I talked about the resistance created by the force of ego, towards your life-stream, in this post – dissolving the resistance of ego.
The ego is obviously not very interested in all the talk about its dissolution and mostly just wants to skip such understandings. It’s more interested in its sustenance than its dissolution. However, the force of ego is what fuels all the negativities in the brain, so it’s the root cause of all resistance and suffering.
The ego wants to feel whole (happy) all the time but its very foundation is based in lack and hence it cannot ever feel happy for long. In fact, the way ego defines happiness itself is a based in a sense of lack where it associates happiness purely with acquiring something/someone.
That’s not what happiness is, it’s not a gift that you get by acquiring something, happiness is the very vibration of your being – it’s not something you achieve, it’s something which you are. It’s the force of ego that prevents you from touching base with your natural vibration of wholeness.
It’s not about getting rid of the ego, altogether, it’s about deconstructing its “pull” or force, so that it does not have a disturbing influence on your being. The ego structure is necessary for physical purposes, and has a practical value in the brain, and it will always be there.
What’s required is to dissolve its force in you so that you are not a prisoner to the ego. Are you aware enough to realize that the ego is never going to be happy for long? Are you still holding onto some deluded imagination that one day you will attract some desired reality that will make the ego happy forever? If so, it just means you’ve not seen physical reality clearly enough, and rest assured, as awareness grows, you soon will.
Ego is based in lack
The ego structure of the brain is created through “addition” of identities, life-story, memories, achievements, possessions and beliefs. Since the ego is always trying to add to itself, it never feels complete – it never feels stable, it’s always changing, sometimes it feels diminished, sometimes it feels exalted, sometimes it feels important, sometimes it feels worthless, sometimes it feels like a winner, sometimes it feels like a loser. Hence, intrinsically, the ego is unhappy most of the time, and even its happiness is just unhappiness waiting to happen – have you noticed how your ego’s excitement turns into depression given sometime? People who live purely identified with the ego are extremely unstable, unpredictable, shallow, moody and agitated. Also, since the ego is a lack-based construct, and if you are totally identified with it, you naturally attract a lack based reality all the time.
You basically have two options in the way you live your life
1. You can live a life dedicated to constantly making the ego structure feel good, suffering every time the ego feels bad and being afraid of life because the ego feels so vulnerable
2. You can let go of the ego, and live freely in the flow of your life-stream, living your natural expression
Any reasonable person would take the second choice. When I say let go of the ego, I don’t mean “get rid” of the ego, I just mean let go of fueling it. Let the brain have its ego structure, you don’t have to be lost in identification with it, just let it be and it won’t have any negative influence on your being. How long does it take to realize the dysfunction of living identified with the ego? For someone who develops a strong awareness, it just takes a couple of weeks to see through this dysfunctional way of living. However, people with a low level of awareness have no choice but to live identified with the ego because there is no space within them to “watch” its dysfunctional movement.
The ego has a way of attaching itself to everything, including the inherent desires that arise in you as your natural expression. It attaches itself to these desires and starts feeling impatient and lackful about not having them already. It starts craving and feeling needy of the desired reality, and starts living in a delusion that it will feel whole only when the desired reality manifests. This very thinking becomes a huge resistance to allowing the manifestation of the desired reality, and hence increases the sense of lack in the ego, which just makes it more needy and desperate. It’s a cycle of lack and neediness that starts perpetuating, attracting highly incongruent and negative realities instead of allowing the desired reality that was the natural expression of this physical expression that you are.
Life helps deconstruct the ego
Your life is your greatest teacher, if you allow it to teach you. If you are a good student you will learn easily what life is teaching you, but if you are a hard-headed student you will keep repeating your mistakes without any growth or learning. To be a good student of life, you need to have some awareness, so that you can observe what’s happening in you and around you. It’s easy to see that the ego does not really fit in with life’s vibration, the ego has a vibration of lack/negativity whereas life has a vibration of wholeness/joy. So the vibration of ego does not match the vibration of life, and hence they are always at odds – however, which do you think is the bigger force? If you support the force of ego, you can get opposed to pull of life, and it’s not the long before you start feeling the suffering of this disconnection.
