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| Awakening and Yoga | ||||||||
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Understanding the Ego / The Fundamental Problem self/not self According to the Vedic teachings, in the beginning of our enquiry, we can divide the world into two parts: myself (I, me) and everything else (other). Or, in other words, self and not self, or self and other. To use the Vedic/Sanskrit terms, atma and anatma. On the first level we notice ourselves this way: If a baseball comes whizzing past my head, just missing me, I say to myself, thank god that didn't hit me. My self ends at my skin. Outside my skin is not self, inside my skin is self. I feel safe and relieved for the moment. On another level, if my son gets hit with a hard thrown baseball, I can feel a very real sense of pain. Not the same as my body being hit, but nonetheless very tangible. My sense of self is extended to include family and loved ones. My son is on a baseball team and during the season, my sense of self expands to include the team. My emotions rise and fall with the success and failure of the team. Still lots of "other", but my self sense is slowly expanding. We can of course expand a self sense to include members of my town/country, my religion/belief system, my species, and ultimately, all of creation and the formless, the non-dual view. It is an is an evolutionary journey to expand our self sense. We are going to use the term "ego" to refer to this limited self sense and explore how we can use a new understanding of the habits, tendencies and manifestations of the ego to help accelerate the expansion of self-sense, both for our own happiness and the health of society as a whole. the ego
To be as simple as possible, we can say that the ego is the fundamental obstacle to the emerging new mode of consciousness. Although the word ego has many connotations and implications depending on the context, we will use one of Eckhart Tolle's definitions. The ego is a dysfunctional relationship with the present moment. Losing its sense of being in the groundless ground of Timeless Presence, the ego aimlessly wanders between past and future, desperately seeking itself. The ego is false sense of I, of self, based on a deep sense of alienation from the present, and an identification/addiction to past and future. It requires the past for its identity and the future for its fulfillment, and thus can never settle down in the present moment. By entangling itself in the world of transient forms (my needs, my story, my pain, my problems), the ego generates a seemingly non-stop flow of compulsive mental activity. Its fundamental belief, that I am limited, inadequate and incomplete right now,(alienation), drives a constant mental stream of thought, seeking fullness, wholeness, and a relief from the burden of inadequacy through identification with objects both gross and subtle. As Mick Jagger sang, "I can't get no satisfaction". That is the voice of the ego and mistaking this voice, this conditioned mind pattern, for the true nature of the self, the I, is the fundamental problem facing the human. As Eckhart Tolle describes in his new book " A New Earth", the ego has both content and structure. The structures are universal throughout the human race while the contents will vary from individual to individual and collective group to collective group. Awakening requires an understanding of the egoic structures and their functioning to catch them as they arise in the mind field and to not invest them with an undeserved reality, with energy that helps sustain their continued functioning. The ego is mutable and clever, popping up at any time looking to stake a claim on whatever is arising. It is a parasite, sucking away the vital energies of the mind field in its relentless need to sustain its own existence through suffering. However, and this is the key to awakening, the ego as the identification/alienation principle cannot survive in the light of awareness, in presence. With the light of consciousness, the egoic structures can no longer pose as a false sense of I, but are recognized as compulsive thought patterns to be noticed, like you would notice any other object, gross or subtle, and deeply investigated. It takes a strong sense of presence, discrimination and wisdomto stand up to the deep seated powerful habitual influences of the ego. It takes deep compassion and patience to stay the course in attenuating the momentum of the egoic structures. Spiritual practice, the bodhisattva path, is about cultivating this power of wisdom and compassion. Egoic Structures There are three major structural manifestations of ego: attachment, judgment, and resistance. In attachment, the ego sustains itself by identifying with objects, equating being with having. There are many categories of objects that the ego can attach to including physical objects (my toy, car, my property), ideas, opinions (my thoughts, my beliefs), and roles (I am a father, son, student, spouse, victim). One obvious manifestation of attachment is ownership, making something '"mine". The thought form I merges with the thought form of the object. Patanjali refers to this in YS I-4, "there is identification with what arises". Having freqently morphs into wanting, a much more powerful form than just having. The ego is always wanting more. It has an addictive need for more.The Buddhists refer to this egoic structure as the hungry ghost with an enormous belly and a mouth the size of the eye of a needle. Patanjali lists relentless desire, raga, of one of the kleshas, Y.S. II - 7, the fundamental impediments to awakening. Another fundamental structure is judgment. I have more than him. My (fill in the blank) is better/worse than yours. Complaining, comparing and resentment are common egoic activity. The ego always needs to be right, to have the last word, to find fault. Resistance is refusing to accept what is actually arising in the here and now. Egoic Structures and the Big Mind Process Gempo Roshii, a realized Zen master and student of Western psychology, has created a system he calls The Big Mind Process to examine various egoic structures through pointing out instructions and monitored dialogue. Through skillful questioning we are made to recognize the roles the egoic structures play in limiting our self sense, but also how they can usefully participate in maintaining a healthy mind state when integrated into the BigMind/BigHeart. In this way, we can recognize that many of the unhealthy, compulsive, time-bound, limited mind states can be just unintegrated, but useful and necessary psychological tools for maintaining a healthy mind.
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