Uninstalling Ego Programs

2012 August 17

Posted by Steve Beckow

Reader D. Tamick has sent in an interesting idea. Approach the process of letting go of our old baggage as we would uninstalling a computer program. Well, who knows? The process of visualization or imagination involved just might work….

Uninstalling Ego Programs

When I was doing my meditation this morning, I had an interesting idea present itself to me. Lately I’ve had to uninstall several programs on my computer that I no longer need and that were slowing things down. I had the thought that the programs I’ve created to run my life are in that same category – no longer needed and slowing things down. Why don’t I uninstall some of them? So I started. I pictured my computer screen and clicked on the proper boxes. I was amazed at how easy it was (most of the time). As soon as I uninstalled one, another would pop up.

I realized in doing this that these programs are not in fact truth or reality but illusion and, as if I was a small child, I was simply pretending that they’re true so that I can have an adventure. When I was 8 or 10 years old I was not really a pirate or cowboy or Indian but it sure was fun pretending I was. Of course after the game was over, I became a little boy again and had my dinner.

The first one that came up was when I was bemoaning my physical limitations as I do quite a lot. My whole life I’ve hated the limitations that physicality presents. So I brought up the program of “pretending that I live in a state of extreme limitation.”

I clicked the button to start the uninstall; then watched the little graph that showed the progress. When it reached the end, I hit the “done” button. I thanked the program for all the lessons it afforded me and said goodbye to it. Then for good measure, I said I forgive myself for creating this program that caused me to think that I was separate from God. The forgiveness was not a judgment of goodness or badness but simply an acknowledgment of the reality of what I had created and was now uncreating.

Immediately the next program popped up. It was “pretending to be heavy and solid”. This is another program I created but never liked. After I completed the process with this one I felt much lighter. A future uninstall I plan to do is one called “pretending that I can’t fly.”

Then I went on to number 3 and continued on down the list.

3. Pretending that I’m afraid to let go of what is familiar. (This one brought up some fear. My ego tried to tell me that I would be lost if nothing around me was familiar to me. I decided to take the chance.)

4. Pretending that I need to ask “others” for information or to satisfy needs that in truth I can satisfy for myself. (After all I have the same access to the same knowledge that anyone else does.)

5. Pretending to not know who I really am. (I’ve lately had a feeling of desperation about finding out who I really am. I’ve felt I couldn’t do my job here or know where to go next without knowing who I really am. I’ve cried and pleaded (whined) with my guides to tell me who I am to no avail. I finally got it that they’re not going to tell me and that I must do it for myself. That’s part of my journey.)

6. Pretending to still be in 3rd density when I know without a doubt that I am 99% in 5th and am just interacting with the 3rd to complete my mission here. (So why pretend otherwise.)

7. Pretending that I have power over others by being able to do things they can’t do (even in my imagination. This is a big one but took some time to come up due to the subtlety of it. I was thinking that I wanted to be ascended right now. On the one han,d there is only now so that is a truth. However, on further thought, I discovered that I want to be ascended before lots of other people are so I can do things like fly and disappear, etc. that they can’t do. I realized this has to do with my need to feel superior to others for my own protection so they have no power over me and I’ll be safe from them. My ego fought this uninstall to its last dying gasp.)

8. Pretending that I’m separate from God (I struggled to complete this one. I went through the whole William Tell Overture with the storm at sea and thunder and lightening and wind howling and trees blowing over. I let it all play out until finally the dawn broke and the sun rose and the birds began to sing. I started laughing and crying with relief and joy knowing that I don’t have to pretend I’m separate anymore and that God isn’t really mad at me for pretending to be separate from him/her.)

While doing this process I discovered which ones I really didn’t want to let go of. A couple of them I actually felt a bit nauseous and some fear in the pit of my stomach. Some were easy; some not so easy.

After the uninstall meter reached the finished mark on the last one I punched the “done” key. Then I said thank you for all the programs because of all that I had learned from them and said a final goodbye to them all. Then for added measure I forgave myself for pretending to still need them.

I feel so free and joyful. Why didn’t I do this sooner? Maybe I did and I’m just pretending I didn’t. T’is a tricky world we live in. Or maybe I’m just pretending it is.

To Hide and Bluff or Acknowledge

To Hide and Bluff or Acknowledge and Be Done with It?

2012 June 12

Posted by Steve Beckow

As we begin our lightwork, it’s going to be important to be able to cop to and admit our own inadequacies, weaknesses, errors, etc.

As far as I can see, there’s a line and we stand on one side of it or the other. On one side, we feel constitutionally unable to acknowledge when we screw up and, on the other side, we can. The people who can’t acknowledge it often polish their story, bluff their way through, force others to accept their version, etc. Their lives get ever more convoluted and their story just grows and grows.

They may use all the right words and hide what they do from others – for a while. But sooner or later, the house of cards, which just gets bigger, collapses.

The people who can acknowledge their mistakes are constantly completing their perpetrations. Yes, they make errors and act stupidly at times, as I do for instance more than I like to think about, but they’re also able to acknowledge that they’ve acted stupidly, stop their forward motion, and go a better way.

As we begin our lightwork, it’s going to be important, I think, to be able to cop to and admit our fallacies and failures.

I can be a hypocrite. I’ve said things that have harmed others. I have tendencies that can inconvenience others and prove a trial for them. I can be small-minded and mean at times and have many problems that I haven’t yet gotten to the bottom of or on top of.

I think everyone has what we call a shadow side. But the ability to cop to and acknowledge when we indulge it is what provides a way out for us. Not a way out from responsibility. It can’t be used as an escape route. But a way out from going deeper and deeper into darkness. A way of turning ourselves around and walking out of the darkness that we’ve temporarily invited in.

