Relief, Release and Redemption

The question ‘Who am I?’ is not really meant to get an answer, the question ‘Who am I?’ is meant to dissolve the questioner. Ramana Maharshi

We have been exploring the nature of ego in the last blog.

Can the ego truly love?  What is it that does love?

In a nutshell ego doesn’t even really exist! So how can something that doesn’t exist be a source of love?  Ego only exists as thought essentially which is passing.  Thoughts, memories, images of self are all phenomenal, ie observable.  Even the one who observes thoughts is witnessed.  But by what?  Everything that comes and goes, everything that passes is witnessed by a deeper ‘formless awareness’.  This awareness or presence or consciousness is our true identity and is one with the source, one with God, one with Life itself.  If this is just understood as a concept it is simply an idea, but if this is experienced in the heart.  This is beyond all understanding.  This is profound Self realisation.

‘The Ego, however, is not who you really are. The ego is your self-image; it is your social mask; it is the role you are playing. Your social mask thrives on approval. It wants control, and it is sustained by power, because it lives in fear.’
Deepak Chopra

Eckhart Tolle  simply says   ‘Ego means unconsciousness.  Ego means complete identification’

We are generally so convinced that who we are IS ego or personality, housed in this body. We tend to assume that ‘I’ am the personality, body, history, conditioning, beliefs, characteristics that we validate ego as who we are and therefore want to treat it well. This is commendable in a way on one level  – we tend to think we are a loving ‘person’, or ego, an impatient ‘person’, a kind person, an angry person, and intelligent person or a mixture!  We think we are a mother or an uncle, or a politician or doctor or spiritual person.  The list goes on!

On one level we do play these roles and these qualities can manifest of course.  There is nothing wrong about this at all.  But consider for a moment that this assumption that we are indeed a ‘person’, or personal identity is not actually true in the deepest sense. Maybe this idea or set of ideas about who we think we are is not actually essentially ‘real’. How can I say that?  I know it sounds crazy to our world steeped in dualistic thinking.  ‘You and me’, ‘us and them’, objects, names and forms.  It seems like we all just agree this is reality.  But is it?  Is this duality really true in the deepest sense?  Do the sages point to a more subtle unified seeing?

It is popular to feel that we are loving our ego as ourselves, feeling safe and nourished on this ‘spiritual journey’.  Yes we can accept ourselves of course.  This is important – as we are.  Yes we can melt judgement of ourselves and be fully present to all of who we are, warts and all.  The shadow and the light.  Yes we can feel valued and loved without having to change anything.

 But also we can also move beyond and transcend the realm of egoic identity altogether, with it’s sense of lack or deficiency (or its sense of superiority, fear and control) 

– we are so much more than any ego story!  ‘We don’t ‘have a life’ – we ARE life.’, as both Mooji and Eckhart Tolle say.

What we are seeking for in our spiritual journey is already what is here in our own simple and natural presence.  This is not new, this is not ‘my’ ideas, – it just IS.  We see this described in so many different ways from so many spiritual teachings 

Rumi (13th Century Sufi mystic) says “I have lived on the lip of insanity, wanting to know reasons, knocking on a door. It opens.  I’ve been knocking from the inside.”  

St Francis of Assisi  ‘What we are looking for is what is looking’

We can realise our vastness, our immensity, our existence as love and as grace itself.  But this transformation is not  ‘for the ego’ – it is ‘from the ego’ as Mooji says.  Release and relief from the psychological grip of the egoic identity.

We only feel uncomfortable about that if we are identified only with being the ego or the ‘person’ (who we think we are and ALL that we think we are) but we are so much more than that! 

This doesn’t deny or reject the body or personality – not at all!  This does not throw out phenomenal dynamic existence and expression- not at all.  These have their rightful place – we can honour them and be grateful for everything and enjoy them.  But when our false identity, ego and conditioning becomes so dense that it begins to shroud the pure consciousness that we are and we start to really suffer our existence this is a big wake up call to come home and look much more deeply into the truth about who we are.  In fact if we didn’t feel the pain and trauma of mistaken personal identity (which is really consciousness in a very limited form) – trying to fit into this tight small constricted form of egoic identity – we wouldn’t feel the immense relief and release of grace, of deliverance, of redemption.  So ego is a necessary part of this great play of existence – it is all one mighty ‘theatre of consciousness’ as Mooji often says.  Lila (Sanskrit: लीला, IAST līlā) or ‘Leela’ can be loosely translated as the “divine play”

We know very well that somehow this body is here, and our thinking mind and it is ok – it is good, as long as we also ‘know’ we are consciousness, or spirit. 

Even if we don’t know that – it is ok.  But every one eventually returns home and has already been home all along without necessarily knowing it!  

Spiritual Awakening is the realisation within the body/mind that ‘wow – I am actually this conscious awareness.  That is my true position’  It is like taking off a tight shoe – what a relief!  ‘That was a bit tight and restricted – now I can breathe in this vastness, in this formless awareness and it is not ‘personal’, it is so free!’  Free beyond the concept of such things.  We begin to not need to defend ourselves or take things personally as it becomes apparent that this ‘identity’ that needed preserving and defending is not my true Self at all!   

