I have one student who actually is doing the work the way the work was meant to be done.

It sounds meager… but it is all I ever wanted… really.

If you have one student who actually does what you teach, you can tell if what you teach works or not. Or tweak what you teach to accommodate the difficulties they experience. And watch if the changes you made will make the results match what you intended to accomplish.

What do the rest of the people do? I mean the students in the same program? I am not sure. Apple polishing? Feeble attempts to fake me?

Humans live this fake, apple polishing lives, thinking that life should respond to their feeble attempts, to their intention, to their desire, or whatever the heck they were taught should change reality to what they want reality to be.

This, humanity, humans, include the millions of writers who dish out advice…

Nothing gets done, nothing get changed, because of this delusional relationship to reality.

If the delusion disappeared what we would see in a new humanity. An new evolutionary stage for humanity.

In this article I will attempt to flash out this sticky point, and share what my student is doing, what I have done.

You will read it as you read everything… by the way. If you read everything as a trick, a move, a way to fake reality… hell, how you do anything is how you do everything.

If you read everything is: it is easy for you, but not for me… I am old, young, uneducated, too smart, too stupid, too good for this, I already know, I am already god… pick yours… that is how you are going to read.

All of these ways of reading are the tip of the iceberg of your delusional self.

During passing out from purely animal stage, humans invented or taught language, and language created a delusional self.

What is delusion? according to the dictionary, delusion is an idiosyncratic (personal) belief or impression that is firmly maintained despite being contradicted by what is generally accepted as reality or rational argument, typically a symptom of mental disorder.

Delusion is like a distorting lens or mirror you place between you and reality, and then proceed to call it reality.

It is essentially a lie, and a conscious lie at that. Some aspect of you knows you are lying.

We can call that aspect your delusional self, or your ego: I prefer delusional self, because ego has been misused so badly.

I prefer to use delusional self also because it spells out, that it is an aspect of you, it is delusional, and it is willfully so.

So there is the natural self, the self that knows, sees, hears reality and is willing to act consistent with reality. And then there is this bully of a self, the delusional self, that steals the show, is loud, domineering, and acts only according to what it wants, what it says it should be, and acts like any bully would: beats the natural self up for being the way it is, for being normal, for wanting to learn, to work towards things, calls it a sissy… or stupid, or whatever… and keeps you stuck, miserable, and acting in many fake, calculated ways to get your way.

The world created by the delusional self is rich, unreal, and full of trap doors, land mines, and sound and fury.

Because it is personal, (remember, idiosyncratic! that five dollar word!) one of the difficult things is to unmask it. The natural Self, in cooperation with Consciousness, needs to work on finding out the moves and the deceptions of the Delusional Self if it ever wants to live a life that even gets near satisfaction, and the other good things that a good life normally has.

The inner world of every human is like an Enchanted Forest. Everything masquerades as something else… shape shifters, magical animals, imagined dangers… oh my.

This is probably one of the reason Einstein said that if you want your children to be intelligent, you have to let them read plenty of fairy tales… all revealing some of the Enchanted Forest and the way out of it.

For example, if your natural self is a dummy, naive, unsuspecting, then your life will be lived out without any chance for happiness.

I was like that… naive, thinking the best of others, accommodating.

The problem is not so much what you do with other humans… but because how you do anything is how you do everything, the attitude you bring to other people is, has to be the same as what you bring to your inner world… and we know that you are the innocent Little red riding hood, or the gingerbread man, or the frog that swims the scorpion to the other shore.

The “job”, the work, of the natural self is to ignore the machinations of the Delusional Self, ignore its loud or whispering or seductive siren song, and stay the course. Interact with reality the way reality is… and curtail the moves of the Delusional Self that wants to tell it that reality SHOULD BE, or maybe IS different.

The ultimate intention of the Delusional Self, I think, is to get off the hook. To not be responsible for Self… to get things unearned, to avoid domination, to look good without having to do anything for it.

The opposite of what makes anyone happy, fulfilled, or even healthy.

How it came about I don’t claim to know. But it is here, it is everyone, and each individual needs to do the work to get out of the Enchanted Forest.

Why? Because the Enchanted Forest kills the human spirit… while it pretends to foster it.

Because the Enchanted Forest feeds you pictures instead of food. Feeds you sex instead of love. Feeds you money instead of fulfillment and a sense of doing things that are right.

Because making the Enchanted Forest more comfortable, which all the gurus and writers do, is the death of humanity.

I heard this sentence in a movie yesterday:

“Our job is meaningless if all we can do is breathe quietly as if we’re dead”

Yeah, that’s why.

Is one student enough? Yes, if he is the first person who proves that the methodology of getting out of the Enchanted Forest is effective and gets you out.

I got out of the Enchanted Forest. But never really documented it… and it took me three decades.

Some weak attempts are documented by Jon Westenberg on his blog… worth reading. Just know that he is tweaking the Enchanted Forest, isn’t even trying to get out.

OH, one more thing: a question: Can you see how deep and how treacherous is YOUR Enchanted Forest in your Starting Point Measurements? Yes, you can. Or yes, I can see it… lol.

Can you also tell your chances of getting out of it, if you actually put in the work? Yes, I can see it.

Then why, oh why did you take students that won’t do the work? Because I am planting a tree under which I will never sit. My hope is that my methodology will survive me, will be dug up by someone, and used… or not.

But every idea is here to stay…

I have no hopes to be the “mother” or “grandmother” of new humanity… with the handful of students I have… lol.

But… you ask stammeringly, how can you be happy with just a handful of students? Your question comes from the Enchanted Forest of your own.

Reality is what reality is. Some 20 years ago I had a party, but it snowed. One person showed up. A coach of mine suggested that I stop worrying about the people who didn’t come, and start loving the one who came.

I have been able to live like that, and that was, I say, the first step I took to walk out of the Enchanted Forest.

Read the original article: The Enchanted Forest, Fairy Tales, and how to start living like a person