Chapter 40: EGO

I believe the writing of Eckhart Tolle on the subject of egos in his book, A New Earth, is profound.  Applying these teachings to my life have helped me heal depression symptoms this past year.  My thinking has changed.  What do you think?  Do you think changing your thinking can help depression?  Do you think these concepts are truth?

 1.  p. 59  Chapter 3  The Core of Ego

"Most people are so completely identified with the voice in the head---the incessant stream of involuntary and compulsive thinking and the emotions that accompany it---that we may describe them as being possessed by their mind.  As long as you are completely unaware of this, you take the thinker to be who you are.  This is the egoic mind."

2.  p. 61-62  COMPLAINING AND RESENTMENT

Complaining is one of the ego's favorite ways to strengthen itself, and resentment is the emotion that goes along with it.  Mental labeling of people adds even more energy to the ego. 

"Name-calling is the crudest form of such labeling and of the ego's need to be right and triumph over others:  jerk, bastard, bitch ---all definitive pronouncements that you can't argue with.  On the next level down on the scale of unconsciousness, you have shouting and screaming, and not much below that, physical violence."

3.  p. 63  COMPLAINING AND RESENTMENT

"Complaining is not to be confused with informing someone of a mistake or deficiency so that it can be put right."  This type of complaining desires change, the ego kind enjoys making someone wrong.

4.  p. 68  IN DEFENSE OF AN ILLUSION 

"Every ego confuses opinions and viewpoints with facts.  Furthermore, it cannot tell the difference between an event and its reaction to that event.  Every ego is a master of selective perception and distorted interpretation.  Only through awareness--not through thinking---can you differentiate between fact and opinion."  The ego is strengthened by a sense of boundary, separateness, and superiority.

5.  p. 76  WAR IS A MINDSET  

"Recognize the ego for what it is:  a collective dysfunction, the insanity of the human mind.  When you recognize it for what is is, you no longer misperceive it as somebody's identity." 

6.  p. 77-78  BEYOND EGO:  YOUR TRUE IDENTITY 

"When the ego is at war, know that it is no more than an illusion that is fighting to survive.  That illusion thinks it is you.  It is not easy at first to be there as the witnessing Presence, especially when the ego is in survival mode or some emotional pattern from the past has become activated, but once you have had a taste of it, you will grow in Presence power, and the ego will lose its grip on you.  And so a power comes into your life that is far greater than the ego, greater than the mind.  All that is required to become free of the ego is to be aware of it, since awareness an ego are in compatible."

 7.  p. 79  BEYOND EGO:  YOUR TRUE IDENTITY

"What remains is the light of consciousness in which perceptions, experiences, thoughts, and feelings come and go.  That is Being, that is the deeper, true I.  When I know myself as that, whatever happens in my life is no longer of absolute but only of relative importance.  I honor it, but it loses its absolute seriousness, its heaviness.  The only thing that ultimately matters is this:  Can I sense my essential Beingness, the I Am, in the background of my life at all times?"  . . ."Or am I losing myself in what happens, losing myself in the mind, in the world?" 

 8.  p. 79   ALL STRUCTURES ARE UNSTABLE

"Whatever form it takes, the unconscious drive behind ego is to strengthen the image of who I think I am, the phantom self that came into existence when thought---a great blessing as well as a great curse---began to take over and obscured the simple yet profound joy of connectedness with Being, the Source, God."

  9.  p. 79-80  ALL STRUCTURES ARE UNSTABLE

"Whatever behavior the ego manifests, the hidden motivating force is always the same:  the need to stand out, be special, be in control; the need for power, for attention, for more.  And, of course, the need to feel a sense of separation, that is to say, the need for opposition, enemies."

10.  p. 85  Chapter 4 Role-playing:  The Many Faces of the Ego

"An ego that wants something from another---and what ego doesn't---will usually play some kind of role to get its 'needs' met, be they material gain, a sense of power, superiority, or specialness, or some kind of gratification, be it physical or psychological.  Usually people are completely unaware of the roles they play.  They are those roles."

11.  p. 86  Role-playing:  The Many Faces of the Ego

"All you need to know and observe in yourself is this:  Whenever you feel superior or inferior to anyone, that's the ego in you."