Our vasanas, our habit patterns formed in reaction to traumatic incidents in the past, convince us that we’re doing right. It feels right. A lot of things feel right. Arrogance feels right. Self-righteousness too. So many of the vicious tendencies linger in us because they feel right. Which demonstrates that what feels right isn’t always our best guide.

There’s a voice of conscience that arises somewhat after the feel-right feeling. It’s another design feature of life, like the longing for liberation. The more we rely on it, the sooner it arises and the louder it becomes. It’s that voice of conscience that furnishes us with the best guide, I think, as it’s meant to do.

Those who perpetrate and won’t admit their shadow side are obliged to resort to what I called earlier “howdido” conversations. (1) They rehearse their perpetrations with others over coffee or a meal and polish their stories until they have their version of events just right. And then they’re obliged to keep their stories straight and remember what lines they’ll use, etc. Life lived this way is very burdensome.

But being willing to admit the error of one’s ways cuts through all this image-management activity. As a sage once said, one doesn’t need to remember very much if all one does is tell the truth.

We have to face that, as we begin our lightwork, all our uncompleted issues are going to come up and unless we can acknowledge our own dropped balls, it’s going to be a hard go for us. What did John Enright say? “Unawareness leads to momentary relief and continuing pain; awareness leads to momentary pain and continuing relief.”  (2)

People start wars to hide their own mistakes and perpetrations. They condemn themselves to a lifetime of pain rather than the momentary pain of acknowledging their own folly.

Why not just admit that we behaved poorly and be done with it? Yes, it hurts. Yes, we may see our whole lives flash before us. But then the hurt lifts and we aren’t committed to a lifetime of pretense.

The spirit was not created with an ability to lie and cheat and not feel pain. The game is rigged in that respect. And why not? In the game of life, we’re supposedly aiming to realize ourselves as divine.

Perpetrations carry a cost that just keeps on rising until at last we come clean. I know from experience because I perpetrate, as many of us do.  However I also know that trying to cover up my perpetrations, deny them, divert others by attacking them, etc., just doesn’t work.

Footnotes

(1) See “Letting Go of the Ways of the Ego,” at http://the2012scenario.com/spiritual-essays/the-path-of-awareness/letting-go-of-the-ways-of-the-ego/ and “Image Management, Looking Good,” at http://the2012scenario.com/spiritual-essays/the-game-of-life/image-management-good/

(2) Cold Mountain Institute, January 20, 1979.

The Ego is Persistent

2012 May 16

Posted by Steve Beckow

Sri Ramakrishna

Perhaps you laughed yesterday when I mentioned Oil Can Harry, the ego, the shadow side. (1) And for sure there’s something to laugh about in watching us act like the ego.

But there’s also another side which is anything but laughable.

I’ve actually seen the face of my ego perhaps fifteen years ago and that was no laughing matter. Scared me silly when it happened. I was writing a dictionary on the ego and, probably because that study recreated it fairly well, I actually one day saw its face confronting me.

That was a scarey sight. It was flaming red, except for parts of it that were in shadow, which were black. It had blood-red eyes and kind of went, “ARRRHHHHHH!” at me when I looked at it.

Wow! Scared me straight! Almost. But then over time I forgot, as so many of us do. The sight faded into memory and then out of memory and the ego carried on.

In my opinion, the ego is composed of three things. Not the ego in its seed or latent state, which apparently lasts well past certain stages of enlightenment. But the ego in its active, awakened state.

(1) Vrittis. Vrittis or waves in the mind; i.e., thoughts. The action of the mind, and particularly its desires, calls forth the ego and constitutes its “body,” so to speak. Not only are we quite capable of carrying on with a quiet mind, but the knowledge of who we are can only arise in the still pond of the quiet mind.

(2) Sankaras. Sankaras or sensations on the physical body constitute its direct products.  The Vipassana meditator follows the rising, persistence, and falling away of sensations on the body and in doing so teaches the mind the impermanence of desires; in fact, the impermanence of all things, which Buddhists call anitya (impermanent) in Sanskrit and anicca in Pali. When we watch sensations arise on the body without reacting, we reduce our stock of sankaras and thereby quiet the mind in turn.

(3) Vasanas. Vasanas or reactive habit patterns constitute its persistent residue or precipitate. Vasanas are the sleeping volcanoes which go off when triggered by an unpleasant situation in the present which has some qualities which remind us of the original traumatic incident at the heart of the vasana. By being with and observing our vasanas when they go off, we complete them and reduce our stock of them too, which again quiets the mind.

Short of Ascension, if I want the ego to go back to its seed state and not emerge again,  I’d have to eliminate these three, as the Buddha did. No vrittis, sankaras, or  vasanas can remain, as they do not in the natural state of the mind, which non-dualists call Sahaja. Complete quietness of mind is the aim. As Krishna put it, “the light of a lamp does not flicker in a windless place,” the light of the lamp signifying enlightenment and the windless place representing the mind swept clean of these three impurities. (2) In that state, the ego would return to its seed state, or so I believe.

Sri Ramana Maharshi

Sri Ramakrishna held the ego to be the cause of duality. According to him: “If God keeps the ego in a man, then He keeps in him the sense of differentiation.” (3)  Immediately when the ego says “I,” there arises the other.

He compared the ego to “a stick that seems to divide the water in two. It makes you feel that you are one and I am another.” (4) Moreover, according to him, “ignorance lasts as long as one has ego. There can be no liberation as long as the ego remains.” (5)

Interestingly, if I’m correct that the ego is coterminous with movement in the mind, with its accompanying sensations and habit patterns (and I may be wrong), then one could also say that so long as there is movement in the mind, ego will arise, and with it duality, and there cannot be liberation.

