Narcissism – The Cause and a Solution
[00:45] Narcissus
Jai Guru Deva. Thank you for listening to my podcast, The Vedic Worldview. I’m Thom Knoles. Today we’re going to spend a few minutes on the subject of narcissism. I’m frequently asked, how can you spot a narcissist? And with a deeper question, what’s wrong with being a narcissist? What is it that narcissists do that is counterproductive to the interests of social evolution?
This is a larger question, and let’s see if we can touch on the causes of narcissism.
First, let’s go into our Greek mythos and discover something of the origins of the word. Narcissus was a beautiful young human being, a male, who is reputed to have been so in love with his own image that one day, when he saw himself reflected in the mirror-like image of a pond, he stretched out his arms to embrace the image that he loved so much, fell into the pond, and drowned. Narcissus.
The end of Narcissus was his own narcissism—his completely unmitigated love for the way he looked. Now, narcissism has much, as it’s come to be known, as a psychological term and indeed a psychiatric condition. Psychiatry is the medical angle of psychology, the addition of medicine and pathology.
Pathology means a disease state, so psychopathology means a disease state to do with the mind. Narcissism has become a much deeper, a much more subtle and multifaceted term than simply that which we rely upon from the ancient mythos of Greece. Let’s have a look at narcissism.
Any condition of the human needs to be understood as not a black-and-white condition. Somebody who has a particular trait, a series of behaviors that give rise to consequences that are antithetical to social evolution, antithetical to any group of people being able to move forward in an evolutionary fashion in a way that is frictionless.
When there’s a roadblock somewhere in there because somebody’s behaving in a particular way that’s not relevant to the interests of the whole, then we have psychopathology and sociological pathology—disease states—narcissism being one of these.
What is it that could cause narcissism? Well, ultimately, it is a fear of self-examination, true self-examination, which could lead to another deeper fear, which is self-destruction. Whenever we find somebody who is narcissistic, we’re going to find someone who cannot tolerate the notion that they have responsibility for whatever they’re experiencing.
[04:48] Somebody Has Done This to Me
When they are experiencing something that’s difficult, when things don’t go their way, narcissists have a tendency to point the finger at other people around them and then to try to identify that, “The cause of my discomfort, the cause of my frustration, is somebody else. Somebody has done this to me.
“Why? Because I’m not capable of having created a negative experience for myself. Why is that? Well, basically because I am kind of as close as you can get to being perfect. I have ideal qualities that I have to offer to the world, but the world doesn’t seem to really be in any kind of state to accept my ideal qualities.
“I could make more effort, I suppose, but really, if people could simply understand what I am, they’d be making the effort and coming to me and asking my advice about their efforts. I may have quirky traits in the way that I look, but those are the quirky traits that are lovable and that everybody should love.”
No narcissist would ever think that they are not good-looking. If they have unusual looks that are a departure from whatever the current norms are for being “good-looking,” they would refer to such looks as being exotic. “I guess I’m exotic.” A narcissist will review the events of a day and there’ll be certain good things that happened, and of course, those good things happened because, “The world is at my feet, and I really expect more, but some relatively good things happened today.”
[06:49] The Narcissist’s Caveat
And then where bad things happen, it’ll be, “Well, it’s not my fault. I don’t really have a fault. I might have some difficulties that I’m experiencing, but those difficulties were brought about by other people. Other people are the cause of difficulties. Other people and their inability to really understand what I am are the cause of whatever unhappinesses I have had.
“I have had to apologize on occasions. I have had to apologize, but always when I apologize, I’m going to make sure that whomever I’m apologizing to knows that, yes, I did behave badly, but the only reason I behaved badly was because you made me behave badly. And I’m sorry for behaving badly. But I’m even more sorry for the fact that you made me behave badly.”
And so no apology from a narcissist is ever an apology where one takes responsibility. A narcissist’s apology is always an immediate apology followed by a caveat that, “In fact, I wasn’t responsible because somebody else made me do this, and if it hadn’t been for the other person, or the circumstances or the situation, being challenging and negative, I wouldn’t have behaved in the way that I did.
“So I’m kind of sorry, but not really that sorry, because ultimately I wasn’t really the cause of the negative behavior that you saw in me. Anybody who was like me would have behaved the way I behaved if only they could understand as clearly as I understand that it wasn’t my fault and other people are responsible.”
[08:42] One-Upmanship
So when we look at this kind of thing of someone who is a narcissist, they are always going to turn a conversation back to themselves. If you were to say to a narcissist at a party, “Hi, I’m really happy to meet you,” “I’m really happy to meet you too.”
