Ego And Self-destruction?

[Subconscious94]

Can anyone help dive deep enough and explain into the inner process of Ego as to why people can build entire lives filled with addiction, depression and fear, and not garnish enough power to have any real chance to choose a different path?

As we know this isn't true for all people as some people go on to live amazing lives filled with great success, but we also have some people who struggle to overcome the self-sabotaging habits and behaviors that keep them stuck for years and years.

[jse]

Egotistical self-destruction appears contradictory, but is very common.
Maybe it's some kind of spiritual safety mechanism, like for example, sleep every night.

 

[Prabhaker]

9 minutes ago, Subconscious94 said:

we also have some people who struggle to overcome the self-sabotaging habits

The habit is the easier way to do a thing. The whole mechanism of a habit is that you need not be conscious about it. It has become a mechanical part of you, a part of your robot mind: it does things by itself. You can go on thinking other things, dreaming other dreams, and the habit takes every action to its end – with more perfection because a habit is mechanical, and machines don’t commit mistakes.

So everybody is dominated by habit. And it is one of the most important things, to get out of this domination. It is moving from mechanicalness to consciousness.

In the beginning it is very arduous. You are doing one thing, and at the same time you have to remain conscious – so you are divided. Because of your division, your action may not be as perfect as when the habit does it alone; it simply knows how to do it.

For example, if you learn bicycling, in the beginning it is very difficult, for the simple reason that you are too conscious, and there are many things to be conscious of. You have to take care of the handles, where they are moving, the direction. You have to take care of your legs, whether they are working on the pedals. You have to take care whether there are people on the road, cars or trucks. There are so many things to take care of, and you don’t have any habit.

This is a natural way to make things simple, but as far as your growth of consciousness is concerned, it is against you. It is efficient, in tune with nature, but not in tune with a higher nature, where every action has to be conscious.

[Subconscious94]

@Prabhaker For somebody that has resistance to change their habits, would that be because of the subconscious mind or the ego?

But from moving to mechanicalness to consciousness that will have resistance and so what is causing this resistance, on top of that what created the habit in the first place, it is the ego right which wants comfort?

[Prabhaker]

@Subconscious94

A child is born full of life, children are very conscious. But we start cultivating them , we start curbing their freedom. We start imposing, "Do this, don′t do that." We start imposing do′s and don′ts on them. Soon they will forget all about freedom, soon they will start acting out of the past, pretending. Soon they will be no more alive. Ego is just a habit, a habit of ignorance, unconsciousness. If you drop it, it will come back in some other form. It cannot leave you - it is just an old habit of unconscious mind. Don't feed it, don't drop it, because in both ways you will be saving it. Just watch it, and you will not find it. Bringing awareness in means dissolving the body robot, its mechanicalness, creating awareness deep in the body. 

Awareness means dissolving the robot, awareness means unlearning the nonsense that has been taught by the society, bringing the mind closer and closer to the body, penetrating the body with awareness. Become more and more alert in small things. In drinking water, drink it with absolute alertness, as if everything depends on it. In that moment don’t do anything else. Taste the water, feel its coolness going down your throat. Feel the quenching of the thirst, feel the entry of the water in the body. In that moment only be that. Eating, do the same. In walking, sleeping, loving, remember one thing: the body has not to be used as a robot. It is not a machine, you are not the manipulator.

Someone asked Buddha, ”How shall we meditate?”

Buddha replied, ”Whatsoever you do, do it with awareness; this is meditation. Walking, walk attentively, as if walking is everything; eating, eat with awareness, as if eating is everything; rising, rise with awareness; sitting, sit with awareness; all your actions become conscious, your mind does not travel beyond this moment, it remains in the moment, settles in the moment – this is meditation.” 

Meditation is simply the name for life lived with awareness. 

1 hour ago, Subconscious94 said:

For somebody that has resistance to change their habits

This journey is vast, and you cannot be in a hurry. Speed is one of the great diseases of the modern man, because it has made impossible many things which can happen only in patience. If you are in a hurry, if you are in haste, you will never know the taste of meditation. The taste of meditation needs great patience.