Living Realization: Guest Teaching by Scott Kiloby

WELCOME to Awakening Clarity and our eleventh Guest Teaching.  We continue to expand this living resource of Who's Who in current Nonduality.  The goal is to provide an easy way for you to meet respected teachers, sample their teachings, and then pursue those you resonate with via the links you find at the end of each profile.  We’re open to showcasing many different approaches within the Nondual field.  I really think it’s less a matter of “who’s got it right” than it is, “who’s got it right for you.”  As I see it, the event of awakening is neither as common as many people hope, nor as rare as most seekers fear.  Living what becomes known, however, is indeed rare.  Even when there is deep and excellent understanding, there is typically a gap between seeing truth and being the seeing.  

SCOTT KILOBY is one of those who is living what he knows.  Once, when we were talking about enlightenment ‘being all about right now,’ he laughed and said, "Yes, that's why I call the book Living Realization!"  For Scott, it is all about right now, and I can tell you that in every right now we've ever shared, which is quite a few, he's consistently shown himself to be patient, selfless, compassionate, loving, and endlessly supportive. How do you resist loving that? I don't even try.  Furthermore, Scott is blessed with a rare ability to ably share his own experience and genuinely facilitate fresh and authentic seeing in others.  That’s about as good as it gets, folks.

STICKING WITH conventional language, Scott and his teaching have had an enormous impact on me, my life, and my own limited teaching.  I’ve spoken about him frequently here, and published a short piece about his online Living Realization meetings in September:  http://goo.gl/gtjW2.  I also recapped some of his work with me in my report on my journey to the Direct Path: http://goo.gl/s3Z4u .  Scott’s picture is on the wall of my study: what more can I say?

IT WAS SCOTT'S skillful inquiry over the telephone that helped me release the largest story-burden I’ve ever had, one so deeply embedded that I carried it with me for years, notwithstanding a pair of profound awakenings.  His online Living Realization meetings—I was in one as recently as this past Sunday—have given me encouragement, feedback, and community to help me understand and express my experience, and to continue to grow in clarity.  Though awakening had already occurred here years before, it is Scott's method of teaching through experiential means that really helped open me up.  Scott was also the shoehorn that slipped me into the sharp sights of Greg Goode, who first introduced me to the Direct Path and has since helped me walk it.  There's plenty of gratitude here to go around.

TO MY EYE, Scott still looks every bit the warm and confident son of well-to-do Midwesterner parents; a young man who first excelled in sports and scholarship, and later became a successful lawyer.  If you dig a little deeper, you uncover the skilled musician and sensitive guy who went through the hell of addiction and recovery before waking up and becoming a spiritual teacher.  He's now begun helping people with addictions through his Natural Rest Method.  This is a method he’s developed over the last several years, but which is now just beginning to be brought public. 

THE LAW CAREER is gone for now, in favor of full time teaching. Scott is always busy: in person, in online meetings, and he does a great deal of one-on-one work with students and seekers via phone and Skype.  He’s just back from a trip to the Denver-Boulder area, and is soon headed for points Northeast.  He’ll be back out West later this spring and will speak at the 2012 Science & Nonduality Conference for the third consecutive year.

SCOTT IS THE AUTHOR of a number of books in both hard print and e-print, including the entirely amazing daily meditation book, Reflections of the One Life: Daily Pointers to Enlightenment.  The book excerpt he's sharing with us today is from the second edition of Living Realization: Your Present Experience, As It Is.  It was Scott's first e-book, and has become the foundation for his online meetings and much of his overall teaching.  Thus when Scott says something like, "In Living Realization we..." he is referring to an entire teaching, not just a single book.  I’ve edited this excerpt lightly to better fit this magazine format.

AND NOW . . .

 By

Scott Kiloby

RECOGNIZING AWARENESS

 THE INVITATION

(1) Recognize awareness

(2) Let all appearances be as they are

(3) See that appearances are inseparable

LET'S START WITH recognizing awareness.  The first and most important step in Living Realization is a direct, experiential introduction to awareness.  This article focuses only on this experiential introduction.

IN LIVING REALIZATION we recognize awareness as often as possible, throughout the day, every day, until the recognition is unshakable and uninterrupted.  We recognize awareness whenever we remember to do so.  No matter what we are doing-relaxing, walking, sitting, working, engaging in physical exercise, or lying bed at night, we take a moment to recognize awareness.

IN RECOGNIZING AWARENESS in all these situations, it dawns on us that awareness is always and already present, regardless of what is happening in our lives.  This provides a peace and stability that passes all understanding.  It truly transforms who we are.  In seeing that awareness is ever-present, we realize that awareness is our real identity.  This naturally and effortlessly releases the tendency to identify with the various appearances that come and go within awareness.  Appearances include thoughts, emotions, sensations, states and experiences.

HOW TO RECOGNIZE AWARENESS

1- Start with Non-Conceptual Awareness

WHEN WE FIRST begin recognizing awareness in our lives, it is important to start with non-conceptual awareness.  Experiencing non-conceptual awareness:

Do not force thoughts to stop.  As the next thought you have comes to rest naturally, simply and gently notice the non-conceptual space that is left once the thought falls away.  Rest there for one moment, without labeling your experience or having to know anything at all about life.  That is non-conceptual awareness.

HUMANS ARE ACCUSTOMED to relying heavily on thoughts, both for a sense of self and for information about others and the world.  But this habitual tendency to rely on thought creates a belief in separation.  The more we learn, repeat, and rely on concepts, the more it really feels like the concepts are pointing to separate things.

THIS BELIEF IN SEPARATION is the underlying cause of human suffering, seeking and conflict.  It’s the reason we experience ourselves as separate people in a world of other separate people and things.  As thoughts arise, there is a tendency to believe that they are pointing to separate things (e.g. me, you, us, them, apples, countries, the moon, atoms, mothers-in-law, etc.).

