The Philosophers' Way...

2007-07-12T12:34:00.000-07:00

ITEM EIGHT: AN OPEN LETTER TO ALBERT ELLIS

Dear Al,

Just a quick note to say I hope you are coping reasonably well with your current illness, and making a gradual recovery. As you know, in October 2005, I wrote that, if you were not suffering, and coping well with your suffering, you would not have a great deal to teach us. Some would find that harsh and insensitive, but they would normally tend not to be philosophers, like you and I.

As you know, some of your nearest and dearest have had great difficulty trying to avoid becoming overly upset about your present circumstances, but not you, and not me.

I have recently been reviewing Epictetus’s pamphlet, The Enchiridion, and highlighted a few statements that seemed to me to link strongly to your present situation. The first one is the famous one about how there are certain things you can control and certain things you can’t. You know as well as I how important it is to make that distinction accurately, and to never try to control those things which are beyond your control. At the moment you seem to be pursuing legal action, because that is within your control. You are not pursuing mediation, because it is not within your control to make that happen. Here is what Epictetus says:

In regard to the nature of things, "...some are in our power, and others are not. In our power are opinion, movement toward a thing, desire, aversion (or turning away from a thing); and in a word, whatever are our own acts(.) (N)ot in our power are the body, property, reputation, offices (magisterial power), and in a word, whatever are not our own acts”. You will know all about this at the moment. Your body has “let you down”. Your reputation has been besmirched. Your “magisterial power” has evaporated in a puff of smoke.

Epictetus continues: “And the things in our power are by nature free, not subject to restraint or hindrance: but the things not in our power are weak, slavish, subject to restraint, in the power of others”. Again, you know all about this. Your final life plans are subject to restraint and hindrance. But since those plans are not in your power, it is better not to try to control them. Let them be as they are. Or as the old wag, upon reaching the age of 100, said, when asked to what he attributed his long and happy life: “When it rains, I just let it rain!”

“Remember then”, says Epictetus, “that if you think the things which are by nature slavish (or out of your control) to be free, and the things which are in the power of others to be your own (or in your own power to decide), you will be hindered, you will lament, you will be disturbed, you will blame both gods and men: but if you think that only which is your own to be your own, and if you think that what is another’s, as it really is, belongs to another, no man/woman will ever compel you, no man/woman will hinder you, you will never blame any man/woman, you will accuse no man/woman, you will do nothing involuntarily (against your will), no man/woman will harm you, you will have no enemy, for you will not suffer any harm”. The Enchiridion, page 11, New York, Prometheus Books, 1991.

This final statement fascinates me. It is fundamentally about achieving a state of enlightenment, of a particular western kind: related to, but distinct from the enlightenment experiences of the Taoists or Zenists. Osho (Footnote 1) has something to say about that, and then moves on to talk about Lao Tzu in a way that I think you will find interesting. (I am not promoting Osho here, but rather some ageless wisdom that he has repackaged and passed on). He begins like this:

“An awakened one is one who, on seeing the difference between two forms of the two opposite polarities in which our existence is divided, experiences the oneness of their inner existence. One who sees the journey towards death within a birth, the image of pain hidden in pleasure, the separation that is hidden in union – one who becomes capable of also seeing the opposite in every moment – is awakened. It is important to remember that ‘one who becomes capable of seeing’ and not ‘one who becomes capable of believing’ becomes awakened. Your beliefs are of no use”.

Isn’t that the truth! I have seen so many “anti-awfulizers” turn into “awfulizers” about your poor situation, Al, because their commitment to anti-awfulizing was a mere surface belief; a function of their neocortex; and not a function of the “watcher” – the deeper self - which observes the breath coming in and out of the body during meditation. And, to turn any belief into an emotive attitude, we need to repeat it to ourselves, over and over and over again, until it becomes part of our habit-based, emotive wiring. Even so, the old irrational beliefs can still grow back, like weeds in a lawn, and so costant vigilance is also required. That amount of work is not congenial for many people!

“Truths that are merely beliefs topple down and disintegrate with the slightest push from existence. It is only the experienced truths that do not disintegrate. One who comes to know this comes to see this, comes to experience it”.