12.  p. 87  VILLAIN, VICTIM, LOVER

"The playing of negative roles becomes particularly pronounced whenever the ego is magnified by an active pain-body, that is to say, emotional pain from the past that wants to renew itself through experiencing more pain."

13.  p. 88  VILLAIN, VICTIM, LOVER

"What is commonly called 'falling in love' is in most cases an intensification of egoic wanting and needing.  You become addicted to another person, or rather to your image of that person.  It has nothing to do with true love, which contains no wanting whatsoever."

14.  p. 89  LETTING GO OF SELF-DEFINITIONS 

"Only rare beings at the time, such as the Buddha or Jesus, saw the ultimate irrelevance of caste or social class, recognized it as identification with form and saw that such identification with the conditioned and the temporal obscured the light of the unconditioned and eternal that shines in each human being."

15.  p. 90-91  PRE-ESTABLISHED ROLES 

"What really matters is not what function you fulfill in this world, but whether you identify with your function to such an extent that it takes you over and becomes a role that you play.  When you play roles, you are unconscious.  When you catch yourself playing a role, that recognition creates a space between you and the role.  It is the beginning of freedom from the role."

16.  p. 95-96  HAPPINESS AS A ROLE VS. TRUE HAPPINESS 

"If there is unhappiness in you, first you need to acknowledge that it is there.  But don't say, 'I'm unhappy.'  Unhappiness has nothing to do with who you are.  Say: 'There is unhappiness in me.'  Then investigate it.  A situation you find yourself in may have something to do with it.  Action may be required to change the situation or remove yourself from it.  If there is nothing you can do, face what is and say, 'Well, right now, this is how it is.  I can either accept it, or make myself miserable'."

17.  p. 96  HAPPINESS AS A ROLE VS. TRUE HAPPINESS

"Unhappiness covers up your natural state of well-being and inner peace, the source of true happiness."

18.  p. 98  PARENTHOOD:  ROLE OR FUNCTION?
 
"If their desire to control or influence the actions of their adult child is thwarted---as it usually is---they will start to criticize or show their disapproval, or try to make the child feel guilty, all in an unconscious attempt to preserve their role, their identity.  On the surface it looks as if they were concerned about their child, and they themselves believe it, but they are only really concerned about preserving their role-identity."

19.  p. 100  PARENTHOOD:  ROLE OR FUNCTION?

"My parents should approve of what I do.  They should understand me and accept me for who I am."  "Really?  Why should they?  The fact is they don't because they can't.  Their evolving consciousness hasn't made the quantum leap to the level of awareness yet.  They are not yet able to disidentify from their role."  . . ."What difference does their approval or disapproval truly make to who you are?  All such unexamined assumptions cause a great deal of negative emotion , much unnecessary unhappiness."

20.  p.101  CONSCIOUS SUFFERING 

"If you have young children, give them help, guidance, and protection to the best of your ability, but even more important, give them space---space to be.  They come into this world through you, but they are not 'yours.'  The belief 'I know what's best for you' may be true when they are very young, but the older they get, the less true it becomes.  The more expectations you have of how their life should unfold, the more you are in your mind instead of being present for them.  Eventually, they will make mistakes, and they will experience some form of suffering, as all humans do.  In fact, they may be mistakes only from your perspective.  What to you is a mistake may be exactly what your children need to do or experience."

21.  p. 102  CONSCIOUS SUFFERING 

"As long as you resist suffering, it is a slow process because the resistance creates more ego to burn up.  When you accept suffering, however, there is an acceleration of that process which is brought about by the fact that you suffer consciously." 

22.  p. 103  CONSCIOUS PARENTING

"Many children harbor hidden anger and resentment toward their parents and often the cause is inauthenticity in the relationship.  The child has a deep longing for the parent to be there as a human being, not as a role, no matter how conscientiously that role is being played.  You may be doing all the right things and the best you can for your child, but even doing the best you can is not enough.  In fact, doing is never enough if you neglect Being."

23.  p.106  GIVING UP ROLE-PLAYING

"To do whatever is required of you in any situation without it becoming a role that you identify with is an essential lesson in the art of living that each one of us is here to learn."

