Whatever it is that is out there, we use it as the material upon and with which we form our play of life. Whatever we see is because of what we "are". A thief will "see" dishonest people, power-driven people will "see" rivals and threats to their power. A person focused upon sex will see sexual partners, rivals, and rejections. Innocent words will be seen as sexual innuendoes. An angry person will see people creating conflicts with him, and so forth. Curiously, all of these "types" will believe that all others see the world in exactly the same way. Things that are important to me must be important to you, and my idea of right and wrong must be right, and therefore yours must be wrong if they are different from mine. You are stupid, I am insightful.
Our senses continuously perceive energy, but our individual mind's focus is so selective that it brings to our awareness only those perceptions that interest ego. Thus if I believe myself to be an attractive female, I will notice men looking at me and I will notice clothes and makeup that might make me more attractive. I will also notice other women and compare their beauty to mine. If I were male, I would probably never notice these things. My mind would be on other things- on a different focus.
What is in my world is dependent upon who I believe myself to be. It is not dependent at all upon reality, or what is out "there". What you believe you are reading here does not exist. What you believe I am saying has its origin within yourself. This writing is the backdrop for your "play". Any truths you read are first found in your recognition of that truth. Anything that is false is false because you recognize it to be so. You recognize the truth because your world is already constructed to contain those truths. You recognize the falseness because your world is already constructed to contain different truths.
What is "out there" is where our thoughts are turned. Since we are not aware of what we are thinking, not aware of our thoughts, what is "out there" seems to be separate from us, like the image in a mirror seems to be separate from us. We know the connection between our face and the image in the mirror, however, so we don't make the mistake of trying to correct blemishes on our face by manipulating the image in the mirror. We do not put lipstick on the image in the mirror, but we do try to manipulate the images of our lust, for instance, by changing partners instead of changing our thoughts of lust.
If we were totally ignorant of glass and any other reflecting material, and saw our face in a mirror, all we would "see" would be our reflection. We would not see the glass- the reflecting material. The reflection would appear to be another person in open space in front of us. Cats, dogs and babies have this problem
This is what is happening in the "mirror" of our reality. We see only the reflection, the image. We don't see the "glass" which reflects our "selfs". We don't even know where "out there" is, let alone WHAT it is. We may call it energy or whatever, but all we really know is that our senses feed us information. Where that information comes from is anyone's guess.
We may be driving on the freeway and cut in front of someone who then emits energy from his lungs, through his vocal cords and into our ears, which we perceive to be, "Hey, why don't you learn to drive, you a - - hole!"
Our perception of this energy, what we think it means, will make us angry, upset, sorry or entertained- depending upon how the reflection comes back to us. We may laugh, cry or be indifferent. Whatever our reaction, it will come from who we think we are- from our ego.
If we believe ourselves to be inferior to others, we will react as if the jerk is saying that he is superior to us. We will then react to THAT with anger, tears, acceptance- however it is that we normally react to charges of inferiority. What is important to remember here is that we reacted to the charge that we were inferior, and NOT to what the man actually said. We did not react to reality, we reacted to the substitution for that reality, to the mirror image of our ego.
If we become angry at someone, it means that we accept what we interpret them as saying or doing as having validity, and we don't like it. Anger comes from our illusion about the world coming into conflict with reality. What we react to tells us who we believe ourselves to be. What we react to out there describes the boundaries of our ego.
Ego is real, in a sense. He doesn't exist outside our thoughts, but he is where we have our lives, most of the time. Only when we are so engrossed in something that we forget everything around us does he disappear. His power lies in being undetected. He promises us the world, but he never delivers. He keeps us thinking that he is our only true friend, the only one who understands the real us and what we have to go through dealing with unfeeling selfish people who don't appreciate what a great person we really are.
Ego is never wrong, although he will admit on occasion, that he sometimes makes mistakes. He never IS mistaken, it's that he WAS mistaken- when it no longer matters.
When we see two people arguing, what we are seeing is two egos fighting to stay alive by being right. The ego's whole survival system depends upon everything being as he says it is. He CANNOT be wrong- ever. He is always right- AT THIS TIME.
We seldom realize that being right never changes anything. What is, IS. Nothing changes that. We may get into a big argument about whether it is raining or misting, but no matter who wins the argument, it is still raining- or misting. Discussions about the superiority of this race or that, this sex or that, this value or that, changes nothing. Our votes count for naught with the great IS.
Ego is a lie. He is created from lies we have accepted about who we are. He is created from lies and lies are all he knows. His whole being consists of lies and lying, and the lies he tells are lies to us which he tells us are truths about ourselves. When we think, "Gee, I'm great", this is the ego lying to us. The "I" that we think we are is some concept of who we are. It is not us, it is only our idea of us. Our mistake is in believing we are the ego.
It may be that we think of ourselves as honest, handsome, creative, shy, stupid or Chinese. Some of these attributes we consider good, and some we consider bad. When someone does or says something that we interpret as applying one of these attributes to us, we become pleased if we value it good, and we feel hurt if we value it bad. It is not what anyone says or does that causes us to react, it is what we think the person MEANS by it.
This phenomenon of identifying with our concepts about ourselves has the result that we spend a great deal of time and energy trying to get others to believe that we are our good attributes and not our bad ones. We seek fame and shun disgrace. Constantly. This causes us embarrassment.