You will notice that when the ego has a strong hold in you, you keep attracting life situations that help the deconstruction of the ego (scientifically, the explanation for this happening is that the vibration of ego is based in lack and hence it attracts realities of lack which directly causes suffering to the ego and hence help its deconstruction). If you stop fueling it (or repairing it), the force of ego will get deconstructed quite easily. But if you constantly keep trying to repair the ego up, by making it feel good through some temporary relief mechanisms like entertainment, chemicals (alcohol or drugs), distractions of different forms or even “forced” positive thinking, you just keep giving fuel to the momentum of the ego thus never allowing it to dissolve. Of course, the ego feels angry when you don’t try to repair it – just let it be angry, let it have its crying bout, and it will soon ebb away in force. If you keep pampering it, every time it throws a tantrum, you will be a prisoner to it, and it will stand in resistance to your natural expression, sometimes for a lifetime.
99% of your suffering is psychological, and it’s purely created by the force of your ego. It’s your choice if you want to continue fueling this source suffering, or if you are willing to let it dissolve. When the ego loses its hold on your being, you feel free, you are no longer living in a prison of the ego’s fears and insecurities. All it takes is for you to let the ego dissolve in force by not trying to repair it, allow its force to keep getting deconstructed until it no longer has a pull on your being. You will realize your wholeness, your true vibration, when you are no longer lost in the narrow pull of the ego.
Outstanding. As usual. Thank you for this.
I’m suffering now. How do I dissolve the ego?
Kat, instead of resisting the suffering if you stay in a space of openness allowing the thoughts and feelings to come up, allowing the energy of suffering, you will sense the peace in the background. The ego stands in resistance to allowing the feelings of suffering, and its resistance builds up more negativity. When you simply let go, and open up to allowing the suffering that’s arising in you, the intensity will start dissolving and you will sense a space in your being.
So why do we even “have” an ego. I mean I understand that it is there for the survival of our physicality – but why do we lose this awareness in the first place? And why is our physical existence manifested in such a way that even requires an ego – if all it does is create suffering?? My brain/ego constantly wants to know why? haha so forgive me for all the questions 🙂
Jenny, life is already experiencing the no-ego state of living in the form of plants and the vegetation per se. Plants have no ego, but they are alive. The intent of life in creating humans, or other living organisms, is to experience life using the lens of the “mind” or brain, to experience an egoic vision or the vision of individuality (to experience this form of physical, it created a brain which has a “self-awareness” which is what creates the ego-structure or the “me” thought). If you ask “why” does the life want to experience physical existence through the lens of ego, it’s like asking why can’t life just manifest as plants, rivers and mountains – the answer is always the same “for the experience of it”. Life is eternal, it’s invincible, it’s all there is, it’s a space of energy and it’s never harmed in any way – it has the independence to take forms and dissolve and take new forms – there is no ending, there is inherent destination, it’s just eternal, if you think about it from life’s perspective, when you are so invincible wouldn’t you love to indulge in all types of experiences (because nothing physical is permanent, and life energy ultimately is unharmed because nothing can change it, it’s natural vibration always remains as joy, it has no loss). From life’s perspective physical reality is just a play, it’s not serious, it’s not trying to achieve something other than express/experience itself in various forms. A suffering ego would definitely feel angry with life saying that it’s all unfair, that it’s being made a guinea pig for life’s entertainment, but that’s purely because the ego looks at itself as being separate from life, when in truth there is no separation – there is only life, there is not “an ego” and “a life”, there is only life, ego is just a thought structure in the brain, nothing more.
If the ego can handle this, the truth is that life requires some suffering to know itself – light cannot know itself without dark. If light was all there is, how would you know what light is? It’s only through the contrast of dark do you identify/appreciate the light. And physical body, with a brain, always has some “resistance”, which is what makes it physical, if there was no resistance you would be non-physical immediately. Non-physical has no resistance, but physical is always at a lower-vibration than the non-physical because it needs to be “condensed” to be physical. It’s important to understand and appreciate the value that physicality serves from the perspective of life. You wouldn’t know what love/joy is if you did not know what fear is, and for life to experience fear it needs a “brain” that has the capacity to have an egoic fear-based perspective (where it’s looking out for its survival). If you think along these lines, you will have a clearer perspective on life.
