The ego is confusing. It’s not your enemy. And you already know that very often it isn’t your friend. It can cause a lot of trouble.

If you have too much of it, you may be blind to it—while it’s obvious to everyone else. If you have too little, you can’t function in this world.

You can’t live without an ego; you have to have one, but it isn’t real. It is created moment to moment by a conversation you have in your head: one moment you’re wonderful, the next moment you shiver in fear.

This ego, the one that’s forever busy chasing what it desires and protecting itself from what it fears, is the ego of suffering.

The ego is baffling and mystifying, and if you don’t understand it, and educate it, it will be your master, instead of the servant it is meant to be. Then it will lead you around by the nose, through a lot of pain and loss to exactly nowhere.

You’ve heard all the stuff about transcending, or even  ‘killing the ego.’ And you’ve also heard that you need ‘ego strengths.’ So what is it? Do we need to get over it, or make it strong?

The answer is: both. You think that’s paradoxical? Definitely!

Okay, lets start with the basics.

At birth you emerge into this world from what has been called “The Ground of Being,” the womb of the universe. And at death, that’s where you go. It is the Self, the alpha and the omega, spirit, THAT which many people call God.

From there you can picture the journey of your existence as a circle that begins and ends in the Ground of Being.[1]

You can then divide this circle into two halves. The first part of life is about building the ego, coming to know who you are in this short time-span of your existence; it’s about going out into the world, about self-assertion, about being some body. The second half is about returning back home to our essence, to your origins, to spirit, to Self-realization, to eternity, oneness, and truth.

The “I” changes throughout this circular journey.

We can also divide the circle into three parts, three pie shapes. In childhood the ego begins as soon as you start to think. At the beginning of thought there is a mechanism that makes you continuously relate everything in your world to this “I.” You make up this thing called “I” as you think. You believe it’s a stable ‘thing,’ but it isn’t; it’s like an optical illusion of the mind that appears real.

This first third of the journey is the pre-personal stage. The roots of your beliefs of “I am………” are laid here, good and bad. You identify with your body, your likes and dislikes, your emotional habits and your personal history. You praise yourself and experience pride, and you condemn yourself and experience guilt. Most of this is subconscious and quite automatic. You struggle to be who you think you are meant to be, and you judge yourself as to how well you think you are doing. This, as I said, is the ego of suffering.

At this stage you are unconsciously still fused with the collective mind, and your thinking is deeply conditioned. You think in the way your family or clan, religion or nation told you to think. You are under the influence of an internalized voice that sounds like a controlling and critical parent. You have not yet developed a fully independent sense of yourself, a free way to make up your own mind.

For that you have to cut the restricting ‘umbilical cords’ that bind you to the ways of your upbringing. Until you do, you do not yet have a fully functioning ego. You’re part of the group mind. You’re also still close to spirit and that gives you comfort. But the danger here is that you may be prone to fundamentalist thinking.

Once you cut the ‘umbilical cord’, you move into the self-conscious stage, become a fully rational person and see the blossoming of your personal identity. You become an independently functioning individual, a “person” in your own right. No longer bound by the fear of being rejected by your group if you were to be fully yourself, you unfold your unique gifts and abilities.

This is the culmination of what Western psychology calls the development of ego-strengths. Rational and relatively independent in your views, you act and operate in your world.

Western culture generally assumes that this is the totality and aim of human development. Once you are a strong individual, you ‘have made it’ in the eyes of our culture; you are done. Therefore, of course, most individuals do not evolve much beyond this point. They are still in the grip of the ego of suffering, and remain far removed from the nurturing reality of the true Self.

This is now changing, as more and more of us realize that the highly developed ego is not the end of the line. And the ego itself feels it, as it matures. Where it has been fascinated with material life at first, now a sense of unease arises, an existential loneliness, disconnection and lack of fulfillment, or perhaps a deep, but indistinct yearning. These can easily turn into despair and trigger addictions and relationship problems.

Such lack of fulfillment is often mistaken for regular anxiety or depression—but that is not what it is, and it should not be treated that way. The ego has to suffer this basic lack of fulfillment, because it knows deep down that it, along with the body and all its worldly achievements, is going to die—although it tries hard to ignore that fact.

But rather than despair, this is the time when the individual needs to evolve further, and only entry into the next stage, the spiritual stage of development can resolve these problems.

This brings us to the third pie shape, the trans-personal stage. This part of the journey has been deeply studied by the world’s mystical traditions. Particularly Indian Vedanta and Tibetan Buddhism have elevated this inquiry to a profound and fascinating science.

As long as you operate exclusively through your rational mind, you will remain unaware of the reality of this higher development, because it goes beyond the ego, beyond the rational mind. But it does not deny rationality; it includes and transcends it. Here the mind can evolve into intuitive intellect and into divine intelligence.

It begins with experiences that lead you into the spiritual realm. At first these moments of peace, or deep joy, or your ability to perceive a deeper truth, are fleeting. To make them more permanent, you must develop an ability for stillness. Meditation is the best known and time-honored way to do that.