According to the Vipassana tradition, the Buddha saw that, even though he had accomplished Brahmajnana or God-Realization, which occurs when the kundalini reaches the seventh chakra, there was still movement in the mind. Only when the movement ceased through his Vipassana practice was he able to achieve liberation.

In my view, when movement stops in the mind, so does the ego return to its seed state. This stage of enlightenment occurs when the heart opens not temporarily as in Brahmanjnana, but permanently as in Sahaja Nirvikalpa Samadhi. As Sri Ramana Maharshi says:

“When the mind drops down in Kevalya Nirvikalpa [Samadhi; i.e., Brahmajnana], it opens but shuts again after it. When Sahaja [Nirvikalpa Samadhi] is attained it opens for good.” (6)

“The Sahaja Nirvikalpa [Samadhi] is permanent and in it lies liberation from rebirths.” (7)

“By repeated practice one can become accustomed to turning inwards and finding the Self. One must always and constantly make an effort, until one has permanently realized. Once the effort ceases, the state becomes natural and the Supreme takes possession of the person with an unbroken current. Until it has become permanently natural and your habitual state, know that you have not realized the Self, only glimpsed it.” (8)

Krishna said, “Those who have renounced ego and desire will reap no fruit at all, either in this world or in the next.” (9) One could translate ego and desire by the words “I want.” And if one does, one arrives at the chief obstacle to liberation that Krishna, the Buddha and most other spiritual teachers point to.

The Buddha called it craving, aversion, and ignorance. The “I” that wants is the ignorance. Aversion can be seen as the same as craving in that it is wanting not to have some condition. Craving, aversion and ignorance therefore boil down again to Krishna’s ego and desire or “I want.”

Buddha

Speaking somewhat cryptically, the Buddha said: “The world does not know that we must all come to an end here; but those who know it, their quarrels cease at once.” (10) We must all come to an end here. If Ascension were not a possibility, then our ego and our wanting would have to come to an end while we are incarnated if we want to be liberated from the cycle of birth and death. If we must bring ourselves to an end here, which means that our sense of being a separate “I” and our numerous desires must come to an end, then what more is there to quarrel about?

There is one line of thinking that says that the ego does not stop altogether even after advanced states of enlightenment. Sri Ramakrishna said that “the ego does not vanish altogether” even after vijnana, which I believe is the same as Sahaja Samadhi. (11)

“The man coming down from samadhi perceives that it is Brahman that has become the ego, the universe, and all living beings. This is known as vijnana.” (12)

Sri Ramakrishna had so many memorable metaphors for any spiritual teaching. He compared the ego to a creeper and a goat with its head cut off.

“Why does a vijnani keep an attitude of love towards God? The answer is that ‘I-consciousness’ persists. It disappears in the state of samadhi, no doubt, but it comes back. In the case of ordinary people the ‘I’ never disappears. You may cut down the aswattha tree, but the next day sprouts shoot up.” (13)

“You may discriminate, saying that the ego is nothing at all; but still it comes, nobody knows from where. A goat’s legs jerk for a few moments even after its head has been cut off. Or perhaps you are frightened in a dream; you shake off sleep and are wide awake, but still you feel your heart palpitating. Egotism is exactly like that. You may drive it away, but still it appears from somewhere.” (14)

I cannot decide the debate because I’m not an enlightened man. But certainly the ego is persistent. So it’s probably not a true statement coming from us with our Third-Dimensional consciousnesses to say that we’ve somehow overcome the ego. Chances are we haven’t.

That’s the situation for people up to this magical year. Now, in 2012, with the ending of the 26,000-year cycle, everything changes. The arduousness of the pursuit of enlightenment will come to a close on this planet. Those who choose it and have absorbed enough light to tolerate the Fifth Dimension will rise at the end of the year. I’m not sure if that will result in the total end of the ego, but I’m sure that the ego, if it remains, will once again become the friend of humanity instead of its bane.

Footnotes

(1) “Oilcan Harry Says: Time to Peek Out from Behind the Mask and Just Have Fun,” May 15, 2012, at http://the2012scenario.com/2012/05/oilcan-harry-says-time-to-peek-out-from-behind-the-mask-and-just-have-sfun/#more-119900

(2) Krishna in Swami Prabhavananda and Christopher Isherwood, trans., Bhagavad-Gita. The Song of God. New York and Scarborough: New American Library, 1972; c1944, 66. [Hereafter BG.]

(3) Paramahansa Ramakrishna in Swami Nikhilananda,trans., The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna. New York: Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Center, 1978; c1942, 328. [Herefater GSR.]

(4) GSR, 387.

(5) Ibid., 204.

(6) Ramana Maharshi in S.S. Cohen, Guru Ramana. Memories and Notes. 6th edition. Tiruvannamalai: Sri Ramanasramam, 1993, 96. [Hereafter GR.]

(7) GR, 88.

(8) Ramana Maharshiin Paul Brunton and Munagala Venkataramaiah. Conscious Immortality. Conversations with Sri Ramana Maharshi. Rev. ed. 1996, n.p.

(9) BG, 121.

(10) The Buddha in Edwin A. Burtt, ed., The Teachings of the Compassionate Buddha. New York and Toronto: New American Library, 1955 53.

(11) GSR, 104.

(12) Loc. cit.

(13) Ibid., 105.

(14) Ibid., 210.

Letting Go of the Ways of the Ego

2012 May 3

Posted by Steve Beckow

On the path of self-awareness, as we progress through this apparently heightened time of the Transition, I’m watching my own ego operate and seeing validated some things that were said many, many years ago about its nature and methods. I’d like to share to reveal my own ego to itself.

