Clever Sincerity and Cognitive Dissonance

"As I have said already, one of the first demands is sincerity. But there are different kinds of sincerity. There is clever sincerity and there is stupid sincerity, just as there is clever insincerity and stupid insincerity. Both stupid sincerity and stupid insincerity are equally mechanical. But if a man wishes to learn to be cleverly sincere, he must be sincere first of all with his teacher and with people who are senior to him in the work. This will be 'clever sincerity.'" 

"You do not understand what it means to be sincere," said G. "You are so used to lying both to yourselves and to others that you can find neither words nor thoughts when you wish to speak the truth. To tell the complete truth about oneself is very difficult. But before telling it one must know it. And you do not even know what the truth about yourselves consists of."                                   -Ouspensky, In Search of the Miraculous

We were taught in "school" that one must always tell the truth.

What does it mean to tell the truth when the truth is something that you might be punished for? What does it mean to tell the truth when you are asked to go against your conscience? What does it mean to tell the truth when you are a lemming in a pack of lemmings about to jump off a cliff? What does it mean to tell the truth when you have been told what to say? 

We were taught in "school" that we must think for ourselves.

This is what actually happens. There is always a class after a Christmas class or a special presentation that is called an "impressions" class where everyone is supposed to stand up and say what their deepest feelings and impressions of the event were. There was a time when there were a series of public "lectures" given to try to lure people into "school". Groups of people worked for months preparing these lectures and they were always edited by Mr. MC to the point where they all sounded exactly the same, which they all were: an advertisement for school. It was supposed to be a special honor to be asked to be the actual presenter.

One lecture was given by a woman named L and at the next class, we were asked to give our "impressions" of the lecture. Someone always had to be the first to stand up and they gave the lecture a glowing review. Four or five more people spoke and all said that they had thought it was wonderful. Mr. MC then stopped the class and said: "Well, let me tell you what Sharon thought about the lecture. She thought it was awful" and he went on to elaborate extensively. Everyone who spoke about their impressions after that, echoed Mr. MC's and Sharon's condemnation of the lecture and the vilification of the poor presenter. This happened all the time. No one ever wanted to stand up first because you could never be sure what the "party line" was going to be and you always wanted to be on the right side in an argument. So much for the "truth".

Shortly after I moved to Boston, my best friend in school left along with a number of other people. This exodus came about after Sharon's son, D, who was a revered teacher and Sharon's heir apparent, left school. Sharon disowned him and vilified him. We were all shocked by the news. I was not present when he left and I am unsure of all of the details but Mr. MC was sent down to NY to lead our class one night and do "damage control".  Of course, many people stood up and talked about how they knew something was wrong with D and that he had been following the wrong path. He was generally slandered and maliciously maligned. That's how it always went.

The rule is that when anybody leaves school, they are shunned. You are not allowed to speak to or acknowledge anyone who has left the fold. You are also not allowed to acknowledge anyone you know from school if you meet them in public. When my best friend left, she called me to explain what had happened and why she had left. Then we continued to talk on the phone for months afterward which was totally verboten. The people who had left at that time got together and my friend became especially close to Sharon's son, D, and she heard all of his lifes' stories. She heard what it was like for him to grow up in the cult in California. He had been severely abused by his mother and step-father, Alex Horn. My friend told me all of these stories and I listened. She told me as much as she knew about the abusive nature of the group. She told me of Sharon's abortions, her alcoholism, her plastic surgery, her drug abuse and her manipulation of people's lives. She told me that Sharon and Alex had fled San Francisco in the 1970's after they were accused of child abuse. She told me all of these stories and I listened. I knew in my heart it was all true.

I was living in Boston. I knew no one except for the people in the cult. I was estranged from my family and estranged from the friends I had from New York. I had a small child and no job. My husband was deeply involved in the group. I knew these people were crazy but I had no recourse; no where to go and no one to turn to.

Cognitive dissonance is defined as "the mental stress or discomfort experienced by an individual who holds two or more contradictory beliefs, ideas or values at the same time, or is confronted by new information that conflicts with existing beliefs, ideas or values." (Wikipedia) 

There was a point where I had to explain to my friend that I just couldn't talk to her anymore. I would love her forever but we couldn't keep talking because the inconsistency of knowing the truth and having to live as if I didn't, was driving me mad. Literally. 

I sat in class longing to stand up and tell everyone the truth. I sat in class afraid that I would stand up and tell the truth. I sat in class thinking that if they were such enlightened beings, how come they didn't know that I knew the truth? I sat in class thinking that if they were such enlightened beings, how come they didn't know that I had broken all the rules? I sat in class wondering why they didn't know that I was constantly lying about everything?

I spoke to my husband and told him that I wanted to leave and he said that he would leave if I left. It was another one of those "rules" that if one spouse left school, the other one had to leave as well (or, they could get divorced). I was afraid that if I forced my husband to leave, that it might take a year or ten years but he would eventually blame me for his having to leave school and that would definitely put an end to our marriage. I started trying to think up schemes to leave school without actually having to leave. What if we moved to Mexico? I started waking up at 4 am every morning sick to my stomach and shaking with fear. I got to the point where I knew something had to change or I might literally go mad. This point coincided with my growing unwillingness to lie to my daughter as well. When she was 6, she started to ask me what it was like when she was in my tummy. I knew I couldn't go on. It was no longer clever sincerity, it was blatant lying and it was going to kill me if I didn't stop.

I maintain that Truth is a pathless land, and you cannot approach it by any path whatsoever, by any religion, by any sect. That is my point of view, and I adhere to that absolutely and unconditionally. Truth, being limitless, unconditioned, unapproachable by any path whatsoever, cannot be organized; nor should any organization be formed to lead or to coerce people along any particular path. If you first understand that, then you will see how impossible it is to organize a belief. A belief is purely an individual matter, and you cannot and must not organize it. If you do, it becomes dead, crystallized; it becomes a creed, a sect, a religion, to be imposed on others. This is what everyone throughout the world is attempting to do. Truth is narrowed down and made a plaything for those who are weak, for those who are only momentarily discontented. Truth cannot be brought down, rather the individual must make the effort to ascend to it. You cannot bring the mountain-top to the valley. If you would attain to the mountain-top you must pass through the valley, climb the steeps, unafraid of the dangerous precipices.                -J. Krishnamurti