The first part of the spiritual journey is the exploration of ‘spiritual wonderland.’ You are fascinated by all kinds of exciting options, collect spiritual paraphernalia, move from teacher to teacher, read many books, and, all-in-all develop a very cool spiritual ego, which is not much different at all from the rational ego. It feels special about itself, either in a good or bad way, and in that it is absolutely commonplace.

But as you explore the spiritual realm, you build another kind of ego, the ego of aspiration. Now you feel drawn to real sadhana, to committed spiritual practice. This is how you can free yourself of the shadow elements, the habits of suffering which you have acquired earlier in life and which are the true source of your pain.

The higher reaches of spiritual realization will remain hidden to you until you do this work. But with the gradual easing of unconscious tensions, and with a greater and stable peace, comes the ability to look inward.

Now a great paradigm shift begins. You realize that who or what you thought you were was in fact a mistaken identity. Yes, the ego was useful enough for a while, just like the countless other identities you have built in past lives that are now gone and forgotten. And so will this one be gone in just a few years.

Now however this is not a source of despair, but of a great aspiration. You begin to intuit that you are in truth not this puny ego with its ongoing drama and self-importance, but the true Self, and your body and mind can serve as the perfect expression of divine presence in form.

You realize that you are not the body, but a ray of divine light that is reflected in you. And, going even further, you realize that this individual ray is one with the sun, the Self, the Source of infinite light.

In the expansion of this inner experience, the ego is transformed into the ego of the sage. Where it has formerly been opaque and confused, it now becomes transparent to the light. Where it has been a dictator, if not a tyrant at times, it now becomes your faithful and reliable servant.

Through the force of continued spiritual practice, sadhana, your being becomes the conduit of divine grace. The thinking mind with its judgments and stress dissolves and gives way to the intuitive intellect, which can run your worldly affairs perfectly.

The heart remains increasingly open and, since you are internally filled by the bliss of the Self, you can love freely. Your life becomes a life of joyful service to all beings around you, in whom you recognize the same presence of God that shines in you.

This is the way to absolute peace and to the fulfillment that does not die when the body is done. It is the realization of your true and immortal identity as the Self.

The ego evolves from being the source of much trouble to being a clear lens through which the presence of God shines into this world. How is it done? What are the mechanisms that are at work in this transformation? And what is the most crucial transformation from the ego of aspiration to the ego of the sage?  That is what we will discuss in Part 2.

We invite you to watch the video: The 3 Aspects of Ego by Ram Giri.
For more information visit our website www.Skillsforawakening.com

With love and gratitude,

Ram Giri 
and the Skills for Awakening Team

How to Rise Above the Pain of Attachment to Find Love, and
Why only a Clear Mind is Capable of True Affection and Caring

The most surprising Aha! moments come when we realize that something we have been absolutely sure about is completely untrue. Like a sudden ray of light into darkness we realize a new and liberating facet of truth. This can be the case when we gain some insight into the extremely common confusion between love and attachment. We pay an extreme prize for this error, and we pay it in suffering.

Before that clarity dawns, we don’t know there can be another way. Even the dictionary tells us that attachment is another term for affection. This view is directly in conflict with the wisdom traditions. Attachment is clinging, and that is not love. Love never hurts, it is free and pristine, and attachment always must lead to pain.

Only when we can let things be the way they are do we have a clear mind. When we want things to be different than they are, we lose, because reality doesn’t care about our opinions. Only by accepting reality as it is now can we perceive the world clearly. Only when we perceive the world clearly can we be effective and caring. And only when our mind is not filled with attachment and clinging can we have an open heart. One stressful though and our heart closes. That’s inevitable!

The crucial significance of non-attachment became clear to my friend Bob when he had to take his parents to an adult living facility. There he learned a powerful lesson about what love really is.

It began with the realization that mom and dad just couldn’t live in their nice home in the suburbs any longer. Even with help in the home, it was no longer safe. Dad would fall and bruise, and he even broke his arm. Mom also couldn’t cope any longer. She’d burn food in the kitchen and could easily have set the whole house of fire. They were both in their nineties.

It was very difficult for them to say good-bye to their home. They understood the need to move, but with their mental clarity coming and going, often didn’t know what was happening to them. Eventually Bob had them settled in a very good facility and went back home. Home is 2000 miles away.

He had seen how their attachment to their home had caused his parents pain, but the real teaching came for him when he returned to check in on them two months later. He was so happy to see them, but when he walked into the door he was greeted by a deep sense of depression and despair. There was nothing either of them could find good about their new home and they let him know in no uncertain terms how unhappy they were.

That night Bob went home in despair. He felt an intense heaviness in his chest. What was he to do? Moving them back home was out of the question. He wanted to relieve their pain and change their minds, but how? He seemed to be facing a hopeless situation.

That’s when Bob remembered his skill of Inquiry. He realized that his pain did not originate from his parent’s depression, but from his reaction to it. How was he going to be able to serve them better, with his mind and emotions in turmoil, or with a clear head and an open heart? So he sat down that night, pulled out a pad and pen and began to question his thinking.

