The Great Book!

I have an friend who knows the Book inside and out.

Whenever we get to talking about spiritual stuff, I give him my ideas and he gives me the Book. I always feel somewhat inferior based on his acute and expansive knowledge of the Book.

Compared to the Book, written by wise and revered masters, my ideas are the ideas of a circus clown.

He can dance rings around me when it comes to the Book and responds to every question with some profound quote from the Book. Oh sure, I know a little from the Book, like I know a little from other Books, but I can't quote from the Book or provide explanations as to the meaning of life from the Book.

He seems to live, eat and breathe the Book and life itself seems to have evolved right out of the Book.

Whatever idea I suggest, he tells me why it's silly because the Book says....

I say, "dude, the answers to life are not in that Book!" He responds, "oh really, so where do you get your answers from?"

I bumble off a ridiculous sounding, "life!" (and then I hear a muted trumpet in the background going...Wahwahwahhh...)

Unfortunately, this friend knows my past "life" and so, I know I'm beat down once again. I really don't know what to say, since there certainly is alot of profound stuff in the Book.

I mean, how can you argue with the Book!

The other day I actually started to intently read the Book in order to not seem so ignorant about the Book, especially when I'm around other Book Lovers like my friend.

Problem is, I quickly got bored and fell asleep.

If The World is "Illusion" Can I Quit My Job?

I often peruse the spiritual blogs, some of which are rather popular. You’ll find many great sentiments expressed. Mostly, however, they are buried in ideological frames of reference.

The ones I like the most are, “you are not an ego.” Or here’s my all time fave, “you are not a body.” Or, how about, “the world is an illusion.” Ha! Don’t tell me, tell my arthritis!

Yea, Okay, I get all that transcendent stuff. But then, I think, “okay, so I’m not a body. Does that mean I don’t have to lift my ‘body’ outa this bed at 5 am to get to work on time?”

I suppose some folks are ready to hear this stuff and I guess it all depends on where you’re at. As for me, it just doesn’t relate to my experience. I’d prefer they simply teach, “your are not in debt.”

Or, in relation to the body, “you are not a body that must diet.” Actually, I only need to lose about 15 lbs, so maybe, “you are not a body that must lose 15 lbs.” Now these are teachings I could relate to and live my life by.

I just wonder why they need us to go from 0-60 before we even leave the garage. It seems to smack of hypocrisy. I mean, here I am trying not to be a “body,” while at the same time stuffing my face.

I kinda liked the western existential philosophers, like Sartre, Marcel, Heidegger, et al. These guys seemed to know that it was the stuff of everyday experience that needed to be examined fully and eventually reformatted or even deconstructed. Like, you are not a consumer, or employee, taxpayer, homeowner, etc, etc, even eventually to the point where our more revered roles such as father, mother, daughter, husband, needed to be deconstructed and even stripped away.

I think all this ego-body transcendence needs to be more grounded in experiential reality before we head for the clouds.

Don’t tell me "you're not an ego," as I fork over $250 to participate in this retreat, because I’ll prove that we’re both ego’s in demanding your ego give it back. Ha!

Veteran of a Thousand Psychic Wars

It seems likely that the ego and mind are separate experiences. Yet the ego must deny the power of the mind in order to preserve and perpetuate itself. Because if “you” knew how powerful your mind was, you most likely would do away with the ego entirely.

The ego cannot allow this to even be considered, therefore, it attempts to belittle your mind and depreciate its power. It does this through minimizing your self-esteem, which results in self-depreciation and feelings of unworthiness.

Is it any wonder we so desperately seek out others to save us from ourselves, when we see our selves as utterly weak and powerless. It's always somebody else who must save us from ourselves.

This puts an ironic twist on the situation because, without the mind the ego could not exist. But, if the mind knew what it was ultimately capable of, it would annihilate the ego in the blink of an eye.


The ego does not know this as fact, so self-absorbed as it is, but it does sense that something bigger and more powerful than itself stands between it and its desire for complete domination and control of “you” (some refer to this sensing as “God”). Therefore, it’s forced to attack the very source that allows it to exist. Your mind.

And that’s why you are always your own worst enemy. Hahaa!

However, the real insanity of all this is that you believe that if you enlist and cooperate in the ego’s cause of strengthening itself and making itself more powerful, it will allow “you” to finally be happy. Unfortunately, a vicious circle is formed in which, by strengthening the ego to insure “you” are happy, you become increasingly more miserable due to the ego’s increased control.

So now you get the bright idea that the less ego the better. Yet the ego is a cunning bastard (for how else could it fraudulently represent itself as “you”) and twists the game of “transcending” itself to become a game to make it stronger and this is the irony of all spiritual paths that seek to transcend the ego. The more you do to minimize the ego, the more the ego grows, simply because it has you convinced that IT is you and everything you do to leave it behind keeps it firmly in place.

But I'm Just saying…