I mentioned earlier that the est Training was an exercise in recreating the way the mind operates so that the mind, seen, would fall silent. Perhaps this can be an exercise in revealing the ego to itself for whatever advantage that that presents.

I think my ego operates in standard fashion so there may be value here for others. Maybe not.

The fundamental process of the ego, as I see it revealed in my own operations, is the self-serving bias. What does that mean? It means that the ego operates to represent matters in a way that is advantageous to itself. So I operate to cast things in ways that represent myself as winning and others as losing, me as the critical factor in success and others as the critical factor in failure, and my gains as noteworthy and others’ losses as noteworthy.

Put another way, when I operate as my ego, I maximize my own success and minimize my failures, retell events as if my input was crucial to success and others’ was not, and selectively remember my own part in all things that worked out and selectively forget my own part in things that did not.

I suggest that this is the game plan, the modus operandi, the way of being of the ego.

By the workings of the self-serving bias, I seek to get ahead of others. I view my success as vital to the beneficent outworking of life. I excuse myself whenever I’m in danger of being associated with an unsuccessful outcome. I work mightily to cast or represent things so as to distance myself from outcomes that are unfavorable, inglorious.

I used to sit in the lunchroom of a place I worked at and watch myself and others converse. I’d watch myself polish my statue, keep my ducks in a row, and keep up a good front by engaging in what I came to call “howdido” conversations. This kind of conversation sees us tell and retell the day’s events in a manner that successively whittles down any reference to our own mistakes, losses, and failures and retains only our own part in successes, gains, and wins.

We constantly ask our conversational partner, whether directly or indirectly, “How did I do?” And, if they operate self-servingly, they conspire with us to feed back to us that we did great – whatever anyone else did. When we have our story right where we want it, then we cease our howdido conversation on that topic and move on to the next.

What we come up with as a result of this kind of image management, this kind of sanitization of life, because that’s what it is, as far as I can see, is what many of us call our “story.” History becomes boiled down to our “story.” It’s my story and I’m sticking to it. Instead of life becoming about the truth of ourselves or whatever happened, it becomes about defending our story and selling it to others.

Werner Erhard used to say that life lived this way becomes about dominating and avoiding being dominated, judging and avoiding being judged, and excusing  ourselves while not excusing others. I would think the totality of what I’ve just said fairly much represents and typifies a separative life lived in duality.

In duality, we gossip about others and defend ourselves from whatever gossip we chance to hear about ourselves. We gossip about them but are outraged at the very thought that others may be gossiping about us. We work away at all the rough edges, not of ourselves, but of our story. And we collect around us friends who will engage with us in ways that serve that same image and story.

And that is the round of life that we’re leaving, hopefully – and if we do.

What does such a round of life leave us with? It leaves us feeling self-righteous. We are right and others are wrong. Werner used to say that it leaves us feeling dead-right because there is no aliveness in life lived this way.

We turn ourselves into a god and then worship before the statue of ourselves. And everything we do becomes a rite of worship before the god of self.

I’m watching my own ego rise up. I’m watching myself be indignant at things that don’t go my way. I see myself trying to whitewash my mistakes and represent myself to you in ways that have me come off looking good.

Put out the brushfires. Offset the bad buzz. Distinguish all who attack me as being somehow deficient or off. Yawwwnnnnn….

As Werner said, there’s no aliveness in life lived this way. Even if I were to say to you, I don’t want to live my life this way, I’d suspect myself of image management, of wanting to look good. I think it might be better to simply remain silent.

Life lived for self, life lived by way of image management, life lived according to the self-serving bias simply has no future any more, no promise of aliveness. More of it won’t be better.  But not like I know what will take its place.

Oh yes, I could represent myself to you as knowing. “Oh, yes, I know. It’s called unitive consciousness. Yes, that’s the ticket.”

But I actually don’t know. I mean really know. I’m as much in a process of discovery of what way of being will take the place of the self-serving bias as anyone else. I’m not sure I’m even at the place of “not knowing,” which is itself a high place, above the line between unconscious and conscious awareness. I think I’m more at the place of just being tired of my own self-servingness. Just tired of it.  Like one more round of my own self-servingness just won’t do it for me any more.

There’s no doubt in my mind that this coming month will make it harder and harder, and more and more costly, to be self-serving and I’ll be weaned of it,  quietly or kicking and screaming, along with the rest of us who are embracing the new energies. Whether the passage is smooth or rough, it will happen, I feel very sure.

The only thing I can make out, if even dimly, is the necessity of letting go of it sooner rather than later, and then forgiving myself for living by that code for so long. How does one acknowledge that one has had it wrong for so long, without wallowing in self-pity or preening one’s own image even here?

I just don’t know.

Ego Leads You down the Garden Path,

HEAVEN #3879 Ego Leads You down the Garden Path, July 9, 2011

Saturday, 09 July 2011 11:41 | Written by Agus Judistira (Manager) | | |

 

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God said:

“Come into my parlor,” said the spider to the fly.

Ego operates like the spider to the fly. So tempting. So coaxing. So promising.

Ego will make you important. Ego will make you the King of the World. It will dress you and flaunt you.

Ego will make you the Queen who looks in the mirror and is the fairest of all, is the fairest of all until ego drops you in favor of another.

Even if ego would deliver all the promises it makes, it gives you little. Ego needs are hard to appease. Ego leaves you wanting. Even if you win star billing, a fortune, adoration everywhere, it is little. It is not enough. Ego persuades you that happiness is yours when you are the fairest of all, or the mightiest of all, or when you gain a contract or a beautiful home or a beautiful wife or whatever ego seduces you into believing will bring you happiness.

