OUR ORDINARY STATE OF CONSCIOUSNESS by Atman Nityananda

OUR ORDINARY STATE OF CONSCIOUSNESS  

by Atman Nityananda

How the egoic mind of which the essential nature is desire for pleasure manipulates our body, senses, mind and intellect in order to drive us again and again in pleasurable sensual experiences.

What I call ordinary unconsciousness means being identified with your thought processes and emotions, your reactions, desires, and aversions. It is most people's normal state. In that state, you are run by the egoic mind, and you are unaware of Being (your true Self or Consciousness).     ~ Eckhart Tolle

Our ordinary state of consciousness is a state of identification with the body, thoughts, imaginations, impulses, emotions and external objects (likes-dislikes, attractions-aversions, desires, fear, anxiety, uneasiness, anger, impatient, discontent etc.).

In this hypnotic state the egoic patterns are fully expressed and because we are so identified with them we perceive ourselves as that patterns or we think that these patterns are choices of our free will. In reality what happens is exactly the opposite; we are moved like puppets by all these subconscious tendencies.

Only when we disindentify from the egoic mind and we observe attentively with dispassion all these subconscious mental and emotional processes we can stop being machines and live more consciously.

It is a state not of acute pain or unhappiness but of an almost continuous low level of unease, discontent, boredom, or nervousness - a kind of background static.
You may not realize this because it is so much a part of "normal" living, just as you are not aware of a continuous low background noise, such as the hum of an air conditioner, until it stops. When it suddenly does stop, there is a sense of relief. 
Many people use alcohol, drugs, sex, food, work, television, or even shopping, as anesthetics in an unconscious attempt to remove the basic unease. When this happens, an activity that might be very enjoyable if used in moderation becomes imbued with a compulsive or addictive quality, and all that is ever achieved through it is extremely short-lived symptom relief.     ~ Eckhart Tolle

If we are not fully engaged in an interested, pleasant or pleasurable activity usually we are in a state of mild unhappiness which takes the form of unease, discontent, boredom, something missing or nervousness. These emotional moods are almost always present in us as a background and when their intensity reaches a certain level become unbearable and we want to get rid of them by any mean.

As Tolle says above people mostly seek an easy pleasant activity (food, sex, television, Smoking cigarettes, shopping… ) to overcome at least temporally this painful emotional state. Another way is the use of substances like alcohol, drugs, sedative pills which create a kind of anesthesia affecting the nervous system and the brain. In both cases they use an external mean in an unconscious attempt to remove the basic unease.

 Keeping in mind the above, the question that arises is this: Why the egoic mind keeps us almost always in this state of unease, discontent, boredom and what is the nature of these unpleasant and very disturbing emotions? 

It took me many years of study, self-investigation and self-observation to discover this miraculous indeed play of the egoic mind. For many years I was investigating the nature of the various expressions of the ego like fear, anger, impatience, inferiority, insecurity, gluttony etc. which I tried to dissolve with various techniques. After 15 years of practice I didn’t achieved great results, neither in the dissolution of the egoic tendencies nor in meditation. I thought that if I continue like this it will take many-many years or more lives to achieve their destruction.

Thus I decided to go into the root of the problem, to investigate the ‘I or ego itself. All the egoic expressions anything that happens in us has as its center the ‘I or ‘ego. For example: ‘I am afraid of something, ‘I am angry, ‘I want or don’t want something, ‘I like or dislike something etc. The ‘I is always present. So I thought that instead of trying to eliminate one by one the egoic tendencies it would be better to kill the head of the ego the ‘Iness.  That time I had also read in the books of Swami Sivanada and Ramana Maharshi that if we kill the ego or ‘I then will die also all its branches; this information played a n important role in my decision to enquire in detail the nature of ‘I. Since then I started to observe and investigate carefully the nature of the ‘I itself although I continued also the practices for the dissolution of the various egoic tendencies. 

I was very surprised by the results of this enquiry. I managed to discover what is this phantom of ego and how hypnotizes and manipulate us. 

 The most surprising thing I found is that the ‘Iness (the sense the body is me) and the various psychological aspects such as desire, impulses, moods, emotions (anger, impatience, fear, dislike, hatred etc.) are not different things or energies which are connected between each other.  I found that the ego is one field of energy which as a chamelaion modifies constantly and assumes all the various egoic forms or expressions that appear as different between each other.   For example we may think that the ‘I sense and the desire for food which we call gluttony are two different things, two different energies, that the anger and depression are also two different energies, that like and dislike are different energies from ‘Iness and desire. But they aren´t different energies. All these psychological qualities are one energy field that modifies and assumes all these different forms (Iness, desire, like, dislike, greed, anger, discontent, depression etc.).

 Now lets go back to the question: Why the egoic mind keeps us almost always in a state of unease, discontent, boredom? 

 Let see again our data we have, keeping in mind what Tolle says  and this brief analysis I did about the nature of ‘I:

1.  The ego keeps us in a state of unease, discontent and boredom. 
2. Almost all and almost always we seek a pleasurable experience to overcome at least temporarily these unbearable emotions. Curiously we don’t seek a permanent solution for this situation.
3. The essential nature of the ego is desire or lust for pleasure.
4. The ‘I the desire for pleasure and the emotions of discontent, boredom, something is missing and unease are one and the same energy which assumes these three apparently different forms of expression. 