The narcissist may hear someone else going, “And what do you do for a living, what is your occupation?” And the person that the narcissist is witnessing talking is going to say whatever it is they do; they own a tuna fish factory, and they catch fresh tuna and then process it into little bits of tuna and put it inside of cans for everyone to enjoy, including the little kitty cats and the humans who love tuna in their salads.
And the narcissist all the time is quietly thinking inside, “Oh no, oh no, oh no, that sounds better than me.” And if the subject then turns to the narcissist, the narcissist then has to create a story that is one-upping—you’ve heard the word one-upmanship—“I have to go one higher than that.”
Even if they’re unemployed currently—and narcissists frequently are unemployed—they will have to say something about, “I’m in a process right now of rediscovering the philosophy that humanity should be going by.”
“Oh, really? What’s your method? How are you doing that?”
“It’s early stages and I’m not really at liberty to share all of my thoughts and ideas with you because I need to talk to my agent first. But I can feel a book coming,” the narcissist might say.
“Oh, so you’re an author. What have you written?”
“I’m in the process of writing something, which I hope that all of you will be reading very soon, as soon as I can start talking about it.”
“Really, who is your agent?”
“I’m in the process of deciding who my agent is. There are a few candidates that I have in mind.”
“But I thought you said that you were already prohibited from talking to us about your new philosophy that humanity is supposed to be going by.”
“Yes, but you know, now, let’s not get premature here. I know that you’re doing your best to enlighten the world with your tuna fish. I’ll let you know and let me have your email address or contact details and I’ll put you on the list of people who I’ll write to about this.”
[11:30] An Impostor Syndrome
What is it that’s making a narcissist behave in such a bizarre fashion? Someone might say to them, “Oh, I like your shoes,” to the narcissist. The narcissist will say, “Yes, yes. Aren’t they great? These are the greatest shoes. I really, I just adore them.” And the narcissist is almost incapable of reflecting or reciprocating the compliment to the person who complimented them on their clothes or on their shoes, or who complimented them on a particular way they’re doing things.
They don’t actually want to be drawn into complimenting others. If there are compliments going around, they have to turn on the superconducting magnet that will draw all compliments to themselves.
If there’s criticism going on, a narcissist usually will have to get out of the room quick because they don’t want to be examined critically. Critical examination is anathema to a true narcissist, where somebody’s paying too much critical attention to them.
And so why is it, what is it that’s going on? Narcissists are famous for suffering from a syndrome, which I won’t be the first to identify for you, an impostor syndrome.
They usually have some great baseline talents, some great baseline capability. Some great baselines in certain areas, perhaps appearance, perhaps presentation, perhaps the gift of the gab, the ability to speak freely with a certain degree of flow. And then as they begin to accrue natural compliments from the world around them, the narcissist, in their own quiet state, in their moments of solitude, begin to hatch, to develop, to gestate a fear.
And that fear is, “People are going to find out pretty soon that I’m not actually as good as they think I am. People are going to find out pretty soon that, in fact, I’m an impostor, I’m a fake. People are going to find out, it’s only a matter of time, that I’m not actually as good as I’ve agreed that I am, and then there’ll be the great downfall.”
[14:50] An Underlying Feeling of Desperation
The way in which social humanity works is that nobody really wants to be a person who calls out an impostor. And so generally speaking, narcissists will, for longer than is comfortable for them, they’ll “get away with” continuing to present a picture of who they really are, and of what they really are that is not a picture that they themselves quietly inside agree with.
They all share a tendency to have moments of, in solitude, panic about the possibility of being discovered, being called out, of being exposed. An exposé is the deepest fear of every narcissist.
When a narcissist discovers that there was a cascade of hurt, bad behaviors, or other things that may have come from a mistake they made socially, they may have moments of internal self-criticism, but then, rapidly, this can cascade into a very depressed state where, if they examine themselves with too much clarity, if they examine themselves with too much of a critical view, they might begin feeling as though they’re worthless, and they might start entertaining self-destructive thoughts, perhaps even suicidal thoughts.
And that is so completely unacceptable to the narcissist, the fear of being self-destructive, the fear of being self-destructive is going to be, the harbinger of self-destructive thoughts is going to be self-examination, critical self-examination, and to silence those thoughts, to get out of that, they have to rush away from it and go into, “No, no, no, no. I, I’m not that, I’m not that. I am the great. I am, I am the one upon whom everyone is waiting for the very best ideas. I’m the one who’s going to walk into a room and bring light to the room. I’m the life of the party.
I’m not at fault. Who is at fault? Whoever is experiencing hurt from my presence, they must be at fault. It must be them who’s at fault. It can’t be possibly me. And so, they just don’t understand me. They don’t know how to use my presence.”