THIS BELIEF SYSTEM lies at the core of personal suffering.  Personal suffering comes from identifying strongly with the thought stream in our minds.  If that thought stream is negative, we experience emotional and mental suffering.  This belief system is also the root cause of human seeking.  When we take ourselves to be separate selves, we think of ourselves as being separate stories existing in time.  In this story, the past feels incomplete.  At every point within the story we find ourselves in the middle of an unfinished movie called, “My Life.”  The past has not yet completed itself and it seems that the future is needed for this completion.  This results in constant seeking towards the future.  The belief in separation is the reason we are often chasing contentment in the future, but never quite finding that contentment on any permanent basis.

THIS BELIEF SYSTEM is also the reason why we experience conflict with other humans.  Separation makes us feel “cut off” from other people and from life itself.  This is spatial separation.  When we feel like separate objects, we believe that other objects (i.e., people, places and things) have the power to threaten or diminish who we are.  This causes us to want to be right and to make others wrong.  In being right, we build ourselves up, strengthening the sense of self.  This protects the fragile self center (i.e., ego) from feeling diminished or threatened.  Unfortunately, this is precisely why we find ourselves in conflict.  For every right there is a wrong and it is usually “the other” who is wrong.

FOR MOST HUMANS, thoughts happen very quickly, one after another, and carry such a force or momentum that the thought stream feels uncomfortable.  There is a sense that we can’t shut it off.  Throughout the day, that thought stream displays all sort of judgments, opinions, beliefs, criticisms, and other concepts.  The thought stream has a sense of self invested in it.  We consult that thought stream to know who and what we are--including name, history, memories, beliefs, family of origin, political affiliation, and all other thoughts about ourselves.  A great majority of thinking is self-centered.  The self center is the main object in our experience.  The term “self center,” in Living Realization, refers to the sense of being a separate person in time and space. 

THE POINT OF this teaching is not to shut off that thought stream permanently.  Although we may experience a quieting of the mind, my teaching is not about having a completely non-conceptual experience in life.  Thoughts are a part of life.

THOUGHTS SERVE the function of identifying things for conventional purposes.  For example, how would we know to mow the lawn if we weren’t able to determine that there is a person, a lawnmower, and a lawn that needs to be mowing?  How would we know to drive a car, clean the house, or pay taxes?

LIVING REALIZATION is designed to help you see through the belief in separation, not get rid of thought.  As that belief falls away, thought is seen to be not only harmless, but a valuable tool for living.  It’s an inseparable appearance within awareness, which means is it none other than awareness.

ONCE WE NO LONGER identify with thoughts, and cease believing they are pointing to separately existing things, what is left is the functional, conventional aspect of thought (e.g. lawn mowing, talking to a friend, buying food at the grocery store, and teaching a child).

ALTHOUGH THE ULTIMATE purpose of this teaching is not to get rid of thought, we encourage you to start with non-conceptual awareness in the beginning.  Recognizing non-conceptual awareness interrupts the belief in separation.  It provides a relaxation and release from the story of past, present, and future that is constantly and uncontrollably playing itself out in our heads (i.e., the self center).

THROUGH RECOGNIZING non-conceptual awareness, we come to see that we do not need to rely on thinking so much.  We can simply be, as awareness.  This is the simplest and most effortless way of living.  In Living Realization, we come to experience awareness as natural, effortless, and ever-present.  As we experience non-conceptual awareness, our stories are seen to be less important in our lives.  Therefore, self-centeredness naturally falls away.  We come to see awareness as our real identity.  This recognition provides the peace, freedom, wisdom, joy, and well-being we’ve been seeking in our lives.

WHAT DO WE MEAN by recognizing non-conceptual awareness?  Awareness is not a concept.  The word “awareness” is a concept that comes and goes within the awareness that sees that and every other concept.  All concepts, and other appearances, come and go within awareness.  Recognizing this from the start goes a long way in avoiding confusion.

 

IT IS WORTH REPEATING an explanation of non-conceptual awareness:

Do not force thoughts to stop.  As the next thought you have comes to rest naturally, simply and gently notice the non-conceptual space that is left once the thought falls away.  Rest there for one moment, without labeling your experience or having to know anything at all about life.  That is non-conceptual awareness.

IF YOU HAVE SOME difficulty with the pointer above, start with something really simple when you first begin.  Bring your attention, over and over, throughout the day to the felt sense of presence in your chest or inner body.  Just return to that felt sense repeatedly, as often as possible.  Notice that there is no thought there.  There is only a felt sense of presence.  Just reach each time you experience that inward space.  As you rest there more and more, you start to notice that this space is naturally non-conceptual.  You don’t have to think about the space.  It is just there.  And you are merely noticing it and resting as that inward space all throughout the day.  As you rest there more and more, the space seems to expand.  It starts to encompass more of your experience.  You start to notice that that same space in your chest is also in your legs, your arms, and in your head.  The voice in your head, which is playing one thought right after the other, is seen to be happening within this space.  You notice that this space is what hears that voice.  So this space starts to feel more and more like what you really are.  The thoughts start to seem less and less like what you are.

YOU EVEN START TO notice that the spaciousness you are experiencing within your body and mind is the same spaciousness outside your body and mind.  You begin to notice this non-conceptual present space wherever you go, no matter where you are.  You find that this space is always present.  You experience its natural peacefulness.  And this peacefulness draws you into it, over and over.  It feels like home.  This is a peace that passes all understanding.  Even if you were to try to understand it, it would be a thought trying to do that.  The thought would be just a temporary appearance coming and going within this stable, ever-present space.  That thought cannot grasp this space.  The first and most important thing to do in Living Realization is to make this present, restful space the most important thing in your life.  Return there often until the return becomes automatic.  It will become automatic because the peace within that space has a powerful pull to it.