24.  p. 112  THE PATHOLOGICAL EGO

"Negativity is not intelligent.  It is always of the ego.  The ego may be clever, but it is not intelligent.  Cleverness pursues its own little aims.  Intelligence sees the larger whole in which all things are connected."  . . ."Cleverness divides; intelligence includes."

25.  p.  114-115  THE SECRET OF HAPPINESS

"Being at peace and being who you are, that is, being yourself, are one.  The ego says:  Maybe at some point in the future, I can be at peace---if this, that, or the other happens, or I obtain this or become that.  Or it says:  I can never be at peace because of something that happened in the past."  . . ."The ego doesn't know that your only opportunity for being at peace is now.  Or maybe it does know, and it is afraid that you may find this out.  Peace, after all, is the end of the ego." 

26.  p.  115  THE SECRET OF HAPPINESS

"There are three words that convey the secret of the art of living, the secret of all success and happiness:  One With Life.  Being one with life is being one with Now.  You then realize that you don't live your life, but life lives you.  Life is the dancer, and you are the dance."

27.  p. 120  PATHOLOGICAL FORMS OF EGO

"The collective ego of tribes, nations, and religious organizations also frequently contains a strong element of paranoia:  us against the evil others.  It is the cause of much human suffering."  (Spanish Inquisition, burning of heretics and witches, First & Second World Wars, Communism, "Cold War", McCarthyism, violent conflict in the Middle East)

28.  p. 120  PATHOLOGICAL FORMS OF EGO

"The more unconscious individuals, groups or nations are, the more likely it is that egoic pathology will assume the form of physical violence.  Violence is a primitive but still very widespread way in which the ego attempts to assert itself, to prove itself right and another wrong.  With very unconscious people, arguments can easily lead to physical violence."

29.  p.  121  WORK---WITH AND WITHOUT EGO

"Most people have moments when they are free of ego.  Those who are exceptionally good at what they do may be completely or largely free of ego while performing their work.  They may not know it, but their work has become a spiritual practice."

30.  p.  122  WORK---WITH AND WITHOUT EGO

"They are one with what they do, one with the Now, one with the people or the task they serve.  The influence such people have upon others goes far beyond the function they perform.  They bring about a lessening of the ego in everyone who comes into contact with them.  Even people with heavy egos sometimes begin to relax, let down their guard, and stop playing their roles when they interact with them.  It comes as no surprise that those people who work without ego are extraordinarily successful at what they do.  Anybody who is one with what he or she does is building the new earth."

Chapter 18: "Fulfillment, Peace, Life in all its Fullness."

Sixteen days on Effexor XR, seven of them on the higher dose of 75 mg in the morning.  I decided to not lower Luvox quite so quickly.  I am taking 25 mg in the morning and 37.5 mg in the afternoon.  In three more days I will increase Effexor XR to 112.5 mg and lower Luvox to 25 mg on both doses.  I have had short periods of time where I feel the depression symptoms are lifting.  I am still not feeling side effects or withdrawal, which is a huge positive!

I am still hopeful.  I am trying to take life a day at a time.  Prayer and faith in my Higher Power to give me direction are sustaining me.  Listening to Eckhart Tolle every day helps me stay focused on the Now, not spending much time in the past or making up a possible future.  Chapter 8 in, The Power of Now, A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment, Tolle explains what he believes salvation is.  

"True salvation is fulfillment, peace, life in all its fullness.  It is to be who you are, to feel within you the good that has no opposite, the joy of Being that depends on nothing outside itself.  It is felt not as a passing experience but as an abiding presence.  In theistic language, it is to 'know God' --- not as something outside you but as your own innermost essence.  (I believe this is my spirit, which Tolle calls the inner being.  I believe my spirit is a literal offspring of my Higher Power.)  True salvation is to know yourself as an inseparable part of the timeless and formless One Life from which all that exists derives its being.

True salvation is a state of freedom --- from fear, from suffering, from a perceived state of lack and insufficiency and therefore from all wanting, needing, grasping, and clinging.  It is freedom from compulsive thinking, from negativity, and above all from past and future as a psychological need.  Your mind is telling you that you cannot get there from here.  Something needs to happen, or you need to become this or that before you can be free and fulfilled.  It is saying, in fact, that you need time --- that you need to find, sort out, do, achieve, acquire, become, or understand something before you can be free or complete.  

