CONVERSATIONS WITH EGO: Transcending the Transcender

ego: (sigh)…Mike, really…all this “ego dynamics” stuff is hard for people to click with. I mean, people want to develop the ‘self,’ not strip it away.

Mike: Well, maybe that’s the problem! Maybe if we had less ego involvement in the world, we wouldn’t be having all these problems in the world.

ego: Mike, Mike, Mike….You and I both know that I ain’t going anywhere. And that’s just as true for everybody else.

You can’t transcend the transcender…

Mike: Yea, I get that. But maybe we can have significantly less of you. Wouldn’t that be nice!

ego: So, then… if you had “less” of me... what would you be left with?

Mike: More of my “True Nature”!

ego: What’s that?

Mike: I like to think it’s my deeper self... minus you.

ego: But, how would you know it without me?

Mike: Good grief! It’s like I can’t do anything without you!

ego: Unfortunately, Mike, even trying to be without me... requires my assistance.

(Image by De Es Schwertberger - "Facing the Light")

Interlocking "Stories" Create Worlds

Certainly we are always in relationship to everything in our experience of a world. Yet, the primacy of all self-defining is through others first, everything else is a sloppy second.

Who "you" are is contingent on others, because they have defined "you" and "you" have defined them (although "you" like to take all the credit).

The German philosopher Heidegger emphasized that there is no experience as "man" or "human being" as a separate isolated experience or 'story.' Of course, man and human being are separate ideas or concepts that can be strung together in numerous narratives. But the experience is only in relationship, or "Being-in-the -World," as unified

You experience your greatest joy and your most intense suffering through and with others. But "you" believe this is not to be trusted and so rely primarily, and often exclusively, on your 'self.'

Make no mistake, sitting on your cushion meditating is not free of others, since who "you" are, or the concept you identify with as you "meditating," is an interdependent construction extracted from a world of others. Your 'world' provides you with everything you need and even your belief in transcending the world was given to you from your world. But if the world is "you," and there is no division, you give to yourself.

Your "story" is not about you, but about you in relationship to other stories that relate to other stories, which relate to other stories, on and on, ad infinitum (such are the tangled webs we weave). Yet, your desperate attempts to identify and isolate an individual 'story' against and in contrast to other individual stories is the root of your suffering.

Even in the relationships you claim as your most intimate, you barely touch the depths of intimacy even though you sense that all experience is unified. Unity frightens the poop out of the sociopathic ego, which revels in its separate individualism, but wouldn't know itself from spit if it were not for the shared experience which defined it. So it adopts complicated and austere 'spiritual' practices, which only reinforces its desire to revel in itself, denying that it would not even exist without 'others' to give it meaning.

Nothing wrong with meditation though, especially when used by ego to come out from its protective shell and engage with its experience of others. Only then will it know itself as engaged with a world in which its greatest joy is from shared consciousness.

Certainly engaging with a 'world' is crucial to the 'self' since without the experience of a world there could be no experience of 'self.' Nevertheless, all experiences are intensified when combined. This idea is so counter to the usual mode of your egoic relating that it's hard to grok and you become acclimated to separating your relationships from your spiritual practices in the belief that once your "spirituality" has sufficiently intensified (whatever that means), the trickle down theory will then insure that your relationships benefit accordingly.

Yet, this is counter to the fact that relationships are your spiritual practice and your only purpose.

I meditate fairly regularly (actually, I just call it 'sitting still for a spell') but for me this is nothing but prep for engaging in a world of others. It's the old parable, "seeking the face of Christ in another" is "awakening," since it's through others that such a maximal experience is attained. Intense solitary experiences are grand, but I contend this is multiplied exponentially when engaged in sharing with and through another. This is how we learn who we are in truth. Yet, it's also how we create a shared experience of reality that may not be true if our purpose is denied.

The Interdependent Non-Dual Nature of Christ Consciousness

Ego’s experience pain and suffering and because of that, we fear each other above all else. This is because nothing causes more pain and suffering than "man's inhumanity to man." In fact, it is often our most significant others that cause the most pain.

Yet, the inverse is that those you have joined with to experience “love” are often cause for the most joy (you may even have briefly touched this, but have long since forgotten due to the desensitizing angst of daily egoic existence).

To trust in your ability to heal yourself, you must trust in the healing ability of another, because the world is an interdependent unity of transference and counter transference and you cannot extract your ‘self’ from that experience, because it is inherent to your ‘Being.’

