Ego activity is always moving away from being – even when seeking it.
So, you want presence or enlightenment, or reality. Wonderful! You’re screwed and trapped in the quintessential catch-22: any movement toward your desire perpetuates the separation from what you seek.
Why is that?
Because you are what you seek.
You can’t go find it; you are it. You can’t bring it into awareness; it (you) is awareness.
The Illusion of Self-Manipulation
In our day-to-day existence, we often find ourselves in a constant state of manipulation, both overtly and subtly. This continuous activity, driven by the ego, keeps us from truly experiencing the present moment. Whether it’s trying to mold our experiences to fit a certain narrative or holding onto cherished memories in hopes of recreating them, we’re always in motion. This continuous activity, driven by the ego, keeps us from truly experiencing the present moment. It’s like trying to push ourselves through the eye of a needle, expecting to come out unchanged on the other side.
The self wants to make reality into an experience that can be known, reflected upon, remembered, achieved, and…
Completeness does not come as a result of any action or effort, nor is it the end of a process.
The Delusion of Self-Judgment
One of the most profound ego activities is the incessant need to judge and compare ourselves to others. This not only breeds self-hatred but also reinforces the false belief that there’s something inherently wrong with us. However, upon closer inspection, this perceived “wrongness” is nothing more than a shifting belief, a mirage created by the ego. Recognizing this delusion allows us to let go of the resentment and futile efforts to correct something that was never broken.
Completeness does not come as a result of any action or effort, nor is it the end of a process. The personality, the construct of your mind with which you identify most of the time, is a movement of becoming, always wanting to be something, wanting to get something, wanting to become something, go somewhere, move toward something. It’s an activity; it is not a stillness. If you become completely aware of this movement, then you’re not engaged in it. And when you’re not engaged in it, you are the completeness. – A. H. Almaas, Diamond Heart Book Three: Being and the Meaning of Life, ch. 7
Every moment we’re aware of “what-we’re-not,” and we want to insist that knowing reality fits the same experiential mold – only more refined or subtle. Wrong, not possible!
The Endless Search for Identity
The ego thrives on seeking, always pursuing something more, something better. Previously, our search might have been for external validations like success or recognition. But as we delve deeper into self-awareness, the search turns inward. We start seeking enlightenment, thinking it’s just another goal to achieve. However, this is just a continuation of the same ego-driven activity with a different label.
And, the real bummer is…
…you can’t stop this mental process or orientation because attempting to do so is the process, the orientation.
Grace and the Path to Stillness
It’s a common misconception that we can achieve stillness and peace through sheer willpower and effort. But any attempt to force the mind into silence is just another form of ego activity. True stillness comes not from suppression but from understanding and grace. Only when we surrender to the pure love for truth can we find genuine peace and quell the feverish activities of the ego.
More than all the discourses in the world, the clarity of this pure being illuminates the barriers against realizing it, gross and subtle. We begin to see that locating ourselves anywhere within the self-structure separates us from this simplicity. Any motive, any hope, any desire, any ego movement means identifying with the structured self, with the ego-self. Thus, any movement of rejection, choice, desire, motive, hope, preference, holding, grasping, trying or effort will separate the self from this simplicity of being. – A. H. Almaas, The Point of Existence: Transformations of Narcissism in Self-Realization, ch. 35
Striving for an Ideal
The ego always has an ideal, a version of ourselves that we constantly strive towards. This endless striving is driven by the belief that achieving this ideal will make us worthy of love, support, and validation. But this is just another illusion. The more we chase after this ideal, the further we move away from our true nature, which is already complete and perfect in its own right.
So staying with the dynamic ground that is the gray area, to keep from splitting and falling into borderline tendencies, I recognize the limitations of breaking things down into fundamental concepts and analyzing written words for things like ego and true self; juxtaposing thinking versus allowing. I can be aware of the concepts of who I am, curiously open to expressions of ‘my’ reality, and those around me, and be without a preference, sometimes, not without morals, but that shit just needs to be let out…the only end to the process is when I’m burnt to ashes, set free into the mystery beyond my physical and mental limitations.
There is no setting free. That is the self’s way of imagining experience – that it will be around for the experience, that something transforms, but what is – always was and will always be.
Working with all the stuff is good for skillful means to improve quality of life.
More interest to the dynamism of awareness and presence without goals and preference just simple curiosity not seeking answers. Regardless of what is happening, there is awareness and presence. So, it’s not about getting it or increasing it, but simply being interested in it.
Thanks for the clarification.
In set free I was referring to death, and being cremated, but could be interpreted metaphorically, or by falling into an ego ideal expressing ego identity wrapped in the colored expression of the self.
I experience awareness and presence like an aperture of a lens in way, and as my consciousness changes with experience and greater maturity, that lens shifts and changes. For instance, realizing the how rejecting object relation can distort things and the modus operandi in relations, wanting to split. The more intimate relations and direct experience I have with other individuals the more I learn how my presence is…
“Or you might feel enough love just to be genuine and not divided in yourself.” Unfolding Now. p.28
Very interesting how the heart can be genuine…
“The more intimate relations and direct experience I have with other individuals the more I learn how my presence is…”
This is it – all experience is a dialectic between true nature and true nature. It is the nature of the dialectic that the interplay between two perspectives invite more elements of TN to display. This is how we discover, moment to moment what we are.
And when there is a genuine connection we merge undivided. I value your presence JH.
So: the only way to resolve the paradox is direct experience of Pure Being.
Kind of – only without “way” and “direct experience.” There is no resolution. Resolution implies a change in self. There is no self therefor you can’t resolve this for it. The dream of self drops away and there is what is.