Spiritual Inquiry . com

The biggest goal of spirituality is to understand ourselves. This is much more important than attempting to understand the world around us. Unfortunately, most of us inhibit this goal by trying to maintain some kind of image about ourselves. We cannot see ourselves accurately whilst simultaneously trying to maintain a self-image. The two are contradictory. Thus, we must forget about our self-image.

The reasons for supporting our self-image are often understandable. We may believe that maintaining an image of ourselves as a happy person, or as a calm person, will help bring about that result. In this respect, maintaining a self-image can be used as a motivating force. However, although this tool may be effective, it has many drawbacks. By viewing ourselves as something other than what we are, we are engaging in denial. This inevitably results in a lowering of self-esteem when we are faced with reality, and also causes an estrangement from our friends because we are attempting to put forward a different persona from the truth.

Instead, it is important to realize that we can drop our self-image and still improve on ourselves. In fact, viewing ourselves accurately makes it easier to improve. Although dropping a self-image can be scary, it is also a tremendous relief. Trying to continuously delude ourselves can never be successful, and being honest about who we are is a much happier way to live.

Deceitful behaviour is common in both humans and other animals. The temptation is apparent. I could write an article detailing the drawbacks of such dishonesty, but instead I wish to focus on a more specific issue: why do we lie to ourselves?

Although most people do this on a regular basis, the behaviour is quite insane. Whereas lying to others is selfish, lying to ourselves is plain stupid. How is it even possible to fool ourselves? How can we be both the deceiver and the deceived?

We may not initially recognize how much we do lie to ourselves. It is an easy thing to deny because there is no solid evidence that we do so. We do not utter the lie aloud, and no-one is there to hold us accountable. Thus, it is easy to pretend that it never happened (thereby lying to ourselves yet again).

The reason that we lie is to stop ourselves being hurt, usually to protect our self-esteem. There are thoughts that we find unacceptable, and thus we simply refuse to think them. We hope that soon the reality will change and that the lie will be inconsequential. For example, we may deny that we are depressed, hoping that soon the depression will go away. Our reasoning is that if it does go away then our lie will no longer matter, and we will have avoided dealing with a painful reality. However, it is never a good idea to sacrifice our integrity, and it is never a good idea to lose touch with truth. Just as lying to others will lose their trust, so does lying to ourselves compromise our own trust. We lose the ability to understand ourselves clearly and to be sure about what is true and what is not. The result is the insanity that currently pervades society.

In an effort to stop lying, it is worth asking ourselves what thoughts we find so unacceptable, and why. This tells us what issues we must work on to cease this harmful habit. We should also make sure that we talk to people who will tell us the truth, instead of those whom we know will support or believe our lies. Other people are valuable for telling us the truth about ourselves. Their view is warped through a lack of information, but our own view is warped through self-deception. We can assume that the reality lies somewhere in between.

At the end of the day, regardless of why we lie to ourselves, we must stop. Although understanding the reasons for our self-deception is helpful, we can still break this habit through sheer willpower alone. When we find ourselves blaming others for our own problems, or talking about ourselves in an effort to sway their opinion of us, we can be sure that self-deception is taking place. This is our cue to stop. In the words of Shakespeare: “To thine own self be true.”