When you are unconscious suffering is inevitable, but being unconscious is part of the growing process – it’s a phase everyone needs to go through because only when you’ve been unconscious can you truly appreciate the power of being conscious of yourself. To say that you just want to be born “conscious”, without any loss of awareness of your truth as life-energy, is to say that you just don’t want to see the unconscious perspective and always want to stay with your perspective of wholeness alone. It’s the unconscious perspective that helps you appreciate the perspective wholeness, you really can’t appreciate love without knowing what hatred is, you can’t appreciate wholeness without knowing suffering. This is a play of life, it’s eternal and it has no problem enjoying this play of self-realization, to lose itself only to find itself and enjoy the experience of this self-discovery. If the ego feels angry with life, it’s just because it’s not able to see reality from the absolute perspective of life, it’s only trying to think from a narrow perspective, basically awakening/enlightenment is to go beyond narrow perspectives.
Dear sen
Recently, I have an experience of planning to go camping at a national park alone. I made all the preparation (research, buying equipment, etc) and it was made joyfully and effortlessly. However, when I almost done with the preparation, I suddenly lost that joyfulness and effortlessness. Instead, it was replaced by “don’t feel like going” feeling. Now I have two choices. 1. Push myself to go no matter what but I have to make effort and it will not be joyful. 2. Just quit the whole thing together and move on.
The real issue is not just camping trip but I see this pattern in my life all the time. And now, I am confused about what effort and effortless means. In order to overcome whatever feeling the mind generated, I have to make effort but to make effort is be against the pull my life stream and I probably won’t enjoy the experience that requires effort. Would you help me clarify my confusion? Thanks.
Kenshin
Kenshin, true clear-mindedness only comes when your awareness is connected with its depth (with the space of inner being) rather than just being lost in the ego’s/brain’s perspective (the ego can have several deluded ideas about reality, and have no real understanding of the simplicity or ordinariness of life), you cannot be in alignment with your inner guidance when you are only focused on the ego’s vision, because the ego/brain’s vision is always limited. When ego’s perspective is all that’s available to you, you always feel volatile in your being, because the ego is unstable, it totally moves with the moods of the brain (ego is the brain’s “me”, so the brain’s moods dictate your ego perspectives). When the brain is in a good mood it makes some decisions and gets started on some projects, and then when the brain is in a bad mood (in a few hours or a few days) it chucks all its previous decisions/projects, and starts loathing them – if the brain’s perspective is all you have, you become a highly unpredictable, volatile and restless person. When your awareness is totally identified with the ego’s perspective, you have no space of real wisdom, and you simply follow through on some narrow ideas that the ego generates usually from its lack-based vibration.
Another way of living is when your awareness is not totally lost in the brain/ego but has a connection beyond it with the space of life, or what’s sometimes called “inner being” or your inner space. In this state of being, you are always moving from a place of inner guidance, and hence you don’t find yourself indulging in a lot of volatile projects, you don’t get into activities as a means of distraction, for the sake of running away from facing some fears or running away from challenges, neither do you indulge in some project with some “extra-ordinary” or deluded ideas about the results. There is always a sense of wholeness within you, and you are in touch with the ordinariness of life, you lose your sense of drama, your sense of over-excitement and all your deluded thoughts about life come to an end. This is a very stable place of existence, you are not restless, you are always connected with an inner wisdom/instinct and moving from a place of deeper inspiration coming from wholeness rather than just a narrow personal vision of the ego. The domain of ego is always volatile, because it fluctuates with the moods of the brain. In the absence of a connection with the space of awareness beyond the mind, you will feel yourself being pulled around by the vacillating moods/emotions/thoughts of the mind.
Hi Sen, my goal is to attract my romantic soulmate into my life. Are you saying to allow this to happen I should just allow thoughts of my soulmate not being here yet or thoughts of my exes pass when they enter my mind? I try to let the thoughts pass with no interest in them, sometimes I am successful in doing this and others I’m unsuccessful. Sometimes when I catch myself dwelling on an ex or my lack of a soulmate I replace this with a positive thought and try to imagine how it will feel when my soulmate is here. My problem is the times I don’t catch myself in time. Please advise me regarding this.