2- Is Recognizing Non-Conceptual Awareness a Practice?

WHETHER RECOGNIZING non-conceptual awareness is a practice or not depends on the person.  For some, one taste of recognizing non-conceptual awareness is all that is needed.  They do not continue visiting or returning to the recognition of awareness.  That first taste reveals to them that awareness is their real identity.  From that point forward, awareness is seen to be ever-present and all appearances are seen to come and go effortlessly and inseparably within awareness.

OTHERS MAY HAVE to repeatedly take brief moments of resting and recognizing non-conceptual awareness again and again to it until it is stabilized and experienced as ever-present.  If you find yourself needing to take these brief moments, notice that the first few times you take a brief moment, the experience may last for only a second or a few seconds.  That is fine.  You have tasted awareness.  That is all we are asking you to do in the beginning.  We invite you to experience non-conceptual awareness on a regular basis, as often as possible throughout the day, every day, no matter where you are or what you are doing.  As you continue doing this, it becomes easier and easier to rest in non-conceptual awareness.  The force and momentum of thinking can be so strong at first that all you can do is take brief moments.  But as you take more and more brief moments, continuing to rest in non-conceptual awareness throughout the day, the moments get longer and longer.  It eventually becomes very natural and effortless to return to awareness.  At some point, it stops feeling like a practice that you are doing.  Awareness is seen to be ever-present-not something you visit, not something you practice, but what you are in the deepest sense.

THIS SIMPLE PRACTICE of repeatedly taking brief moments to recognize awareness provides rest from constant thinking, and puts you in the perfect position to begin seeing that you do not have to identify with all the thoughts, emotions, sensations, states and experiences that come and go temporarily within awareness.  It also places you in the perfect position to begin to really look into your experience and see whether separation is real or whether it is a belief system. 

 

3- What is Awareness?

THE REMAINDER of this article provides a more detailed discussion on awareness, helping us to recognize awareness in our own direct experience.  Awareness is the limitless, boundless non-conceptual space to which everything comes and goes.  It is wordless, thought-free, non-locatable presence.  Appearances come and go to awareness.  When a concept appears, it seems to refer to a separately existing object.  What is it that sees that concept?  That is awareness.  When that concept disappears, the experience of that object existing as its own separate thing disappears also.  All things are really thoughts and sensations. 

THE AWARENESS to which all thoughts come and go is not, itself, a concept.  The word “awareness” is pointing to that which hears the voice in your head.  When that voice utters the word “awareness,” or any other word, that which hears the sound and sees the thought is actual awareness.  Therefore,  we can never state, express, or capture awareness with any word or thought.  Whatever we state, express, or think, it is an appearance to this basic awareness.

IT IS BEST not to try to get too involved in intellectualizing what is meant by the word “awareness.”  The most direct approach is simply to rest, without thought, on a regular basis until it is recognized that non-conceptual space is like the very ground of our experience, before a thought or anything else appears.

INTELLECTUALIZING AWARENESS, or using metaphors may be helpful in the beginning before we get an experiential introduction to awareness.  But being clear, right from the start, on the fact that we cannot state, express, or capture awareness with any word or thoughts goes a long way in reducing the tendency to try to understand or intellectualize awareness.  No one understands awareness.  It is not a thing.  Remember: humans tend to rely on thought heavily.  In Living Realization we come to see thought as something that comes and goes within what we really are-awareness.  Our greatest ideas and descriptions of awareness are concepts that come and go within awareness.  No matter how profound or ridiculous our concepts are about ourselves, friends, family, society, science, God, enlightenment, self-realization, business, religion, philosophy, cultures, politics, or anything else, they are not the awareness to which the concepts come and go.

IN THIS TEACHING we also sometimes refer to awareness as the pure seeing within which all thoughts, emotions, sensations, states and experiences come and go.  By referring to awareness as seeing, we aren’t referring to vision.  Vision is a sense, just like touch is a sense.  All senses are appearances that come and go within awareness.

IF WE OPEN our eyes, we visually see colors, shapes, and things.  That is visual seeing.  If we close our eyes, all the colors, shapes, and things disappear.  Awareness is that which is present and awake both to the colors, shapes, and things that appear when our eyes are open, and to the absence of those colors, shapes and things when our eyes are closed.  Seeing, in Living Realization, is not just the seeing of colors, shapes, and objects that seem to appear outside the body and mind, but also the thoughts, emotions, and sensations that seem to appear inside the body and mind.  Awareness is that which sees all of those internal and external things appearing and disappearing.  As all these things come and go, awareness remains ever-present.  That is why the recognition of awareness provides stability in our lives on every level.  We no longer feel that our sense of self is wrapped up in the various temporary appearances that come and go.  We come to know our true identity as something more stable and ever-present.

IT MAY ALSO be helpful to refer to the word “being” instead of awareness.  It is difficult to refute the simple fact of being that is always present.  It is present when our eyes are open and when they are closed; when we are awake and when we are asleep; when we are thinking and when we are not thinking.  Regardless of the word we choose to refer to awareness, find out what aspect of your existence never comes and goes.  Thoughts, emotions, sensations, states, experiences, objects, colors, sounds, and all other phenomena come and go.  No matter what comes and goes, the simple fact of being remains present and here.  That is awareness.

IN LIVING REALIZATION, we want to avoid emphasizing some thought within our personal stories in order to recognize awareness.  Awareness is like the seeing in which every thought about ourselves (past, present or future) comes and goes.  Awareness cannot be recognized by referring to a previous moment when you recognized awareness or by projecting forward into a future moment when you hope you will be able to recognize more clearly.  Awareness is an ever-present seeing.  It happens only in the space of this moment.  Thoughts of past and future come and go within this present space of awareness.  Remember, awareness is that which sees these thoughts come and go.  If you find yourself emphasizing thoughts of past and future, simply let those thoughts come to rest.  Stop there!  Recognize the non-conceptual awareness that is automatically and effortlessly present as those thoughts come to rest.

