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Super-duper Copy Cat

The world is not the only place where imitation stuff is available openly. The mind too has its own share of imitation, if not more. Since the body is in the mind, the statement what is within, so is without is an eternal truth.

The ego is constantly imitating the spirit. Whenever there are aha‘s moment, inspired by the spirit, the ego instantly took up its position, imitating the experience as a new thought and feeling. Excitement and eagerness is its expression. There are times the ego fail in its pursuit of imitation but that does not stop the ego from executing its contingency plan: creating a conspiracy by dissuading me to distrust the inspiration.It can even ultimately go as far as killing the inspiration, if everything fails. The nature of ego is destructive. The nature of wisdom is constructive. Both are moving on the opposite direction.

The destructive nature of ego may not be seen directly in its true form but there are tell-tale signs of ego. There are in fact a huge retinue of relatives, each pairing the experience of spirit. Even wisdom is not spared –  ego has its pirated version too! The clear distinction of wisdom is understanding or realization. The clear distinction of ego is answers. That makes knowledge and realization different. Truth has no answers except realization. Awareness, an important criteria to wisdom, has also been pirated!

Guilt is one big time imitator. I have come across many seekers, renunciates not excluded, that buy into the idea of guilt – that it is the pathway to goodness. Guilt too has fooled me many a times until vigilant comes to my rescue. And ego never stops at guilt. It creates a duo out of it- shame in the past and fear in the future. There are the trio that is found in the mentality of victim, rescuer and persecutor. How wonderful a creation ego has.

So it was said that when one is not on the pathway of enlightenment, the ego is not on its alert as wisdom is entirely unheard off in the system. You can imagine what it is like when wisdom grows. Many a times truth seekers are faced with constant reminder of the egoic pattern, as if their own ego is increasing instead of decreasing. That is the nature of the pathway as to come closer to truth you have to faced what is not true. And what you have to face has to come into existence. So, if you find yourself terrible, remember it is not you – just remember that ego is showing its nature.Yet there is another kind of seekers, whom are not vigilant, are consumed by the ego. I coined this pathway spiritual ego. Glorifying the ego without one knowing – that is when I am unaware!

Another way to recognize ego or spirit is by their status – cause or effect. For instant, forgiveness. Are you aware you can’t do forgiveness – you can’t simply forgive someone because your faith tells you so, or someone forces you to.  Forgiveness is born out from understanding. Forgiveness is effect. You can’t do effect except to work on the causes such that when understanding arise, forgiveness naturally unfold. Whenever I am angry I can’t forgive someone who makes me angry, at least during the duration of my anger. If I were to truly understand the situation of that moment, by exploring my cause of anger and at times inviting myself to understand the underlying situation of my so-called victim, I may come to an insight that immediately ceases my anger, unfolding forgiveness. Forgiveness do me rather than I do forgiveness.

The more I understand myself the more I see the ego closer and clearer. That reminds me of the exclamation made by the Buddha upon his enlightenment:

Through the round of many births I roamed without reward, without rest, seeking the house-builder. Painful is birth again & again.

House-builder, you’re seen! You will not build a house again. All your rafters broken, the ridge pole dismantled, immersed in dismantling, the mind has attained to the end of craving.

Dhammapada (153-154)

Can you recognize ego? Patience and endurance, acceptance and tolerance, compassion and pity, forgiveness and forget? Which is which? Try practising the former of each and one ends himself in Ego!

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Opposite Nature is still Nature

The Scorpion and the Sage

One morning, after he had finished his meditation, the old man opened his eyes and saw a scorpion floating helplessly in the water. As the scorpion was washed closer to the tree, the old man quickly stretched himself out on one of the long roots that branched out into the river and reached out to rescue the drowning creature. As soon as he touched it, the scorpion stung him. Instinctively the man withdrew his hand. A minute later, after he had regained his balance, he stretched himself out again on the roots to save the scorpion. This time the scorpion stung him so badly with its poisonous tail that his hand became swollen and bloody and his face contorted with pain. At that moment, a passerby saw the old man stretched out on the roots struggling with the scorpion and shouted: “Hey, stupid old man, what’s wrong with you? Only a fool would risk his life for the sake of an ugly, evil creature. Don’t you know you could kill yourself trying to save that ungrateful scorpion?” The old man turned his head. Looking into the stranger’s eyes he said calmly, “My friend, just because it is the scorpion’s nature to sting, that does not change my nature to save.”

Jalaluddin Rumi (retold by Osho)

It is the nature of the ego to make you forget yourself, and it is the nature of wisdom or holy spirit to make you  remember. Either you are aware or you are not aware. The more you remember to be aware the more you see yourself truly.

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You ALWAYS Give Your Best

Do you realize that in any given situation, irrelevant whether you are sure or unsure, wise or ignorant – the decision you take or make, is always, to you the best? When I say the best, I take it to mean that it is exactly what you think is best for you at that point of time, irrespective whether it is beneficial or detrimental to your well-being or not. It is only after that situation that you ponder that you should have done it better. What you think later and what you did is entirely different matter all together.

Now we think it is good to exercise and each morning when we decide to do it (or not), the choice that we finally made is always the best – it is best to go back to sleep,  it is best to wake up, it is best to give it a shot another day – whatever it is, that’s exactly what is best for you.

If you truly see this truth that is constantly occurring in your daily activities, you will choose not to beat yourself up for what has happened is what you know best for that moment of time. It may be an event of a quarrel, or a big sweep number you choose not to buy but later came out as the winning stake, or a decision that brought about anguish and pain, or a job application, or to defense or to attack. Or when you wish to be sexually intimate with your spouse and the reply is a “no” and whether your reaction is resignation, bitterness or probably take steps to understand him or her, or even scolding him or her in your head – whatever…. you are doing your best! Whether you call it decisive or indecisive reaction or respond, all the choices you made is your very best as you know no other better ways of doing it at that point of time.

As such there is no such a thing as mistakes. Mistake is a sentence or judgment made on what has happened and it nails you to the past of guilt, shame and pain. The last thing you want is sentencing yourself to doom but that is exactly what you always do – nailing a coffin and keeping yourself imprison in your own created walls. You can only learn something through wise retrospection, but not by judging or condemning it. Bitterness only makes you stop repeating the action which you perceived as wrong but it surely does not stop you from the same kind of attitude that, in the first place, causes you to choose. All your actions are merely effect of the cause of your mental attitude, which in reality is the thing that you need to address.

There are always a constant stream of shoulds in our head and observe that the shoulds are the cause of our stresses and upsets. Shoulds are ridiculous and violent by nature, as it is simply wishful thinking, expecting what is done can be undone. We wanted it to be undone because we thought it was not the best choice we have made. That’s totally untrue as we always choose what is best for ourselves after much scheming from the data bank of our memories.

Recognize that each choice you make at any one point of time comes either from your defilement or wisdom (ego or holy spirit) and that determines your regret or rejoice. And also recognize that you can’t simply call up wisdom (holy spirit) when at that point of time what you are going through is indecisiveness. In the space of dilemma, stop choosing. Even if you finally need to decide, recognize that you are choosing from the best you could only know at the very moment and let nature takes its course. All effects, whatever they are, are always a learning point for us, only if we wish to learn from it:)