Ego’s mechanisms - by Nityananda Atman

Ego’s mechanisms 
by Nityananda Atman

The sensual pleasures, the desire for pleasure, greed, fear and anger, the sense of separation created by the illusory sense 'I am the body', viz. I am a body-mind entity and the compulsive need to feel superior of others is the basis on which grows the egoic self (Ego).

The root cause of all these is the polarization and crystallization of sexual energy in the body, vital body and mind as desire for pleasure. This crystallization started to happen thousands of years ago due to sexual intercourse with orgasm. Moreover, since the energy moves through sexual orgasm outwards, makes also the mind, the prana and awareness to move also outwards. Thus the mind becomes extroverted and gradually becomes attached and identified with the sense objects seeking pleasure by experiencing them. Moreover this process causes the identification of mind with the physical body and the development of the ego as described above.

Since the sexual energy is the fundamental factor that causes the development of ego for the dissolution of the ego we have to do practices in order to conserve our sexual energy and transform it to ojas. Sexual energy , prana and mind have an inherent interrelation and if we want to control our mind we have to control, prana and sexual energy.

This is the reason that all authentic spiritual paths give great importance to sexual purity and give practices for the transformation of sexual energy through tantra for couples or other spiritual practices for singles.

Gurdjieff

Samael Aun Weor

Samael Aun Weor and Gurdjieff also mention that in addition to sexual intercourse with orgasm, the organ Kountartikouador or Kundabuffer was the cause for the development of the egoic self in the human psyche. This organ has been developed in the bodies of human beings (without their volition) thousands of years ago. 

This happened symbolically at the time of Adam and Eva who lost their purity and felt from the state of union with God to the state of separation and fear.

Since the time of Eden the ego has been gradually developed and nowadays has become like a monster in the psych of earthlings creating enormous suffering.

Some of the main expressions of ego-in an endless list- are:
Anger, aggression, hatred, pride, greed, avarice, lust, gluttony, ambition, criticism, impatience, chatter, consumerism, sadness, jealousy, pessimism, comparison, complaints, bitterness, depression, guilt, boredom, dissatisfaction, lack of completeness, worry, anxiety, stress, tobacco and alcohol consumption, drug use and addictions to them, perfectionism, work holism, control of others, dominance of others, exploitation of humans-animals-environment, mythomania, paranoia, megalomania, suspicion, slander, lies, like-dislike, attraction-repulsion…

Of course as I have mentioned the foundation of all these expressions of egoic tree is desire for pleasure-superiority-fame and name and the identification with the body.

All these defects are inherent in the psyche of all earthlings and create this chaos, conflict, disasters and suffering that we see at individual and collective level all around the world.

While essentially we are one with God and with the universe, we experience ourselves as separate and isolated because of the ego. In this separated state we consider our fellows and other creatures as enemies or friends depending on whether they are or not favorably inclined towards us, our ambitions and desires.

The egoic self does not want to give up its sovereignty on us because he lives and feeds itself using our body, mind and energy.

The ego uses various tricks and mechanisms in order to prevent the conscious mind (intellect) realize that the ego is something alien and parasitic in our psych. Ego tries its best to be hidden from the conscious mind because if the mind realizes its illusory nature, the ego will lose its power and dominion over it and could no longer use our mind and energy for its own desires and satisfactions.

Some of the ego’s mechanisms are known to the public by Dr. Freud as defense mechanisms.

All the ego’s mechanisms have the following purposes: 

1. Ego uses body, mind, senses, vital energy, sexual energy in order to experience again and again sensual pleasures, to feel superior, special and secure.

2. Ego due to various defense mechanisms do not allow us be conscious of it because ego wants to continue live in our psych. Ego wants to live in eternity having more, different and better pleasures and of course to feel superior, special and secure. 

3. Ego creates various defense mechanisms in order to maintain an illusory and superficial balance in the psych aiming to continue live in our psych and have pleasures, to feel superior, special and secure.

4. Ego creates various defense mechanisms to avoid the suffering created by inner conflicts (due to contradictory egoic tendencies) and the painful or unpleasant feelings from things or situations that ego considers being so.

Ego is like a virus who has been crystallized in our psych thousand of years ago uses our body, mind and intellect like a puppet for its own superficial desires and pleasures.

Here I will mention some of the main mechanisms of ego:

The ego makes us feel and believe that we are the ego itself.

The ego keeps us in a state of non acceptance and resistance to what happens in the moment.

The ego uses the thinking mind and modifies, removes or adds and misinterprets what is happening or what we feel. Thus makes us not to be aware of the real cause of our suffering and thus we are not capable to find the right solution. While in reality our ego is almost always the real cause of our problems and suffering the ego doesn’t allow us to be aware of it. 

The ego projects itself to other persons, objects and situations; projects on them its illusions and fantasies and identifies with them. Thus we do not see things and persons as they are but as the ego wants to see them. Thus we create wrong relations with them which finally create pain and suffering.

The ego makes us feel fear and guilt creating a very strong identification with our body and egoic mind; thus ego keeps our consciousness and concious mind more trapped in it.

The ego projects to other people its mental or emotional state. Thus we create wrong relations with them which finally create pain and suffering.

The ego makes us criticize or blame to others in order to feel superior. Thus the ego experiences an illusory pleasure and strengthen itself.

The ego makes us complain to others or compare ourselves with others.

The ego makes us believe that we cannot do anything to eliminate it. By doing nothing we remain in his dominion.

