VeganAwake

Well I have already gone through this process that's why I'm speaking to it so passionately. ❤ This has been a common misconception that I've been reading about a lot lately in the New Age movement ..see what happens is people misunderstand the gurus and think they are saying they need to beat their ego into submission.(aka kill it) Understandably they don't agree with this method so their pendulum swings to the opposite side and they believe maybe we need to wine and dine and integrate the ego since its all divine. They don't understand the ego is not part of the human experience. It is a mind made program that is running you. It is an illusory sense of self and you can't integrate something that's an illusion. The only true obstacle to Enlightenment is ourselves. When we turn Enlightenment into a future event instead of something that can be realized now the ego has a Hay day with this because its survival depends on keeping this knowledge out of our grasp. The ego says seek but do not find. I am simply a sign pointing. Have a good day my friend ❤ ❤

@DrewNows Thank you for your comment!! Yes suffering is a catalyst for awakening but don't worry the ego is already onboard for 99.8% I guess one could say that both are valid ways of experiencing life: One leads to integrating an illusory false sense of self into everyday life, and the other is a sign pointing to truth, to liberation, to enlightenment. It is true that one could integrate a really inflated and painful ego into everyday life which could be a catalyst to Awakening, but I would rather just see the ego for what it is from the get-go and begin the dis identifying process.

@ivankiss @nightrider1435 I understand what you are both saying...trust me. I was not saying to kill the ego nor was I saying to befriend it or make it an enemy. But to simply see it for what it is...an illusion... when the ignorance is dispelled the truth is all that remains: The Ego is an effect. It arises from the belief in separation, and survives only by keeping this illusion going. The Ego will not be taken from you as long as you still have use for it; as long as you believe that the concepts of lack and separation are still of any benefit to you. The ego is Duality and Duality is an illusion. There never was a separate self. Never has been never will be, your ego is literally what has created this separate false sense of self. The easiest way to identify the ego is its sense of lack, the ego always wants more... more money more power more love more of everything, to become more spiritual... it's never satisfied. The ego does not want you to realize that you are already complete and perfect in every way. In fact the ego knows that if you realize this it will be the end of it. This is why the ego is so cunning!! This realization doesn't kill the ego, it simply deflates it...you see it's tricks and it can no longer keep you believing it is yourself. Once the ego sees that you have outsmarted it, it sits with its nose in the corner and whimpers in time-out lol. It's actually pretty funny when you see how cunning and clever it really is. Thousands of years in the making it has gotten very sneaky. I love you guys I hope this helps you or anyone else on their Journey ❤ ❤

@SoonHei thank you ❤

The ego is not part of the human experience. It is a mind made program that is running you. It is redundant and unnecessary it has outlived its usefulness. Amazing explanations!!

There are other paths, realizations and understandings so I understand what you are saying. Osho talks about this inclusion you describe and I am familiar with it as well. Also Osho warns about the cunningness of the ego and cautions about the understanding that the ego is also divine. My biggest concern would be the confusion that it can cause people. Could teaching this method do more damage than good. For example you might have to really work with someone close for them to understand this method. Especially if they have a very powerful sense of self(ego) What are your thoughts on this?

@ivankiss if you have personally deflated your ego and it doesn't run the show anymore that's great, but I wouldn't go around telling people to integrate their ego. You're going to confuse a lot of people and possibly do damage. The ego is a dysfunctional survival mechanism. You don't make the ego into an enemy or a friend, you just see it for what it is. It was there to keep you alive but in this day and age we need to start pulling the other direction towards Unity not individuality. When there is an actual cessation of the self structure in Samadhi there is no egoic, no self, no duality yet there is still the I am, annata or no self. In that emptiness is the dawn of prajna or wisdom- the understanding that the immanent self is far beyond the play of duality, beyond the entire continuum. The immanent self is timeless, unchanging, always now. The video I posted talks directly about that. Did you watch it? “Love is happy when it is able to give something. The ego is happy when it is able to take something.” Osho I honestly love how passionate you are about helping people. I'm here to help also. Thank you my friend ❤ ❤

This is a great video!!

Existence is as existence does that is the answer to why...

This it's a great understanding from Wayne Dyer of what the ego truly is.