Before you attract a relationship that’s compatible with you, it’s important that you first become fully aligned with yourself. The mind naturally feels the desire for a relationship, but when you are totally identified with the mind’s perspective, you start feeling a sense of lack in your life at the present moment – it’s not just a thought of lack, rather it’s just a feeling of lack, and inner-emptiness. This emptiness is not because you don’t have a partner, this emptiness is because you are totally identified with the mind’s lack. The mind will always feel lackful in some way, at all points, even when you have found your ideal partner, your mind will continue to have other desires and hence will feel a lack, this is the domain of the mind, and it’s always going to be this way. The question is are you totally identified with the mind, or do you have a space beyond the mind? If you are totally identified with the mind, you will take in its lackful vibration and thus end up attracting some form of lackful reality, on the other hand if you have access to a space of peace/wholeness (the space of your being outside the mind), you stay in a vibration of wholeness and thus attract a reality that reflects this wholeness.
If you are wondering how to get to this space beyond the mind, it’s quite simple, just allow yourself to not “hold on”, or be anchored, in the mind, and just let go – what I call open awareness or relaxed awareness, where you are just resting in the space of your being rather than being pulled around by the mind. The more you stay in this place of openness, the more whole you feel in your being, which automatically attracts a positive reality onto you.
Kenshin I have a similar experience to yours, some 3 years ago. I made all the preparations to go backpacking alone thru europe, the preparation was done in a state of something fun and looking forward to. But in the end i didnot go, coz i lost that momentum. I always had an underlying thread of how nice it would be to share the backpacking trip so in reality was lot looking forward to it alone. And the other underlying thought was, what if i didnot like the experience of being alone and feeling lonely. The preparation stage didnot require me to face these two underlying themes in the mind and i enjoyed it but ultimately when push came to shove, i gave in and didnot go. I donot know if being fully aware of the fears and accepting the current reality of backpacking alone would have led to an outcome of backpack trip happening and would have been a natural flow of life. Or giving in to loss of momentum and not going was indeed the natural flow. Eitherways i am waiting for Sen to answer your question so i can some light on my own past situation.
chetana
Sen, I know you stated that I need to get to this space beyond the mind. You stated that i do this by just resting in the space of my being rather than being pulled around by the mind. Can you expand further on how to do this? Should I keep practicing being aware of my thoughts and let them pass without placing interest or attention in them?
Angel,
Here’s an article on the Practice of Relaxed Awareness on this blog at http://www.calmdownmind.com/the-practice-of-relaxed-awareness/. I myself have been going through somewhat of a similar situation regarding relationships. I can’t guide you but if you want to bounce off some of your thoughts let me know. Good luck.
The practice of staying as open awareness allowing the thoughts and emotions to have a free movement allows you to gain stability in the space of your being. For a while you can follow this practice to get a sense of this space of awareness.
To be clear I understand, you are saying when I have negative thoughts regarding being with my soulmate or anything else I should be aware of these thoughts and question why I am having the negative thought in the first place?
The reason I use the term “negative” and “positive”, is to just give you a pointer towards the vibration of the thoughts. Some thoughts have a low vibration based on fear or hatred, which other thoughts have a high vibration based on joy. If you try to cling to the high vibration thoughts (positive thoughts) which trying to run away from the negative thoughts, or when you keep trying to get rid of the negative thoughts by trying to replace them with positive thoughts, you are basically not “free” in anyway because you are indirectly being threatened by the presence of negative thoughts in the mind – in that sense, you feel like a prisoner/hostage of the mind, and it can make you feel bad at anytime by producing negative thoughts. If you want true freedom, you need to allow the positive thoughts and the negative thoughts of the mind in all its fullness – just stay as a space of awareness and allow the mind to have its positive thoughts and its negative thoughts. In the same way, stay as awareness and allow your body to have the low feelings and the high feelings, don’t try to suppress the low feelings when they arise. Don’t try to question or suppress the negative thoughts when they arise, just let them be, and stay as open awareness. Soon you will come to a point where you feel free of the mind’s movements, they don’t affect the vibration of your being anymore – this is a place what I call “inner wholeness”, from where you can truly attract positive realities.
