The Ego Says The Ego Needs to Go

Keith Ray pointed me to Adrian Savage's piece on "Expansive Egos." While I enjoy Adrian's blog, the biggest 'barrier' to Awakening is thinking anything, including ego, well, especially the ego, needs to 'go' or needs to be abolished and then everything would be perfect.

I'll be in the Tao then. Someday if only.

There is no then.

You are immersed in Tao right now 24/7. But you don't see it because of this mental interpretative layer that's like a thin film over your vision chirping: "This needs to go" or "That needs to go." Other similar looping refrains: "I should be…", "They should be…", "The universe should be…"

Trying to control your so-called ego into submission (or death) is merely the most subversive ego-manager trick. Trying to make harmony only masks the innate harmony in Reality.

The vastness of Tao (since Adrian quotes the Tao Te Ching) is totally completely all-encompassing. What it means that the ego doesn't exist is it has no substance to it – try pointing to it. Where is it? Can you really find your ego?

This is all sounding "easier said than done." To get to point where you can see through your interpretations, it is useful to witnesss and investigate thoughts that have the quality of "This needs to go" and "This should be different than it is right now." I recommend Bryon Katie's book Loving What Is. I also like to carry Bryon Katie's worksheets in my notebook everywhere I go.

You'll finally get to the place where the finite mind becomes like one of your other five senses, rather than it trying to be the author of the whole infinite she-bang. The infinite doesn't fit quite as well into the finite, but the other way around works quite nicely. And then you see for yourself it's all seamlessly infinite anyway. That open clear space isn't infinite period – it has the felt sense of sublime qualities of infinite complete whole peace, ease, intelligence, and love.

Mind wants its freedom, not a straightjacket. – Bryon Katie