Spinning the Personality Wheel

S. S. Cowen described in On Talks with Sri Maharshi how a group of spiritual seekers were listening to the master when he suddenly asked out of the blue "Tell me, what is missing at this moment?" Nothing was missing! Everybody felt peaceful and full of bliss in his presence. All lust, professional ambitions, hunger for recognition had just vanished. But alas, for most of them this moment was just a temporary relief. Without the master all these desires would be back rather sooner than later.

A lot is written about the lower versus higher self perspective and our attempts of thought control, and like everyone else I have experimented a lot with these concepts. However, in the end I found that "mindful living" works best for me. Let me try to explain. You can think of yourself as a spinning wheel of personalities, which is getting activated by the people you spend time with, the memories that get activated, the thoughts you have, etc. Mindful living steers this wheel in a certain direction. The more time you spend on areas you aim to be, the more likely it is that associated thoughts, feeling and actions follow you in your desired direction. Of course there are moments of lust, greed, fear, etc., but they slowly vanish. And if they suddenly pop up out of the blue, you have a perfect opportunity to study what behaviour triggered it.

It's Opposite Day

Last year when the stock market was crashing you had those strange days when all the stocks that got obliterated over the months suddenly had huge upside gains; these short squeezes lasted a day or two and then the indiscriminate selling started again. In an investor meeting when colleagues asked our expert what was going on he just said "Oh, it's opposite day, I play that with my kids from time to time".

The idea of the game is to do the opposite of what you say. Try it, it's fun. Dealing with the ego is exactly like that. Somehow you have to do the opposite of what you have programmed yourself to do. When a colleague gets attention and success while you apparently get sidelined, remind yourself why you are rooting for her. When the desire itches to take over a conversation in your direction, control yourself, let the others speak first and wait for a natural invitation to make your contribution. When you have doubts about yourself, remind yourself of your potential and go after your dreams.

You fill in the blanks. The ego comes in thousands of faces and disguises: fear, pride, anger, the desire to control and submit, the hunger for power, the craving to be rich, and a lot more. You can see these things in yourself everyday. Most of us do not know what lies on the other side of the ego but we certainly enjoy reading about it. There is only one way to find out. Go against your natural instincts and experiment with it. Not to put yourself second or to pretend confidence that you don't have, but just to experiment with your ego and see what lies beyond. I have observed that when you make the leap of faith suddenly a miraculous world opens up. Just have opposite days from time to time and enjoy!