I mean when I read some people extolling Byron Katie's "The Work," I looked it up to see. I read through it thoroughly and I liked it...to a point. Yet it smacks of the "end MY suffering," focus on self, me-me-me stuff the Boomers are so famous for. We have had decades of self-work and it has not served us as a society well because it is too self absorbed. All that self-work is a great way to keep us from looking outward and seeing what we can do to help others. As the Hopi note, life out of balance is not good and self-absorption that keeps us from helping others is a way of being out of balance.
Another one is the Abraham-Hicks ideology that says the universe wants to give you anything you want but you have to be open to receiving it. That's a nice idea...except it is just another "blame the individual for their misfortune" disguised-as-a-self-help program. After all, it is too easy to blame you if you don't get what you desire because obviously the universe wants you to have it but you were not open enough to get it. That's bullshit. That completely misses the part where sometimes, the universe doesn't want you to get everything you want because you grow more when you do without.
The idea that ending self suffering is a good thing sounds good, at first, but suffering teaches us compassion, patience, tolerance, and empathy. To end self suffering means to end learning all that and I don't see that as a good thing. There will always be suffering and not just because each person who suffers has not done "The Work." By that ideology, the starving child in Somalia should just stop believing they are starving and they will be happier? What a convenient, upper class ideology to absolve us from having to help the starving kid! Let's get real shall we? Time to stop distracting ourselves with our selves and get to work helping others. That may not feel as easy or good but life worth living is not easy; but it is satisfying.
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