Do not simply believe what
you hear just because you
have heard it for a long time.

Do not follow tradition
blindly merely because it has
been practiced in that way for
many generations.

Do not be quick to listen to
rumors.

Do not comfirm anything just
because it agrees with your
scriptures.

Do not foolishly make
assumptions.

Do not abruptly draw
conclusions by what you see
and hear.

Do not be fooled by outward
appearances.

Do not hold on tightly to any
view or idea just because you
are comfortable with it.

Do not accept as fact
anything that you yourself
find to be logical.

Do not be convinced of
anything out of respect or
deference to your spiritual
teachers.

You should go beyond
opinion and belief. You can
rightly reject anything which
when accepted, practiced,
and perfected leads to more
aversion, more craving and
more delusion. They are not
beneficial and should be avoided.

Conversely, you can rightly
accept anything which when
accepted and practiced leads
to unconditional love,
contentment and wisdom.
These things allow you time
and space to develop a happy
and peaceful mind.

This should be your criteria
on what is and what is not the
truth; on what should be and
what should not be the
spiritual practice.

-From the Kalama Sutta, The Buddha

It seems that addiction, or any self-destructive behavior, starts when we walk out of hearing distance from our own voices. We listen to our parents, our church, or teachers, our TVs and radios, and we are rarely told to listen to ourselves, our souls. Once we are released on our own, we have no idea what to do with ourselves without being told by outside influences. We trip, we fall, we fall again, and again and again, and because of what we are taught early on, we see this as failure. We feel guilt, we hate how the guilt and the "bad" emotions feel, so we ignore them, we try to numb them, we bury them and in doing so bury who we truly are. As so many wise people have pointed out, you cannot have good without bad. It is impossible.

This is not to say that we should not listen or learn from others, rather, we should discover our own set of My People who speak to our souls. It seems that the soul needs constant renewal; from beauty, from struggle, from joy, from trial and error, from wisdom and freedom and wishes color and successes and victories.

If we ignore our soul, we become lemmings, and once we realize that we are being led to the cliff over the sea, it might be too late. Though I am coming to believe that even those lemmings could've said - "whoa. Wait a minute. We're gonna do what now? No thanks. I'll just step to the side and live."