“And the interesting thing is that one does not have to go far to experience it. Life is giving you the opportunity every day, every moment. Have you ever known a happiness in life that has not turned into unhappiness? Have you ever known a success that has not turned into a failure? Have you ever known a fame that has not turned into infamy?”

These questions are so relevant to your present circumstances, Al. As Werner Erhard used to say: “You cannot hold on to satisfaction. You can only create it. And the only way you can create anything is if you have the space in which to create it. And the only way you can create the space for satisfaction is to complete your experience of the dissatisfaction you are currently experiencing”. And I have no doubt that that is precisely what you are doing – good philosopher that you are – completing your experience of the dissatisfaction you must feel at your fall from “magisterial office”. (And 'completing your experienc', of course, means 'allowing it to be' exactly the way it is!)

Osho continues: “Lao Tzu used to say that no one had ever been able to defeat him in life…

Later on Lao Tzu reaches the point of dying: “He is dying. The last moments of his life are approaching and his disciples are asking, ‘Please, reveal the secret to us, because this is what we also want: to win, for nobody to be able to defeat us. Kindly tell us the secret of your victory. Please reveal this secret to us all’. (Page 205).

And that is what I wanted to know when we spoke on the phone in October 2005. I wanted to know how I could help you to implement you plan to regain effective control of the AEI. I wanted to know how I could be victorious over your adversaries. And that is what I set out to do. What a mistake. For a while I thought I was winning. I thought I had the moral high ground. But all the time I was falling into error – making statements that I could not support; or statements that would have required your presence in court in the UK, which was totally unrealistic. In the event, they - your former colleagues - were victorious over me.

Osho continues: “Lao Tzu started laughing. He said, ‘You are the wrong people. It is futile to tell you. You didn’t listen to the whole thing and jumped in to ask me in the middle of it. I could only say that no one has ever been able to defeat me – and you didn’t allow me to finish, you jumped in in the middle. I was going to say that no one in life could ever defeat me because I didn’t want to be victorious over anyone, because I could see clearly that the moment you win, you have started preparing for defeat’.

What a statement! And it echoed back down the years to the Dublin Judo Club,in 1960-64, where Japanese trainers came to train us every summer. And they taught us just that: Do not seek to defeat anybody. Only seek to unbalance those who try to defeat you. And as soon as they desist from their attacks, return to a peaceful detachment. And I have largely practiced that most of my life. But every so often I slip up, and get caught up in some kind of battle frenzy – a desire to be victorious, and virtuously so.

“This is why no one could ever defeat me. There was not a single person on this earth who could defeat me. Nobody could defeat me because I had already accepted the defeat on my own. I never tried to win. But you are saying that you want to win, and you don’t want to be defeated by anyone. Then you are bound to be defeated because victory and defeat are two sides of the same coin’.

I repeat: 'I had already accepted the defeat on my own'.

And once upon a time I knew the wisdon of that approach in my bones. And for most of my life I have practiced that. But every so often I leap into “rescuer mode”, and take on the gladiatorial role. What a laugh!

…

Osho continues: “We experience (this) ever day. Everything changes into its opposite. If you go more deeply into a friendship, it starts turning into enmity. But what is the trick (that we play on ourselves), that we go on avoiding seeing it? The trick is that when the friendship starts turning into enmity, we don’t see it like that. We say that the friend is turning into an enemy. And this is the point where we miss: When a friend starts becoming an enemy, we think that this friend is turning into an enemy, that had somebody else been in their place this wouldn’t have happened, that this person is a cheat. And the other person for whom you are now becoming an enemy thinks along similar lines. They also think that they made the wrong choice, that this wouldn’t have happened had they chosen the right person”. (Pages 205-207)

And, of course, others may say: "He is not the man he used to to be!" Because some of his behaviours have changed, and the friendship is in a phase of dissatisfation, they jump ship and say: "He has changed too much to bear! He is not who he was!"

I am sure if you think about this you will see a pattern here, Al. Friends come and friends go, and friendship breaks down under the sheer difficulty of human communication, especially in a stressful environment. And Osho’s point is also similar to the REBT distinction between our friend (the person – their essence) and the friendship (a set of behaviours). The friendship becomes difficult, but the friend is still your friend. It’s sometimes impossible to see them, through the smoke of stress and conflict. What Osho does not say is that the friend can be kept as a friend, if we make allowances for the ‘shape’ or ‘flavour’ of the friendship. And the friendship can be repaired if we separate the friend from the friendship-imperfections. When we complete our experience of the negative phase of the friendship, that allows the positive phase of the friendship to reassert itself. (And, again, to 'complete our experience' means to 'allow it to be' totally; exactly as it is. Not to resist it being the way it is, but to face up to the fact that this is how it is, right now).