Hi Sen,
I enjoy reading all your articles, I think they are truly awakening.
They can literately change peoples lives for good.
But I was hoping you will give us more detail on HOW to achive this state of Awareness or Conscienceness besides talking about the importance of it. What I experienced after reading your articles
was if stay Aware of my own mind, I would have no detailed thoughts go through my mind, as if I am blocking all thoughts
altogether, thoughts would enter but bounce away immediately.
I often find myself fueling negative thoughts and stirring up awful emotions that lead to impulsive actions. Please share some techniques of HOW to achieve this state of Awareness. Thank You.
Deliang, the fact that you are aware of the negativity in the mind means that you have a space of awareness in you. The way you allow this awareness to grow in power is by continuing to observe the mind purely as a space of awareness – watch the mind the way you watch a movie. This watcher is pure awareness. It takes time for awareness to become stable and strong, but as you continue practicing watching the mind, you will keep growing in awareness. This is not a technique, it’s just a natural phase of becoming aware of the mind, rather than being lost in it. As this awareness becomes stronger, a deep field of wisdom starts operating in your life automatically, because this space of awareness, which is free of the pull of the mind, connects you with your life-stream’s intelligence and guidance.
Deliang, you have identified the problem guru’s and humans have struggled with for centuries: How to achieve this state of awareness.
In reality few people will reach ever reach this state, because to do so, you must relinquish the ego’s control over your consciousness, and the “you” who must let go is totally identified with the ego. In other words, you’ll have to allow who you think you are (the ego) to die, and unfortunately, the ego’s purpose is to enure survival and fears death at all costs.
Fortunately, who you truly are is not your ego. My advice, stop “holding on” to who you “think” you are (ego) and you will automatically float up to who you truly are (being). If you can stop holding, that is let go, for even 1 breath is a good start!
To sen. Thanks a lot for all the teachings. You are great. I understand everything you say but then my mind wants me to make sense of it all and i fall back into the low level vibration type of thinking. Is it possible to live with no mental effort? It almost feels like that is what i am trying to achieve. I also find that the only time i feel as if i am releasing mental effort is when i Am in an argument or Planning out a best or worst case scenario of a future or past event.
Well i really dont know where to begin but one minute i am living and being and the next i am in my head getting pulled down by this crazy force. Its a force i cant seem to let go of or get to let go of me. Is the force my ego or is it my ego that is fighting this force?? Its a part of me in my mind that hates certain things or people and i dont know why? Its a part of my mind that is always worried , fearful, and jealous. What is it and how did it get here? SOme moments i am fine and not focused on this feeling/emotion and at other times i am completely glued to it. I know fear is good at times and serves as a defence and survival tool, but it has made its way into my mind and i know it does not belong there. I am now addicted to trying to get it out of my mind and its a terrible cycle. There are times when completely let go of mental effort and whatever it is i was trying to do just works out with no trouble or resistance, its awesome. So awesome that i am always trying to be in that state but its such a paradox because it was the non trying that got me there.
John, I ve talked about the three forces of resistance in this post – The ego-force, brain momentum and emotional accumulation – the journey of inner freedom is developing the space of freedom from these forces until they lose their “pull” on your being, once you do find inner freedom you can then freely express from your balanced-ego, brain and heart. Some posts you can read for more insights on finding inner freedom are as below
http://www.calmdownmind.com/the-basis-of-inner-freedom/
http://www.calmdownmind.com/reaching-a-place-of-total-allowing/
http://www.calmdownmind.com/faq-on-the-state-of-allowing/
http://www.calmdownmind.com/healing-the-imbalance/
Hi Sen,
I’m grateful to read your articles. I am trying the “state of total allowing” just for the past 2 days. Your great words/simple techniques to calm mind reminded me of the highest level of philosophy in Hindu religion to eliminate “Vasanas”/Karma. It is really working for me and I feel great. Thanks, Uma