TAKE A MOMENT right now and recognize awareness.  Keep it simple and let all the idea above drop away for one moment.  Let all the ideas you have ever learned about yourself, others, the world, and awareness come to rest right now.

JUST RECOGNIZE what is timelessly awake and looking.  Forget everything that has been said in this article thus far.  Just drop it all and look into the present fact of your own being.  This non-conceptual awareness has been there all your life.  It is the only thing about you that has never come and gone.  Many concepts have come and gone.  Many emotions, states, and experiences have come and gone.  But this awareness has always been here.  Feel into that.  Rest there.  As you rest there, if a thought arises, just let it pass.  Let it fall away.  Rest again into present seeing or space (whichever word you prefer).  There is no need to think about or analyze any of the words on this page.  Awareness is more akin to the white page on which this print appears than any pointer that appears on it.  Now drop that pointer too!  Just relax and rest in non-conceptual awareness.  The value of this article, and the book from which it is drawn, is not found by memorizing the concepts.  The value is in seeing that the text is pointing to what you are in the most basis sense.  In recognizing this basic presence, you may not need the text any longer.  Any good teaching self-destructs in that way, making itself no longer needed.  It is important to recognize awareness in your own, direct experience.  It’s the most important discovery you can make in your life.  Memorizing this text merely gives you more information, more concepts.

AWARENESS IS SO immediately here and present in all situations that it repeatedly gets overlooked as we focus on our personal story and other ideas and images appearing within awareness.  What is here that never moves or changes, that never comes and goes?  There may be a tendency to overlook this basic fact and, instead, go looking into the various things that move through awareness such as objects, thoughts, emotions, sensations, states, and experiences.  If you find this happening, be easy on yourself.  Just stop whenever you notice that happening, and recognize the basic, non-conceptual awareness that is inseparable from the present moment.  Do this as often as possible, until it is seen that awareness is ever-present, no matter what is happening.

AWARENESS IS ALWAYS available, no matter what is happening in our lives.  In Living Realization we do not make recognizing awareness into a practice that we do only in the morning or at night.  Treating the recognition of awareness in this way tends to compartmentalize life into recognizing awareness in the morning and living in the “real world” for the rest of the day.  Awareness is always present.  It is present during work, during time with the family, and every other place and time in our lives.  We do not recognize awareness only when we are in peaceful places or free from the daily stress of our busy lives.  We “check in” with awareness in all situations.  We recognize awareness when things are going well and when life is going badly.  We just take a moment, no matter where we are, or what we are doing.  We drop all of our labels about the situation that is presently happening and we discover for ourselves that awareness is here, always.

TAKE A MOMENT now and try this.  Drop even the words “awareness,” “presence,” “being,” and any other pointer you have read here or in another teaching.  Let each word, within each sentence, just fall away.  Don’t look back at what you’ve just read.  Let all thoughts come to rest.  Simply rest here for a moment.  Just be, without any thoughts.  Take a moment for that.

Copyright 2011, The Kiloby Group 

All right reserved. Used by permission. 

LINKS

• Scott's Main Website: http://www.kiloby.com/

• Living Realization Website: http://livingrealization.org/

• Scott on Facebook:  http://www.facebook.com/kiloby

• Interview with Scott on Conscious TV:  http://goo.gl/pVHtj

• Interview with Scott on Buddha at the Gas Pump: http://batgap.com/scott-kiloby/
  

• Scott's Print Book Page on Amazon: http://goo.gl/WnUVI

• Scott's Kindle Book Page on Amazon:  http://goo.gl/MLd5z

• Scott's online bookstore: http://www.kiloby.com/books.php

• Scott's YouTube channel: http://goo.gl/JnDC9

• Scott interviewing other spiritual teachers: http://goo.gl/Wi1y1
 

• Scott at the Science & Nonduality Conference, 2012: http://goo.gl/UWZnG
  

Housekeeping Notes:

Let me welcome The Republic of Trinidad and Tobago as country number 76 to join the ever-expanding Awakening Clarity family. Readers there join thousands of others around the world.

Jerry Katz will be next week's Guest Teacher. That post, and all future posts, will now come out on Friday afternoons, possibly late in the day.  Thank you for showing up!  Namaste, Fred

The Ego's Many Guises: Guest Teaching by Gina Lake

WELCOME to the tenth installment of Awakening Clarity's Guest Teaching Series.  One of our goals is to build an Internet resource of Who's Who in contemporary Nonduality.  Every week we bring you a new spiritual author-teacher.  We give you a little background on them, a hearty sample of their work, and a bunch of helpful links to aid you in further pursuing that teacher’s work.  Today I'm excited to bring you--by chance and not design--our first female teacher.

GINA LAKE first came to my attention in the early autumn of 2008.  I'd just read Nirmala's Nothing Personal and was back on Amazon poking around his books.  Amazon pointed me toward Gina's Radical Happiness, and my guess is it was the reviews that reeled me.  She has quite the devoted following.  At any rate, I ordered it.  I had lunch that same day with a friend of mine, and since my friend and I shared such things, Gina and her book came up.  Shame on me, but in my attempt to connect Gina to the rest of the Nondual dots my friend and I were talking about, I took a non-PC shortcut and said, "She has to be credible; she's Mrs. Nirmala."  Two weeks later when my friend and I had lunch again he asked about what I thought about Radical Happiness, which by now I had finished reading.  “Oh, man, it’s fabulous!” I exclaimed.  “Nirmala may be Mr. Gina Lake!!” 

