What are You Defending Against in This Moment

It’s never really about attack, since attack comes from the need to defend. Attack is merely an aspect of an ego defense system. However, your ego-self system is ever vigilant against attack (psychological and physical) and this is because it's an active player in the game of death. The objective of that game is different from all 'life' games since you must avoid the outcome rather than seek it. In avoiding this outcome we press into our experience of 'life' by demanding outcomes to life experiences to prove our 'living' and this involves the enlightenment or awakening paradigms.

Enlightenment is sought in 'life' primarily in opposition to the experience of 'death.' It is conceived as the greatest method of asserting 'self' into the experience of 'world,' in opposition to the most diminished experience which we refer to as death (or end of 'self').

However, keep in mind that the ego-self is not as concerned about ending it’s concept of ‘body” as it is with ending the total experience of a ‘self,’ in which the body is only one part of that comprehensive integrated experience.

This is because ‘self’ is only an experience. Its 'world' has no tangible or physical properties only the experience of tangible and physical properties. The ego-self constructs numerous and variable experiences for which to ‘live’ (experience) through its construct of 'self.'

Yet, your ego-self has no experience of death, other than an experience of 'inevitability' and you do experience that everyday.

The ego-self constructs each and every experience it encounters and this is why there are no coincidences in 'life' ("you" just deny responsibility and that denial is the foundation of an 'ego-self'). It provides itself with teachers and teaching moments (and not the ones you consciously choose). This helps maintain an experience of a ‘world’ as directly received from a 'world.' Nevertheless, it cannot construct the experience of death and this cannot be taught from the 'world.' Oh sure, it can experience others dying, but, it cannot construct its own experience of death since it allows for no teachers or teaching moments in time.

Since it has no experience of death, but death is conceptualized as inevitable, it is conceptualized as an 'ending.' This entails a moment to moment self-experience we refer to as "mortality." It is this mortality that makes the ego-self entirely unsafe with itself. How can you trust what you teach yourself (and you pretty much teach yourself everything) if within the construct of 'self' is mortality and the complete cessation of 'self' at any moment?

Certainly, the world provides theoretical and conceptual teachings on death (religion and spirituality), but always doubt is inherent in every theory simply because they cannot be tested. But obviously the ego-self will construct an experience of death since death is inherent to its self-construct and this is because it constructs the experience of ‘others’ dying. Yet, the experience of death, unlike other life experiences cannot ever be confirmed until the moment of death.

Therefore, you are never NOT constructing an experience of death in your experience of life and this tends to put a damper on things.

All of our experiences tend to interface with one another and this is why just having “intent,” as the Law of Attraction proponents advocate, is rather inconsequential, since any 'intention' construct must compete with its opposite. What’s important about the egoic experiential construct of death is that you will spend your entire ‘life’ constructing your experience of death and this is the function of all religious-spiritual concepts and ideologies.

However, you will NOT realize or 'know' the culmination of this death-construct until the time of death. It’s not important to realize the ‘when’ of death, because the game is about preparing for that 'event' at any moment and this is why death is the only experience the ego-self must defend against IN every moment. Since it cannot define or construct it, it must therefore always be vigilantly prepared for it. Interestingly enough, there are examples of individuals who, upon accepting the diagnosis of a terminal condition, discard all preparation and report this to be the most joyous time of their entire life.

Essentially, your defense against death is how the ego-self defines life because all assertion of ego-self into the world is in opposition to death. To "live life to the fullest" is only to oppose the dualistic opposite of life, which is death. The paradox is that the ego-self construct, or experience of ‘self,’ includes living-unto-death within it and this tends to buffer or dumb down all experiences because deeply inherent within each experience of living, is the construct of death. Subsequently, Living-unto-death reinforces the experience of ‘time’ because there is so little of it available to 'life.'

All ego-self experiences tend to dualistically nest within each other reinforcing and canceling-out other experiences and this merely supports the ego’s need TO experience ceaselessly. Will the ego-self experience ceaselessly after death? The answer is denied because there is no construct of experience through which to define itself in-death. This demands 'fear' and fear is the warning to the self of the immediacy and mortality of death, because it has no experience to go on.

The name of this game is defense and your defenses reinforce the ego-self concept of death and this is what must be defended against through asserting the ego-self into its experience of ‘world.’ But how can you assert into life and defend against death at the same time? Essentially, "you" have no choice since you cannot escape the dualistic 'self' that "you" require. To completely end one process would end the other and you would cease to exist and "you" certainly cannot allow that to happen. You cannot just defend against death or assert for life. You must do both, alternately and cyclically.

However, you can experience a reduction of defense, and this seems equivalent to the levels of the enlightenment experience. Recognize the ego-self use of defenses to protect the ‘self’ against death (not just embodied self, but more importantly the psychological self). This defending against can be experienced from moment to moment, like when your child talks back to you, you are cut off in traffic, argue with a coworker, etc, etc, any experience that has anger, anxiety, depression or guilt is solely related to fear of death. Anything that threatens the self-package is treated as threat of an end to the experience of 'self.'

Keep in mind that it’s not survival of the body that is of most concern, but the survival of the whole experience of ‘self,' including body, mind, others and world. If the psychological component of ‘self’ is threatened (the experience we believe as located in "mind") this is equal to bodily threat and can create as much panic and fear as if the body were threatened.

It is fear that you defend against because it warns of death. This fear creates vigilance and vigilance demands defense and constant defense can drain you to exhaustion (but this will not stop it because of your dire need to defend). Stillness of mind and body (not necessarily “meditation”) is helpful in recognizing your perpetual vigilance toward defense. This is because all your hustle and bustle, within your experience of ‘world,’ is actually from fear. Let fear guide you to your defenses so that you can fully examine why you do what you do. Therefore, the question is, when I experience fear, what am I defending against in this moment and what is the purpose I have assigned to this fear.

This might help you realize the need to do less, since it’s only the experience of death that you are protecting yourself from in all your 'doings' and to limit such self-protection can be quite liberating to say the least. Essentially, you must substitute the need to defend with an evolving experience of complete safety.

Good Luck With That!