Not one concept of your ego-self was constructed in isolation from other self-concepts. Waking from the dream is an interdependent project, because we do not dream alone.

But then, why do we seek to ‘awake’ alone?

See everyone as facilitator to your awakening, even those whom you judge has having little or no value. Since, who are “you” to judge?

Nevertheless, the ego-self expects ‘healing’ on its own terms. It will seek out healing through conflict, because it was designed from conflict and in conflict, and it believes that it alone has the power to heal itself, because it alone made it what it is.

The ego seeks out conflict through which to define itself in opposition to the world. Therefore, the more actualized the ego, the more it believes it has transcended conflict. It believes that through actualizing itself in the world, the world will heal it, based on the world’s rewards (in other words, “if only this, than that”). Only by following the world’s prescribed ‘laws’ will you achieve your ‘reward’ and the world reflects that expectation in widespread discouragement and despair.

The law of the jungle is survival (everybody for himself) and the more "enlightened" and powerful the 'self,' the greater your reward and the more your chances of survival (in this life and after).

Your ‘self’ is an abstract concept developed purely to protect from fear and, through that function, actually manufactures the fear you seek to evade. The irony is that what you protect from is what you made “real.”

To replace the “real” with the truth you must let down your defenses. But, the world can be a very frightening ‘experience’ and you need a ‘self’ you can count on to protect “you” from what’s ‘out there,’ denying that what’s ‘out there’ is entirely experienced ‘within.’

Instead of seeking to protect from it, through your concepts, maybe it’s time to engage with it?

What was developed in the need for protection (ego-self) merely magnifies your alienation from others. Make no mistake, it’s not others that threaten you, but your inner experience of others. There is a very distinct difference that you will not realize alone through intellectualized ‘spiritual’ games. You need others to aid you in unifying what seems a distinct division of mind.

Unification of these two distinct and opposing perspectives is the non-duality of Christ Consciousness and it is an entirely interdependent experience.

Your world is your experience, both inside and out. Many spiritual paths emphasize that by changing the ‘inside,' the ‘outside’ cannot harm you and this alludes to the “kingdom within." Yet, what they fail to address is that you cannot change the inside alone, as this only reinforces that you are alone and separate from what is ‘outside.’

Healing is an absence of conflict in all experience and there are many you have chosen through which to encounter that perfect peace. Did you think that 'they' came into your life by coincidence? Is it all simply a matter of chance?

Take a long look at the one next to you. Extract from that “look” all past concepts, or expectations, superimposed upon them and then communicate to them what you see. When you superimpose your concepts upon physical “sight,” you lose vision, because your concepts are hinged on egoic self-preservation and, therefore, based in fear.

Fear obstructs vision through self-protective, seemingly impenetrable, veils. Healing is nothing more than seeing through the self constructed veils of fear and realizing perfect safety. Do you feel perfectly safe with everyone you have chosen to love? Can you reveal your ‘self’ to them with excruciating honesty? (or must parts be kept undisclosed). If not, then you have abdicated your function as healer by denying this function in them and this is because you believe that healing is impossible from them and this makes it unavailable to you.

If healing is impossible from them, this only means protection is still necessary, because only egos require protection. You believe you must heal your ‘self’ regardless of the fact that the self was not constructed in isolation from them and they are as much a part of you as you are of them.

Individual fixation on your ‘self’ does not change this equation. Every individual problem you experience is always in correspondence to others. It has been said, that we are like the walking wounded, numbed by fear and closed off from any depth of engagement and so we do not understand one another and have given up trying.

Relationships steeped in the depths of intimacy are healing “places” for all who enter and join. We all feel the pull toward healing, but deny the source could ever be with another, because the experience within you cannot be trusted and so, neither can they. The ego-self must engage and engage deeply.

The ego will contrive strategies to evoke conditioned love as a way to personal happiness, but this is an egoic ruse and is destined to fail. Your lacking the motivation to heal the ones you have chosen to love, means you have simply refused to be healed by them. Love is interdependent healing exchange and, if you are not healed, than there was no love, but only conditioned behaviors rigidly based in conventional self-protective duality.

There is no other way to spin this, although your ego will try.

The Know-Nothing Neutrality of Non-Duality

One of the chief misinterpretations of non-duality (for those relying on interpretations) is that non-duality is an acceptance of all that is.

This is opposed to rejecting or invalidating all that is, because, as they claim, all that is emerges from “oneness” and, thus, to reject anything is to reject "oneness," so accept it all, because “everything is good and beautiful!”

Notice the duality here?