GINA LAKE IS VERY MUCH her own person.  Adyashanti was her primary exterior teacher—she met Nirmala in 1999, two weeks after her awakening.  Her foremost teacher, however, was and is the one we are all encouraged to find: her inner teacher.  I once talked to Adyashanti about this very thing, which I then called, “The Explainer.”  It’s still not a bad description and mine continues to be a great influence and tremendous blessing.  I know Gina's does as well; the proof is all over her work.

GINA IS A FINE AND PROLIFIC WRITER and has the gift of meeting seekers where they are.  She uses whatever language she thinks the student can hear at the time.  In line with Advaitic traditions, she’s not afraid to use a dualistic thorn to pick out another dualism, and then throw both away, which I admire.  In my opinion, any tool that works is a valid tool.  Effectiveness is the only criteria I pay any attention to: it’s a better yardstick than most.  I suspect that this flexibility in Gina's teaching stems partly from the well of knowledge she gained while getting her master's degree in psychology.  Awakening doesn’t invalidate the need for counseling or psychology; each clears the path for the other. Clarity is ever the goal. 

GINA'S BACKGROUND gives her an uncommon vantage point from which to help us begin to see clearly, which often begins with clearly seeing ego and its antics.  In the excerpt she’s shared here, she shows us some of the many faces and voices of ego, which is illuminating—and sometimes funny!  Definition helps us to see, and seeing is the first step in seeing through. This ‘seeing through’ is the ultimate goal of all Nondual paths, regardless of how or where they wind.

GINA LIVES IN SEDONA, Arizona with her husband, Nirmala, who was our Guest Teacher last week.  She no longer offers consultations and says she stays busy writing and publishing books.  She says that although she is primarily a writer, she also does a few intensives/meetings and monthly tele-seminars.  Like myself, she declares herself a happy hermit.

GINA IS DEVOTED to helping others awaken and live in the moment. She is the author of numerous books, including Embracing the Now, Radical Happiness, Trusting Life, Living in the Now, Return to Essence, Anatomy of Desire, Loving in the Moment, and Getting Free. The focus of her writing and teaching is on helping people be in the present moment, live the happy and fulfilled life that is possible, and shedding light on the programming that interferes with awakening to one's true nature. She is also a gifted intuitive with a master's degree in counseling psychology and over twenty years experience supporting people in their spiritual growth.

AND NOW . . .

The Ego's Many Guises

by

Gina Lake 

BEING ABLE TO SEE THROUGH the illusion of the false self and disidentify from it and the false reality it creates is largely a matter of getting to know the ego (via the voice in your head), really seeing what it’s like and what it’s up to. Once you see the truth about the ego, ignoring the egoic mind’s chatter becomes much easier. And once you are able to ignore the egoic mind, you land in reality, the present moment, where it is possible to experience and express your true nature. In service to busting the ego’s game, let’s examine more closely some of the guises the ego takes on.

 

The Ego as Tyrant

THE EGO OFTEN PLAYS the role of the tyrant: It prods and pushes, bosses, and evaluates. The Tyrant’s voice can be harsh, demanding, demeaning, and unkind. It can also be rational, reasonable, parental, and authoritative. Either way, we tend to believe that voice and follow it. When we are identified with the ego, The Tyrant plays a big role in guiding us through our day and, we think, making sure we get things done, and get them done right. We are convinced that we need The Tyrant to keep up with life, without realizing that The Tyrant is the one that generates the to-do list that keeps us so busy.

THE EGO, AS THE TYRANT, not only tells us what to do, but also when and how to do it. It devises a list of things to do and checks to see how the list is going: “Did you do that? How well did you do that? What do you have left to do? Can you do it? Will you get it done in time? Will it be done well enough? Will you run into trouble? What problems might arise? How will you deal with those problems?”

THE TYRANT IS A COMPELLING VOICE because we really believe we need it to function. We really believe we wouldn’t get anything done if we didn’t listen to it. We’re so used to that voice that we don’t even question what it is telling us or whether we even need it. Where do its instructions and ideas come from? Is it wise? Is it true?

THE TYRANT IS DEVELOPED through the training we receive from authority figures, particularly parents. It’s a composite of the authority figures we have known, which we have internalized, and of other things we’ve learned. So now, as adults, instead of parents and teachers telling us what to do and when and how to do it, The Tyrant plays the role of a parent, teacher, or boss. This is a natural psychological process. The trouble is that, just as parents don’t always know what is best for us, The Tyrant doesn’t either. It doesn’t have the wisdom to guide us; it’s just mouthing what we’ve learned.

WE ACTUALLY DON'T NEED to have our conditioning voiced like that, since we automatically draw on our conditioning when we need it. The voice is redundant and unnecessary. Like the ego, this aspect of the ego is a sham. It’s an imposter. It isn’t who we are, and it isn’t wise; it only pretends to be.

THAT THE TYRANT is unnecessary becomes obvious when you drop out of the ego and begin to live from the Self. When you live from the Self, you still don’t cross busy streets without looking or touch hot stoves. You don’t need The Tyrant to remind you of these things.

ONCE YOU REALIZE you don’t need the Tyrant, you can ignore its voice, and when you ignore it long enough, it eventually falls away. What a miracle! No more voice telling you what to do and how to do it, and evaluating your every move. No more going over lists and checking them twice! When we stop listening to The Tyrant, this aspect of the ego eventually gives up and disappears, although usually not overnight.

THE REAL PROBLEM with The Tyrant is that it causes stress. Instead of being helpful, listening to its voice takes the joy out of life and keeps our attention focused unnecessarily in the mental realm and therefore outside the present moment, where true happiness and true guidance are available. It makes us less present to life. And when we are less present to life, we are less effective and efficient and less happy and at peace with life. The Tyrant actually interferes with functioning optimally and with enjoying whatever we’re doing. Its voice is not just annoying. It’s much worse than that: It causes us to worry and hurry and feel insufficient. It gives us the sense that there’s never enough time and that we’re never done with our to-do list. This is not a state that is conducive to peace, love, and contentment, but just the opposite.

