THE EXPRESSIONS OF EGO by Nityananda Atman

THE EXPRESSIONS OF EGO
by Nityananda Atman

The basis of all egoic tendencies are:
- Lust and desire
- Superiority and pride
- Insecurity and fear
- Anger and wrath

In fact, the ego always moves between desire, pride, anger and fear

That is, the ego always:
• wants or doesn´t want something,
• feels pride because of some success or what possess
• fears something
• is angry with something.

DESIRE
The ego wants: sensory pleasures, money, comfort, possessions, power, authority, reputation and superiority.

ANGER
The ego gets angry when someone or something prevents us acquire what we want or if someone or something cause us lose what we already have.

FEAR
The ego almost is always afraid of, is anxious or worried about someone or something that may prevent us acquire what we want or cause us lose what we already have.

PRIDE
The ego feels important, special or superior when achieves something, when it possess more than others when it is stronger, smarter, richer etc.

All innumerable psychological disorders arise from these four egoic tendencies.

Let's look at some of the most important expressions of ego

The ego is constantly moving between:
1. Like / dislike, pleasantness/unpleasantness
2. Attraction / repulsion or aversion
3. Charm / disappointment

The ego wants to feel:
1. Important
2. More special
3. Superior

in order to overcome the feelings of inferiority, insufficiency and experience pleasure.

The ego wants:
1. Acceptance
2. Recognition
3. Approval
 to feel safe and important

The ego fears:
1. Rejection
2. Criticism
3. Depreciation

The ego lives and feeds on through the identification:
1. With the body
2. With the false self-image

3. With the thoughts, feelings, objects, people and situations

The ego because the aforementioned identifications constantly:
1 compares itself  with others
2. Envies others
3. Judges or condemns others
to feel safe, superior, special

The ego always wants to experience:
1 More
2. Different

3. More intense

sensual pleasures

The ego wants acquire or achieve what it wants:
1. As soon as possible (Now if it is possible)
2. Easily
3. Without difficulty / effort / cost

The ego is always:
1. impatient
2. restless and agitated
3. anxious
until to get what he wants.

    The ego always feels:
1. fear
2. threat
3. insecurity
about its self-image (if someone harms it), and of  losing what possess

The ego is always
1. frustrated
2. Disappointed
3. Sad
when do not get what it wants, or loses what it had.

The ego wants
1. Control
2. Dominate
3. Manipulate
others in order to feel superior, more important, secure, and to ensure what it wants.

The ego always wants
1. authority
2. power
3. reputation
to feel safe, superior and important and to ensure what it wants.

The ego always
1. Complains
2. Resists
3. Separates
It complains about various things: "because it has not acquired what wanted" "about what life owes to it" "for the bad  things  the others did to it." It resists what happens here and now, because it doesn’t like it or because it is not what he wanted. The ego separates from others due to insecurity and fear.

The ego causes the feelings of
1. boredom
2. dissatisfaction
3. incompleteness
in order  to drive us seek a pleasant or pleasurable experience.

The ego:
1. Ignores
2. doubts
3. imagines or dreams

The ego
1. lies
2. pretends
3. Hides itself
because it fears the truth and face the consequences of its actions.

The ego
1. exaggerates
2. perverts
3. distorts
the events and creates its own illusory reality to feel safe, to satisfy its vanity, to protect its self-image and feel important.

The ego is
1. against something
2. angry at something
3. hating something
He sees everyone and everything as an obstacle to their plans or as rivals ..

The ego
1. Criticizes
2. Accuses
3. It is intolerant to others
to feel better, superior, important, safe and avoid its responsibilities.

The ego does not know what is:
1. modesty or humility
2. measure
3. Self-control

The ego is afraid of
1. death
2. poverty
3. losing its identity or its illusory self-image

The ego develops and is feed itself through:

1. Identification 2. Projection 3. and Imagination

These three psychological states occur mechanically without stopping because man is not alert and vigilant, he is not conscious of itself, and does not use the  discernment. He is in a state of waking dream, therefore he perceives the illusion as real and not perceive the Truth that is always present. He is not conscious of his true identity (Atman ,Consciousness) which is the origin of the human existence and also the light that allows each experience happen and be perceived.

The ego is identified and projected onto objects, people, thoughts and the mental images of the external objects. The ego imagines and believes that the objects, the persons and the mental forms have the properties that the ego itself projects on them, while in reality all these properties are illusory or imaginary creations of ego itself.

Whenever the ego identifies with a new form (object, person or thought) and projects on them its properties a new branch of ego is created. When the ego identifies with a situation or image that exists already in the subconscious mind strengthens this already form of ego.

All branches or expressions ego are interconnected and the one feeds the other. The ego due to its ability to modify and reproduce itself gradually becomes a complex and multidimensional psychological entity that occupies the mind, heart and our energy field causing untold pain and suffering individually, collectively and globally.

Hercules kills Hydra

Medusa

The ancient Greek sages symbolized the ego with the Hydra and Medusa who had snakes in his head instead of hair. These two mythical monsters show the complexity of the ego and how difficult it is for us to kill it.

The beheading of Medusa by Perseus

But whoever has courage, strong determination, faith, self-confidence, and aspires heart fully to realize the truth and works with consistency, sincerity and coherence can be released from ego and achieve the union with the absolute beauty (Atman or Brahman), the One in all and live free and happy in peace and eternal bliss.

Peace, Love and Light

Om! DUAL & NON-DUAL DEVOTION - SRI RAMANA MAHARSHI

• 

 DUAL & NON-DUAL DEVOTION

Extract from the book ''Sri Ramana Paravidyopanishad''

''The Supreme Science as of the Self as Taught by Sri Ramana ''

THE TWO PATHS

210 Such a one who knows the truth of non-difference by the intellect alone, but is unable to achieve experience of the true nature of the real Self, must strive to attain deliverance by devotion and self-surrender to God.

