Question:
I have been told that Eastern wisdoms teach people how to restrict their egos, their desires, to free themselves from suffering, is this true?
Do Eastern techniques effect a person so that their egoistic desires diminish until eventually they are united with the One, with the non-local?
Answer:
The most effective way to become free from the grip of the ego is to directly experience that non-local reality, or the “One” as you call it. So it’s not that you try to restrict your ego in order to experience your true Self; you experience your true Self first, and that is what liberates you from identification with the ego. You have to step outside the realm of the ego completely to extricate yourself from it. Any techniques that are limited to feelings, imagination, intellectual understanding, or will power that aim to free you from the ego, are all still within the field of the ego, and therefore those mental components do not have the ability to transform the very basis of one’s identity beyond the ego.
Love,
Deepak
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Question:
Ask Deepak: Freedom from ego
June 23rd, 2009
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The way in which I’ve read in respect to trying to stop the ego, is like going
against the current of a raging river, the more you fight it, the rougher it gets
on you, the more tired you get, and the more the river binds you. Go with the flow
as in… be aware of the mechanism of the ego, take note of it, there is no need
to put effort into restricting or trying to stop it. It will lose its grip as soon as you
are aware or awake to it.
Like Anthony De Mello says, “Before i was liberated, i was depressed, after I was
liberated, depression was still there.” But theres a difference, because of your
awareness that it is not a part of you, it no longer has the the power that we give it
to affect you. Feelings and emotions are a naturally part of being human, and
definitely can be enjoyed, but know that they are not you, that you are so much more
and much more beautiful. That One in which you refer to… that known unknown,
that thing in which cannot be explained by the mind. <3
Yes…true it is…thank you
when you think with prejudice you are erasing the other
posibilities available, the same thing does the ego with
God or the One
Divine Master
be my brother
& friend
Forgive my abuse of this forum since I do not know nor have the time to figure out the mechanics of formally joining you.
http://my.care2.com/jack4spratt
Least you think this an advertisement for myself
without apology I share the same Author as you
your tradition may sound, look and be quite different
but we are one in the same creation
The Never Ending Story is explicitly told in one word:
Love
In that word we join with the Creator who in some traditions is called “God” and become infinite
with Creation and “God”
The greatest axiom: “You become what you love” is for me only found in abject poverty of both spirit and ego.
In my experience I discovered this not upon my knees in supplication/contemplation/meditation but upon my back as child, boy and man utterly helpless to forestall or negotiate my annihilation. The terror I felt was articulated in single words now strung together as my only & answered prayer.
Addictions to various things: my mother first, then sex, my identity bourn by my children, my wealth and health and youth are taken from me . . . an after thought I threw my sexual identity into the fire
and in that abject poverty; as in Blessed are the poor in spirit; did I begin to experience what I longed for: To see, follow and love more dearly that which loved me all along as does the Creator of us all.
Forgive my trespass for I recognize a perverse/inverse vanity within me
a very dark side
Jack Spratt Says:
June 24th, 2009 at 7:44 am
The Never Ending Story is explicitly told in one word:
Love