interview

WIE: I'd like to begin by asking how you would define "self-mastery."

Jean Houston: I would never use the word "mastery"! I thought I'd tell you that right away. Maybe that's a feminine point of view—I can talk about an orchestration and a balance of capacities, but I don't think I'd ever use the word "mastery." To me, it smacks of galloping chutzpah! I just don't think self-mastery exists. How's that for a beginning?

I think the nearest that we can come to talking about self-mastery is to talk about the nature of essence; and when we touch into essence, latent abilities and skills suddenly jump into life.

WIE: How would you define "enlightenment" then?

JH: I think enlightenment exceeds definition because it is so experiential; the mystics say it's unexplainable. But if I can speak about it as a process, I can get closer. I'd say it's an extraordinary effort of reweaving the self in body, mind and spirit that can be accomplished by a depth of loving, by a giving over of the local self to the godstuff. It is the honing of one's inner and outer perceptions so one is able to see, hear, touch, taste, feel and intuit the immensity of what is really there. The veils of the self are lifted.

WIE: Exponents of self-mastery and enlightenment each tend to see their approach as leading to the realization of our full human potential. Yet closer examination reveals these two approaches to be radically different. The highly accomplished individuals who we have come to call the "Self Masters" express what could be described as an "I Can" spirit. They are individuals who have made enormous effort to break through seemingly unbreakable barriers, and who exude a powerful confidence that comes from their fundamental knowing that "I can do it!" Jack LaLanne would be a good example of someone who embodies this "I Can" spirit. On the other hand, enlightenment is described by the great traditions as a fundamental groundedness in what is referred to as "Being" itself, or "I Am." Would you say that the "I Can" and the "I Am" are basically antithetical modes of transformation?

JH: Well, not from the perspective of God. You see, you can get extraordinary confidence from being "in the flow" in great sporting moments. For example, when I was fourteen or fifteen I was a very serious fencer. I really loved it and I was pretty good. Once, in New York, I was in a round-robin—where you keep competing until you lose—and what happened to me was fascinating. There were men and women, and we were fencing with foils. All the fencers were much older than I was, and they were some of the city's best. Well, as I began to fence I suddenly found that I was in "the zone"! No longer just a pretty good fencer, I had tapped into the essence of fencing. I was the sport! Anticipating all moves, seeing all opportunities, I couldn't tire. Endless waves of energy filled me. There was no possibility of beating me. One after another, twenty opponents came up and were defeated. And there I was, "Quarte, sixte, paré, et là! Strike to the heart!" On and on it went—my essence and the essence of the sport in a rapturous union of movement and spirit. That kind of gallant élan filled me. I was all the great fencers who ever were, Scaramouche, Cyrano de Bergerac. I felt as if their spirits were joining with mine for one last great bout, until after six hours of continuous fencing, the match was stopped and I was declared the winner. How did this happen?!

Several times in my life I've been in that state, and it's not a state of "I Can," I assure you. It is as if your essence joins the essence of the action itself—almost like you tune into the god or goddess of the action, the very archetype of it. It's much more complex than saying "I Can" and "I Am."

WIE: When speaking about cultivating our highest human potential, the approach of self-mastery advocates the use of discipline and effort to push ourselves through limitations, while the traditional teachings of enlightenment point to the realization of a condition of effortless "letting go" as the ground for deep and abiding change. What do you see as the fundamental basis for the realization of our full human potential?

JH: We're so different from each other. We're as different as snowflakes. I often say, "We're not flaky, we're snowflakes." Some people are pushers and some people are relaxers-into. That's why, when I teach, I always try to provide a variety of ways into the unfolding and enlisting of capacities. My workshops are filled with music and dance and jokes and enactments and "process" as well as cognitive exercises, because the point is to reach people through whatever form. That's why there are so many different forms of yoga—karma yoga, bhakti yoga, hatha yoga, dhyana yoga, etc. You can't just talk about one particular way.

WIE: I understand, but just to pursue this question a little further, individuals who seem to have achieved an unusual degree of self-mastery often claim that through the consistent development of greater and greater control over our bodies, thoughts and feelings, it is possible to discover a deep sense of fulfillment and a profound experience of inner freedom. Enlightenment teachings, on the other hand, generally state that it's only through a complete giving up of control, a submission to "Thy will" rather than "my will," that we can experience true spiritual freedom. What is your view of these two different approaches to inner freedom?

JH: I would never use the word "control" here. I just don't think it can be achieved! I would say instead a kind of "genial orchestration." And you've also got to realize that you're talking about the difference between the muscular West and the more relaxed East. Our Calvinistic theology is: Try! Try! "I will labor in the vineyard of the Lord to know if I'm worthy or not," or, "Am I among the 144,000 elect? I can only prove it by trying harder and harder." It's a cultural lensing. Look at the stories that make up our culture's mythic structures: Horatio Alger. Sail over the sea! Cut down the forest! Build! Push! Those are the words of a frontier psychology. And a frontier psychology will manifest especially in religious or spiritual experience as: Keep pushing, keep trying. Whereas the other is surrender: Surrender into love, surrender into being. The great mystics say, "My God, my Love, Thou art all mine and I am all Thine!" They talk about the intensity of loving; theirs is a culture of love. You see, the union with the Beloved is a different perspective.

What happens in either case is an alchemy, no question. It is an alchemy in which the human being attempts to become what he or she truly is, and in which they perhaps experience and express the greater life for which we have all been coded. You see, I believe that we've all been deeply coded for a much larger life. And I believe that what we're calling "enlightenment" is coded in us as part of our inheritance. For different people from different parts of the world, there are certain patterns of journeys and stages of unfolding—not unlike the unfolding of the coding of the DNA structures in the genes.