“When a friend becomes an enemy we miss the truth. The truth is that it is the friendship that turns into enmity. But we project it onto the person and start looking for another friend”.

Our friends are very important to us, and victory is an illusion. Defeat is also an illusion, and the less you cling to it, the more it tends to dissipate. Broken friendships can be fixed, and victory is unimportant. In submitting to the flow of life, you become victorious over your ‘small mind’ plans. (The 'small mind' is, of course, the 'ego': the self-story!) We accept the things we cannot change, and change the things we can. We live in an imperfect world, so why insist upon perfection in any sphere of our lives?

Back to Epictetus, with a reminder that I am not advocating the following of anybody, least of all Osho. Do not join cults. Thinks for yourself. (You will appreciate Al, that that warning is for the general readership of this open letter, and not for you!) Back to Epictetus:

Because some of your friends and supporters have become distressed by your present situation, I thought it would be good to include this quote:

“(Wo)men are disturbed not by the things which happen, but by the opinions about the things: for example, death is nothing terrible, for if it were, it would have seemed so to Socrates (who was sentenced to death by self-administered poison); for the opinion about death, that it is terrible, is the terrible thing. When, then, we are impeded or disturbed or grieved, let us never blame others, but ourselves, that is, our opinions. It is the act of an ill-instructed (wo)man to blame others for his/her own bad condition; it is the act of one who has begun to be instructed, to lay the blame on him/herself; and of one whose instruction is completed, neither to blame another, nor him/herself”.

It is not sensible to blame anybody for the breakdown in relations at the AEI. Blaming will not solve anything. Let us instead talk of dialogue, mediation, or a full, independent public enquiry. Nothing else will make any difference, except perhaps your court cases, Al, which could give you some compensation. But those court cases are unlikely to reverse the actions that have been taken, nor to restore your “magisterial office”.

And then my most favourite of all Epictetus's quotes:

“Seek not that the things which happen should happen as you wish; but wish the things which happen to be as they are, and you will have a tranquil flow of life”.

I am quite sure, Al, that you have mastered this one, and are having a tranquil flow of life, despite all of your myriad problems and difficulties. As the Buddha says:

“S/he who wants nothing has everything!”

My next favourite quote from Epictetus is the one about being an actor in a play that the manager/teacher/author may choose. The manager here is, of course, providence, the flow of life – life lifing! And in this play the manager has removed you from office and cast you as the litigant in three or four law suits, and an attempt to negotiate some kind of resolution of this recent conflict with your former colleagues. And in that play, you get to deploy your own mini-scripts. I am quite sure you know what you are trying to achieve here. So long as you care not for the things which are not in your power to change, you will be unharmed.

An interesting perspective is suggested on page 30 of the Enchiridion, as follows:

“When any person treats you ill or speaks ill of you, remember that s/he does this or says this because s/he thinks that it is his/her duty. It is not possible, then, for him/her to follow that which seems right to you, but that which seems right to him/her-self. Accordingly, if s/he is wrong in his/her opinion, s/he is the person who is hurt, for s/he is the person who has been deceived; for if a (wo)man shall suppose the true conjunction (of events) to be false, it is not the conjunction (of events) which is hindered, but the (wo)man who has been deceived about it. If you proceed, then, from these opinions, you will be mild in temper to him/her who reviles you: for say on each occasion, It seemed so to him/her.

We each follow what seems right to us. There is no “concrete reality” outside of our group perspectives or social scripts and narratives, as far as I can tell. Or, it seems so to me! What seems so solidly correct to me is totally false to somebody else. Rarely are there objective, concrete referents to which we can unambiguously point to support our factional viewpoints. (Of course the law does not see it like that, because the law is based on pre-modern thinking in a post-modern world. There is no uncertainty in the law, despite the fact that there seems little else in ‘reality’. Medicine is also like this. But, as Gerd Gigerenzer says: “The situation in the law profession seems to be even worse. With one or two notable exceptions, law schools do not teach students how to reason on the basis of uncertain evidence – although virtually all evidence is uncertain. The mind tools described in this book are mostly unknown to all these disciplines”. [Page 230, Reckoning with Risk: Learning to live with uncertainty; Allen Lane/the Penguin Press. 2002]).

