Entries Tagged 'Spirituality' ↓

Sometimes with ego you think you have mastered it but when you see someone who you have a tonne of history with it all comes back again and the old patterns will come out as if they had never gone leaving you feeling terrible and emotionally drained and not at all as if you have undergone a spiritual awakening. I have one family member and this person is a huge emotional drain on me. I try avoiding this person at all costs but sometimes we have to meet and although I love this family member completely I have learned quite a few decent coping techniques over the years.

1. Bring Ego To Their Awareness

If you are like me you probably have family and friends who do not have a clue what Ego is and mentioning it would be pointless. You have to bring to their awareness the fact that their ego is coming out indirectly. You cannot just say to someone “hmm, yeah this is Ego, let it go”. A great teacher will talk in language the student will understand. Just keep saying to them “Do you really feel you have to manipulate me like this?”, “Wow, this does not sound like you at all, whats up, are you ok?” etc. Whenever the old pattern comes out bring it to the light straight away and it will vanish, this is the central concept of spiritual awakening.

Another really fun one can be to distract their mind. What is happening when Ego pops up is that people are stuck in repetitive negative thought patterns that are unconsciously running. If you interrupt that pattern enough times they will not be able to get back there. This reminds me of a Tony Robbins audio tape I listened to once where he got a woman to talk about her recent divorce and every time she got into negative thought space he would throw a glass of water over her. After enough times she just could not get back to that place. Hilarious and practical.

You could just do something like stand up and shout “Pickles do me no harm!” every time there is Ego then sit down and apologize profusely saying “I do not know what came over me”. I love doing this because it is so funny, keeps things light and gets rid of all the ego in the room. Most people forget what they were complaining about after something so silly.

it also has the side effect of stopping YOUR ego patterns from coming out as you make yourself super alert by shouting.

2. Never Give Into Their Ego Demands

People with strong egos will try and dominate you and tell you to do things (ala “The Boss”). Sit internally with your power and never let it go. You are ultimately in control of your decisions and every time you let someone else make a decision for you against your will you are losing power.

Is not this what all mass murderers and serial rapists say?

“I did not mean to do it, I just lost control, I regret it every day.”

It comes from the same mindset.

Do not care what they think as this is a lesson they have to learn and you should not lower your principles for someone, they should be continually refined. You are the author of your life and spiritual awakening. Ego will try and demand things of others because it is not ever satisfied with itself and will look for fulfilment in power over others. It scares me whenever I make a decision which is against what my intention is. When I start eating to feel full rather than to nourish me. I know I am not in control and it is horrible. Does it not scare you that your life in some areas is on autopilot? It is like this if you do anything during the day that you know you should not have, pretty much everyone.

3. Intense Awareness

I use this when someone is talking and I have to listen but do not care about the content too (we have all been there). What you do is become totally present and listen to every word that they say intently. Surprisingly often when you become totally present and accepting people realize that they are speaking unnecessarily anyway, stop, and apologize. They are really just repeating the thoughts inside their head verbally as their minds are so full.. When it gets past 5 minutes of this I just politely excuse myself. Intense awareness also stops your ego coming out, so you can respond from your true self.

4. Dealing With A Childs’ Ego

In one of Eckhart Tolles’ books he has the idea of naming the experience of ego to create a sense of separation from it. You can ask the child what came over them, what they would like to name it, how it feels etc. And then whenever it comes up you can say “Here comes X again”. This is a brilliant practice that will be one of the first things I plan to teach my future children when they learn to speak to help their spiritual awakening.

5. Just Remove Yourself

“Life is too short for bad wine” (as my Dads fridge magnet says) but another true statement is that “Sometimes the best way of showing your love is not not associate with a person at all”. Some people just are not ready to move past Ego yet, they may never be ready for a spiritual awakening. Do not worry though, they will move on one day or evolution will sort the problem for you. Outsourcing and delegation baby, it is the future. Just blank them out of your life.

Imagine lying on your deathbed considering all the time you spent with people you just never enjoyed. Get rid of them, let this visualization be your spiritual awakening. Maybe one day they will help themselves up. Point them to a resource that helped you and if they have the personal power they will go for it, if they do not then they are not ready and you are whittling away your hours and minutes with someone who does not want to know. Remember the Snake in the garden of Eden. This is exactly what this is all about.

6. React With Fun

When someone makes an egotistical comment do not let it get under your skin. If you do its residue will remain there for weeks, maybe years. Always react positively to an egotistical comment. Stay light-hearted and people will see that they take this thing too seriously. Even if they do not at least you kept yourself out of Ego which is of primary importance.