FORTUNATELY, IF YOU don’t listen to The Tyrant, you will be guided by something wiser to do what needs to be done. You also will be guided to do what is of real value, and you will make time for that, for such things as love, creativity, meditation, service, learning, growing, developing your talents, doing what makes your heart sing, and just being. In the ego’s world, there’s no end to working, striving, and perfecting. But we are also here to enjoy life, to create, and to express our uniqueness, not just accomplish tasks.

ENJOYING LIFE doesn’t mean doing nothing, but being present to whatever you are doing. Then everything you do becomes infused with joy and peace, and you are able to express love naturally. You have the energy to do what needs to be done because your energy isn’t being taken up in doing unnecessary things or in being stressed out.

TO BEGIN PRACTICING this new way of being, just start noticing the tyrannical voice in your head and recognize it as programming you don’t need. Accept that it’s there. Don’t fight or argue with this voice, because this aspect of the ego is just part of being human. And then, just be present to whatever you are doing, or just be. Life is much simpler, more joyous, less stressful, and runs much more smoothly without the tyranny of the ego.

The Ego as the Martyr

THE MARTYR IS ANOTHER familiar voice in the head for many. It often shows up after we have been listening to The Tyrant and have exhausted ourselves by trying to do too much or by trying to be perfect. When we give in to the dictates of The Tyrant, we often feel martyred, and the unhappiness and ego-domination continues, as the ego shifts personas to The Martyr.

THE MARTYR SHOWS UP as the voice of feeling unappreciated, overlooked, overworked, and abused: “Nobody notices all the things I do. Nobody cares. All I do is work, work, work. Life isn’t any fun. I sacrifice so much, and what do I get for it? I work so hard, and for what?” The Martyr is the voice of self-pity. Being martyred gives the ego a sense of being special. Being a martyr is an identity, but a very unhappy one. When we are identified with The Martyr, we feel burdened, sad, worn out, unacknowledged, and not respected.

THE MARTYR'S SAD STORY can result in a lot of complaining. The Complainer and The Martyr are closely related. Both of these personas try to manipulate others and life with their complaints. The unconscious strategy of The Martyr is to make others around The Martyr miserable so that someone will notice and offer some reward, attention, or appreciation.

THE BEST WAY TO AVOID The Martyr is to not identify with The Tyrant, which causes us to push ourselves too hard and to lose sight of the joy of being alive. When life becomes only about what we have done and accomplished, we do feel martyred—and we are. We are martyred by The Tyrant, who puts us in that unhappy position. Then The Martyr turns around and persecutes everyone else, which is a very poor strategy for getting what it wants. The ego is not rational, and its strategies not only don’t work, but they also backfire.

The Ego as the Judge

ALL JUDGMENTS COME from the ego, and they don’t serve us or life well. That is another great illusion: We think our judgments are useful, but they aren’t. We are programmed to believe that the judgments that run through our minds are correct, meaningful, and serve a purpose. However, judgments are the ego’s ineffective response to life and, more important, a way the ego makes itself feel superior in relationship to others. The sense of rightness and superiority that comes from judging gives the ego a sense of existing, even though the ego doesn’t actually exist, except as a mental construct.

THE EGO IS THE SENSE of being separate and distinct from others. All the ego really is, is the feeling of being a separate individual, a me. One of the ways the sense of being me is maintained is through judgments, which literally separate us from others. By making ourselves right and others wrong, judgments help maintain a sense of me as separate from who or what is being judged.

ANOTHER BENEFIT of judging, to the ego, is that the feeling of being right helps the ego feel safe in the world. Believing that its perceptions are right and therefore superior gives the ego a sense of security in this chaotic and unpredictable world. Judging doesn’t actually create security, but judging provides the ego with a sense of security. However, the truth is that judging is more likely to undermine our security than ensure it, since judging damages our connection with others, who are important to our survival.

 

LET'S TAKE A MOMENT to examine the experience of judging:

Exercise: Examining How Judgments Make You Feel

Think of a time when you had a judgment about yourself or about someone else. How did that feel? Did it make you feel happy, peaceful, and content with life? (Because that is how you would like to feel, right?) To the ego, judgments feel good because they make the ego feel right and superior. But does feeling right and superior actually feel good? Is that how you would like to feel all the time? Is feeling right and superior worth not feeling happy, peaceful, and content with life? That’s the trade-off.

You don’t have to feel the way judgments make you feel if you don’t give the judgments that come into your mind your attention and if you don’t speak them. But before you can ignore these judgments, you might have to be convinced that all that judgments do is hurt you, hurt others, and keep you tied to the egoic state of consciousness. They don’t bring about the change in others that you think they might. Instead, they damage relationships. Judgments kill love. Are your judgments (which are just thoughts) worth it? If you never voiced another judgment in your life, you would be much happier.

LIKE THE "I" THOUGHT, the voice in our head that is The Judge is very convincing. Notice the strength, power, and certainty behind your judgments. And notice the contraction you feel when you think them, and especially when you speak them. The Judge takes on a very specific tone of voice and physical stance. When you are identified with The Judge and speaking a judgment, the body is tense and leans forward, and the voice gets louder and sharper. The Judge is tense, harsh, and not particularly just. The Judge doesn’t represent the innate wisdom and discrimination of your true nature. To discern what is right for you or wrong for you in any moment, you don’t need The Judge.

INSTEAD OF BEING WISE, The Judge is essentially a complainer. Judgments express the ego’s dissatisfaction with ourselves, with others, and with life. Judgments are easy to come by because the ego is dissatisfied with life most of the time. Dissatisfaction is the ego’s primary experience of life, and judgments represent the ego’s justification for being unhappy and for not accepting something: “I should have known better; I’m really stupid.” “He shouldn’t have done that; he’s so inconsiderate.” “Life shouldn’t be so hard; life is terrible.” All the ways we, others, and life fall short, in the ego’s opinion, are a cause for judgment.

