The Ego.
From a Non-Dual point of view
My ego is not on the outside.
It is a subconscious navigator and negotiator. It hides behind the mind in all moments except the present one.
A fine negotiator, it presents itself to be.
My ego presupposes that it is an independent self-sustaining entity known as ‘me’ — and that’s where all the troubles begin. You see, when I engage in the shrewd discourse with it, I surrender the oneness of the moment that is truly who I am.
To the table, ego brings all the past events and thoughts of the mind, wrapped up in their judgments and fallacies. It also brings suppositions of all the future calamity and doubts I may experience in the future. Whether that future is merely what to worry about next, or as simple as who I might be in the next moment, my future is presented by my ego as something it is not.
It presents as fact, when in reality it does not exist; a fiction appearing real projects upon the screen to be battled with.
On one side of the discourse — when subconsciously parlaying it is already too late — comes the character I have known to love and hate. On the other, the oneness of all things and people and natural creation begs the question “How are you above or below or separate from all else?”
This argument is built up behind the mind, from a place of insecurity, from power and powerlessness; it is always a losing battle here because it is subconscious in origin. Presuming the ego to be an outward reaction to things I don’t like is an illusion, albeit a persistent one.
When addressed from the outside, it is too late to do anything about it; a false reaction that comes to the table is never the real adversary. So where am I left to fend for ‘myself’ in this Hegelian dialectic, if I don’t even know which ‘me’ (from a multitude) is being represented, or which is on ‘my’ side?
The sun shines on an object, seemingly.
The shadow is cast onto background, an absence of light contained from that object. Both are defined by the seemingly real object.
Aye, there’s the rub.
What if I ventured into a different non-argument without the ego’s will in the driver’s seat? I would have the imperative of beginning from the subconscious recognition that all is one, for starters. I would meet the ego in a fair negotiation.
The ego would not like that, and it would fight instead of nudging my elbow like a friend making a friendly but self-deprecating joke. It would be more difficult to persist the seeming illusion that it is ‘me’, and even more difficult to pretend to be my friend, for that matter.
So, here is the preferred territory in which to wage this battle, but it is hostile nonetheless. Within the subconscious, seemingly preceding the mind, before object or shadow. My mind’s incessant search for ‘me’ — the persistent insecurity — rages in the hot sun and the cold shadow alike.
Perhaps I’ll have to give it up altogether to find the way of rest from the battle.
True surrender to a non-dual reality is so appealing in the very moment I find peace, yet I retreat each time to the familiar pain.
I am a glutton for punishment — a creature of habit — but it is not ‘me’ that fights this battle with the forces of three-dimensional nature in fixed time and space.
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Who am I fighting for, but a false ideal, an individual who no more exists than the empty space of a cold shadow?
My friends, we are one.
Consciously on the outside, and no thing less than beautiful in all things, places, times, and contexts. So what of the conscious battle — if the subconscious one is always lost before it begins with that cunning negotiator — that we can express and pronounce?
Does there exist a predominant joy in each moment when divorced from this elusive ‘me’ that vies for supremacy over the simple beauty of life?
Yes, joy exists; it cannot be had nor taken away.
Though I remember little of what I have forgotten, retain little of what I seemingly gain in this game, and apply feeble hope in many moments.
I exist.
It’s me talking, sharing, gathering and hunting and distributing love — from a position behind this supposed mind. A land of confusion indeed, the internal and eternal struggle to define “Who Am I?”
And if (what if?!) the answer I have been seeking was nothing more than the space of a shadow, a futile endeavor to be itself surrendered? If beyond and before this confused negotiation lie the truths of the universe, and I seek from that place, I would realize there was nothing of ‘me’ lost or to be found in the first place?
What if the principle was no more to be solved, but simply to realize the joy of this moment, devoid of my personal identity, preferences, past and future alike?
Then, that would be something jaw-dropping and conversation-ending in the endless pursuit of the ego, would it not?
What would it look like to be as the sun shining, instead of being burned by it, or receiving its light at all? How could it feel, standing no more in a shadow, but being the event horizon of the light and shadow combined, with no object in sight?
DO you know what it feels like to not do any reaction in the conscious mind, in response to the ego’s futile musings, although addictive and entertaining?
Yes, you do, you simply don’t remember.
Because I remember that we both have this thing we call love, and we just can’t handle it.
It is too vast to contain in a body, in a mind, in a soul, even.
A reality so much bigger than us cannot be imprisoned — will never subject itself to that kind of a thing — and so we must give up this whim that we are big enough to accomplish that impossible feat.
The feat of nature is to somehow and somewhat subdivide itself into discrete chunks using an amnesic fluid we call ego, so that it can observe itself differently.
It observes through an interchange of joy and suffering — and this carousel will endlessly persist — so let’s learn to enjoy it.
Just don’t fall for the old ruse that ‘you’ or your mind are true.
No thing is — as good or bad as it may seemingly appear in my rear-view mirror.