De Bono is also helpful here, as he eschews the use of analysis to solve all problems, and maintains that sometimes – and I think this is one of them – it is necessary to design a way forward, rather than analyzing the past to death. What would the situation at the AEI look like if it was better? Find out from both sides. Compromise about that designed future, and then implement it. The main book by De Bono on this topic is his Teach Yourself to Think, Viking, 1995.

The most exciting statement in the Enchiridion is on page 41, and I keep going back to it and reading it over and over again. It seems so significant to me. This is it:

“The condition and characteristic of an uninstructed person is this: s/he never expects from him/herself any profit (or advantage) or harm(.)” But s/he expects such profit and harm “…from externals. The condition and characteristic of a philosopher is this: s/he expects all advantage and all harm (to come) from him/her-self. The signs (marks) of one who is making progress are these: s/he censures no (wo)man, s/he praises no (wo)man, s/he blames no (wo)man, s/he accuses no (wo)man. S/he says nothing about him/her-self as if s/he were somebody or knew something; when s/he is impeded at all or hindered, s/he blames him/her-self. If a (wo)man praises him/her, s/he ridicules the praiser to him/her-self (to neutralize the praise). If a (wo)man censures him/her, s/he makes no defence. S/he goes about like weak persons, being careful not to move any of the things that have been placed… S/he removes all desire from him/her-self, and s/he transfers aversion to those things only of the things within our power which are contrary to nature. S/he employs a moderate movement towards everything (or is not excessive). Whether s/he is considered foolish or ignorant, s/he cares not. And in a word, s/he watches him/her-self as if s/he were an enemy and lying in ambush”.

And it is precisely that final statement that so intrigues me. “S/he watches him/her-self as if s/he were an enemy and lying in ambush”. That seems to be a position we have long lost. Why should we watch ourselves? We are “the one”, aren't we? It’s all the other cuffers we need to watch! They might cheat us, or try to defraud us. And it is from them we expect to make all our gains or losses. But not Epictetus. For him, the greatest enemy is WITHIN! And what could that enemy within be?

Well a friend of mine, from the campaign we waged for justice for you, Al, sent me a nice little quote from the Cherokee Indians, which I want to cite here:

Two Wolves

One evening an old Cherokee told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside people. He said, "My son, the battle is between two ‘wolves’ inside us all.

One is Evil. It is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.

The other is Good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith."

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather:
"Which wolf wins?"

The old Cherokee simply replied, "The one you feed."

And I believe that is the reason Epictetus watched himself like an enemy lying in ambush, because we are not “unified beings”. We are not “the one”! We are “the two”. The two wolves; or, in Freud’s terminology, the Life urge, or Eros, and the Death urge, or Thanatos.

And this is the first principle of Cognitive Emotive Narrative Therapy, in which I take some of your best ideas from 1957 and 1962, and your attempt to elaborate the complex ABC model in your 1994 re-release of ‘Reason and Emotion’, combined with many new ideas of my own, derived from the history of philosophy, and create a new cognitive therapy which is explicitly moral, and has its very foundations in morality.

The first principle is this: If you want to live “the good life”, you have to be willing to live “a good life”; and living a good life means growing the good wolf and starving and restraining the bad wolf. This also echoes Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, and so I will review Aristotle in the near future. It also suggests a link to modern Virtue Ethics, and so I will also review that subject.

I hope you approve of my project, Al. Most of the best of REBT will be incorporated into CENT.

And so we come to my final two extracts from the very end of the Enchiridion. Epictetus writes:

“In every thing (circumstance) we should hold these maxims ready to hand:

Lead me, O Zeus, and thou O Destiny,
The way that I am bid by you to go:
To follow I am ready. If I choose not,
I make myself a wretch, and still must follow.

But whoso(ever) nobly yields unto necessity,
We hold him wise, and skilled in things divine”.

