Stop Projecting & Start Changing

Hey everyone, it’s Dr.Z. So recently I was reading this book by an Indian guru named Nisargadatta, it’s kind of a famous book. In the 70s this guy is an uneducated guy in India and got woke, basically got enlightened and basically sits in his room in Bombay and takes guests and answers questions. And there’s a book called “I Am That” about this. And it was an interesting story because this American comes to him it’s a kid and says, “Man, the world is a mess man, Vietnam and racism. And how are we gonna fix the world, man, it’s so terrible.”

And Nisargadatta kind of looks at him and goes, “The world is just a reflection of yourself. Why blame the reflection? set yourself right mentally and emotionally, forget about the reforms and pay attention to the reformer.” And when I read that it brought everything that’s been happening lately into sharp relief.

So many people are out there on social media and elsewhere expressing outrage. And it’s justifiable outrage over whatever it is, whether it’s COVID or racial injustice. But when you actually look at what’s happening, they are projecting blame onto something without turning inwards.

There was a study, a psychological study where they showed Americans sweatshop factories say in China, and then measured their level of guilt because these factories are producing clothes that they’re buying. And their guilt levels were really high it made them feel bad personally, like a bad person. They then gave them an out and said, “You know what, Nike or whatever company is making this stuff. And you can tweet about it or you can do something about it.” And when they did, when they blamed Nike, “Nike why are you so horrible? You should be ashamed of yourself.” They then measured those people’s guilt levels dropped right off they felt better, by blaming the third party.

What they never had a chance to do was to look inward and go what is it about me, that I can change because the world comes from me? Why blame the reflection when I need to look at the source? And that’s hard, that’s painful.

That’s why we have projection and denial and moral outrage. Because it makes us feel better because we know deep down there’s something with us that we need to fix but that work is hard. And reading Nisargadatta made me look inwards at myself and go, you know what? I project a lot of blame at other people too. I should maybe try to look inward, maybe meditate more. Maybe if you’re religious pray more, maybe just look inside because if we fix ourselves and actually realize what it is we are, which is the source of the world, the world fixes itself.

And that’s what I wanted to talk about today. Let’s really think about what we do out in the world and social media and outrage and call-out culture and all these things. Maybe what we ought to do is turn that lens back inwards and it hurts. It’s gonna hurt for a while, but when you’re done, oh it’s such a liberation and watch the world get better.

All right, that’s all I got to say, please share this video. If you’re woke, if you’re not woke, please share this video also. And we up.