Wednesday, January 27, 2016

The relation of ego with negative emotions and desire - Atman Nityananda


 The relation of ego with negative emotions and desire

The ego is so deceitful that makes us sense and believe that 'we, are angry, 'we, are afraid, 'we, are discontent, 'we, are impotent.., while in reality only the ego itself is afraid, is angry etc... While in reality 'we are something more than the ego; the ego, which is only a part of the whole human structure), hypnotize our intellect and our discernment and make us perceive, sense and believe that we are the ego itself and due to the identification of the ego with the body we think we are a body-me.

If you are attentive you will note that when a negative emotion is expressed in you, (anger, fear, depression, irritability, discontentment, guilty...) this ego-sense or 'Iness becomes stronger. You feel the ego-sense more strongly and you are more identified with this 'Iness as well as you experience more intensively the sense of separation.

Why happens this?

Because the ego, the negative emotions as well as the desire are not different or separate 'things'. Emotions and desire are just modifications of the ego itself. The same ego-energy which assumes the form of 'Iness or ego-sense assumes also the form of the negative emotions (anger, impatience, discontent, guilty, jealousy) as well as the form desire, greed, avarice, gluttony, like-dislike, etc..

The relationship of the ego with the negative emotions is like the relationship of the trunk of a tree with its branches.

Thus when for example the anger, which is a strong emotion, is expressed in us, the whole field of the egoic-energy is vibrating; that’s why the sense of 'Iness or ego-sense becomes stronger. The ego-sense (as well as the sense of separation) intensifies according the intensity of the vibration of the egoic-energy; the stronger is the expression of the emotion or the desire the stronger will be the ego-sense.

The ego-sense remains in subtle state until (due to some trigger) it happens an emotional (mainly) and mental reaction of the mind (viz. when arises in us a negative emotion or a desire); this emotional and mental movement vibrate the egoic-energy field and thus the subtle state of 'Iness intensifies and becomes strong. It is always the expression of some egoic reaction that makes the ego-sense stronger.

That's why when we eliminate from our psych an emotion or a desire the whole field of egoic energy is reduced. That means that even the 'Iness is reduced a little bit. And the opposite also happens; when we reduce the energy of ego-sense all its expressions lose a little bit of their power. Of course we cannot note an observable difference when we reduce only a little bit of the egoic energy especially in the beginning of our spiritual journey.

That's why it is better in the beginning of our journey to work with certain expressions of ego; viz. to work with some particular expression of the negative emotions or a particular desire. For example we may become angry when the others do not accept (or we think so) our opinions. We must release this anger energy related to this situation and thus we will be free from it and we will have concrete results of our work. Thus we can evaluate the efficiency of our practices and our capacity to apply them efficiently.

How we eliminate the egoic tendencies, negative emotions? There are different ways and approaches but there are some common requisites.

Motivation, aspiration, willingness, sincerity, coherence, determination, self-confidence, patience, perseverance, diligence, as well as to practice and develop self-awareness, self-observation, disidentification, dispassion, control of senses and mind, concentration, meditation, self-enquiry.