Both, pleasure and pain are mental creations.
Sri Ramana Maharshi
Depression means we identify
with a burden that is not ours to carry.
Passion means we identify with
something that gets our juices flowing.
Only in serenity does life as is flow
right through us without adding a story.
When you are depressed, spot
the why and dig until you find the “I”.
When you are passionate,
find the story and then claim the “I”.
In serenity there is no “I”,
other than “I Am That I Am.”
Stoicism is like a filter,
for there is a voice telling us,
no fear, no pain and no feelings.
Christianity is like a filter,
for there is a voice telling us,
be nice; love your neighbor as yourself.
Vedanta is like a filter,
for there is a voice telling us,
I am That!
How can we get rid of this filter?
We can’t, the filter is us.
But we can look, feel, love and be.
Paul raised this issue based on an earlier conversation. How do we know that the spiritual quest itself is not an ego trip?
Michael C: Are we helping other people to help them or to appear in a good light?
Christian: It is said that Mother Theresa who has been declared one of the most notable spiritual people of the 20th century said on her deathbed that she regretted her life. Same with the Christian church that declares that we should love our neighbor as ourselves yet caused countless wars over the centuries.
Tony: He is running a 90-day program on a spiritual self improvement program, “tighten up your practice”. He is on day 57 now.
Michael C: He writes notes and reflections on his daily daily. Sure, he realizes that he wants them to be noticed.
Julie: She has been on a spiritual path since childhood. She could have gone to India to learn more about it but decided to be a nurse and mother instead. She grew up a Catholic but now faces so many different paths. Recently she came across the Upanishads and the Bhagavad Gita as well. How does one navigate through all the different paths, and is it ego if we move from one to the next?
Michael C: all these different paths are tools. Pick the one that is helpful.
Christian: when I stopped working in the corporate world I wanted to pursue spirituality on a full-term basis, initially I wondered whether to become a coach for corporations to advocate spirituality. But then, when I came across the writings of J. Krishnamurti and Ramana Maharshi I was way more interested in the quest for enlightenment. But then, was it spiritual ego that catapulted me instead? Did I subconsciously wanted to be somebody by becoming a nobody?
Tony: I would pick the personal journey any day over teaching corporations. They are not interested in anything other that profits and power.
Anna said she works in a car shop and wants to echo Tony’s sentiment. No one there wants to hear about spirituality. Her boss is Catholic, but he doesn’t either.
Michael: there are too many words, too many concepts. He reads introductions of books. That’s where the insights get communicated.
Corinne: she is an introvert. She doesn’t want to be noticed.
Paul: Corinne’s poetry introduced him to spirituality.
Tony: we are obviously not better than others.
Christian: when I started out on the spiritual quest, I thought Awakening was one of the few. Today I feel in my heart, we are all in the same boat. Yet are the enlightened better?
Julie: just send your love to people no matter what the circumstances.
Paul: whatever path I am on is ok. Whatever path someone else is on is ok too.
Syed: Spiritual ego is what I think. We have thoughts, like being superior to others, hidden in deep unconscious layers, such as, I will be a master, leader, writer. These thoughts give us pleasure, and we invite more of these pleasurable thoughts. They trap us in every possible way.
Michael: it is more fun when people are into spirituality. He invests in people he cares for.
Someone added that it is ego if you feel you need to raise others.
Michael: Forget the corporations, the culture is immoral. Take the military and how it is revered in the US.
Anna: has been working on the food industry for a bit. The corruption there is awful.
Christian: are we really so different? Sure, on a scale from evil to good, military is worst, followed by industries like Wall-Street, and even Healthcare. Even in sports there is so much violence, but it is clearer there that it is just a game. I spend time in the financial industry and time here in the spiritual community and come to the conclusion, people are people wherever you look.
Paul: I joked with Christian, I am proud how humble I am.
Tony: when I was in the show business, I joked how humble I was for someone that famous.
Tony: what about conditioning? Is there good and bad ego?
It takes a little Bravado to get out in front of people. People need to promote their books, their message.
Paul mentioned that he is working on a book with a friend. Sometimes the doubts creep in, “do I really have something worthwhile to say?”
Christian: maybe these doubts are conditioning, say from the childhood, in this case, you would have to stand up to them to get your message out.
Julie: ego is like a child, hug it.
Michael: everyone has ego, even Ramana Maharshi did. I discovered that when I read his books. Ego is in our neural wiring; we cannot complete step out of it.
Christian: Suzuki concluded that we just need enough ego not to step in front of an incoming bus. Tony, can we really self-improve? How is your spiritual practice program going?
Tony: It’s a method for checking yourself.
Julie: accountability is important.
Christian: it’s ok to say something and then do the opposite. It’s just not ok to do it twice. Then we become a hypocrite. A simple way of solving the dilemma is just stop saying what you yourself can’t do.
