Sri Saibaba Temple , Nashville,TN Weekly News Letter Volume 85

[Sri Saibaba Temple - Nashville]

Sairam

 

 The unconscious drive behind ego is to strengthen the image of who I think I am. Whatever behaviour the ego manifests, the hidden motivating force is always the same: the need to stand out, be special, and be in control; the need for power, for attention, for more. And of course the need to feel a sense of separation and the need for enemies.

 

The ego always wants something from other people or situations. There is always a hidden agenda, always a sense of “not enough yet” of insufficiency and lack that needs to be filled. It uses people and situations to get what it wants. And even when it succeeds, it is never satisfied for long. For the most part the gap between “I want” and “what is” becomes a constant source of upset and anguish. The underlying emotion that governs all the activity of the ego is fear. The fear of being nobody, the fear of non-existence, the fear of death. All its activities are ultimately designed to eliminate this, but the most the ego can ever do is to cover up temporarily with an intimate relationship, a new possession, or winning at this or that. Illusion will never satisfy you. Only the truth of who you are, if realized, will set you free.

 

Why fear? Because the ego arises by identification with form, and deep down it knows that no forms are permanent, and they are all fleeting. So there is always a sense of insecurity around the ego even if on the outside it appears confident.

Once you realize and accept that all structures (forms) are unstable, peace arises within you. The recognition of the impermanence of all forms awakens you to the dimension of the formless within yourself, that which is beyond death---- “eternal life.”

 

 

The Ego’s need to Feel Superior: That moment before you give some news to the other person, you feel somewhat more superior because you know more. This includes gossiping. Associating with a person who is important in the eyes of others. “Name Dropping” is another form of gaining superior identity. The ego         feels threatened when someone has more than I. So it may then criticise, or belittle the value of the other person’s possessions, knowledge or abilities. Or it may enhance itself by association with that person, if he or she is important in the eyes of others. The absurd overvaluation of fame is just one of the manifestations of egoic madness in our world. Albert Einstein was one of the most famous people on the planet said this of himself: “grotesque contradiction between what people consider to be my achievements and abilities and the reality of who I am and what I am capable of”. He was definitely egoless and humble.

Complaining an effect of EGO

Complaining is one the ego’s favourite strategies for strengthening itself. When complaining is habitual it is also unconscious, which means you do not know what you are doing. Applying negative mental labels to others is part of the pattern, which ends up in name-calling as the crudest form: “jerk, bastard, bitch”. The next level down is shouting and screaming, and not much below that is physical violence.

 

 

The emotion that goes with complaining is resentment, which adds more energy to the ego. Resentment means to feel bitter, indignant, aggrieved or offended. Your ego loves other people’s foibles, instead of overlooking them as unconsciousness, you make it into their identity. It is your own ego doing that. Nonreaction to the ego of others is one the most effective ways not only of going beyond ego in yourself but also of dissolving the collective human ego. You are able to do that when you recognize his behaviour as an expression of the collective human dysfunction. When you realize it is not personal, there is no longer a compulsion to react. By not reacting to the ego, you will often bring out the sanity in others, which is the unconditioned consciousness as opposed to the conditioned. At times you may have to take practical steps to protect yourself from deeply unconscious people. This you can do without making them enemies. Your greatest protection, however, is being conscious. Somebody becomes an enemy if you personalize the unconsciousness that is the ego. Nonreaction is not weakness but strength. Another word for Non-reaction is forgiveness. To forgive is to overlook, or rather to look through. You look through the ego to the sanity that is in every human being as his or her essence.

 

 

 

The ego loves to complain and feel resentful not only about other people but also about situations. You can make a situation into an enemy. And the ego’s greatest enemy of all is the present moment, which is life itself. The voice in the head is the voice of the ego, which is no more than a conditioned mind-pattern, a thought. Whenever you notice that voice, you will also realize that you are not that voice, but the one who is aware of it. In fact you are the awareness that is aware of the voice. In the background, there is the awareness. In the foreground there is the voice, the thinker. In this way you are becoming free of the ego, free of the unobserved mind. The moment you become aware of the ego in you, it is strictly speaking no longer the ego, but just an old conditioned mind-pattern. Ego implies unawareness. Awareness and ego cannot coexist. The old mind-pattern or mental habit may still survive and recover for a while because it has the momentum of thousands of years of collective human unconsciousness behind it, but every time it is recognized, it is weakened.

The lesson we are here to learn is not to identify it as a role in whatever you are doing. You are the most powerful when the action is performed for its own sake rather as a means to protect, enhance, or conform to your role identity. Every role is a fictitious sense of self, and through it everything becomes personalised and thus corrupted and distorted by the mind-made “little me” and whatever role it happens to be playing.

 

Some of them function from the deeper core of their Being, those who do not appear more than they are but are simply themselves, stand out as remarkable and are the only ones who truly make a difference in this world. They are the bringers of the new consciousness. Whatever they do becomes empowered because it is in alignment with the purpose of the whole. Their influence goes far beyond what they do, far beyond their function. Their mere presence---simple, natural, and unassuming------has a transformational effect on whoever they become into contact with. If you do not play roles, it means there is no self (ego) in what you do. As a result your actions have far greater power. You are totally focused on the situation. You become one with it. You are most powerful, most effective, when you are completely yourself. But do not try to be yourself. That is another role. ”

 

Beneath your physical and psychological form, you are one with Life itself, one with Being. In form, you are and will always be inferior to some, superior to others. In essence, you are neither inferior nor superior to anyone. In the eyes of the ego, self-esteem and humility are contradictory. In truth, they one and the same.

What’s the Solution?

To remedy the situation: “Is there negativity in me at this moment?” Then become alert, attentive to your thoughts as well as your emotions. Watch out for the low-level unhappiness in whatever form there is: discontent, nervousness etc. The moment you become aware of a negative state within yourself, it does mean you have failed. It means that you have succeeded. Until awareness happens, there is identification with inner states, and such identification is ego. With awareness comes dis-identification from thoughts, emotions and reactions. This is not to be confused with denial. The thoughts, emotions, or reactions are recognized, and in the moment of recognizing, dis-identification happens automatically. Your sense of self, of who you are, then undergoes a shift: Before you were the thoughts, emotions, and reactions; now you are the awareness, the conscious Presence that witnesses those states.

 

Beware of your thoughts and emotions as they happen. It is an alert “seeing”. When a shift from thinking to awareness happens, an intelligence far greater than the ego's cleverness begins to operate in your life. Emotions and even thoughts become de-personalized through awareness. Their impersonal nature is recognized. There is no longer a self in them. They are just human emotion, human thoughts. Your entire personal history, which is ultimately no more than a story, a bundle of thoughts and emotions, becomes of secondary importance and no longer occupies the forefront of your consciousness. It no longer forms the basis for your sense of identity. You are the light of Presence, the awareness that is prior to and deeper than any thoughts and emotions.

 

Working without EGO

 

Those who are exceptionally good at their work and their work has become a spiritual practice will be largely free of ego while they are working. For these people their state of Presence is for the time being confined to one area of their life. These are scientists, surgeons etc. They perform their work admirably without any self-seeking, fully responding to whatever the moment require of them. They are extremely successful at what they do. They are building a new earth.

 

The opposite is true. Although technically they are very good, their own egos sabotage them. Only part of their attention is on the work they perform; the other part is on themselves. Their ego demands personal recognition and wastes energy if it does not get enough. “Is someone else getting more recognition than me?” Or their main focus of attention is profit or power and their work is no more than a means to an end.

Editorial Team

Sri Saibaba Temple Seva Committee

www.srisaibabatemple.org