The ego makes us feel unsatisfied, anxious, inadequate or incomplete; this way ego make us feel a kind of suffering. In order to get rid of this the ego drive us towards sensual, external success, competition etc.. But by doing this we feed only the ego which becomes stronger.

The ego makes us do not admit that we have a negative attribute or defect

The ego makes us postpone what we have to do now.

The ego makes us not want to be aware of the defect or be afraid to be aware of the defect. 

The ego makes us blame or justify our self. Thus the ego becomes stronger

The ego makes us consider responsible the others or life for what we are experiencing.

The ego makes us say that others do the same thing we do or they have the same defect.

The ego makes us feel despair.

The ego makes us think that we are weak and incapable to eliminate the ego 

The ego makes us believe that it is not for us the spiritual practices

The ego makes us believe that what we say or do is something good, viz. that what we do or say is for our own good or for the good of others, while in reality it is not. 

            Peace love harmony

Our relation with life by Nityananda Atman

Our relation with life it is similar to our relation with the fire.

1. When we are in the fire we are burned and experience extreme pain. 

2. When we are outside the fire and in the right distance we experience the pleasantness of the warming quality of fire.

The first corresponds to the condition of attachment and identification with the sense objects including our body. Desire, attachment and identifications are the womb of all suffering and miseries in our life.

The second corresponds to the condition of dispassion and detachment. 

When our mind is pure and clear like sky the objects cannot affect it and we effortlessly and spontaneously experience the bliss, freedom and peace of our glorious divine nature which is consciousness.

Peace love harmony

The death of the ego - Ramana Maharshi

The death of the ego 

in the words of Sri Ramana Maharshi 

Extract of the book GURU VACHAKA KOVAI

written by Sri Muruganar a great disciple of Sri Ramana Maharshi

                                    63 The Loss of Individuality

351. When scrutinized, is there any existing thing such as ego, the troublemaker, except a mere name [‘I’]? Certainly not! If at all anything exists [for the name ‘I’], it  is truly Self, just as the thing which exists for the false [name] snake is truly a rope.

352. When the ego dies, its base, the supreme Self, shines in all Its fullness. No harm comes to You, Self, when the ego dies. Therefore don’t be afraid.

353. Those who have sacrificed their mind as an offering to Shiva in the blazing fire of the supreme Jnana-Tapas [i.e. Self-enquiry], are Shiva Himself. Knowing thus, we should also perform this Sacrifice and attain the State of formless Shiva.354. Do not doubt, with fear, what will happen when you completely lose your individuality [jiva-bodha]. The true State of Self will then Itself be yours, just as one will permanently remain firm on the ground when one loses one’s hold on the branch of a tree.

355. Since in sleep, where the world loses its reality, everyone truly knows his existence and the non-exis-tence of ‘I am this’ [i.e. his individuality], all must accept the Reality of the indestructible Self.

356. The State in which the thought ‘I’ [i.e. the ego] does not rise even a bit is the State ‘I am Brahman’. Does anyone become non-existent in sleep, where the thought ‘I’ does not rise?

357. If we scrutinize properly, the state of ‘I’-lessness is our Real State of Consciousness, in which the inertness of the fleshy body is fully removed. Does one not survive the loss of individuality [in sleep] without being affected? Know this truth by abiding in the State of Wakeful-Sleep [i.e. Turiya or Jnana].


358. To remain without ‘I’ is the State of Jnana – Self; truly, it is the blissful and peaceful State ‘I am Shiva’. Know that the same is the Kaivalya [i.e. Non-dual] State of Brahma-Nirvana, which is glorified as the State of transcending birth and death.

                                     64 The Pure ‘I’ (Suddhahankara)

359. When the ego, ‘I am the body’, is annihilated, the unlimited and unbroken ‘I’ [Self] shines forth. The shining forth of this ‘I’ is not fictitious like the ego, which takes birth in a filthy body on earth and suffers in bondage.

360. Know that the natural, unbroken and ever-existing Heart, ‘I’, which shines free of delusion, is the Suddhahankara [pure ‘I’] which is seen in Jivanmuktas, since it has no sense of doership in any activity.

361. Those who live a perfect life of Mei-Jnana, attained by the destruction of the impure ego – ‘I am this fleshy body’ – will be revelling in Self, unmindful of the body, with great Peace devoid of desire.

                                      65 The Shining Forth of Self 
362. Only when one’s own Source, the Heart, is known through enquiry, will the false first person, ‘I’, fall down; and only when that false first person falls abashed, will the true First Thing, Self, spring forth in all its Glory.

363. When the insubstantial ghost, the ego – which rises from the darkness of ignorance and whose dance is itself all this universe – is enquired into, it disappears like the bridegroom’s friend [in the story], and when it disappears, Self, the Sun, rises up tearing away the darkness of ignorance, Maya.

364. The ending of the ego (1), by its drowning into the Space of Silence, is our [true life of] living as the Space of Jnana. Therefore when the ego disappears, like a false dream, into its Source, the Real ‘I’ [Self] will shine forth spontaneously.

365. This body is the cross. The ego (2) – the identification ‘I am the body’ – is Jesus. The killing of the ego through Self-enquiry is the crucifixion of Jesus. The survival of Self from the death of the ego, and Its shining forth as the Supreme Thing is His Resurrection.

366. The death of the ego in the unlimited Silence – the non-dual Truth – and the shining forth of Self is the Kaivalya-Siddhi [i.e. the attainment of Oneness]. In that State of Jnana, pure Bliss will gloriously blaze forth as one’s own [true] Nature.

 Watch video:   RAMANA MAHARSHI - ARUNACHALA SHIVA

    Peace, Love, Harmony