211 Only two paths are laid down for the aspirant to deliverance:

a.      SELF-ENQUIRY. For the valiant, the quest of one’s own Self, (He must strive to attain deliverance   by Self –enquiry)

b.     DEVOTION AND SELF-SURRENDER TO GOD. For the fearful, self-surrender to God (He must strive to attain deliverance by devotion and self-surrender to God. What is called surrender of oneself to God is the final consummation of the practice of devotion)

 In these two all the paths are included.

212 This two-fold path has been taught by the most holy one, Ramana, thus: ‘Either seek the root of the ego-sense [the ‘I’ that rises within the body] or surrender that ego-sense to God to have it destroyed [by His grace].’

213 That foolish man, who, considering himself as an advaitin, but not being valiant enough [to take to the quest as taught by Bhagavan] and who looks down upon devotion as inferior, lives in vain, without devotion to God. He is a man with a tainted mind.

214 In this samsara the devotee is like a pot let down into a well with a rope tied to it. The man without devotion is like a pot fallen into the well, without a rope being tied to it.

215 Those who are endowed with the diabolic temperament cannot have the right kind of devotion. Hence the good one should take hold of the divine temperament for practicing devotion to God.

DEVOTION DUAL AND NON-DUAL

229 Devotion is also of two kinds:

a.    One with a sense of separateness(DUAL)

b.   and the other with a sense of non-difference (NONDUAL).

The former is prescribed for the unrefined; the latter is excellent for the well-refined ones.

Dual devotion

230 If one, considering Him, who is only the Self, as other than oneself, worships Him in a form and by a name, then in course of time, through the clarification of his intellect, he surely reaches the supreme state. There is no doubt about this.

231 ‘If a man adores God, who is nameless and formless, he will be liberated from the bondage due to names and forms.’ Such is the teaching of Sri Ramana.

232 The man who, being endowed with the divine temperament, meditates with devotion on God with a form, will attain that same State [of deliverance] that one attains by meditating on Him as formless.

233 One may adore that one Being by name and in any form, as one likes. Among the forms of the supreme one, the wise one, whose mind is pure, will not see any superiority or inferiority..

The non-dual devotion

252 Since the better devotee approaches God as the Self, knowing that the notion of difference, due to the ego, is false, for this aspirant for deliverance, the annihilation of the ego will be accomplished quickly.

RIGHT AWARENESS - Sri Ramana Maharshi

RIGHT AWARENESS

102 When vision is focused on the outside, who can know the truth, whether of the real Self or of the world? But, with the mind turned inwards, the sage knows the truth of both by the eye of right awareness.

490 Right awareness dawns on the complete extinction of the mind, whereby all the mental habits also are lost. Deliverance is affirmed by all sages to be none other than the final and complete destruction of the mental habits.

491 One should overcome both desire and latency and keep the mind concentrated in the quest. In the quest for the real Self, this is like balancing on the keen edge of the razor.

117 By the vision of right awareness, the world, along with the soul, merges into the formless, real Self. The sages call that the vision of right awareness, wherein there is neither seer nor spectacle.

283 Right awareness is only dwelling in the natural state of the Self, after the extinction of the ego. In that state which is free from duality, these two manifestations of ignorance (knowledge and ignorance) which belong to the worldly life, do not survive.

118 In that natural state [of the Self] there survives only the Self, which is consciousness, worldless, alone, and without the six modes of change, such as birth, and so on. Hence, it (the natural state) alone is real in its own right.

 

DOWNLOAD BOOK Sri Ramana Paravidyopanishad

http://davidgodman.org/rteach/RPV1-331.pdf

http://davidgodman.org/rteach/RPV332-701.pdf

THE SELF-SURRENDER - Sri Ramana Maharshi

THE SELF-SURRENDER

256 What is called surrender of oneself to God is the final consummation of the practice of devotion. This can be achieved by the purified mind when the might of the ego is greatly reduced.

257 Just as a small magnet becomes united to a big one by the juxtaposition of the opposite poles, so the finite soul becomes one with the Supreme Being by the conjunction of its head with His feet.

258 The self-surrender is truly made by him who always has the feeling, ‘Let all things happen according to your will. In all respects, I am bound to you.’

259 He that has surrendered himself will be at peace, remembering that He [God] is the bearer of the world’s burden. The one that bears the burden himself will be ridiculous, like the figure on the temple-tower appearing to bear the tower on its own shoulders.

260 As one travelling in a carriage puts down his luggage in the carriage itself and completes his journey, so should he resign his own [samsaric] burden to God and complete his life in the world.

261 The wise one should resign to God his cares concerning the good of the world, just as he resigns to Him his cares about his own body and family.

262 The ripe devotee must pass his time, patiently enduring whatever happens to him, whether pleasant or unpleasant or otherwise, without yielding to sorrow or joy, with his heart absorbed in Him.

263 When the ego dies, having been swallowed by divine grace, the devotee’s self-surrender becomes true and complete.

265 Since the Self is the Supreme Being Himself, by whom, how and to whom is the surrender to be made? True self-surrender is only the extinction of the ego, by which the sense of being different from Him arises.

266 ‘If you desire to give yourself to God, then first seek out and know your Self. The gift of oneself to God will be accomplished in this way.’ So said the most holy one.

267 The truth of namaskara also is only the perfect giving up of the ego-sense. Right awareness,

self-surrender

and namaskara,

all these three are one and the same.

 

DOWNLOAD BOOK Sri Ramana Paravidyopanishad

http://davidgodman.org/rteach/RPV1-331.pdf

http://davidgodman.org/rteach/RPV332-701.pdf