First I want to thank Michael for leaving his to me absolutely amazing comment about my “Chaos and suffering” post two days ago. Iam blown away by his deep insight into things.  One of his answers to my question: "Is the world really based on chaos and suffering or are we just not able to see the big picture?” is:

“If I only identify and perceive myself to be a person who has a separate individual existence, and am lost/unconscious to my emotions, beliefs, associations, memories and perceptions my nervous system (body/mind) will not be able to see beyond the chaos and suffering. I will not be able to see the big picture because my attention is focused and lost to the particular. If I have not had exposure or understanding to the other dimensions of my existence or awareness that allows me to navigate what is real and unreal, I will continue to be trapped and dependant on the numerous stories, dogmas and beliefs that try to explain away the chaos and suffering, such as “reincarnation”, “rebirth” and “lessons”. I will only experience reality as terrifying, because at this level of awareness it is terrifying (and real). If I am still lost to my conditioned self, and have no frame of reference or experiential understanding of an alternative Self, then I will still imagine and believe that I was born, and that I will die…”

Another amazing point he made is:

“Coming back to questioning the validity of our existence ~ This does not mean we are saying we don’t exist, have a body, have emotions etc, it just means that we begin to realize we exist, have a body, have emotions but in different ways than we had originally imagined, or had been conditioned to believe.”

Michael I am deeply moved by your insights and the clarity of your expression. I learned a lot from your comment. Trying to explain what we perceive is still seen out of the illusion of being a body. Getting to a point of an experience of not being a body makes these explanations obsolete.

My very good friend Marco also left me a comment the same day telling me that he understands what I am trying to say but for him it is very hard to know if his decisions are controlled by his mind/ego or by who he really is without his imaginary self. How does he know who makes the decision?

That question really put me on the hot seat since I had no idea how to answer it. Our egos are very tricky. It is hard to pinpoint what comes from the ego and what not. The common believe is that an ego is something that makes us feel bigger then we are. Most people that I meet have the opposite problem. They are exceptionally talented but see themselves as much less then they really are and live their life’s accordingly. Since I had no idea how to answer this question I sat down, wrote my personal diary and asked for guidance. An answer was given to me.

Choosing joy, that was the answer. That means to absolutely only do what you want to do without exception. Whatever you feel doing do, whatever you not feel like doing don’t do. And even after you decide you want to do it keep on asking yourself if you still feel like doing it. The moment the answer is no you stop immediately. Of course that is the same if you don’t feel like doing it you might decide differently at any time as well. If you feel like being rude, be rude. If you don’t feel like going to work don’t go. If you have no money and feel like giving money away, do it. If you feel like starting a new career, do it. Only do what you feel like doing. Never do anything you do not feel like doing.

This will drive your ego nuts. It will collide with all your ideas, with all your programming; this will collide with everything you have ever believed in. It takes away the control from your ego and gives it to your inner voice, to the universe, to the force that controls all things. What you have perceived as you will not have any control any more. Our ego thinks that this means we are out of control but the opposite is true. Being controlled by our minds/egos is being out of control because first of all as we have already discovered our egos are not real and second these egos/minds project a world that is not real that they try to control. That is a double illusion. The ego that does not exist does try to happiness in a world that does not exists either and promises us to find it if we just listen and do what it tells us to do. But how can something that is not real bring us happiness?

That is why we race from goal to goal to find seconds of satisfaction only to come up with another goal that will finally make us happy. The truth is the way of the ego/mind does not work. But since ego/mind is connected it is very cunning. It creates the illusion that we are this fragile body that will die one day and the only way to protect this body is to listen to our egos because the ego is the best and only friend we have. We do not know any other way of living so we believe what it says; listen to all its ideas, ideologies and beliefs. There is not much happiness in that form of living since we are constantly concerned about the future that anything could happen to this fragile aging body we perceive to be. “What if I loose my job, my health, my girlfriend, my apartment, my money or my youth”? “What will happen to me? What will people think about me? How will I survive? Isn’t it funny that most of us see the future as a dark dangerous place that we are afraid of? Why is that? Because our ego needs fear to survive. As long as there is fear we will need the help and support of our good friend the ego. And surviving we do but we are not living.

But now we do things differently. Now we only do what we want to do, only do what brings us joy. How do we decide? We listen to our heart/inner voice and make decisions instantaneously. The moment a question arises we answer it. We are not allowed to wait a second to find an answer because our ego/mind will use the opportunity to project our old ideas and beliefs onto the outcome of what we are trying to find out. Doing that will connect us to the source of all thing. Our decisions will be guided by our inner voice. Our life’s will be much more unpredictable, uncontrollable and we will surprise ourselves many times. They will also be bore exciting, more loving and more joyful. We will live instead of survive.

There is something else that we will find out. We will realize that even though we are not listening to our egos our future is safe, things will work out for us. We will find out that the ego has been lying to us all along, that it created anxiety and fear to justify its existence. It was only needed to guide us since it made us feel life was not possible without its guidance.

This realization will lead to the death of the ego. How does our life look like being guided by it?

We do things we do not want to do to be guided by an illusionary self that tries to find happiness in an imagined reality but never finds it. How does our life look like being guided by joy/our inner voice? We only do what we want to do. That is uncomfortable at the beginning but like with everything else we will practice and get used to it. The source of all things takes over as a guide. We are always at the right place in the right time doing the right things that bring us joy and happiness.

Who wants an ego!? As far as I’m concerned I don’t want mine.

 

 

"Hell without Doors". Williamsburg/Brooklyn 01-23-08 at 02:38 PM.

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Please check out my website at carstenfleck.com

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