JUDGMENTS KEEP US in resistance to life. They uphold the sense of separation that is the ego, and they keep us in a state of unhappiness. The funny thing is we really believe that judging ourselves, others, and situations has some value in changing what we don’t like. But life doesn’t change because we judge it, nor do people. Judgments are no way to win people over to our point of view. And yet that is often what we are attempting to do when we judge someone: “If you weren’t so lazy, you would get off the couch and help me.” We try to manipulate others to comply with our wishes by judging them.

JUDGMENTS ARE UNPLEASANT for everyone, so why indulge The Judge? Once you see what the ego is up to with judgments, you can let the judgments come and go in your mind without touching them. They don’t really belong to you, not the real you, anyway. The ego is a pretty nasty creature at times, and The Judge is one of its most destructive guises. The ego in this guise has a demeanor of being helpful, right, and discerning. But The Judge is none of these; it is more of a bully. 

The Ego as the Guru

THE EGO CAN PRETEND to be good and wise, but that doesn’t make it so. It can sound like it has your best interests at heart, but the ego is a con man. Underneath the supposed wisdom is judgment, because The Guru is essentially The Judge, but on spiritual matters instead of mundane ones. The ego as The Guru is a con man because it cons us into thinking it’s guiding us spiritually, when it’s really creating the same contraction, discontentment, stress, and striving the ego is known for. When we are aligned with our true nature, we feel relaxed, at peace with life, content, happy, and loving. And we are naturally attuned to the wisdom of the Self. Listening to The Guru, however, doesn’t bring such peace and contentment, but only more striving and the sense that we still don’t measure up. The Guru shakes its finger at us, saying: “You’ll never be enlightened. You have to be more (fill in the blank)­ and less (fill in the blank).”

THE GURU IS OFTEN referred to as the spiritual ego because it is the ego in spiritual guise, the ego that is trying to be spiritual by following rules and precepts to the letter. The ego doesn’t know how to “do” spirituality; it only knows how to mimic it: It pretends to be kind, holy, good, but it doesn’t want kindness, holiness, or goodness. It pretends these things only because it wants something else: power, superiority, respect, control, or other things it values. To the ego, spirituality is a means to an end, a means to get more of something or to better one’s position in life. The ego thinks that being spiritual will get it what it wants.

THE SPIRITUAL EGO drives people to try to attain enlightenment, when enlightenment is not something anyone can attain, least of all by striving, but quite the opposite. The spiritual ego strives for perfection because that is its idea of spirituality: “Be perfect, don’t make any mistakes, know everything, be wise.” It hopes to attain such perfection through practices, abstentions, and other means, but these activities are engaged in for the wrong reasons: to strengthen and empower the me instead of to dissolve it.

THE GURU SPEAKS to us primarily in shoulds: “You should meditate twice a day.” “You should be present.” “You should be nice.” “You shouldn’t drink so much.” “You should get to bed earlier.” “You should be doing your life purpose.” “You should be saving the world.” The word should is a sign of the ego. When the Self motivates us to meditate or be kinder or more present, or even to take better care of ourselves, it doesn’t inspire us through a thought, but through an inner impetus to do these things. That impetus is true guidance coming from the Self. Such subtle nudges and intuitive messages are continually being sent to us, but we may miss them if we are wrapped up in our thoughts.

IT'S EASY TO TELL the difference between true guidance coming from the Self and the false guidance of The Guru, besides the fact that the former comes through intuitively and as a drive, and the latter comes through as a thought. True guidance is received without resistance, unless the ego comes in later and resists the impetus or drive to act. The Guru’s guidance, on the other hand, causes us to feel contracted, not good enough, and needing to strive to get somewhere. When we are listening to The Guru, we feel like we are insufficient and need to do something to be good enough, valuable, worthy.

THE EGO IS the only thing that causes us to feel contracted and insufficient, since that is not the Self’s perception. We are loved by the Self, and our humanness and so-called imperfections, like everything else, are accepted and cherished by the Self. Perfect and imperfect are not in the Self’s vocabulary. Such a categorization is a concept, like the concepts good and bad, which also have no reality. These types of categorizations belong to the ego. In truth, we are neither good nor bad, perfect nor imperfect; we just are.

BECAUSE THE EGO can’t comprehend or even experience the Divine, the mystical, the ego often misunderstands and distorts the spiritual teachings it comes across. Since The Guru is the ego, and the ego doesn’t understand the Truth, listening to The Guru’s distortions and lies results in a lot of confusion for spiritual seekers.

SPIRITUAL TEACHINGS are meant to guide seekers out of the egoic mind and into the experience of their true nature, but when spiritual seekers are firmly stuck in their egoic minds, the teachings are often misunderstood and then used by The Guru to make the seeker feel insufficient, and those negative feelings perpetuate ego-identification. The ego doesn’t really want the Truth to be discovered because then the ego can no longer remain in charge. Discovering the Truth may not completely annihilate the ego, but it changes our relationship to the ego dramatically, and that change is felt like a death to the ego.

The Ego as the Pleasure-Seeker

THE EGO IS A SECURITY-SEEKER and a power-seeker, but it is also a pleasure-seeker, and that pleasure-seeking sometimes runs contrary to its other goals. Nevertheless, one of the ego’s main personas is The Pleasure-Seeker. It’s part of the ego’s nature to avoid pain and seek pleasure, but The Pleasure-Seeker is a sensuous creature, and it’s not as interested in avoiding pain as having pleasurable experiences.

