized our suffering as a colossal opportunity to separate us from our money—$14 at a time. The results are thousands of titles goading us to spice up our relationships, let go of our anger, and live wholesome, peaceful lives.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not against ending suffering, improving lives, or even self help. Most of us are indeed in need of a tune up of sorts. The ever increasing pace of our lives combined with the fragmented nature of our attention creates a situation that begs for some kind of help. We live lives rooted in perpetual conflict: conflict between ourselves and others; between ourselves and our environs; even between ourselves and some other part of ourselves. But the notion of self-help as put forth by most of the self-appointed, self-help gurus is not self-help at all. Rather it is a superficial attempt at addressing the mere symptoms of suffering and in many cases worsens the problem.

A key question that most of us have never considered is: Exactly who or what is this “self” who is requiring “help”? Is it our ego, our personality, our minds, our beliefs, our souls? According to yogic philosophy, things aren’t what they might appear to many of us. That is to say, we are not necessarily who we think we are.

The “self” with whom most of us identify is a temporal and ever-changing entity created through the medium of misplaced attention. We arrive in a body that has a particular ethnicity, we identify with that; we speak a language and identify with that; we have a job; we are married (or not); we have an education; a name; a belief system; a body type all of which goes into making us who we think we are, but who we are not. This self is but a fiction, an illusion that we call maya in yoga. Think of it as the false self.

If we are not who we think we are, if we aren’t this false self, who then are we? At our core we are all pure divine consciousness. Each of us is an expression of God, a wave on the ocean of divine unity. This is your true identity, your True Self, and this True Self needs no fixing—it is ever free, ever joyful, and perfect in every way. As a matter of fact, it’s the very act of fixing that is one of our root problems. And this is where many self-help guides begin to get us into trouble.

Here is the problem: the very notion of fixing creates conflict. It leads to a struggle to change ourselves, to behave in a certain way, to feel as the experts say we should, to respond to circumstances ‘appropriately’. We end up prescribing behavior for ourselves, creating conflict between how we are and how we think we should be, and adding a litany of items onto the end of our already too long to-do list—all in the name of feeling better.

The fundamental premise of “self-help” is that all that you must do to be happier is to change: if you have a problem with your anger, let it go; a relationship issue, change your behavior; battling depression, blame your mother. In other words, as long as you are not who you are, or how you are, you’ll be happy. Thus the quest to be happier and healthier itself becomes a source of tension and suffering. Our struggle is akin to the proverbial shifting the deck chairs around on the Titanic. While it keeps us busy and provides us the sense of accomplishing something, it’s an impotent distraction at best.

What’s more, most self-help titles by their very nature are oriented toward fixing the false self—that which we are not. And our endeavor to change the false self reinforces the identification with the false self—the core problem that keeps us unhappy. Think about it: when we seek to change, who is it that is trying to change whom? Of course it is the false self attempting to fix the false self. We are simply reinforcing the habit of misplaced identification. Further, exercising the false self to transcend of the false self just doesn’t work. The premise that we can dig ourselves out of the mess we’ve created by continuing to dig is at best flawed.

Thus most self-help programs fail us on at least these two fronts: The struggle to be somehow different from how we are gives rise to more conflicting thoughts and emotions. And the very quest to change the false self reinforces our identification with the false self. In short, they are moving us in the wrong direction plunging us ever deeper into suffering.

The ancient science of yoga however sheds light on both the source of the problem and the solution. According to yoga, all suffering arises from one fundamental delusion: ignorance of our True Selves which is called avidya. From this springs the creation of the false self with its likes, dislikes, beliefs, and identifications. This sets up a never-ending battle to control external circumstances so that they meet our image of how they should be—and this includes our efforts to change the false self.

Real joy then doesn’t derive from fixing the false self, because no matter how much we change, there will always be some other element of our selves or our lives with which we are dissatisfied. In the history of the world, not one soul has realized lasting happiness by successfully reforming themselves into a better neighbor, a more compassionate parent, or even an enlightened being, because remember the very act of fixing creates conflict. Instead, yoga teaches all that we must do is to let go in order to transcend the false self. Let go of all that which we think we are, but are not—and through this we reconnect with that which we truly are and spontaneously rest in the blissful, peaceful core of our beings.

Despite the simplicity of the solution, the act of letting things be, of transcending our deeply ingrained habit of identifying with our minds and bodies, is no mean feat. And this is where the science of yoga comes in. Over the millennia, yogis have developed a range of powerful techniques to lift us out of our delusion. These practices involve work with the body, the breath, and the mind and are all specifically designed to chip away at those habits that keep us in bondage.

Of course, this doesn’t leave self-help books completely without value. For some people in the depths of despair, the self-help model can be of great help to bring at least some semblance of ease into their lives without which they might otherwise be driven into some act of desperation like suicide. For persons in this situation, self-help can provide a needed life raft lifting them safely above the turbulent waves of life.

In addition, there are some on the self-help crusade who are not totally missing the point. Some titles offer very effective techniques to help us find greater joy in life. But even these can be misused if we approach them with the orientation toward fixing. In this instance, it is the orientation toward fixing, wanting to be fixed, needing to be fixed that perpetuates our anxiety. It is for these reasons that in yoga we don’t seek to fix or even change the self, but we study the self.

The bad news is that true liberation, lasting and unconditional happiness can only arise from putting an end to our deluded state of being, from resting back into in that which we truly are. The good news is that we need do nothing to realize it. We needn’t change, struggle, or quarrel with who or how you are. We need only to be completely present and accepting to all that is. Anything less is like putting a flimsy Pokemon band-aid on the sucking chest wound of life. And who would want to do that?

Blessings to all,

E

Yogi E, a.k.a. Eric Walrabenstein is the founder and director of Yoga Pura in Phoenix, AZ. He is the architect of Yoga Pura’s year-long Advanced Studies Program and trains yoga teachers nationally. E regularly travels the country holding workshops on the process of enlightenment and translating ancient yogic truths for daily living. He is currently at work on a book on unreasonable happiness.

Copyright 2005, Eric Walrabenstein, all rights reserved.