Egomaniacs and the Opposite

Whenever you hear something about spirituality, they talk about your ego and how bad it is. It seems to be an obsession, this hostility towards their ego. How many of these ego-haters have seen heaven? Well, I haven't seen heaven either, but I'm working on it.

What is so detrimental with this ego? How do you know, you have an ego in the first place? When I talk about knowing something, about knowledge I refer to what I'm actually aware of. There may be something like knowledge stored as information-patterns in your subconscious mind, but in this we aren't interested here, because we want to work with knowledge here, and you cannot work with what you aren't aware of. Easy, isn't it? 

Whatever you do, whether it's in your thoughts, whether it's in your dreams, or whether it's in so called material reality, we always have a fundamental underlying principle: There is something you interact with, the known, the object, the perceived, what you are aware of. If the only thing you are aware of is you, the self, then obviously interaction is not possible. You can only interact with something or someone, and if neither exists, then how do you want to interact? 

The meaning itself of the principle of interaction states, that there have to be at least two in order to interact. Interaction means an act in between, and between implies, that there are at least two. In physics interaction refers to two objects or two fields.

Considering, that all is one, it is quite strange, that interaction is possible at all. All is one, but in illusion there are many, and where there are many, interaction is possible, but in illusion only. When we perceive illusion as real, it becomes real, for it is always as real, as you perceive it to be. This real versus illusion discussion is purely intellectual and leads to nowhere. The illusion is real, the real is illusion an that's that.

Now, let us go back to this ego. When we have an apple and two people, and both of them want to have the whole apple, then conflict is inevitable. Your will to have the apple is your desire. You desire the apple. And obviously since the other one has the same desire, friction between the two is inevitable. This battle for the apple can be considered an archetype for all battles that exist on this planet and elsewhere. If we understand this fundamental conflict, and if we are able to resolve it, then we should also be able to resolve or at least understand all conflicts in his world.

Now what is ego? Can you show me a piece of ego? We stated, that we do not consider subconscious information as knowledge, only conscious knowledge, and conscious is what you are aware of. If the word ego has any meaning for us, the it must be something we can be aware of. 

Now we aren't interested in words here. If only the word 'ego' is real and nothing else, then the word describes something that isn't there, and thus we don't have to discuss it at all. But then if ego didn't exist in the first place, why should there be a word describing it? We thus assume there truly is something like ego. We aren't word-fetishists and we do not believe, that problems can be solved by messing around with words. We want to deal with the real thing, with what we are aware of. 

When you use a word to describe a feeling of pain, then the pain itself is what matters and not the word 'pain'. Thus we aren't interested in words, we focus on the real thing, the state of consciousness. Words are merely being used in order to describe such a state of consciousness. This state of consciousness also exists if we don't name it. We look at what is there even when not using any words. Words can be used in order to induce a specific state of consciousness, but that's another story.

We have said, that there must be something like ego even beyond words and thus it must be a state of consciousness. But what state of consciousness? If you close your eyes and clear your awareness of any contents, obviously no state of consciousness remains, for it has been cleared. Nothingness isn't called a state of consciousness here. Now, there is nothing you're aware of and obviously the ego is no longer here, provided it is or was a state of consciousness. You may call pure awareness the ego, but to call the allseeing eye of God the ego would miss the point, for that's not the kind of ego we are dealing with here. Unless you are Shiva, you don't want to get rid of that kind of supreme ego.

So ego must be a state of consciousness. But what state of consciousness? Is it a picture, is it a sound, is it a feeling, is it a color? Even a blind man must have an ego. What we have learned so far is that ego must be something very unstable, because you can get rid of it by simply being aware of nothingness. Apparently no fight is needed in order to get rid of it, if we can get rid of it so easily.

Why should we get rid of the ego in the first place? Any important spiritual people talk about it, so there must be something about it. So let us play sheeple. 

In nothingness there is no ego, granted, but we cannot keep up that state of nothingness in everyday life, so there must be a way to get rid of ego without having to resort to nothingness. Solving a problem by deleting everything with nothingness is our ultima ratio, our last resort. Let us assume, that there is a virus on your computer, you may now simply delete everything in order to get rid of this virus, you may also use a bullet from a pistol in order to get rid of your ego. Let us now be a bit more gentle, let us be gentlemen or ladies. To have a gentle world, we have to become gentle ourselves. Shiva will solve all problems by deleting everything, but before this happens, we will have to be a bit more specific.

If there is nothingness in your awareness, there is no ego. Ego happens to you, as soon there is interaction. No interaction, no ego. Your ego manifests itself by the mere fact that you perceive something, something you do not consider to belong to yourself. This definition of the perceived as not belonging to yourself, to your Self, this is ego. As soon as the perceived is integrated, is felt as belonging to your Self, ego dissolves. Easy isn't it?

Do we have to fight? No, just look at it. Pure awareness, pure observation is extremely powerful. Pure observation is the supreme form of doing. And that's that.

Ego simply means to have priorities, to do what feels good. Your desire is desire for what makes you feel good, and your desire is to get rid of what makes you feel bad. Obviously the feelings in your soul are more important, than those in another soul. Your soul is your priority. Paradoxically, if all humans had less ego, less duality between the perceiver and the perceived, there would be more heaven on earth and this would be better for all souls.

To do what is good for your soul can't be bad, for it is good for your soul. Are good feelings bad for your soul? What you feel, God also feels, and can it be bad to create good feelings for God? The question is this: How can we improve our states of consciousness, the feelings in our soul, without falling back into duality, into ego? Can we do what is good for our soul, without creating duality? Remember, duality means conflict, and conflict means suffering

I suggest, you look at your soul-mind as a laboratory: You transcend duality, and then you just watch if your life improves. That's the scientific approach: Let us make experiments, and see what results we get.

god bless