I wish you a contented and serene final leg of your journey, as you trudge the road of necessity, into a future that was unplanned by you, for you do not run the universe, and had better embrace the plans of others when they cannot be changed. Since nobody has been able to rescue you from the fate that was imposed upon you, you had better learn to embrace that fate and learn to desire that things be the way they are, if you are to be serene.

You are a great philosopher, Al, and you have given us so much. We wish you bon voyage as you sail into uncharted waters.

The final lines of the Enchiridion are borrowed from Plato’s Crito. Socrates is the speaker of the lines, as he prepares to drink the hemlock prepared for his execution. His opening words are addressed to Crito, a direct reference to his impending death:

“O Crito, if so it pleases the gods,
so let it be;
Anytus and Melitus are able indeed to kill me,
but they cannot harm me”.

So keep yourself well and beyond harm, Al. Others may denigrate you, but they cannot harm you, in the sense meant by Socrates. For I know in my heart that none but a philosopher like you could handle the unfortunate change which has occurred in your fate.

I will always love you like a father; and Renata sends her love also.

Farewell, then, Al.

Love,

Jim

~~~

Footnote 1: A Friendly Warning to general readers of this letter, especially younger, more impressionable individuals: Remember, in an earlier post, I warned that Osho may be Bagwan Shree Rajneesh (which has now been confirmed, at least phographically, by likeness). Rajneesh is alleged to have run a cult which allegedly acted illegally and oppressively and exploitatively, and I do not wish to promote any such cult. I have a good friend in the US who has inside information about the Rajneesh commune that used to operate in Oregon, and he has warned me that this seems to have been a paranoid cult that seems to have acted illegally, especially in allegedly engaging in some mass poisonings. Those are allegations, and apparently there have been court cases concerning those allegations. It is said sentences of imprisonment have been handed down for some crimes of poisoning. I know nothing of the details of this or any other case involving Osho/Rajneesh, and it would be improper of me, and potentially libelous, to repeat allegations, even the heartfelt beliefs of my best friends. But I certainly can say that I am opposed to cults in general, and I strongly advise you not to associate with them. My friend in the US makes the very interesting point that some of the ideas that Osho promulgates are not his own, but passed on as second-hand knowledge from wise people of earlier generations. (This, of course, is commonplace. The entire history of western philosophy is said to be 'a footnot to Plato'; and Plato's ideas were not mainly his own, but borrowed from his predecessors. Even Albert Ellis built up his philosophy from his reflections upon the history of philosophy, and the earliest shoots of the emerging 'cognitive turn' in American psychology). And it is in this spirit that I pass on the same wisdom to you. Use any of these ideas that make sense to you, but do not join any cults. Do not agree to give away your money and assets. Try always to develop idendpendence of mind, and do not be tempted to make others responsible for 'leading you'. And if anybody mentions mass orgies as a “spiritual practice” – run like cuff!

I do not wish to lead you. I do not advocate that you follow anybody. Not me. Not even Albert Ellis. Not Osho, or anybody else. I think that if there is a problem in your life, then you are responsible: Not in the sense of definitely being the one who caused the problem; although you might sometimes have done so. But you are the one who is responsible for sorting it out, no matter who caused it. For nobody is coming on a cuffing white charger: Not Albert Ellis; not Jim Byrne; not Osho; not Prince(ss) cuffing Charming! So grow up! Lead yourself! Stop creating cult leaders! For there can be no cults without both the leaders and the obedient, conformist cuffing led!

(Of course, if you feel the need to consult a coach, counsellor or psychotherapist, by all means do so. But do so as an Adult, consulting another Adult about matters in which they may have a marginal advantage over you in terms of knowledge and experience; insights, distinctions, and so on. Do not approach them as a Child approaches a Parent. Consult them as equals in all but their specialist knowledge. But plan to outgrow them. And outgrow them as quickly as you can!)

~~~

ABC Coaching and Counselling Services.

Jim Byrne’s Email Address.

Face-to-face coaching, counselling and therapy.

About Albert Ellis.

Online and telephone coaching, counselling and therapy.

Email coaching and counselling service.

The Institute for CENT Studies).

Couples Therapy Service: (Relationship skills; marriage counselling).

Confidence Coaching Service.

Training in REBT/CBT for counsellors/therapists.

The REBT Network, for information about the late Dr Albert Ellis and REBT.

~~~

Open Letter - Albert Ellis

The Philosophers' Way...