Acceptance is opposite rejection and both distinctions are nothing more than dualistic judgments, no different than good/bad, right/wrong, etc, etc. You Make judgments between two modes of conventional perception; reject or accept. Only you choose acceptance, because you were taught that this judgment is more advantageous to your spiritual evolution and is, incidentally, the way to non-duality or "enlightenment."

Therefore, from this choice you accept murder and war.

Ha! But that’s absurd. Why would anyone accept murder and war?

Well, based on the "acceptance" premise, you accept murder and war because non-duality demands acceptance of all that is.

But wouldn’t your acceptance of murder and war, thereby, assert murder and war as “real”? If murder and war is a part of your experience, whether directly or indirectly, doesn’t accepting murder and war continue to make it “real” and part of your experience?

But, wouldn’t you rather that murder and war weren’t “real”? Wouldn't you rather it were NOT part of your experience?

On the other hand, if you do not accept, or if you reject murder and war, does this not also make it “real," since you assert that it exists simply through your desire that it NOT exist. Why would you reject what is not a part of your experience of "reality." Therefore, to reject is to accept, just as to accept is a rejection.

Seems like either way you go, you’re caught in the web of duality. But then, some like it hot, while some like it cold.

Is there anything else besides this either/or perspective?

Maybe you just don’t know? Maybe you shouldn't apply meaning one way or the other, because you have NO idea what anything means? Maybe you need to detach from the egoic capacity to judge altogether, which means to neither accept nor reject (is your ego screaming yet?).

Maybe even your whole experience of “reality” was simply manufactured by filling that blank slate (consciousness) with rejection and acceptance?

'Knowing' is so over-rated. Maybe neutrality changes everything.

Can you return to that ‘blank slate,’ that neither accepts nor rejects? Maybe this is the "Know-Nothing Neutrality of Non-Duality" or the state of consciousness that neither rejects nor accepts.

Can you accept you know nothing by rejecting everything or can you reject what you know by accepting nothing?

Should you seek neutrality in the realization that you don’t know? Those who don’t know neither accept nor reject. How could they, in the realization that they don’t know. Maybe you should return to the blank slate that you were prior to judging your experiences as “real"?

More importantly, if you choose to believe you don’t know, then you will be open to learning, because, obviously, those who already ‘know’ have nothing to learn. In fact, when you know nothing, you immediately become vulnerable. Of course, even though your ego is deathly afraid of being vulnerable, it is probably the most spiritually advanced state you could attain prior to realizing your infinite invulnerability.

You have come to realize you know nothing and desire to learn everything, because you’ve entered the neutral state of non-dual consciousness, which knows nothing. Of course, since you know nothing and are neutral about everything, then you cannot possibly judge who the best teacher is and, therefore, remain neutral about 'who' knows and does not know. This means you must be open to learning from everyone and everything, even those who claim not to know and are blank slates themselves.

In that way we all come upon truth together, since it can't be known any other way.

Obviously those who claim to ‘know’ merely fear being vulnerable. But then, what should you do upon meeting up with someone who claims to know and wants to teach you?

RUN!

(but then, don't accept what I say, but don't reject it either)

(Artwork by KH Blackwell "Pressures of the Non-Blinking Third Eye)

Does Adyashanti Cherish Illusions?

Adyashanti is currently one of the most revered of the internet's neo-advaitist’s messengers. I enjoy reading and listening to his philosophical discussions. However, over time I’ve come to recognize that he is as deluded as any other postmodern Non-Dual/Zen "teacher" and this delusional mindset is contagious, since the message is passed from one idolized messenger to another.

The quotes used here can be found at Adyashanti.org, “The Quest”

“The quest for enlightenment is the quest for truth or reality. It’s not a quest for ideas about truth—that’s philosophy. And it’s not a quest to realize your fantasies about truth—that’s fundamentalized religion. It’s a quest for truth on truth’s terms. It’s a quest for the underlying principle of life, the unifying element of existence.”

The “quest for the underlying principle of life, the unifying element of existence” is not found in solitary excursions through the mind, since this only results in egoic conceptual “fantasies." It is encountered in the depth of relationship and that is "the underlying principle of life, the unifying element of existence" and the reason you're 'here.'

Truth is not available to separate individuals outside relationship, since this makes it 'proprietary truth,' which must belong to an 'individual' (just not you). The truth, simultaneously experienced by two or more who have encountered it together, is not relative to any individual ego-self. However, truth encountered together can be negated as truth, especially for those who believe 'truth' belongs only to the individuals we have designated as specialized "Wisdom Masters."