My problem with those who will themselves to a certain end is that they lose access to the coding, and then they only gain the culture's notion of what is good and best and bright and beautiful. You just have to look at Vanity Fair or Vogue magazine to see what I'm talking about. I think our potential is much richer than that, and I think that the Easterners have a deeper and more subtle and perhaps even a truer grasp of it.

WIE: You said you would never use the term "self-mastery," and that maybe that's a feminine point of view. It might intrigue you to know that it was very difficult finding women to interview for this issue of WIE, apparently because women don't tend to speak about their achievements in the same way that men do. For example, Susan Powter wouldn't go near the term "self-mastery" either. In spite of the fact that she expresses many of the qualities of self-mastery in her own life, she felt strongly that "mastery" represents a patriarchal view, and she insisted that we speak about this subject only in terms of natural processes and other more "feminine" concepts. Why do you object to the term "mastery," and why do you think women in general object to both the word and the concept?

JH: I think "mastery" offends the senses of anybody who has a real ecological sense of the world. Sir Frances Bacon talked about extending the empire of man over things, and we see where that has brought us—our so-called mastery has resulted in so much destruction. So I think that's why. Mastery just reflects such a narrow bandwidth. It is like making a slave of the self and then mastering your inner slave. In this country with its horrendous history of slavery—with its "Ho Massah! Yessah Massah!"—the word has fearful connotations. In addition to that, there is the sense that you are mastering the self. Who is to say that the self doesn't have its own agenda, which may be much larger than one's own ego's view of what that agenda should be?

WIE: In the course of our research for this issue, we looked at many individuals who expressed the unusual qualities of self-mastery: control, discipline, perseverance in the face of obstacles, going beyond limitations and deep confidence and positivity. We read about some extraordinary women, including Billie Jean King, Jackie Joyner-Kersee, Jan Reynolds, who skied Mt. Everest, and Ann Bancroft, the first woman to go to the North and South Poles. To our surprise, we found that even these outstanding individuals didn't describe their accomplishments with the degree of confidence and pride they undeniably warranted. In fact, King and Bancroft, in spite of their achievements, slipped into depression, disillusionment and despair. They didn't sustain the same positive outlook on life—

JH: The way the men did.

WIE: Yes! We were intrigued by this, and we spoke with Beverly Slade, a psychologist who has studied the way women relate to excellence. She had some very interesting things to say. One of her primary conclusions is that women don't want to speak about their own abilities because it's socially unacceptable for them to do so; and if they do, they risk losing their relationships—the friendship, support, protection, and affirmation of men and of women. It's acceptable in our culture for women to stand out if they are nurturers, like Mother Teresa, but women risk censure if they speak with confidence about their attainments, about their cultivation of self-mastery. What do you think about her conclusions?

JH: I think that is partially true, but I think there is a deeper story to it. The deeper story is that women are devoted to process rather than product. I think the underlying reason is that women are devoted to making things grow—so you do something and then it's time to move on and do the next thing.

WIE: What do you mean by being "devoted to process"?

JH: Well, to be devoted to process is to really look at each stage as it unfolds, to see how the things cohere, develop, grow. The way or the path is what is important—it is the ways and the means; it is not the end. If you're watching little children grow, if you're taking care of things in process, then that's what's important and you get on with it.

WIE: From all I've heard about your teaching work, you really give everything you possibly can to what you are doing—you go all out. It doesn't seem to be just about process. It isn't only that you enjoy the preparation for one of your talks, for example, but that you give everything to make it exceptional. This is one of the qualities that we've found in self-mastery—giving everything, going for broke.

JH: To me that is not a mastery of the self. That is merely an orchestration of many qualities that I have developed over many years. It is my self in its efflorescence, you see, the fullness of my being. A fuller use. I even hate the word "use"; I would say—"fuller unfolding" or "being in the service of something that it seems very important to do."

WIE: What do you think it is in you that drives you to go all the way when other people would settle for giving less than everything?

JH: Well, it is not ambition. I'll tell you what it is—it's a sense of time, of history, and a sense of urgency; knowing that we could lose it all. These are the times and they're so critical. I figure I have maybe thirty or thirty-five good years left of my life. And I would hope in that time to continue to be able to do something to be of service to the planet, to people.

WIE: What do you think about the message of individuals like Anthony Robbins, who teach that the force of transformative change is materialized through taking action, that we control our own destiny through the decisions that we make? Or Jack LaLanne, who says he doesn't know anything about grace, and asserts that "God helps those who help themselves"? Or Dan Millman, former world-class gymnast and author of books about human transformation, who endorses as a way to live the popular slogan "Just do it!"?

JH: That's a very Western point of view!

WIE: The enlightenment teachings, on the other hand, point to surrender as the way to transformation. Would you say that genuine evolution is achieved through our own efforts, as these extraordinary individuals suggest, or is it found through naturally surrendering to that process of "unfolding," as you have described it?

JH: Well, my point of view is that it is both plus much, much more—it's not one or the other. As I said earlier, people are very different in the ways that they approach this. To be able to give a cogent answer, not only would I have to study these people's work, but I would also have to look at long-term results in people's lives. And I mean long-term results, not just people saying "I had a wonderful time at the seminar," because that's easy to get. We live in a testimonial world. To me the proof of the pudding is: are they kinder? Like the Dalai Lama says, "My religion is kindness." Also, what is the service to the world that people are giving? Are they trying to make a difference and make this a better world? I feel that it really comes down to that.