It actually does not do us any good therefore to have our egoic identity groomed if it is the very thing that we are clinging onto with strong attachment that is preventing us from the true bliss and joy of awakening and peace!  

We cannot awaken as ego – only grace can transform us if we are willing to surrender.  To offer up to the divine all that we are so that within the sacred fire of self discovery all that is not true would be burned and only the light and love of God would remain.  This removes ‘everything that is not original to you’.  This is actually our True Identity all along, but perhaps hidden, overlooked or forgotten.  It is time to wake up.

This transformation automatically and immediately blesses the world with grace and peace and life in unimaginable ways!  

Ramana Maharshi once said that enlightenment is ‘but a simple shift in attention’.

‘We are so used to thinking of ourselves as separate beings, oriented through our ego, that sometimes it seems so difficult to step out of that centre. It is so important to remember that the ego cannot get enlightened. The only thing there is for the ego to do is relax, soften, and allow deeper intelligence to lead. This happens naturally when we nurture true desire: strengthening our soul’s resolve by cultivating deep love for God, deep love for the real, deep desire to know the truth of who we are above all else. This is real love. Love for love’s sake.’  Miranda Macpherson 

Miranda was originally the founder of the One Spirit Interfaith Foundation.

A course in miracles says 

‘those whose minds are lighted by the gift of grace can no longer believe the world of fear is real.’   W-pI.169.2:2 

So – in truth ego is actually thought.  Ego is our psychological identity centred around the idea that we are the body (which is quite innocent in all this). Ego is thought, like a cloud passing, it is imagined, constructed in thought and memory. When believed in as true however and held onto in our minds it does seem to be absolutely real and what we are and alive and pulsating!  Ego, as Mooji so rightly says – is literally ‘a ghost who is terrified of dying’ but a ghost is already dead!

‘”Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.”  Ephesians 5:14

Who we THINK we are is not who we truly are.  Yet paradoxically who we think we are can actually be believed into existence as apparent reality – very convincingly!

‘The most common ego identifications have to do with possessions, the work you do, social status and recognition, knowledge and education, physical appearance, special abilities, relationships, person and family history, belief systems, and often nationalistic, racial, religious, and other collective identifications. None of these is you.’
Eckhart Tolle

I love this you tube Surrender To What IS and Accept the Present Moment  By Eckhart Tolle

What is permanent about who we really are is invisible, unfathomable, indescribable yet most alive and imperishable. Why?  Because it is formless!  Our true self as Mooji says is ‘unborn awareness’.

In the light of the truth that we are essentially ‘unborn awareness’ the ego feels most uncomfortable.   The energetic habitual thinking of the egoic ‘ghost’ doesn’t like that at all!  Oh no! It feeds on egoic identity, and gets its juice from our allegiance to it and belief in its existence as ‘reality’. This is the bluff of the impure mind.

It is the biggest and most innocent looking false idol there is! It comes before God again and again doesn’t it?

‘I did this, I want that, I am having a tough time, I am really getting somewhere now, I think I need a holiday, I, I, I…’

It’s essential characteristics are usually either superiority or inferiority, arrogance and pride or a sense of being inadequate.  It is fearful and feels a need to control.  All of which spring from the primary belief that we are a separate person (body/mind). Even a separate individual trying to get to God!  The distance is imagined!

‘In the land of “I know,” there is always competitiveness, jealousy, pretence, pride and arrogance. It is an aggressive realm – the realm of the ego. I say refuse citizenship. In the land of “I dont know,” the inhabitants move without conflict and are naturally quiet, happy and peaceful. The wise stay here.’ Mooji

Through the dissolution and merging of apparent egoic separate identity, with our true Self, our true position, in harmony with the natural existence which is beyond words, there is a release, a relief and a redemption of the soul.  Mooji calls this the ‘recovering consciousness’ from the trauma of identifying only as a body/mind/false self.  Love naturally flows.

There is release from the grip of the ego.  It is subtle, it may go completely unnoticed but it is powerful beyond measure.  it is like coming alive again.  The love that is discovered here is pure and doesn’t need anything in return, it is literally the light of this world and when uncontaminated by the arrogance of ego, it’s power and glory is immense. We saw this love pouring through Christ, through the living Buddha and other fully liberated awakened beings.  It of course can pour through us all and is our very own heart.
Some beings are touched by God’s presence so deeply that they are consumed by it and totally surrender to the ‘acid grace’ of true self realisation. Mooji uses the term ‘acid grace’ and it is such a beautiful illustration of the spiritual paradox of awakening.  Isn’t the cross a kind of ‘acid grace’?
These beings know nothing compares with this divine love and give everything to it. Especially themselves.

But to hear this as a concept without the realisation in the heart is just another idea. To understand this intellectually is not transformation!  We can start like that – it is absolutely fine – but if we don’t eat this, and drink this, and take it into the heart – It can just remain abstract ideas. It is just information without life and without the combustion into light, into living spirit. The living flame of love and light that burns all delusion.
But what this is pointing to is not an idea actually. It is what many sacred texts are actually essentially about but we can’t possibly understand it with our rational minds.

To spend ‘time’ in the presence of someone truly awake to this truth can burn forests of delusion and can literally take away the cataract from our inner eye so that we see clearly the powerful light and love of the consciousness that is our true being. We are redeemed in the presence of grace.