Ego taunts you, teases you, leads you to believe that happiness is around the corner, that all you need is one more thing that only ego can provide, and then there is another thing and another that you require before happiness can be yours. And so you spend a lifetime with ego leading you down the garden path. Ego lies to you, and ego leads you by the nose. Ego is so convincing. Ego holds out its hand, and you follow ego the way a dog would follow a piece of meat.

You fall for ego time and time again. It is your ego that tells you that you have not been fully appreciated. It is your ego that tells you that you must have the latest shade of lipstick or first prize or the handsomest or richest of husbands. Ego will lead you astray at every turn, and it would seem that you never learn. Ego sets its traps, and you fall into them as if you were a novice.

It is good to be innocent with life but not with ego. Be sophisticated with ego. Be aware. Be wary. Ego does not give you a foundation.

You don’t have to be the belle of the ball. You do not have to be famous. Everyone does not have to love your dress or fulfill your fictitious needs. You do not have to be the first in line. You just have to be love. And, just as you were told as a young child, you have to share. What you really have to have is the desire to share. Sharing without your heart behind it is just a motion. Life as it has been lived has had very many motions without your full heart behind them. Otherwise, why would manners have to be taught? Who would have to be trained to give his seat on the bus to someone who needs it more? Who would have to be told to share?

It is natural to share. It is unnatural to not share. Ego would whisper in your ear that there is an advantage in selfishness, yet selfishness had to be taught. Giving love does not have to be taught. What young child does not pluck a dandelion to give to his mother? No one told him: “Pick a dandelion to give to your mother to show your love for her.”

It is natural to serve. Serving does not mean erasing yourself. Serving means knowing yourself and knowing that all service is to Me. When you serve another, you are in service to Me. When you are in service to one of Mine, you serve Me. You are also one of Mine. When you are in service to Me, you have a vaster picture of yourself in the world. You have no desire to inflate yourself. And so you zap ego’s presumed power, and you come into your own.
Permanent Link: http://www.heavenletters.org/ego-leads-you-down-the-garden-path.html

The Ego: Freedom’s Pirate! by Sri Ram Kaa and Kira raa

Wednesday, 01 June 2011 08:23 | Written by Agus Judistira (Manager) | | |

 

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29 May 2011

The Ego: Freedom’s Pirate!

by Sri Ram Kaa and Kira raa

The Path of Self-Ascension is truly the Journey Home. It is a path of discovery of the loving realignment of your consciousness with your Authentic Self: the Divine Energy that is known as the Soul. The challenge before all humanity is to release the dominance of the ego, (or personality-self), upon our experience. Since most people are completely identified with the ego, it takes attention and life experience to learn the difference between the ego-identity and authentic soul energy.

Spiritual practices offer us the gift of connecting with the soul’s energy. As a being of love and light, your heart knows that this soul energy is not of the earth. It is transcendent and cosmic. And it harmonizes with the earthly bodies. Self-Ascension is the process of shedding the dominance of the ego and finding a new context for your identity.

As we learn to identify with our Essence, our authentic Self, the remnants of our earth lives begin to fall away like an old pair of shoes. For many, this can be an initially uncomfortable experience. Our experience of earth school creates the habit of being consumed by emotions and beliefs and is the very foundation of our sense of self.

This is the moment we are called to recognize that emotions, beliefs and the physical body are the vehicle for having a physical experience on a planet of density. They are not your identity.

The ego is a tool of individuation. It was created as a way to cope with separation and to navigate density. This is why the ego is concerned with our safety and our own sense of self-importance. Emotional wounds from childhood often support the creation of the personality-self, (an ego), that is preoccupied with getting attention, approval and safety. Ultimately, all of us that chose a path of awakening, must attend to our own healing and learn to be at peace with our inner experiences. Otherwise, our ‘unfinished emotional business’ will inhibit our freedom.

As we learn to lovingly release the ego, the need for hierarchy, self-importance, along with the need to interfere or judge others, simply falls away. In short, the ego starts to dissolve in the face of the authentic energy of the Soul.

The Divine Love that is our essence actually instructs the ego to trust and become more peaceful, thus allowing beauty, gratitude and Joy to become more available to us.

The process of the release of the ego is more easily seen in the level of attainment we call Ascension Awareness. (See the Pyramid of Spiritual Awakening at the right).

As one lifts through the pyramid, which begins with Density Consciousness, and opens the space for spiritual awareness, the challenge of Spiritual Activism awaits. Spiritual Activism is a seductive stage along the path because it seeks to reconcile the experience of density with the spiritual truth of the formless.

Using spiritual principles and sophisticated belief systems, the individual consciousness finds a comfort level without truly releasing the illusion and thus ego retains control. It is simply the spiritualized ego.

In this stage of awakening, the ego has championed ones spiritual path and seeks to retain control of your consciousness by offering a context that finds peace in being ‘right’ or belonging to a better group. This is a form of entrapment and people can spend entire lifetimes here. Virtually all spiritual seekers will spend some time touching spiritual activism in one form or another; it is part of our journey of discernment.

As you stay committed to the journey, a crystallizing moment will come forward that will awaken you to the fact that Spiritual Activism is a polarizing energy that also carries denial and fear. At this recognition one has an opportunity to surrender into an authentic lift.

Releasing the need to control and trusting the Divine to lead is often felt as a death to the ego. Yet it is the very “valley of death” that must be transited in order to find the garden. Often chaos and loss seem to be our companions as we are releasing our defining attachments. The Void is very real and it is a sign that you are growing through the belief systems that would entrap your consciousness.

