I was watching a presentation by Joe Vitale and Ihaleakala Hew Len on their concept of “Zero Limits” and it had me irritated.
They wrote a book on the concept, titled Zero Limits. The idea is this: that at the core of all of us is the divine (call it God, the Universe, or whatever you’re comfortable with). Everything else – our bodies, our thoughts, our fears – these are layers on top of this divine core.
It’s a bit like a chocolate truffle – there’s the soft core, the divinity inside of there, and surrounding it is a thicker, protective layer of harder chocolate.
Their point is this: to live a truly good life, you must be in contact with your core at all times, by erasing away the layer after layer that we’ve added on throughout our lives.
In their view, the divinity, or “zero” – a state of no fear, no worry, and no “information” is where it’s at. You live a pure life of inspiration and action in line with the Divinity.
I agree with them, to a point. Their concept of Zero is very similar to my Stage II of the Creative Pipeline, where Intuition and Inspiration comes from.
In order to have that intuition and inspiration flowing for you, you must have clarity. Clarity means letting go of the memories, worries, and all that over stuff that comes from Stages III and IV of the pipeline.
When you get tapped into this, it becomes almost miraculous in how easily good things (and more importantly, fun things) happen. You quickly achieve the things you want to achieve in life, and most importantly, you enjoy the process of achieving it!
But they are oversimplifying
The presentation I watched was filmed in front of a live audience. The audience had a ton of questions about this concept of Zero.
When someone asked a question, it was always answered with some variant of this:
“Your question is ‘data,’ you must not question, just let go of the data and get back to Zero, where all is good.”
Every. Single. Time.
Have you ever had one of those slivers in your foot or hand that’s so small you can’t see it, but every time you push on it, it hurts?
That’s the kind of irritation that was growing in me as I saw them answer one after another person with this same answer.
Of course, Dr. Hew Len would say that I need to “clean and to clear” on this irritation, but I don’t think so.
Instead, I was inspired to write about their wrongness on this particular point, rather than to just “clean and clear.” Writing about it is way more fun.
So, back to my reaction. As I watched, I kept thinking to myself: then if all it is, is going to Zero at all times, why not just kill myself?
That will take me back to Zero far more quickly than all of this “clearing” stuff will. If I truly want to be zero, without any data or information, then why be in this world at all?
And that is where me and Dr’s Vitale and Hew Len diverge, massively
Their concept of Zero is quite useful. But… their idea of why you must get to Zero is very different than mine.
From several comments he made, Dr. Hew Len’s idea seems to come from a place similar to that of many religions over the ages.
It’s a place that says this: we are all sinners. We are all impure. We have taken the purity of “the Divinity” and muddied the waters with our impure filth, our dirt. To become pure again, we must get rid of all the dirt and the filth.
So: we are here on the planet to prove ourselves, as a test of worthiness, to see whether we can get rid of our dirt (or not, in which case we’ll have to come back again…!)
I don’t agree with that. It is a jaded and cynical view that comes from many religions over the ages that have seen humans and our purpose here on this planet in a very negative light.
We aren’t here to “prove ourselves” or to “right some wrongs from a past life” or any such nonsense!
Instead, we are here to enjoy, to experience, and to create!
We have brains and bodies for a reason: to use them to their fullest.
We don’t enjoy life when we’re not using this marvelous equipment we are all born with.
When was the last time you saw a truly happy and glowing couch potato? (I’ve never seen one)
So, when Dr. Hew Len kept telling questioners to stop questioning and to start cleaning, I believe he was doing them a disservice.
Questioning is a natural part of using our minds and enjoying our experience here on this planet.
Sometimes our minds get clouded and our pipelines get clogged. That’s when we need to get clarity and “go to Zero.”
There is a time and place for it, but it is just one stage of the Creative Pipeline, and the other stages are equally important to living an engaged and fun life.
It is not the only thing we should be doing, all the time, every day. How gawldamn boring!
This, my friend, is why I developed the Creative Pipeline. There are so many philosophies and perspectives out there about how to live a more fulfilled and successful life – and many of them seem to have nuggets of truth.
Yet most of them ultimately fail, because they only give one little piece of the puzzle, like this “Zero Limits” stuff. It’s like trying to complete a Jigsaw puzzle with only half the pieces. You get awfully confused.
That same thing has happened to many people who are genuinely seeking personal development, and get trapped in these limited systems where they don’t have all the puzzle pieces. It happened to me, for many years.
How To Learn More About The Creative Pipeline, In Order To Get More Out Of Life
I made a series of short, entertaining videos for you that walk you through what the Creative Pipeline is and how you can put it to use right away in your life to get more enjoyment and more of the “stuff” that you want (money, success, whatever…). In the videos, I take you on a road trip to Marin Co. California, to Hawaii, and to give you a big reveal that’s going to blow your socks off (you’ll either love me or hate me for this one, but I doubt you’ll leave it feeling blasé). I also tear down the “working 105 hours per week” lie. Get your videos here.