At each moment thoughout our lives, circumstances change. At each of these moments we have a choice as to how to react to those changes. We may choose to "do" or "not do". If someone insults us, we may choose to respond. If we choose to respond, then we must choose to respond in this way or that. If we choose to respond in "this" way, then we must choose to react or not in response to the changing circumstances which result from our response. We are not free to cop out from life. We must react to it. That is the way it is set up.
No matter which way we respond, whether we respond as a "cool" person would, or as a doctor would, or as an honest person would, or as a handsome, creative, shy Chinese would- whichever way we respond to the changing circumstances of existence, we will still be what we are. The sun will still come up in the morning and dogs will still s - -t in the streets. We are free to react in any way we wish, because we cannot do harm to the "Is". There is no "way" to be. To think that there is, is to put ourselves into a prison of our thoughts and then blame someone else because "they won't let me".
Difficulties in reaching our goals can come from our thinking that there is one right way to do something, one way to "be". We cannot learn how to dance or carve wood, we can only do it. When we do it, we will learn how to do it in the process of doing it. There is no "way" to paint, write, golf, talk or drive.
If we did not know what wealth was, we could never "be" poor. If we did not comprehend success, we could never experience failure. Each of us is free to do anything we wish, whatever pleases us. The activity in which we engage has no rules as to how it is supposed to be done. We may choose to sing and dance, work and play, fight and love in the way that pleases us, not some ideal that we have about what ego tells us is "proper".
Each of us is unique, but none of us is unique in being unique. Uniqueness is common. But we feel this uniqueness, and when ego tells us that we are unique, we see that this is true, but not in the way that he means it. We accept that we are unique, and the only uniqueness we know is the one ego talks about. We believe that our thoughts and the things we talk about are more interesting than what others think or talk about. We believe that things that happen to us are real, while what happens to others are just stories that we hear. We believe that we as an individual are the most important and fascinating creature in the universe.
This is the way ego views reality, and we accept this view as truth. We "see" that it is true, because things happen TO US, constantly. People talk TO US, smile AT US, glare AT US. Busses are late for US, clerks charge US, the whole of creation reacts TO US. This makes us feel that we are important, and we ARE, because we exist. We are ALL important, unique and fascinating- far beyond what we can now imagine.
Lying is the first line of defense for ego. When attacked by the truth, ego first tries lying. He tells us to interpret a truth about ourselves as a meanness, or jealousy on the part of others.
Pride is the bastion of defense for ego. If the truth cannot be lied away, instead of letting the truth touch ego, we let pride take the hit. We are hurt. If the truth is so powerful that it cannot be lied away, and pride cannot absorb it, ego takes it on the chin and we feel despair. Despair is a sign that pride has been breached and ego has been harmed.
That "all is lost" feeling signifies the death of a portion of ego. No more will that particular portion of ego be a problem for us. To give up, to quit, that's the crux. We may mourn for what we lost, but the loss was only a belief, nothing more.
Each thought or belief about who we are is a part of ego waiting to be taken away. If we believe ourselves intelligent, then a bad score on a test indicates that ego is in error, so if we cannot excuse the low score away, we let pride take the blow and we feel hurt. If we had no concept of intelligence we could not be touched by a low score on a test. If we have no thoughts about who we are, we can be touched by nothing. In order to lose the bad feelings when things go wrong , we must give up the whole coin, which means that we have to give up feeling good when things go right.
The ups and downs of life are in one real sense, not natural. They are usually the signatures of ego. Up is when ego is being fed and down is when he is being starved. There are, of course, other reasons for feeling good and bad that does not involve ego.
Living without the lies of ego involves having changes in one's life. Without the lies of ego, there is no pain when we lose some "game", but we also lose the elation we feel at winning. Without ego, we cannot feel the emotions derived from praise and adoration, and we don't notice the envy and jealousy of our peers. We have no ambition to be "somebody", or to "do" something. All of these types of goals disappear. Everything we have been taught to cherish as signs of success becomes valueless.
This dream world, this world of illusion, keeps us hypnotized with its highs and lows, its excitements and depressions. We can't escape our prison if we are too caught up in the passions of living. Neither can we escape if there is something we desire from our prison life. We must become indifferent to events, have no investment in outcomes. We must cease our selfishness.
These things can come to fruition through a process of discriminating disciplines. Fortunately the knowledge of these disciplines exists in numerous places, even here in the Western world. What happens after that is entirely left up to the individual- whether he wishes to follow the sometimes uncomfortable exercises or not.
All disciplines designed to weaken ego quite necessarily are things that go against ones "natural inclinations". At first these disciplines are distasteful things to do, but they quickly become very pleasurable- probably due to the effect they have on the individual's loss of ego. It is probably hard for you to imagine that you would ever look eagerly toward the possibility of getting into an embarrassing situation, for instance, or that you would actively seek out situations that generate fear, but that is what happens.
When ego is overcome, or even just having its hold lessened considerably, when we no longer have any, or not much, thought of ourselves, then we will be free, or somewhat free, of our prison. We either are released unreservedly, or we at least get frequent furloughs.
When we are no longer ego, we are no longer separate from "out there", we no longer have anything to protect, no way to be, nothing to do but exist in the absence of fear, anxiety, anger, lust, greed, jealousy and pride. We have complete humility (meaning the acceptance of ourselves exactly like we are), with its attending peace. The peace brings with it, love for everything. Love for everything becomes our complete awareness. It becomes the only thing we know.
Next Month, Part 7