This is a moment of great breakthrough, for in fact, we are in a cleansing period. Allowing ourselves to feel, and be present to the ego’s offerings of fear, anxiety and the knee-jerk need to control … simply being lovingly present to these experiences, will heal them and foundationalize your opportunity for true freedom. Especially when the mind/ego is seeking to gain a new control through self-importance and oftentimes blame and judgment of the journey that actually brought you to this moment!

This is the moment that propels you to the next great choice! To “stay in Spiritual Activism by justifying your need to be right, OR to Lift into Ascension Awareness by seeing the Universal gift that has arisen through the experience.

Ascension Awareness offers the gateway to true freedom. It is then that authentic spiritual detachment is experienced. It is then that we recognize that all life is an expression of Spirit that is exploring and finding its way. It is then we recognize that those who have loved us enough along our path held the space and presence of Spiritual maturity during our “ego tantrum”.

Freedom is often misunderstood as a “free-from” energy.

If you define freedom as less debt, less fear or less pain, then you are defining yourself by your pain and debt. Thus your understanding of freedom is based upon your relative degree of density’s grip on your emotions.

True freedom comes when we transcend the worldly reactivity and the mass definitions and start experiencing Peace.

True freedom is not dependent upon any condition.

True freedom is the nature of your soul and offers the gateway to
Ascension Consciousness. (the top of the pyramid)

Freedom is initially experienced by the ego as a sense of loss and it is common for the ego to do its best to sabotage us through self-doubt. Yet just on the other side of this temporary recalibration is a sense of authentic Joy, if we allow the journey to continue.

Freedom is our true nature. It is the gateway.

Your ego serves and enriches your experience in density. Eventually it must be transcended, as your ego is unable to come along to higher dimensions. Your memories can come, your wisdom can come, the gratitude for your experiences; these can all come Home with you.

However, the ego itself is an operating agent of density and it must be released if you want to Self-Ascend. Self-Ascension demands that we pay attention. It means releasing the need to define yourself through the language and concepts of density.

Attachment to density insures that you will define yourself through your relationship to density experience. (beliefs, emotions, relationships)

Non-attachment can be a denial or a sign of liberation. True freedom is found in the state of Joy that will allow the experiences of density to be experienced while not creating pride or shame through the experience. Being in the world is rich and wondrous, however the true YOU is not of the world.

Are you willing to have an experience without a ‘personality-self” to qualify the experience?

It takes practice. It takes tenacity to live in a body and evolve through density. This is why the rescue mentality is so popular….the ego seeks an external champion, (or more powerful ego), to align with so that it may feel safe in its beliefs.

Tenacity is the willingness to keep walking, keep trusting, and to stay vigilant of your own energy. Especially when the ego is screaming at you to run away! As you pay attention to your true feelings and energetic influences, then tenacity supports honesty, transparency and authentic alignment. There is no manual for this process of release, as it is as individual as you are, and all must walk through it at some point. To refuse to see it, or to refuse to walk through it, is the choicepoint that will lift your energy or “quiet” it at the level you have attained.

There are many loving practices to help you remember your true energy. Self-Ascension processes offer great support and love. Each must find their way. If you incorporate the practices that have been gifted through us by the Archangelic Realm and Ascended Masters, then you will expand your stability and trust within your own Self-Ascension process.

As Archangel Zadkiel so lovingly reminds us:
“If there is a sin, to use a word of your world, it is to interfere with the path of another or to allow another to interfere with your path!”

You are a master, or you would not BE!

Celebrate your journey and know that All is Truly Well!

http://www.sriandkira.com/category/perspectives/

: Freedom’s Pirate! by Sri Ram Kaa and Kira raa

Wednesday, 01 June 2011 08:23 | Written by Agus Judistira (Manager) | | |

 

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29 May 2011

The Ego: Freedom’s Pirate!

by Sri Ram Kaa and Kira raa

The Path of Self-Ascension is truly the Journey Home. It is a path of discovery of the loving realignment of your consciousness with your Authentic Self: the Divine Energy that is known as the Soul. The challenge before all humanity is to release the dominance of the ego, (or personality-self), upon our experience. Since most people are completely identified with the ego, it takes attention and life experience to learn the difference between the ego-identity and authentic soul energy.

Spiritual practices offer us the gift of connecting with the soul’s energy. As a being of love and light, your heart knows that this soul energy is not of the earth. It is transcendent and cosmic. And it harmonizes with the earthly bodies. Self-Ascension is the process of shedding the dominance of the ego and finding a new context for your identity.

As we learn to identify with our Essence, our authentic Self, the remnants of our earth lives begin to fall away like an old pair of shoes. For many, this can be an initially uncomfortable experience. Our experience of earth school creates the habit of being consumed by emotions and beliefs and is the very foundation of our sense of self.

This is the moment we are called to recognize that emotions, beliefs and the physical body are the vehicle for having a physical experience on a planet of density. They are not your identity.

The ego is a tool of individuation. It was created as a way to cope with separation and to navigate density. This is why the ego is concerned with our safety and our own sense of self-importance. Emotional wounds from childhood often support the creation of the personality-self, (an ego), that is preoccupied with getting attention, approval and safety. Ultimately, all of us that chose a path of awakening, must attend to our own healing and learn to be at peace with our inner experiences. Otherwise, our ‘unfinished emotional business’ will inhibit our freedom.

As we learn to lovingly release the ego, the need for hierarchy, self-importance, along with the need to interfere or judge others, simply falls away. In short, the ego starts to dissolve in the face of the authentic energy of the Soul.

The Divine Love that is our essence actually instructs the ego to trust and become more peaceful, thus allowing beauty, gratitude and Joy to become more available to us.