You see time as the means to salvation, whereas in truth it is the greatest obstacle to salvation.  You think that you can't get there from where and who you are at this moment because you are not yet complete or good enough, but the truth is that here and now is the only point from where you can get there.  You 'get' there by realizing that you are there already.  You find God the moment you realize that you don't need to seek God.  So there is no only way to salvation:  Any condition can be used, but no particular condition is needed.  However, there is only one point of access: the Now.  There can be no salvation away from this moment.

There is nothing you can ever do or attain that will get you closer to salvation than it is at this moment.  This may be hard to grasp for a mind accustomed to thinking that everything worthwhile is in the future.  Nor can anything that you ever did or that was done to you in the past prevent you from saying yes to what is and taking your attention deeply into the Now.  You cannot do this in the future.  You do it now or not at all."

Fulfillment, peace, life in all its fullness ... a state of freedom --- from fear, from suffering, from a perceived state of lack and insufficiency, wanting, needing, grasping, and clinging ... freedom from compulsive thinking, from negativity, and above all from past and future as a psychological need.  This is what I want.  I am getting better at Living in the Now everyday.

Chapter 16: Effexor XR, Live My Life In The Now

A NORMAL DAY FOR ME, I BELIEVE YOU ARE ON YOUR WAY!

I started taking 37.5 mg of Effexor XR this morning.  I cut my 50 mg Luvox tablet down to 37.5 mg for both doses.  I will continue on these amounts for 7-10 days.  If I do not experience side effects, I will increase the Effexor XR to 75 mg and lower Luvox to 25 mg per dose next.  I will continue to increase Effexor XR until I feel improvement in my anxiety and depression symptoms.  My psychiatrist at the Amen Clinic has recommended I raise the dosage to 225 mg, if I don't feel better at a lower dose.  I will talk to him again the first week in August.  He is positive and supportive and keeps me motivated.  He reminds me what an accomplishment it is to have been off the beast (Klonopin) for 9 weeks!

I had an appointment with a psychiatrist here in my own city that supports my visit to the Amen Clinic.  AWESOME!  I learned a lot at my appointment with him, it was intellectually stimulating, and he was helpful.  AWESOME!  Thank you for being a doctor who thinks progressively and is so comfortable in his own skin that my visit to the Amen Clinic is not threatening to him.  Did I tell you how AWESOME I think this is! :)

I have been listening to, The Power of Now, on CD by Eckhart Tolle every day.  His words keep me focused on recovery and not stuck in the misery of not feeling well.  Every night in my prayers I ask for help in understanding and integrating these concepts in my life.  I believe these concepts are teachings my Higher Power wants me to understand.  They correlate with scriptures I have read for many years.

I love these words by Tolle, "Have you ever experienced, done, thought, or felt anything outside the Now?  Do you think you ever will?  Is it possible for anything to happen or be outside the Now?  The answer is obvious, is it not?

Nothing ever happened in the past; it happened in the Now.

Nothing will ever happen in the future; it will happen in the Now.

What you think of as the past is a memory trace, stored in the mind, of a former Now.  When you remember the past, you reactivate a memory trace--and you do so now.  The future is an imagined Now, a projection of the mind.  When the future comes, it comes as the Now.  When you think about the future, you do it now.  Past and future obviously have no reality of their own.  Just as the moon has no light of its own, but can only reflect the light of the sun, so are past and future only pale reflections of the light, power, and reality of the eternal present.  Their reality is 'borrowed' from the Now.

The essence of what I am saying here cannot be understood by the mind.  The moment you grasp it, there is a shift in consciousness from mind to Being, from time to presence.  Suddenly, everything feels alive, radiates energy, emanates Being.

Since ancient times, spiritual masters of all traditions have pointed to the Now as the key to the spiritual dimension.  Despite this, it seems to have remained a secret.  It is certainly not taught in churches and temples.  If you go to a church, you may hear reading from the Gospels such as 'Take no thought for the morrow; for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself,' or 'Nobody who puts his hands to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.'  Or you might hear the passage about the beautiful flowers that are not anxious about tomorrow but live with ease in the timeless Now and are provided for abundantly by God.  The depth and radical nature of these teachings are not recognized.  No one seems to realize that they are meant to be lived and so bring about a profound inner transformation."