His most disturbing though was, “My parents shouldn’t have to suffer.” He began the questioning process. Could he absolutely know that this was true? Of course it was what he, as a caring son, was supposed to think. All the voices in his mind, his entire conditioning told him so. And yet the undeniable fact was that they were suffering. His thinking was on a collision course with reality. He was waging a war in his mind he could only loose.

That was when he began to realize that this sacred belief simply wasn’t true at all. He continued with the process of inquiry and described to himself in detail his reactions to believing this thought. It made him miserable. It made him crazy because he was looking so hard for a solution and there was none. It made him as depressed as his parents were.

Then he asked, “Who would I be without this thought?” He would be relaxed and have a clear mind. Would he love his parents any less? Of course not! But there was a crucial difference: without attaching himself to this untrue concept he may be able to be with them in a much better mood. And that might help them.

So Bob turned this thought around: “I shouldn’t have to suffer.” At first this seemed selfish to him, but he realized that his suffering had really nothing to do with his love for his parents. It was the outcome of attachment and confused thinking. If he didn’t suffer, but had a clear mind instead, he might even find a solution to the situation. He couldn’t imagine one, but obviously his suffering solved nothing, it wasn’t helpful to anyone. He felt a shift inside his chest.

Then there was the other turn-around: “My parents should have to suffer.” This was the hard one. Everything in his conditioned mind fought against that belief. But for now, for this moment, wasn’t it true? They were suffering and that meant they ‘should’ be suffering, until they didn’t. The extremely simple logic of this insight settled in to Bob’s mind and if was a relief.

“My parents should have to suffer” of course means nothing about a future. To project that they ‘should’ suffer in the future would be mad, and we’re working on sanity here. But to say that they shouldn’t suffer when they obviously were was just as crazy. It was as though Bob could see something in his mind straighten out, an old and confused habit of thoughts coming into a new state of clarity.

There were other stressful thoughts, and Bob worked on gaining clarity in his mind for about two hours that night. One by one he saw through all his stressful beliefs, and as they melted away in the light of truth, he felt a great sense of relief. His emotions came to peace and he slept like a baby that night.

The next morning he couldn’t wait to see mom and dad. He walked into their room refreshed, with a clear mind and with his heart wide open. And that’s when the miracle happened. Inspired by Bob’s open heart, his two old parents instantly rose out of their gloomy mood, and they all met in a great space of love. This is how they had been together at the best of times and suddenly no one could any longer find a reason why it shouldn’t be like this again.

His parents stayed in this loving mood for the whole week of Bob’s visit, and it even after Bob left, they never again fell into depression. They opened to their new surroundings, made new friends, and lived out their final days becoming more and more peaceful until a merciful reality took them into the state beyond.

Today Bob often thinks about how different that day could have been and the time that followed. We believe that when someone we love is in pain we also have to hurt and we call that compassion. But what hurts is not love. It is blind attachment; it creates more pain and it doesn’t solve any problems.

The sacred belief, “My parents shouldn’t have to suffer,” and the misunderstanding of love that it breeds, is like an archaic religion. It is delusional. There is an unalterable reality about sickness, old age and death, as the Buddha taught. Can we support those whose turn it is, instead of joining them with self-created pain?

No matter how long we have held onto a set of unquestioned beliefs, if they cause us pain, isn’t it smart to question them? If our thoughts are at odds with reality, it may be time to change our religion.

Let me invite you to find out more about the revolutionary process of inquiry, also known as The Work of Byron Katie. If you are facing the suffering of a loved one, I cannot recommend this practice strongly enough! Just like in Bob’s case it may make a profound difference in your life and theirs. For personal consultations or coaching in The Work with Ram Giri, please go here.

With love,

Ram Giri

Skills for Awakening

One of the greatest books of the wisdom literature of this planet is the yet little known “Vasistha’s Yoga.” The following is a quote from it regarding self-inquiry and the Heart:

If one has achieved even a little bit of control over the mind by self-enquiry, such a person has attained the fruit of his life. For that self-enquiry will expand his heart.

This of course is exactly what we are doing with the Skills for Awakening. Vasistha continues:

When such enquiry is preceded by dispassion [or: detachment] and has attained stability by practice, all the noble qualities resort to it naturally. Ignorance and its retinue do not bother one who is fully established in self-enquiry and who sees what is, without distortion. When he has found his foothold in the spiritual ground, he is not overcome by the robbers known as sense-pleasures.

Practicing self-inquiry with The Work gives you that stability. You can first observe it by noticing how you react less to situations and people that used to upset you. You become calmer, more peaceful and in control of yourself. This is a control without force, a natural peacefulness and mastery. This is true knowledge. It frees us from the constant distractedness of the undisciplined mind that is craving for and running after sense pleasures. Notice that there is nothing wrong with pleasures; it is the desire for them that throws you off balance. In true peace you can enjoy whatever comes, may it be labeled ‘good’ or ‘bad’. This is dispassion, the foundation of lasting peace. In that peace the Heart can be wide open.

I hope you enjoy this, please let me know.

Ram Giri