THE PURSUIT OF PLEASURE comes in a number of forms. The most accessible routes to pleasure are food and sex, although food as pleasure is more of a phenomenon in affluent countries. Other routes are alcohol, drugs, and experiences that are considered fun, such as watching TV and movies, or experiences that are considered exhilarating, such as skydiving, riding roller coasters, and gambling.

THE EGO AS PLEASURE-SEEKER is seeking a transcendent experience and relief from the suffering of the human condition, which ironically, the ego is the cause of. The pleasures of the flesh and other pleasures provide relief to some extent, but only briefly. These pleasures need to be experienced again and again because they provide only fleeting happiness and relief. Despite this obvious fact, the ego doesn’t seem to see the truth about pleasure-seeking, and it goes back repetitively to things that provide only fleeting pleasure instead of looking for something more lasting and satisfying. The ego as Pleasure-Seeker is like a rat that is so consumed with pressing the lever that gives it food, that it doesn’t consider other possibilities for its life.

WHEN IT'S TIME TO AWAKEN, the aspect of the Self that is waking up from the illusion finally sees the futility of continually seeking fleeting pleasures, and it starts looking for deeper fulfillment. Once true happiness is sought, it can be found because this treasure isn’t really hidden. True happiness has been available all along but simply not recognized. Many already know the secret to true happiness, and are freely sharing it with those searching for it.

THE PLEASURE-SEEKER is behind all addictions. It might be more accurate to say that negative thinking and feelings are behind all addictions, since negative thoughts and feelings create the suffering that people are trying to rid themselves of when they turn to food, drugs, sex, and other things for pure pleasure. Behind every addiction are unmet, unhealed, feelings and negative thoughts about oneself, life, and others that need to be seen and seen through. The ego can produce a tremendous amount of pain by convincing us of terrible lies about ourselves and life. These thoughts and feelings can make life seem unbearable. Compulsions come from negative feelings that have been buried, and these compulsions initiate and maintain addictive behavior. Those caught in addictions usually need help identifying the negativity they have bought into and help moving beyond that negativity to a more positive perception of themselves and life.

THE PLEASURE-SEEKER'S VOICE is the voice of temptation: “What difference will eating another piece of cake make? It tastes too good to not have another. You only live once. I’ll go on a diet next week.” “Another drink would be great. Why not? Let’s party!” The Pleasure Seeker goads us on and on toward more of the same pleasure, until that pleasure turns into pain. It prods us past the point of satiation to the point of pain or actual damage to the body.

THE PROBLEM isn’t seeking pleasure, because that’s fine in moderation, the problem is that The Pleasure-Seeker is never satisfied. It doesn’t know when to stop. The problem is also that when we are involved in pursuing pleasure compulsively, we aren’t doing anything to uncover and heal the negative thoughts and feelings at the root of our unhappiness.

WHEN WE ARE IDENTIFIED with the ego as The Pleasure-Seeker, we actually aren’t enjoying life very much, but running from the pain caused by believing the egoic mind. We aren’t really happy, and we aren’t really having fun. Addictions are anything but fun. The illusion is that our favorite pleasures are necessary for our happiness. For example, those addicted to food really believe they need their chocolate cake and other goodies to be happy. Giving them up seems unthinkable. The illusion that they need something outside themselves to be happy keeps them in the grips of addiction, and numbing their feelings out with their addiction keeps them from discovering the real cause of their unhappiness, and the solution.

 

The Ego as the Buddy

ANOTHER GUISE of the ego is that of a friend. This guise is experienced more positively than The Tyrant or other more negative guises the ego takes on, such as The Judge. When the ego can’t get our attention by shaming us, scaring us, bossing us, or making us feel bad in some other way, it may take the guise of our friend. This is the most deceptive guise because it can feel good and more like yourself than any other persona. It is the most benevolent form the ego takes: It chats with us like a friend. The kind of conversations we have mentally with the ego as The Buddy are similar to the conversations we might have with a real friend. The Buddy is the most positive side of the ego.

WHEN WE HAVE evolved beyond listening to the negativity of the egoic mind, the ego as The Buddy is often what’s left. Even though giving our attention to the friendly, chatty thoughts of The Buddy isn’t likely to cause us to contract or feel stressed or tense, like identifying with other thoughts does, giving our attention to these useless thoughts means we aren’t being more present to what else might be arising in the moment, such as intuitive messages or other possible communications from the Self. As long as we are giving our attention to The Buddy, we are still identified with the egoic mind, which means we aren’t having as full an experience of the moment as we could be having. Furthermore, listening to The Buddy reinforces the habit of paying attention to the egoic mind, and doing that can quickly lead to giving our attention to some other less benevolent guise of the ego.

THE VOICE OF The Buddy is friendly, upbeat, supportive, conversational, and chatty: “I think you should wear the blue dress; you want to look your best.” “Let’s have lunch a little later so that we can take a walk first.” “If anyone can get all that done, you can!” When we have seen through all the negative guises of the ego, The Buddy is the ego’s only hope of keeping us identified with it.

WHEN THE THOUGHTS in your mind are primarily chatty, that’s a good sign. The next step is to ignore even those. You don’t need them. They only take you away from being more present to whatever you are doing and experiencing.

Copyright Gina Lake, 2005

All rights reserved, used by permission

LINKS

Gina's website: http://www.radicalhappiness.com/index.php

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Scott Kiloby interviews Gina:  http://goo.gl/XT6o9

Gina on Never Not Here: http://nevernothere.com/gina-lake

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Quotes on Goodreads: http://goo.gl/dCBEX

Gina writing for Spiritual Now: http://goo.gl/6GJs9

Gina writing for Advaita Vision: http://goo.gl/ZDgcA

Housekeeping Notes: 

Let me welcome Togo and Peru as countries number 74 and 75 to visit Awakening Clarity.  They joins thousands of readers around the world.
  
Scott Kiloby will be next week's Guest Teacher.