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A common “suggestion/implied obligation” encountered in one’s spiritual study is to “overcome the ego.” The idea seems to be that one should subdue, train, or even eliminate the ego. As a tool to avoid misidentifying myself as only ego, it has often been suggested to me to consider “the watcher” that remains outside the psychodrama of any moment of my mind or life—a marker to bring my awareness to the true, higher self.

I, however, would suggest that as long as there is a “watcher,” there is ego. Coming to awareness of the watcher merely brings my attention from one level of ego to another. Perhaps the nature of this next level of ego is something the (egoic) mind would consider less objectionable, but it is still ego. Does the Tao ‘watch’ the unfolding of its infinite manifestations? Does it care? Caring and watching (more “considering what we see”, in this context) is an anthropomorphic—human-like—characteristic. ‘Human’ is by definition ‘self-aware.’ Self-awareness is interdependent with—the soil of—ego.

I am by no means in disagreement with this long-established practice—focusing on “who is watching”—to pull oneself from the mire of immediate obsession. Nor do I question the benefit of this method. I have already suggested that we might better define where our attention has arrived when considering this watcher, and I would also suggest we reconsider our intention of subduing, training, or (especially) eliminating the ego…

(Continue reading this post via Into The Mist)

I’ve found it helpful to think of two separate entities who inhabit my body. First, this is an important distinction. You often hear of someone claiming to “have” a soul. The viewpoint inferred by this choice of words begs the question, “If you have a soul, who is having it? The body? The mind?”

To me, it seems more accurate (and more useful) to think about it the other way around. That is, soul is who I am (who we all are) and we now have a body.

Even though I identify my sense of self with soul, there seems to be another “something” inside forever jockeying for position and making its presence known. This is the ego.

What’s the difference? How can you know which one is in charge? What are their characteristics?

(Continue reading this post via Tupelo Kenyon)

We each live in our own individual world. It may not look like it, but 6 billion people live in 6 billion separate realities.

The way we see and experience the world is determined by how we grew up, the attitudes, opinions, beliefs and limitations we were given. In other words, by the conditioning we received to our minds and emotions.

This conditioning effects the way in which we see things. It is as though we are looking out of a window with curved glass - everything appears distorted. This distortion is created by our conditioning.

When you are ‘educated’ you form ‘hard wiring’ in your brain. Literally. From then on, anything that does not match that wiring is ‘wrong’. And, incidentally, you then assume you are superior (to those whose wiring is different), and ‘they’ are more primitive. Conditioning is the main thing that reduces your feeling of freedom and happiness, not the people, places, and events around us…

(continue reading this post via Karen Walker)

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