So, this is the thinking of a narcissist. It is, in fact, driven by an underlying feeling of desperation. There’s no natural, quiet, inner contentedness. There is a desperate need to have all viewers and all listeners agree that they are absolutely the gift of the gods to humanity. And, they can’t keep it up.
[17:40] Reconstructed Life Stories
There are moments, almost always in complete solitude, of desperate self-examination, recovered from by stoking the fires of narcissism even further. Getting the mind away from critical self-examination is very important to a narcissist.
So narcissists are experiencing an unsustainable form of psychopathology, and they can make friends very quickly, typically they can. They know how to turn on the display switch. They go into display mode, click that switch and go into display mode, and really just charm the room and anyone who’s in it.
But so much of it is turned on to, “I, me, and mine.” If anyone in the room happens to say something that is particularly elevating to all the members of the room, the narcissist just can’t help it. They have to dive into the conversation and make things about them. All conversations need to end up being a story told by the narcissist about what they experienced once.
If a great story is told, the narcissist has to jump in there and one-up that story to make that story appear to be, “Substandard compared with the one I’m about to tell you.”
They generally tend, when they’re in display mode, to be a little wild-eyed. Their mind and brain are incredibly creative in coming up with constructions and reconstructions of life story. All negative traits are explained away by the bad behaviors of others and all good is attributable to the fact of their presence.
[19:48] Calming Narcissism Through Vedic Meditation
This is a very thumbnail sketch of narcissism. I know for a fact that I’m leaving out certain things that, if we start going into, we’re going to be talking for hours, and I would prefer for my listeners, if they want to explore the subject of narcissism more, what can be done about it and so on, to address these concerns in question format.
Basically, through the practice of Vedic Meditation, there is a calming effect of narcissism. Let’s remember that narcissism is driven by a self-critique that has to be silenced on a regular basis. Narcissism is driven by a lack of knowledge of what is the true Self. The true Self is that quiet, inner, pure knowingness that doesn’t require speech or thoughts or the approval of others in order to know that “I am Totality.”
The I am Totality, Aham Brahmasmi, as we say in Sanskrit. Aham means I am, Brahmasmi means Totality. This is a natural experience that’s had as a result of the individual mind being transcended. Individual personality, individuality, being transcended and having an experience of the one indivisible whole consciousness field.
It doesn’t have to convince others that it is Totality. It has this on the level of knowingness. And this inner quiet contentedness that is brought about through regular practice of Vedic Meditation is a daily tonic to tone down and quieten down the desperation that is present in narcissism.
We feel sorry for people who are narcissistic because they end up being relatively superficial, and they’ll engage in unhealthy levels of pretentiousness, where, at certain points, they’re going to be self-exposing as being a little bit of a fraud, and it’s embarrassing.
And we hope that narcissists will step out of that desperation to avoid self-critique, that desperation to avoid a critical view of themselves because of their fear of self-destruction, and step into the unbounded pure inner contentedness that can be provided by regular experiences of simply Being. To bring all of the thinking, thinking, thinking, thinking, thinking, to a conclusion, to an end.
When the mind steps beyond all of that useless, constant thinking and experiences that beautiful silence, the silence that’s yielded up by the experience of bliss, the bliss of The Absolute.
[23:21] The Effects of Vedic Meditation on Narcissism
We know that Vedic Meditation is making an impact on a narcissist in a few ways.
One, when the narcissist begins to actually show an interest in what others are experiencing. Narcissists are famous for being anti-empathetic. They have no interest in what it’s like to be somebody else or what somebody else is experiencing. So when they begin to show the capacity to actually enjoy hearing the flow of a story from somebody else, or they show an interest in knowing what someone else is experiencing, rather than having to constantly fill the room with stories about what they are experiencing, then we can see that Vedic Meditation is having an impact on the narcissist.
When the narcissist is able to remain quiet in a social setting and simply be a witness and take an interested witness point of view, rather than always having to have all consciousnesses in a room in orbit around them, in orbit around what they’re experiencing or what they did once, or what their view about the world is, then we can see that Vedic Meditation is having a positive effect on the narcissist.
And so we have great hope for the narcissists of the world, and, as I said earlier, it’s not a black-and-white, off-on thing that you either are a narcissist or you’re not. All of us have a little bit of the narcissist in us, and it is a pathological state because it’s a state that is a product of one having not yet had sufficient experiences of the true nature of the Self, capital S Self, the underlying field of Being. Lack of access to experiences of transcendence—one of the pathologies that comes from this is narcissism.
So we have all hope for the narcissists of the world that, if they learn Vedic Meditation, then naturally they’ll begin to experience the true nature of the Self and stop being so desperate to impress others about how faultless they are.
Jai Guru Deva.