“In your quiet moments of honesty, you know that you are not who you present yourself as, or who you pretend to be. Although you have changed identities many times, and changed them even in the course of a single day, none of them fit for long. They are all in a process of constant decay. One moment you’re a loving person, the next an angry one. One day you’re an indulgent, worldly person; the next a pure, spiritual lover of God. One moment you love your image of yourself, and the next you loathe it. On it goes, identified with one self-image after another, each as separate and false as the last.”

Yes, however, this 'wise man' (with the Hindu name) fails to address the fact that all of these “identities” are manufactured in relation to engagement with the identity of others. The ‘self’ was not constructed in isolation, but immersed in relationship with a 'world' of other identities. Even the illusion is communal and was constructed in collaborative engagement. Unfortunately, this may make it “real,” just not true and it is truth that we must seek together.

Therefore, if the “real” was constructed in cooperative engagement, the truth will be discovered in the same way and this lends credence to the fact that we are powerful beyond belief (since it is belief which limits us). The illusion is that by seeking the truth as an individual, more illusion is what you will find. An individual must always discover illusion, because an “individual” is a concept that 'we' made "real." If your "quiet moments" were truly "honest," then a desire to engage the 'others' of your world will be the result, in the realization that this is the only way to encounter truth.

“When this game of delusion gets boring or painful enough, something within you begins to stir. Out of the unsatisfactoriness of separation arises the intuition that there is something more real than you are now conscious of. It is the intuition that there is truth, although you do not know what it is. But you know, you intuit, that truth exists, truth that has absolutely nothing to do with your ideas about it. But somehow you know that the truth about you and all of life exists.”

Therefore, from this "unsactisfactoriness of separation," seek out the ground of truth through relationship (why choose any other 'individual' path?). From a depth of engagement with the illusion, together we overcome it in realizing we united to make it “real.” Now we simply unite to make it true.

It’s not the space between thoughts that need be discovered, but the space between minds that need be converged because, from that space, ”individuals” emerged and, in that alone, illusion was made “real” and egoic compromises, or distinctions, were manufactured to define illusion as “real.” Unfortunately, we have yet to realize the true, simply because we seek to find it as 'individuals.'

“Once you receive this intuition, this revelation, you will be compelled to find it. You will have no choice in the matter. You will have consciously begun the authentic quest for enlightenment, and there is no turning back. Life as you’ve known it will never be quite the same.”

Although the revelation (or revealing) is through another, the ego will insist that you engage the "authentic quest for enlightenment” alone. This is because individual ego-self relies distinctly on distrust and, thus, alienation, from others in order to advance itself through delusional inequality.

This is why so many fail to realize truth undiluted by egoic constructions simply because they seek to attain it as an individual, while other minds remain in absentia of that truth. Unfortunately, “master teachers,” such as Adyashanti, perpetuate that same delusion and, therefore, become victims themselves, as the past is repeated, ad nauseam, from individual to individual.

“Seeking truth can be a game, complete with a new identity as a truth-seeker fueled by new ideas and beliefs. But ceasing to cherish illusions is no game; it’s a gritty and intimate form of deconstructing yourself down to nothing. Get rid of all of your illusions and what’s left is the truth. You don’t find truth as much as you stumble upon it when you have cast away your illusions.”

The one illusion you must cease to cherish is that you, alone are "truth-seeker" and can access truth, because that “game” is finite. Discard only this illusion and “what’s left is the truth.” We will certainly “stumble on it” together, but only in realizing it cannot be discovered alone. Until we all join in the infinite game, individuals will continue to access finite outcomes and call these individual rewards "enlightenment," "awakening," "revelation," etc, etc, etc.

“Truth can’t be found by seeking it, simply because truth is what you are. Seeking what you are is as silly as your shoes looking for their soles by walking in circles. What is the path that will lead your shoes to their soles? That’s why the Zen master said, “Do not seek the truth.” Instead, cease cherishing illusions.”

Which is exactly what we do, as the ‘ego-self’ travels in circles by following itself. All the self need do is realize that even its illusions are not manufactured in solitude. This halts the ego-self in its tracks, as it must now join with another to finally understand itself. It is this collaborative understanding that ceases to cherish illusions and discovers truth together as one.

“To cease cherishing illusions is a way of inverting the energy of seeking. The energy of seeking will be there in one form or another until you wake up from the dream state. You can’t just get rid of it. You need to learn how to invert it and use the energy to deconstruct the illusions that hold your consciousness in the dream state.”