With this knowledge becomes clear that the ego firstly assumes these painful emotional forms (uneasy, discontent etc.) in order to drive us towards a pleasurable experience. When we get the desired object and we actually experience it, the same energy that had the form of a painful emotion (discontent, uneasy...) modifies immediately and assumes the form of pleasure. The pleasure we experience when we eat for example a cake is only a modification of the desire energy crystallized in our mind and is projected on the object. Thus while we experience pleasure we are free temporally from those unpleasant or painful emotions. But there are times that even this way (to have a pleasurable experience) to avoid the experience of these painful emotions of uneasiness, discontent etc. doesn’t work. This happen because all sensorial experiences have certain limits and it is not possible always to enjoy them fully and have great pleasure and satisfaction.

 In the objects does not exist even an iota of pleasure. Objects can give us a pleasant or unpleasant experience according their nature, the condition of our body, mind and senses, our temperament and the external conditions. The same object can be pleasant or unpleasant to us at two different times or at different conditions. The same object for some can be pleasant and for others unpleasant. This show us that even the pleasant or unpleasant sensations are not in the object itself. The pleasant and unpleasant sensations are the result of the interaction between the object and our mind under certain conditions.

Conclusion: The Egoic mind creates the painful emotions of unease, discontent, boredom in order to drive us compulsively to seek pleasurable experiences because the ego wants almost always to experience some kind of pleasure. The ego creates in us firstly a painful emotional state in order to make it easier to force us seek a pleasurable experience. Nobody wants to remain for a long time in a state of suffering even if it is of a mild type. Thus when the ego creates in us these unpleasant emotions easily we are moved by the ego to find some kind of pleasure. There is no reason to seek compulsively any pleasant or pleasurable experience if we feel complete and we are content happy.

 A summary of the nature of ego or ‘I

 Identification, projection, association, imagination are the functions through which the ego operates in us and unfolds all its expressions.

 The main expressions of ‘I or ego are:

1. Identification with the body; this identification creates the false identity ‘I am the body, or the body is me –‘Iness.

Ego also identifies with name, concepts, emotions etc., and objects which extends the ‘Iness as ‘Mineness.

2. Desire: desire for pleasure, power, position, money, possessions, fame, name, superiority. Each one according its temperament (doshic constitution according Ayurveda, Sanguine, choleric, melancholic and phlegmatic according western medicine and the astrological chart), the past experiences and past lives may have a stronger tendency to some of the main desires mentioned above.
The extension of desire is greed, which means a wanting for more pleasure, more possessions, more power, more money etc.
Attachment is the third aspect of desire. Attachment means that I will suffer if I lose the object of my desire or I suffer by mere thinking that I can lose the desired object.
The main emotions that desire is associated are fear and anger. Fear not to get or to lose the desire object and anger against anyone that prevents us to get or to lose the desired object. As I said before anger and fear are only modifications of desire itself. That’s why if we dissolve desire will dissolve all negative emotion and the ‘Iness because all these are one energy that modifies in innumerable forms.
Desire or lust for sexual pleasure* is the fundamental desire (and most difficult together with pride to eradicate), and has as its main substitute the food and the drinks and multiplies to all other objects and forms. 

3. Pride, which takes the form ‘I am special, ‘I am superior, ‘I am the best, ‘I am better than others, etc

4. All the negative emotional expressions like fear, anger, depression, discontent, insecurity, inferiority, etc.

5. All pair of opposites: like-dislike, attraction-repulsion, pleasure-pain, exhilaration-depression, optimist-pessimist, inferior-superior, etc.

6. The defense mechanisms which became known widely by Dr.freud.

NOTE

Desire or lust for sexual pleasure*: The most fundamental pleasure and the only real pleasure is the sexual one and it is the mother of all desires. The ego itself is a creation of modified sexual energy.That's why it is the most difficult one to spiritual aspirants to ged rid of.  But due to the fact that our body, the vital energy and the mind have limits, it is impossible to experience continuously the sexual pleasure. That’s why the ego finds substitutes (other kind of pleasure) to satisfy itself. The ego seeks pleasant experiences and projects on them its own imaginary pleasure which is crystallized in the mind and vital body.  When we experience a desired object the mind activates the crystalized in our psych pleasure and makes us believe that the pleasure we experience comes from the object. Due to this delusion we seek pleasure in the external objects while in reality there is no pleasure at all in them.

Some good substitutes of sexual pleasure for the mind are the food, drinks and in general substances that we consume mainly from the mouth which has an inner connection with the genitals. That’s why the mouth plays a great role in the sexual interaction as a mean of pleasure. The thirst of ego for pleasure is insatiable, that’s why the ego tries its best to imagine, seek or create always new, better and more intensive ways to experience pleasure through all senses. In the world nowadays most of the million human inventions have to do with the entertainment of the senses and the sensual mind. But due to the fact that sexual desire is the most powerful one, sexual entertainment is at the top of the spectator preferences. All movies present a relationship and include some sexual scenes. Videos with sexual content are first in popularity in the internet.

May God bless you be free from the egoic energies in this very life!

 Peace, Love, Harmony