Tony: if we always did what we know is good for us we could live 200 years, but for some reason or another, no one can.
Paul: it’s all about accountability. He works on his book with a partner and they both want to give each other honest feedback, but it is hard.
Christian: Americans are conditioned to give only positive feedback. I grew up in Europe where they are more forthcoming. In the UK, for example, they say “not bad” when they say, quite good. I saw a movie “you hurt my feelings” in which a novelist who was encouraged by her husband to get her book published, but behind her back she heard him say that he didn’t care much for it. Later in the movie it became apparent that everyone was lying to everyone else in the desire to not hurt their feelings.
Anna: the automotive business is the exception. If there is a problem with the car, you suck.
Michael C. admitted that his feedback was having unrealistic optimistic expectations about relationships.
Tony: do not expect
Thanks for a great discussion everyone. We meet bi-weekly. Let me know if you like to join.
I was watching a J. Krishnamurti video in which he stressed the problematic gap between fact and ideal, and he gave the example, “I am ambitious. It’s a fact”. I paused the recording and said out loud, “I want to be somebody!” Immediately I fell in a state of deep serenity. It was as if a huge weight was lifted off my shoulders. Naturally I had observed this drive in me, I had even used it in letting go exercises before, but it was only lip service.
In the letting go self-help group that we run, the emphasis is on understanding the issue that clings to us, not the desire to get rid of what bothers us. It was only today that I got this subtlety. Intellectually, I had fought this admission as it wasn’t the spiritual thing to do. So, when I spoke out the sentence, “I let go of the desire to be someone”, no energy was moving. What a relief to just admit to myself that “I want to be somebody”. In that serenity I didn’t even feel the need to say anything else. Serenity prevailed at that moment.
I noticed the desire to be liked. A while later I noticed the desire to eat something even though I already had eaten. Somehow these two sentiments appeared to be connected. Most of the time we are not aware of these energies, i.e. we just do what we feel gets us appreciation and we eat even though the body doesn’t need it.
If we allow the negative pull from our personality identity and act on it—the regret, the guilt, the restlessness, the longing, the fear—we will also fall for the positive push—the passion, the pleasure, the power, the pride. It’s a never-ending cycle of pleasure and pain, and it is subconscious, the one necessitates the other.
Spiritual living is sitting with these energies without resisting them, and without abiding in them either. Just sitting with them with empathy and understanding. When we can look through the games we play with these longings and aversions, the karmic wheels come to a rest. Look through the identity energies—serenity, love and empowerment await.
All inner drives, longings and aversions tell a story of “me, myself and I”. All successes, stumbles and interferences tell the same story. The highest goal of spirituality is stillness, and the way to accomplish this feat is insight and the practice of letting go. Viewed from this perspective, life is something we can celebrate from moment to moment. The stillness of being is always just one insight and one stepping out of prior conditioning away.
When the serene higher energies prevail, problems do not exist. A problem is a present in disguise to help us step out of the conditioning—to let go of the “me, myself and I” altogether. Naturally, when we are connected to the higher dimension of being, problems do not make sense. How to connect with this higher dimension of being? Well, the “you” can’t. That’s why the spiritual quest seems so daunting. Yet, being is easy.
Let’s keep an eye out on “me, myself and I”, and let’s polish the inner antenna that allows us to tune into the higher energies wherever we go. Problems, interferences, blind spots? Bring them on! There is always a present waiting behind every self-imposed obstruction.
When I was very young, I had the same recurring dream, a monster followed me and I got stuck in the mud. In my twenties and thirties, I had the nightmare that I was in an exam and there was not enough time to finish. Later that nightmare was that I was at work, and I was falling behind to others. The feeling of scarcity shifts, but the problem statement remains, a feeling of being abused by the environment that surrounds us.
My recent dreams have become so vivid. It is as if I live a life at night as well. Emotions have to be processed and let go off, but the feeling of scarcity has left. Just being able to notice when they appear is a big step forward, and we can immediately step out of the limited mindset by reconnecting with SELF:
S (erenity)
The state of peace and silence is our birthright. Go within, breathe rhythmically, notice the foreign element of every thought that comes to the surface. Watch the train of thought drift dreamlike into nothingness.
E (nergy)
The moment when thoughts start disappearing we feel a tingle in the upper neck area. The energy has moved from the lower energy centers to the crown chakra. A feeling of contentment stays with us.
L (ove)
It is impossible to experience scarcity when the heart chakra expands. When the heart energy is activated, the mind becomes still. Love, just like energy, can be activated and experienced within as well as externally.
F (low)
The flow of life is external. It’s an energy, an occurrence, that can be seen, felt, sensed, and even understood. When we are part of the flow, abundance surrounds us. After awakening most of us can gain energy from the flow.