Your ego is just trying to distract you bud. This is a classic example of the cunningness of the ego. Of course it wants you to integrate it, its purpose is survival. It doesn't want you to see it for what it truly is and be deflated. I think you may be trying to avoid going through the difficult task of dropping the false sense of self by simply saying everything is divine. Mind means the conditioning. The mind is greedy. Mind is greed. You drop this mind, and sannyas happens. A mechanical mind is an unconscious mind. The mind always thinks of doing something. All minds lead finally to misery, to suffering. Awareness is beyond time and beyond mind. Mind’s whole structure is based on confusion. Mind has no joy — it is really a wound, very painful. From mind to no-mind is the revolution of sannyas. Mind is confusion. Mind is never clear. It cannot be. mind is confusion; it is not that you are in confusion. Your mind is your misery, your mind is your bondage. The only security in existence is going beyond the mind. As a servant, mind is beautiful. As a master, it is a monster. Mind moves in time and consciousness lives in timelessness. Your mind is time. And when times ceases, your mind ceases. Mind is nothing but the process of the ego, the functioning of the ego. Meditation starts by being separate from the mind, by being a witness. Awareness is not of the mind, awareness is something beyond the mind. Meditation is the only magic that can help you to be free from the mind. To abandon the mind and to live life spontaneously is what I call sannyas. There is nothing like a silent mind. When silence is there, there is no mind. The mind has given nothing but misery, suffering, torture and nightmares. The ego, the calculating, cunning mind, is never compassionate, cannot be. Just be choiceless. Don’t choose. Choice brings the mind in. Choice is mind. You cannot predict a man who acts out of no-mind; only mind is predictable. You have to put mind aside to become a witness, and obviously mind resists it. Sannyas is real suicide, because it destroys the mind, it takes you beyond the mind. Mind is always mediocre, mind is never intelligent — it cannot be by its very nature. Meditation has nothing to do with mind; meditation simply means a state of no-mind. If you really want to be living at the maximum, don’t listen to the duality of the mind. When the mind stops there is no ego, when the mind is not functioning there is no ego. Mind is fear. Mind is a coward and is always concerned about security, safety, certainty. The mind is the by-product of fear, and because of the fear it goes on creating its own security. The death of the mind will be life for you, and the life of the mind is nothing but death for you. The mind has no inherent capacity for joy. The mind is the cause of all misery; it knows nothing of joy. Mind is constantly asking, desiring, demanding and creating frustration because it lives in expectations. Mind can never be happy. Mind is your accumulated discontent. Mind is your accumulated unhappy past. Bring more awareness to your mind, otherwise you are always on the verge of going mad, of becoming mad. Just remember that you are only a witness. The body is not you, the mind is not you. You are just a mirror. Existence never yields to any of our demands. It is the demanding mind that has been creating all our misery. Witness that you are not the body; witness that you are not the mind — this is the way to transcend body and mind. A mind that is not meditative is bound to suffer in every situation: riches, poverty, failure or success, it makes no difference. Mind never meets the truth, never encounters the truth. The ways of the mind and the ways of the truth are absolutely separate. Meditation is a state of no-mind. Meditation means the mind has stopped. Just you are, pure consciousness, simple awareness. Gautam Buddha has made it a meditation. He called it upeksha — indifference. Just be indifferent to the mind, and it won’t be a disturbance for long. Meditation is not a question of effort because all effort is going to be through the mind, of the mind, by the mind. How can it take you beyond the mind? The unknowable is not part of the mind. The unknowable is available to your being, to your consciousness, to the hidden sources of your life. Mind means dissatisfaction, mind means complaints, mind means unfulfilled greed, mind means incomplete desire. Mind is by its very nature a beggar. The mind lives through desires. The mind lives through greed, fear, jealousy, ambition. The mind distorts. Because of the motivations, the mind distorts. Our mind is very tricky and cunning: it always throws the responsibility on somebody, on something; it never takes the responsibility on itself. YOU are the cause of suffering. The day your mind is absolutely silent, with no disturbance, you have taken the first step that takes you to the temple of God. The temple of God is made of your consciousness. All knowledge is of the past. Mind is always of the past. Consciousness is always of the present. A buddha helps you to become more conscious; he does not help you to become more knowledgeable. The whole process of sannyas is getting rid of the mind. Mind consists of questions and answers. The moment you get rid of the mind, then only consciousness is left in its purity, with not even a ripple. It is your identification with thoughts that is creating the confusion: it brings you down into the mind; otherwise your watcher is far above it. And to get centered in your watching is the only way for peace. Your mind is never in the present, and time is always in the present; so time and mind never meet. This is the misery — that you are missing the train every moment; and you will go on missing your whole life. Meditation is simply going beyond mind, beyond the functioning of the mind, beyond all the fetters of the mind, and just entering into this silence, unmoving, unwavering — just a pure awareness, a silent flame, a great joy. Meditation is the state of no-mind. Not of a silent mind, not of a healthy mind, not of a concentrated mind, no. Meditation is the state of no-mind: no society within you, no conditioning within you. Just you, with your pure consciousness. When the mind no longer manipulates you, when the mind no longer controls you, when the mind is just a mechanism — if you need, you use it, otherwise you put it aside — you are free of the mind, you have attained your own masterhood. Use the mind, but don’t become it. Use it as you use other machines. Mind is a beautiful machine. If you can use it, it will serve you; if you cannot use it and it starts using you, it is destructive, it is dangerous. It is bound to take you into some trouble, into some calamity, into some suffering and misery, because a machine is a blind thing. It has no eyes, it has no insight. Mind cannot see; it can only go on repeating that which has been fed into it. It is like a computer; first you have to feed it. Hope this helps my friend ❤ ❤!!

