We will not be able to be "good boy Johnny" all the time, partly because the phrase is a concept and has no real existence, and partly because we haven't yet learned all the nuances of what it means to be good, or boy, or Johnny.
Our whole life is spent in refining what we believe ourselves to be. We become constantly involved in acquiring the idea that we are "this" or "that" concept. We want to be "good" sons or daughters, "good" citizens, "manly" men, "feminine" women, "loyal" and "diligent" workers, "friendly" neighbors. We want to BE some "way".
We feel we must give presents on certain days or be considered cheap or uncaring. We feel we must demonstrate love so that our loved ones will know that they are loved by us. We must vote and give to charities or be thought anti-social. We must wear the clothes and behave in a manner appropriate to our sex, be punctual, interested and involved in our work. We must not say or do things that might be construed to be unfriendly, unless we are with an enemy, and then we have to make sure that our actions do not appear friendly so that we don't seem weak or timid. We must always express ourselves as we see ourselves, and as we believe others see us. This way that we see ourselves, this is ego. It is not OUR ego. It IS ego. It is what we identify ourselves with.
Ego is all the concepts, ideas, thoughts and beliefs about ourselves and our world as it relates to us. We may believe we are our bodies or an illusion produced by the brain, and we will die when the body dies, if we believe that we ever existed at all. We may believe that we are male or female and spend a tremendous amount of time and energy keeping this idea prevalent. We may believe that we are patriotic heroes who must defend our country in battle and arguments. We might even have to give up our lives to prove that our beliefs about ourselves are reality.
Ego causes us to pursue power and money at the expense of our honor and integrity. Ego causes us to mistreat our children, our parents, our friends, our neighbors, nature and ourselves. Ego causes us to act in some manner or other in order to seem to be a man, a woman, a doctor, a teacher, a student, an artist, a lawyer- whatever it is that we believe ourselves to be, or are trying to be. Not only that, but we will act not as those "people" would, but rather how we THINK they would act. We "play" these parts as if they were characters in a play.
If we had no ego, no concept of who we are, then we would be free to do whatever we wished, regardless of our sex or profession, or whether we wanted others to believe that we were honest or brilliant. We could be the way we are. We wouldn't have to work at life. We could simply BE. We would no longer have to watch ourselves, which would leave us free to watch what was happening "out there". We would be free of all anxiety and worry. We would be free to experience the joy and contentment that lies continuously within us waiting to be experienced, our natural state of being. No one has to become happy. We are automatically happy if we are not angry, if we are not afraid, if we are not worried, if we are not envious or jealous, if we are not disappointed or disillusioned, if we are not greedy, covetous, or embarrassed. We are beings whose natural function is joy. We only have to stop working so hard at trying to be happy.
We create our egos and what we see "out there" as a tree creates fruit, and in exactly the same fashion. What we create depends upon who we "are". An apple tree cannot produce pears, and an angry person cannot produce peace. "Out there" is a mirror of our selfs. The world mirrors what's really happening with us. If we are joyful, then everything around us mirrors that joy. We en-joy the physical world. People, babies, kittens, music, smells- everything for our spiritual enjoyment. But if we feel depression, then those very same things that once brought us joy now produces a "grayness", adding to our depression. Nothing out there pleases us. We live- we have our be-ing inside. We ARE happy or we ARE depressed. These things are of the spirit. They cannot be weighed or measured in any way.
The physical world, that which is commonly believed to be reality, mirrors what we are really like, how we believe things to be, our egos. We see what we believe, what we expect to see. But what we believe to be reality is nothing more than the way we view "energy". We can have some idea of what comprises our egos by using the three-dimensional mirror called "out there", or "the world" just as we can have some idea of what our body looks like by viewing a two-dimensional mirror image.
"I", who or what I am, ego, is set up as a pattern of patterns. The awareness that is "me" expresses itself in a consistent manner, and the ever-present changes of what "is" creates the effect of patterns. "I" stay the same. The physical world in which I have my existence changes. The pattern I use to live my day is the same pattern I use to live my hour, year and moment. Awareness of myself never changes, therefore at THIS moment I am reacting in accordance with the dictates of that awareness, and at THIS moment I am also reacting in accordance with the same awareness, but the moment has changed. Our physical existence is made up of these moments, and each moment we react as our awareness directs us.
A huge oak tree in the valley is the same oak tree type of awareness as the small scraggly oak tree that looks like a holly bush that grows at higher elevations in poorer soil. The results of that awareness look different because the moments were different. One tree had many moments of plenty of water and nutrients, the other had many moments of little water and nutrients.
The awareness that we use while eating is the same one we use while walking, thinking, loving, working and creating. The pattern we use while eating will be found in everything else we do. If our food must be laid out on a plate in a neat, precise manner, then this same pattern will be found in the way we dress, the way we walk and the way we work. If our car and house are messy and disarranged, then our thinking is messy and disarranged. We ARE that pattern. That is us.
The Rorschach Ink Blot Test is a series of cards with blots of colored ink on them. A person looking at the blots will "see" birds, butterflies, sexual activity, mayhem- whatever it is that the person's awareness is focused upon. Since our reaction to an ink blot test is a microcosm of our reaction to all life, we can use "out there", the world, as a gigantic three-dimensional ink blot test. We can observe what we "make" of blots we call "people", "sickness". "sex", "food", etc. We can "read" our awareness with surprisingly little practice, but we need an extremely large amount of truth. We can get a detailed picture of what we are really like- a picture that is usually hidden from us, but not from others. With knowledge of what we are really like, we have an excellent tool with which we can change our personalities- our egos, if we wish. One of the magical phenomena about us humans is that all it takes in order to change anything about ourselves is an awareness that there is something we would like to have changed. From then on, it is automatic. Awareness itself is a magical power.
Next Month, Part 6, Section 2