Exactly. But that “energy” remains contained and limited because “you” seek to deconstruct “you.” Go ahead and deconstruct "me," as "I" simultaneously deconstruct “you,” and from that ground of relating the Truth-of-Being (hyphenated to denote unity) will be discovered together, because no one individual could possibly realize the absolute and unconditional, in which making such a discovery is conditioned solely on an ego-self. The idea that one must first become "enlightened," or experience the non-dual, and only then teach others, is absurd and makes suffering true for all but the 'enlightened masters' like Adyashanti.

“This sounds relatively simple, but the consequences can seem quite disorienting, even threatening. I’m not talking about a new spiritual technique here; I’m talking about a radically different orientation to the whole of your spiritual life. This is not a little thing. It is a very big thing, and your best chance of awakening depends on it. “Do not seek the truth; simply cease cherishing illusions.” And if you’re like most spiritually oriented people, your spirituality is your most cherished illusion. Imagine that.”

There is nothing threatening about solitary seeking and the ego relishes the chance to be the ‘one’ to spend years "discovering truth" and all the paradigms of the ‘dream-world’ piggy-back off this basic delusion. But truth discovered by an individual can only be relative to that individual and therefore, NOT truth at all.

The most "threatening" ego endeavor is to discover truth through, and with, another, because in that discovery love is experienced unconditioned by egoic constructs. Yet, in that discovery “you” cease to be experienced as “you” now know your ‘self’ and “we” takes on a new perspective never before encountered.

There is nothing radical to Adyashanti’s teachings, only the same conventional wisdom pointing to the way that “you” can find truth. Unfortunately, what “you” find is what Adyashanti has found, only more illusion. Sadly, this distorted view continues to be the path of the neo-Zen, non-dualers and this individual “hero’s journey” will only continue to demand seeking truth by inadvertently excluding it.

However, the truth available in the depth of relationship was always the archetypal Christ/Buddha message until ego-self got a hold of it and made that message it’s own. Now we have lost the message, but have gained many messengers still cherishing illusions.

(Artwork: "Delusion Dwellers" by Laurie Lipton)

CONVERSATIONS WITH EGO: Our Never-Ending "Story"

ego: Mike, we need to surrender the story of “who” we think we are.

Mike: Uh...what good will that do?

ego: Well, obviously, by surrendering the 'story' you become liberated from the suffering of the self. Besides, transcending the ‘story’ is all the rage in spiritual circles these days.

Mike: Ok, what ‘blog’ did you read that from?

ego: But it makes sense!

Mike: The problem is that “my” story is interdependently interfaced within the stories of everyone else. I can seek to transcend my story till the cows come home, but the moment I encounter a story in another, my story becomes fixed. In fact, the moment I perceive “someone else” a story automatically materializes.

ego: So what are you saying, we have to surrender everyone else's story too?

Mike: Actually, there are NO separate stories, only the "story” of separate stories and we’re all in that together because it's infinite. If I seek to surrender or transcend my separate story, I’m then caught in the "story of separate stories." The moment I assert liberation from my story, but then encounter the story of someone else, I can no longer assert being story-less and my advising another to surrender or detach from their story only makes our story more “real.”

ego: Good grief, Mike! We can't count on other people. We just need to focus on our self for now. Once we awaken to our True Self we can teach others.

Mike: By surrendering the story of everyone we meet, we liberate the 'self' because the self does not exist without engagement with others. However, the moment I try to teach another to transcend their individual story, as if I had experienced transcending my own, I become a fixture of our never-ending story. Therefore, I must be liberated from their story, because their story is mine, as mine is theirs. We are all interdependently interconnected and no one transcends alone (even though many have become deeply mesmerized by the "individual transcendence story").

ego: Wait a minute! Surrendering your own story was taught by the Great Masters of the past, you can’t go trashing centuries of wisdom tradition!

Mike: Ah yes, the “Wisdom Tradition Story.” We certainly love that story! Which, of course, is predecessor to the “non-duality story” and “surrender your story,” stories. The very moment you attempt to detach from an individual story, the individual story becomes "real." Maybe it’s not about surrendering 'my' story, but about surrendering 'theirs' because every judgment I make about my ‘self’ is always and forever in relation to ‘them' and every judgment upon them defines 'me.'

ego: Damn, Mike! It would be so much easier if you could just do it all by your ‘self.’

Mike: Yes, that does seem to be the most convenient "story." No wonder so many faithfully follow it.

(artwork: "Buddha" by Octaviao Ocampo)