He has such a loving energy!! Thanks 4 the share!

How and why would God imagine something like the ego which appears to have taken thousands of years to evolve into the dysfunctional survival mechanism that it is today and is responsible for almost all of the human suffering on the planet.

When you become empty of yourself you become full of the Divine... It's what's true ❤ ❤ love it!!

Nice one...stay present, grateful and accepting of the current situation.

@cetus56 you're very welcome I found it too interesting to not...?

@ben_pte Thanks I will check that out, sounds interesting, I loved the book of not knowing by Peter Ralston. ❤ ?

@electroBeam I used to use a lot of positive affirmations to keep me motivated for work: I have a wonderful job with wonderful pay, I do a wonderful service in a wonderful way. I always tell people not to resist what they're naturally feeling. If you naturally want to focus on Consciousness just allow yourself to do it and don't resist what is. A lot of pain and suffering occur when we resist the present moment. Maybe just try allowing yourself to go with the flow and not resisting. Good luck buddy!!

@Schahin turn within my friend and look deeply at yourself, ask who and what you are. Try to find yourself. The answers you seek are in you. Look for yourself... Who Are You? What Are You? Where Is This Sense Of You Residing?

Stop resisting what is... it's as simple as that. Inhale life into your very being ingest it and just experience it.

@Genghis Khan you will realise that you are already perfect and always will be. And all your life choices are what brought you to this point in your life and you will be grateful for all challenges you have encountered. You won't resist the present moment because that's all we have, and it will feel good.

@waking_dreams haha I really like that a lot....you realize all the little SpongeBob bosses are just figments of the imagination and nothing has to be deleted or shredded, you just drop the attachment to it. Perfect!!

Yes, it does feel like we’re jumping off a cliff and risk losing everything. That is the initial fear of surrender. And, yes, we have to be willing to do that, to jump off this imaginary but very real feeling cliff and to risk losing everything, to surrender everything. That’s why it takes great courage. Eventually we just have to do it. Jump off the cliff, surrender absolutely everything. This is not a place for careful, cautious stages. Surrender is a very bold move when the very nature of the separate self is fear. And it is. So the fear of doing this is natural and inevitable. The separate ego self identity is made entirely out of fear, fear of not surviving. And to surrender fully, we are saying, “Yes, even this. Even death.” What We Lose and What We Gain: This all sounds like very bad news. It is what the ego is afraid of. The good news is we give up everything, we surrender everything, we lose everything, including ourself AND as a result, we GAIN everything. We have only really surrendered our attachment, an illusion. What we gain is reality. We gain the world. We gain relationships that were never possible before. We gain peace. We gain love. We gain a complete uninterrupted contentment, gratitude and joy. We gain freedom. We gain life. And we gain our True Self. What we lose (illusion) pales in comparison to the unlimited magnitude of what we gain. So this news is very, very good. But you can only know this when you take the leap. My words are only encouragement if you take them that way. I’m saying, “Jump in. The water is fine. It’s wonderful.” But you have to jump. I can’t do that for you. I know it’s terrifying to take that leap. Every awakened being has done this. And all have experienced this terror. It is part of the nature of waking up. And this terror is a big obstacle. Some never pass through it. In my case it was experience the terror and do it anyway. Not initially. I backed off many times. But finally, I took the leap. And then another. And then another. Eventually I realized this fear had no reality to it. I only realized this because I tested it again and again and what I feared never happened. I gave up all my talent as an artist and creative person. The result turned out to be more talent and creativity than I ever imagined possible. I gave up my relationships or ever having a relationship ever again. The result was the flowering of all existing relationships and new relationships beyond anything I would have thought possible. Everything I gave up came back to me in abundance. How could I know this? I didn’t. I just surrendered. I gave up a limited, vulnerable, separate self identity and realized This, the unlimited, infinite, beyond all possibility of identity. Nobody who has ever awakened to Truth said, “I wish I didn’t do that. Is it possible to return to illusion again?” No awakened being has ever said that. Nobody ever will. It’s worth the leap. It’s worth all the struggle and seeking and suffering that helped to open this door. Even a single moment of this great presence is worth a thousand lifetimes. I know the fear, My Friend. And I know what happens when you leap anyway and discover for yourself what happens. Nobody has ever said all that went before was not worth This. Thank you for the wonderful question that so many also hold deep in their hearts. This was a great story I found on the internet and almost identical to my own experience!! The main take away is the importance of surrendering and dropping the resistance. Hope you enjoy ❤ ❤