The process of the release of the ego is more easily seen in the level of attainment we call Ascension Awareness. (See the Pyramid of Spiritual Awakening at the right).

As one lifts through the pyramid, which begins with Density Consciousness, and opens the space for spiritual awareness, the challenge of Spiritual Activism awaits. Spiritual Activism is a seductive stage along the path because it seeks to reconcile the experience of density with the spiritual truth of the formless.

Using spiritual principles and sophisticated belief systems, the individual consciousness finds a comfort level without truly releasing the illusion and thus ego retains control. It is simply the spiritualized ego.

In this stage of awakening, the ego has championed ones spiritual path and seeks to retain control of your consciousness by offering a context that finds peace in being ‘right’ or belonging to a better group. This is a form of entrapment and people can spend entire lifetimes here. Virtually all spiritual seekers will spend some time touching spiritual activism in one form or another; it is part of our journey of discernment.

As you stay committed to the journey, a crystallizing moment will come forward that will awaken you to the fact that Spiritual Activism is a polarizing energy that also carries denial and fear. At this recognition one has an opportunity to surrender into an authentic lift.

Releasing the need to control and trusting the Divine to lead is often felt as a death to the ego. Yet it is the very “valley of death” that must be transited in order to find the garden. Often chaos and loss seem to be our companions as we are releasing our defining attachments. The Void is very real and it is a sign that you are growing through the belief systems that would entrap your consciousness.

This is a moment of great breakthrough, for in fact, we are in a cleansing period. Allowing ourselves to feel, and be present to the ego’s offerings of fear, anxiety and the knee-jerk need to control … simply being lovingly present to these experiences, will heal them and foundationalize your opportunity for true freedom. Especially when the mind/ego is seeking to gain a new control through self-importance and oftentimes blame and judgment of the journey that actually brought you to this moment!

This is the moment that propels you to the next great choice! To “stay in Spiritual Activism by justifying your need to be right, OR to Lift into Ascension Awareness by seeing the Universal gift that has arisen through the experience.

Ascension Awareness offers the gateway to true freedom. It is then that authentic spiritual detachment is experienced. It is then that we recognize that all life is an expression of Spirit that is exploring and finding its way. It is then we recognize that those who have loved us enough along our path held the space and presence of Spiritual maturity during our “ego tantrum”.

Freedom is often misunderstood as a “free-from” energy.

If you define freedom as less debt, less fear or less pain, then you are defining yourself by your pain and debt. Thus your understanding of freedom is based upon your relative degree of density’s grip on your emotions.

True freedom comes when we transcend the worldly reactivity and the mass definitions and start experiencing Peace.

True freedom is not dependent upon any condition.

True freedom is the nature of your soul and offers the gateway to
Ascension Consciousness. (the top of the pyramid)

Freedom is initially experienced by the ego as a sense of loss and it is common for the ego to do its best to sabotage us through self-doubt. Yet just on the other side of this temporary recalibration is a sense of authentic Joy, if we allow the journey to continue.

Freedom is our true nature. It is the gateway.

Your ego serves and enriches your experience in density. Eventually it must be transcended, as your ego is unable to come along to higher dimensions. Your memories can come, your wisdom can come, the gratitude for your experiences; these can all come Home with you.

However, the ego itself is an operating agent of density and it must be released if you want to Self-Ascend. Self-Ascension demands that we pay attention. It means releasing the need to define yourself through the language and concepts of density.

Attachment to density insures that you will define yourself through your relationship to density experience. (beliefs, emotions, relationships)

Non-attachment can be a denial or a sign of liberation. True freedom is found in the state of Joy that will allow the experiences of density to be experienced while not creating pride or shame through the experience. Being in the world is rich and wondrous, however the true YOU is not of the world.

Are you willing to have an experience without a ‘personality-self” to qualify the experience?

It takes practice. It takes tenacity to live in a body and evolve through density. This is why the rescue mentality is so popular….the ego seeks an external champion, (or more powerful ego), to align with so that it may feel safe in its beliefs.

Tenacity is the willingness to keep walking, keep trusting, and to stay vigilant of your own energy. Especially when the ego is screaming at you to run away! As you pay attention to your true feelings and energetic influences, then tenacity supports honesty, transparency and authentic alignment. There is no manual for this process of release, as it is as individual as you are, and all must walk through it at some point. To refuse to see it, or to refuse to walk through it, is the choicepoint that will lift your energy or “quiet” it at the level you have attained.

There are many loving practices to help you remember your true energy. Self-Ascension processes offer great support and love. Each must find their way. If you incorporate the practices that have been gifted through us by the Archangelic Realm and Ascended Masters, then you will expand your stability and trust within your own Self-Ascension process.

As Archangel Zadkiel so lovingly reminds us:
“If there is a sin, to use a word of your world, it is to interfere with the path of another or to allow another to interfere with your path!”

You are a master, or you would not BE!

