Ego is never happy. Anger and frustration is its constant state. It is perpetually prone to throwing tantrums. Ego is angry and jealous of the Divine because it can never be the Divine. It puffs itself up as powerful because it feels so inadequate and powerless (because it is). Ego is always trying to be something it is not. “I should be powerful” is the primary lie. An elevated “spiritual” or “moral” or “enlightened” ego is a hidden ego and is therefore more dangerous. Encouraging and holding a stance of self-righteous victimhood annihilates the Soul in its quest for TRUE Power. Until it is serving the Divine as a tool, a vehicle, a conduit, and is no longer trying to be an imposter, it will never find Peace, Love and True Power. Fear can never overcome Love. If we don’t see it, it will continue.
Signs of Freedom
The following musings are pointers leading to life free of the ego’s lies and illusions – its artificial power and counterfeit love. Be careful not to turn it into statements of good and bad, right and wrong, superior and inferior, as that would be the ego sneaking in the back door. Even more transformative than deeply contemplating the ideas, would be to open and relax into the Energy infused into, beneath and beyond the words. *[The term “free human being” means someone who is either on the path to transcending the ego or has completely done so. I have alternated between using the pronouns she and he.]
*This can be in footnotes
A human being possessed by the ego gets her sense of identity, strength and confidence from taking a fixed position of right and wrong. A solidly held position is already the grounds for warfare and bigotry. A free human being realizes that she is not a fixed object but the unified flow of Life, free of opposites. She gets strength and confidence from alignment with that Life. She realizes that Love is the most powerful force in the universe.
The ego misuses Awareness to look for and point out the faults of other egos. A free human being uses Awareness to uncover all of the ego’s dark and selfish antics WITHIN, thus freeing himself from the ego. This is the ONLY way that more Love and Truth enters into the world.
An ego uses religious scripture and sacred teachings as an excuse to indulge in judging others and proclaim its superior status. Feeling morally superior is one of the ego’s favorite hiding places. A free human being uses sacred teachings as a guide and an inspiration for SELF-Liberation.
An ego is totally fixated on appearances and judges others accordingly. A free human being realizes her Essence in all beings, thereby seeing that this incarnation is only one in a series of many, many incarnations. She intuitively knows that she has been Black and White and many other races, slave and slave owner, victim and perpetrator, rich and poor, vilified and adored. She has come to identify not with the current appearance and its programming but with the river of Life running through all past lives bringing her to the great ocean of Love and Intelligence. (Even if you don’t believe in past lives, the point is that one is not fooled by the appearances and programming of a singular incarnation and has aligned oneself with a Reality beyond appearances.)
Egos love to join with other egos to cover up the feeling of being very vulnerable, alone and forsaken. A free human being can stand naked and alone because he is held in the tender and invincible arms of Divine Love. He Loves everyone. His “clan” and “special interest group” is all of humanity . . . and beyond.
Egos see problems everywhere and loves fixing them, as this makes the ego feel superior and in control. A free human being sees and has merged with the Perfection of all that is, just as it is. She can naturally intuit the Divine Grace within even the (seemingly) most horrific and calamitous events, yet has an open heart, full of compassion. It is precisely because she is not identified with the pain and suffering of the world that she is completely open to fully experiencing it and, with great empathy, can effectively point the way beyond it.
Egos are like zombies or the walking dead. What seems like liveliness is a actually a pseudo-life animated by frantic grasping; an insatiable desire for more motivated by a pervasive and inexplicable sensation of lack and fear. For an ego-zombie there is no real life, only movement generated by that obsessive and addictive way of being. A free human being IS Life itself.
Since egos have no real life essence of their own, they rely on others for a sense of power and purpose. Like vampires, egos are constantly trying to suck the life out of others, in the form of approval and attention, in order to feel worthy and alive. A free human being has discovered the real source of Self-worth through surrendering and aligning with the Divine and naturally radiates that Love and Life to others.
An ego values comfort, security, control and power – over others and the environment. A free human being is . . . well, free. Free to fully enjoy the gift of life and all of its beauty, diversity, generosity, interconnectivity, creativity, playfulness, and most of all, the ineffable Joy of Being.
The ego uses peer pressure to bully or seduce others to join and conform to its pseudo-reality. (ALL ego realities are pseudo-realities because they are all based on the very limited and distorted programming of separation.) A free human being follows Divine Guidance which is simply the evolutionary force of the universe, and therefore needs no external agreement or collusion.
Being a Conduit of Love
Being free is all about surrendering to the Divine, but it is not as simple and easy as it sounds because the ego is extremely sophisticated and cunning. It has kept humanity enslaved for eons. As the great imposter, it has used all of that time and experience to hone its lies and illusions to appear as truth. The Light of Awareness, which is Love, can dissolve the ego, but only if we are willing to expose it within ourselves. The Divine can only enter into the world right here, in each of us. We then become a conduit for Love entering into the world.
Mark Okita
