Spirituality and Self-Promotion

Hi Augie,

Thanks for sending me your article. Please let me know how I can help in any way I can. I have already sent your article, website, and some cd’s onto a few friends, but I would like to know how else I could help. In sharing with one individual I know about your website he was turned off by what he deemed as self-promotion. I have no problems with it all but I would like to hear your thoughts on this matter.

I am so grateful we have crossed paths,

Mark

Dear Mark,

Thanks so much for your kind remarks and offer to help. We can use all the help we can get. As to self-promotion: Yes, there is a certain amount of self-promotion involved. I found out the hard way through many years of trying that ideas don’t sell. All the world’s great religions and movements are associated with a person. I am getting older Mark, and I’ve been at this for over 30 years. I always felt that if I just worked away in obscurity with small groups that it would “catch on” and take off. It never did. I realize that if you want to find a core of people who are as serious about this work as you and I are then you must “screen” through many. Rose said only one in a million people are really “gung ho” for liberation. I realized very late in the game that I needed a one-to-many platform and that I must “put myself out there” personally. So yes, I am trying to promote myself in hopes that I can find the people who can use the knowledge that I know I have to offer. For the record, I have no desire for fame and as for fortune I can get all I want of that through business. I feel that by promoting myself I am setting myself up for a lot of heartache as so many – like your friend – will question my motives. But as you say, everything in life is about marketing. I will market myself as authentically and genuinely as I can. I know that my own heart is in the right place and I’ll do what I can to bring this out in my marketing.

But I must say that I think your friend’s criticism is bogus from the get go. Buddha didn’t live in a cave. He wandered speaking to anyone who would listen. He sold himself and his ideas the best he could. So did Christ. I remember the story Rose loved so much about the students who ran up to the Zen Master, saying “Master, Master! Look, we have caught an enlightened fish. What should we do with him?” “Eat him,” the master said, “What good is an enlightened fish?” I’ve spent too many years in the shadows as an “enlightened fish.” I have only one drive left. I want to help people who want the truth, and while I know a lot of people I don’t have enough real students, ready to do what it takes, to keep me busy teaching. This, in the long run, is the only thing I want from my “ministry.” I don’t want to convert people. I only want to meet more folks like you that “resonate” with me. To do that, I have to touch many.

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