Celebrate your journey and know that All is Truly Well!

http://www.sriandkira.com/category/perspectives/

When The Ego Dies

When The Ego Dies… 
By Michael Goodspeed
Thunderbolts.info
8-24-6

I wonder what it means when one mourns a loss before it has happened. Is it prophetic grieving, or self-fulfilling prophecy? I think the question is terribly important, now more than ever. A lot of us are living with a terrible sense of foreboding doom. Is our collective psychic gut tensing itself for some terrible tribulation, or are we actively dooming ourselves with our glum thinking? I don’t mean to be a wise-ass, but the answer is clearly “both.” We feel the momentum of the past — all of our habitual thoughts and behaviors as a species — nudging us toward self-annihilation, and yet we feel powerless to change. Of course, we find this terrifying. I suspect it is the same inner dread that addicts feel when they sense the need for a fix coming on. Yes, they COULD resist the impulse for that first snort, shot, drink, or hit, but they know they lack the necessary will and clarity of purpose to do so. So it is with the entire human race. We know this game is going to end tragically, even though the tragedy will be avoidable right up until the last moment. A miracle is necessary to save us, and miracles DO happen, but only when you believe in them. And when all you believe in is darkness, miracles are downright scary. Darkness can be comforting. It affords one a place to hide, even if the light he is hiding from is actually his salvation. Most often, human beings hide in their concepts of themselves. You wake up in the morning and only feel safe if you know who you are. You think, “I am safe because my name is blah blah. I am special because my girlfriend loves me, I have a good job, my body looks great, and I’m better than most people. Of course, if I lost all of this, I would have know IDEA who I am, and life would lose all meaning.” This is the story of human life, and we all know how it ends. Everything that gives us a sense of who we are is destined to die — usually long before the deaths of our physical bodies. When this happens suddenly and unexpectedly, it is the most painful and traumatizing event in all of human experience. When we lose our loved ones and most valued relationships, the feeling goes beyond “grief” and “sadness.” It is more akin to the amputation of a vital and necessary part of one’s inner core. The same can be said of anything that gives one a powerful sense of who one is — career, wealth, goals, etc. No matter how much comfort we take in these concepts of ourselves, underneath the comfort is fear. In fact, fear is the main motivator driving people to “succeed” at building bigger and stronger “selves” — more money, more status, better relationships, a better body. The very word “driven” implies the impulsion to move forward. It is the impulsion to run, but not TOWARD anything — it is the wish to not be caught by the boogeyman that is chasing you. The real boogeyman from which we run is not physical death. In fact, when one listens to stories of average people who’ve confronted death, they almost universally say, “It is not nearly as scary I’d thought.” Far more horrific than the death of the body is the death of the concept of self. To not know who one is the shattering of the entire universe. You probably know what I’m talking about, but if not, this is the best analogy I can think of: Imagine that you are an actor who has been performing a one-person show in front of an adoring audience. This has been your entire life for as long as you can remember. It’s who you ARE, and all you want to be. Then one day, a little beam of light shines through a crack in the ceiling and catches your vision. You follow its ray, and you see something that you don’t want to see. What you thought was an audience of people is actually nothing more than a cast of shadows distorted by your vision. There never was a crowd admiring your performance. You have been performing a delusional, one-person act all alone in a theater in your head. You are terrified, disoriented. You no longer have any idea who you are. You are abandoned and insane. You crumple to the stage and wish you were dead. This is what the death of the ego feels like. It’s not the death of something evil, sinful, or even in need of correction. It’s the death of something that never existed anywhere but in the mind of its owner. Nevertheless, it has all the appearance of tragedy, because the suffering caused by the ego’s “life” and inevitable “death” is beyond the scope of human imagining. The death of the ego is the “dark night of the soul” described by 16th century mystic St. John of the Cross. The laying down of the ego — or the ability to simply recognize its non-existence — is far more difficult than merely abdicating arrogance, selfishness, or other “egotistic” tendencies. The ego is a “necessary” defense mechanism for any mind that looks at the world and thinks, “I AM APART.” And how could anyone in this world not feel apart? From the moment we are born, we are given a name, race, gender, and social status. We are told that we are “good” or “bad” because we are “fat” or “thin,” “attractive” or “unattractive,” “rich” or “poor,” “smart” or “stupid,” and we quickly learn to judge others on these same erroneous bases. It’s the only language of thought we have ever spoken. This delusional perspective is as pervasive collectively as it is individually. “Collective egotism” takes the form of nationalism, racism, and every form of religious and tribal warfare. In his book The Power of Now, author Eckhart Tolle addresses the threat posed by the collective ego to the future of mankind. Tolle writes, “If they do not free themselves from their mind in time, they will be destroyed by it. They will experience confusion, conflict, violence, illness, despair, madness. Egoic mind has become like a sinking ship. If you don’t get off you will go down with it. The collective egoic mind is the most dangerously insane and destructive entity to inhabit this planet. What do you think will happen on this planet if human consciousness remains unchanged?” Death is not the worst thing that can happen to our species. The worst thing is for us to remain in this interminable state of separation, aloneness, animosity, and fear that drives every act of violence and madness reported on the evening news. Each and every one of us is the actor in the theater, completely isolated, contracted, and insane, performing a meaningless drama for no one and nothing. Again, a miracle is necessary to save us…but the miracle is already here, waiting to be followed. We will each crumple to the stage in the ego’s final death throes, believing ourselves to be abandoned and alone. The only real choice we will have — the only choice we have EVER had — is the length and depth of our agony. Remember what it was that showed the “actor” he was alone in the theater: a single ray of light cast on the shadowy darkness. The actor is lost, the actor is in pain, the actor does not want to forget his fine “performances” and adoring “audience.” But eventually, he will become curious about that light. He will find that when he gazes at it fully, his memories of the shadow world become like wisps of smoke, flitting and quickly forgotten. Astonishing himself, he will find the strength to stand, and summoning all of his courage, give his whole heart to that light until it bathes and illuminates him. And he will remember something so obvious that he will not know how he had forgotten it: that he IS the light, and his whole life had been spent looking for its substance in the nothingness of shadows. This will bring a smile to his face, and his laughter will bellow with such force that the walls of the theater will begin to crumple. He will realize he is free, and always has been. He will see the way out. He will take his final bow before the fictional world of shadows, and take his first steps into the light of the real world. We are all light, we are all laughter, and none of us is doomed to live a fictional life forever.