I want this inner transformation.  Is it really possible for me to be so completely present that no problem or suffering; nothing that is not who I am in my essence, can survive in me?  In the Now, in the absence of time, can all my problems dissolve?  I want to find out!

Chapter 14: Normal Day, The Power of Now

I am longing for a regular, normal day.  I want to feel well; a day where survival is not my main goal. My sister has a quote on the bottom of her emails I like.  It says, "Normal day, let me be aware of the treasure you are," by Mary Jean Iron.  This is the full quote:  "Normal day, let me be aware of the treasure you are.  Let me learn from you, love you, bless you before you depart.  Let me not pass you by in quest of some rare and perfect tomorrow.  Let me hold you while I may, for it may not always be so.  One day I shall dig my nails into the earth, or bury my face in the pillow, or stretch myself taut, or raise my hands to the sky and want, more than all the world, your return." 

I know in my soul that wanting a regular, normal day is not appreciating the day I am having.  This has been a challenge for me as I have been experiencing withdrawal symptoms from clonazepam, and healing depression.  I am trying to live in the moment, to be present.  I have been listening to the audio book ,The Power of Now, by Eckhart Tolle.  Daily prayer, and the teachings in this book are sustaining me each day.  If you have read other posts on my blog you know I am a fan of Tolle.

On page 15 of, The Power of Now, A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment, Eckhart Tolle says, "The philosopher Descartes believed that he had found the most fundamental truth when he made his famous statement:  'I think, therefore I am.'  He had, in fact, given expression to the most basic error:  to equate thinking with Being and identity with thinking.  The compulsive thinker, which means almost everyone, lives in a state of apparent separateness, in an insanely complex world of continuous problems and conflict, a world that reflects the ever-increasing fragmentation of the mind.  Enlightenment is a state of wholeness, of being 'at one' and therefore at peace.  At one with life in its manifested aspect, the world, as well as with your deepest self and life unmanifested --- at one with Being.  Enlightenment is not only the end of suffering and of continuous conflict within and without, but also the end of the dreadful enslavement to incessant thinking.  What an incredible liberation this is!"

Tolle explains further what he means by living in a state of apparent separateness on page 31.  "Humans have been in the grip of pain for eons, ever since they fell from the state of grace, entered the realm of time and mind, and lost awareness of Being.  At that point, they started to perceive themselves as meaningless fragments in an alien universe, unconnected to the Source and to each other. . .Pain is inevitable as long as you are identified with your mind, which is to say as long as you are unconscious, spiritually speaking."

More about pain on page 33, "The pain that you create now is always some form of nonacceptance, some form of unconscious resistance to what is. On the level of thought, the resistance is some form of judgment.  On the emotional level, it is some form of negativity.  The intensity of the pain depends on the degree of resistance to the present moment, and this in turn depends on how strongly you are identified with your mind.  The mind always seeks to deny the Now and to escape from it.  In other words, the more you are identified with your mind, the more you suffer.  Or you may put it like this:  The more you are able to honor and accept the Now, the more you are free of pain, of suffering --- and free of the egoic mind."

How do we stop creating time?  On page 35 Tolle teaches, "Realize deeply that the present moment is all you ever have.  Make the Now the primary focus of your life.  Whereas before you dwelt in time and paid brief visits to the Now, have your dwelling place in the Now and pay brief visits to past and future when required to deal with the practical aspects of your life situation.  Always say 'yes' to the present moment.  What could be more futile, more insane, than to create inner resistance to something that already is?  What could be more insane than to oppose life itself, which is now and always now?  Surrender to what is.  Say 'yes' to life --- and see how life suddenly starts working for you rather than against you."

I believe living in the Now and helping my "higher self" run my life (not my egoic mind) will help me feel better.  I don't think it will heal the disease of depression.  This disease is too severe for me.  I am trying every day to stop my mind from making up stories of how the future is going to be, and how my day is going to be.  This is very hard for me!  I am making a good effort in exploring every possible way to help me heal, and I am staying on my medication.  I am having a difficult time being patient.