7. Visualization

If you are about to go out with someone who you know has a huge Ego that will annoy you then visualize it happening in detail before it does. Sit down and visualize as if you are in your own body using every sense magnifying it each time. Visualize the other person doing there thing and then you calmly responding lightly. You get to experience it before it happens.

Awareness is the basic overall aim of meditation. The problem with a meditation beginner is that their mind is focused on things. It’s pretty hard to break that habit. At the beginning you have to learn to focus your mind on objects. This is why many people recommend focusing upon your breath or a physical object at the start. There is of course levels after this.

Buddha started on breath awareness but he didn’t just remain concentrated on his breath all of his life. He transcended that teaching and moved on after it has served its purpose. If you say to a rookie spiritual seeker “yeah, just become aware of your awareness” they will just look at you blankly and try and make some kind of mental construct of concept out of it. You have to lead the mind slowly.

When you meditate upon things you are still not completely aware of the stillness and formless within but it’s at least a start. It concentrates your mind and at least severs the idea that you are body, thought or anything else. When you’ve totally focused on something your mind is still.

As you get used to this state and master it you will experience the state of inner stillness and its beauty which is beyond words. Infinitely more beautiful than any physical possession. It’s the connection with what you truly are. You see it in someone who has a child and suddenly becomes more vibrant, alive and childish looking. They’ve connected with source and experienced stillness of the mind.



Removing The Crutches

Now you have realised a still mind, you are ready to take off your crutches and allow it to become your natural state. What you do is switch the focus from external things (the object of your focus) to awareness of awareness itself. This sounds complicated but it’s you completely natural state under all the mind made noise.

My technique for doing this is that I sit in a cross-legged state in a dark room. I do this so that I can stop my mind focusing on objects and I close my eyes to gain as much focus as possible. Then I sit at the gate of my mind where things enter and leave and just become aware of the inner stillness. At the start my mind is often busy and I have to acknowledge and become aware of thoughts. Whenever you realize that a thought has took my attention elsewhere on a little journey I just watch it, forgive it until it vanishes and return to silence.

You will eventually get to the point where you are just pure timeless awareness. You are not aware of a body or thoughts. It’s blissful. You can tell how close you are by the degree of lightness and inner peace you feel. When you connect with that state the ecstasy just multiplies the longer you say there, deeper and deeper. It might scare you at first with its power, go into it in degrees.

If at any point you feel like the mind noise is all too much, just internally and silently forgive and accept your state. Then move on from there. I can’t say how long it takes to get to that place because it requires the acknowledgement of timelessness and forgetting your space in time as that is a thought form.



The Stateless State

Once you’ve learned how to access this state it will become more and more prevalent in your life. You will feel an inner peace with you wherever you go that you can amplify at any time and a knowing of being one with all (coincidentally my favourite type of pizza). If you are struggling to find an answer then to this place and silence your mind and the answer will be given to you. God speaks his truth in feelings to a silent mind.



Your Minds Resistance

Your mind will always resist going to this place, ALWAYS! You will find it making up ridiculous excuses just to stop and distract you. It does this because it is fighting for its existence. It wants control of you and at the moment it has it. Old habits die hard. If you want mind control then you will just have to see through this and put yourself into meditation. That’s the hardest part.

One night before sleep, after gaining a great amount of control back from my mind, I was visualizing that I was in my body the following morning getting out of my bed turning off my alarm and going for a shower. Simple, right? Well when I got up the following morning I lay in my bed and I was aware of my mind telling me that I’d reset my alarm for an earlier time and that I should go back to bed. This wasn’t the “close your eyes for just.. another .. second” thought. It scared me a little and I got up. This all happened after just an hour of deep meditation daily, for about 3 or 4 days in a row.

Your mind is full of illusory concepts which it believes are reality. Reality is in constant flux while concepts remain rigid. Something had to give. I’ll take this as a good sign though as I read somewhere that Buddha saw the illusion of horsemen on a chariot galloping towards him just before he reached enlightenment as his mind was trying to fool him.



Appreciation

I found that without any conscious effort, I just started appreciating things massively. My fear of death just started to fall to the side in the place of gratitude and deep love of all, and sleep became incredibly deep and restoring. I’d awaken extremely alert as if I’d slept for years. I started to feel and know that life was living through me rather than the other way around, I’d touched the immortality of the human spirit and it is breathtaking.

A couple of days ago, I bought myself a winter coat with matching hat and it made me feel so amazing. It was as if gratitude and love just burst through my chest and swallowed me up. and after it had died down I just had no fear and it’s aura stayed with me for days. Go to this place, it’s the most beautiful, natural restoring thing you can do for yourself and others who come into contact with you.