The Ego is the Root of all Diseases...Give It Up

I came across the title of this blog post while surfing Facebook. I couldn't believe that it received over 1,000 "Likes" and was shared over 300 times. What is it about that sentence that moved so many people to respond? Whatever it was that responded it wasn't the ego. In fact, the ego is the price paid for what is actually given up. Reading this sentence I asked myself the question "how." How do I give up ego? It's a topic I have long pondered.


After reading great words of wisdom in books, I always come back to the how. As I write this, I am reminded of the old proverb: Give me a fish and I eat for a day; teach me to fish and I eat for a lifetime. Spiritual writing affects me that way. The reading part is like being fed a fish. When I close the book, I am still hungry, still feeling the truth of becoming spiritually self-sufficient has eluded me. In the weeks leading up to my first experience of Kundalini, I was frustrated about not being able to find the tools for achieving the promised altered state of consciousness — whether it be awakening or enlightenment — in any of the writings I had come across.

In order to give something up it is necessary to understand how it is constructed in the first place. The ego is a construct, but just knowing that is not enough to enable one to give it up. Actually, it isn't giving it up as much as it is dismantling it and then realizing it is unreal. The process demands rigorous and authentic self-observation, which is impossible to do on one's own. This is why the importance of the guru or the adept has been emphasised through the ages. The ego is always more cunning and clever than the soul. The ego is what Gurdjieff called the false self and it is constructed from life experiences. Not so much the experiences themselves, but the stories we manufacture around them and what we make these stories mean.

There are three ego development stages in life. The first comes around the age of 4-5 when the unconscious thought "there's something wrong here" appears and a way of being (pattern of behavior) is created to survive. This is the first construct of the false or ego self.

 The next stage happens during the teenage years when  thoughts like "I don't belong" arise and a second survival strategy is put in place, based largely on "fitting in." This ego layer is difficult to dislodge because it is a deeply ingrained protective mechanism.

The final stage happens sometime in the 20s when the thought "I'm on my own" surfaces and another survival mechanism is put in place. The sum total of the decisions and strategies adopted in consequence to these three events are what constitutes the ego. And the fact that they become so deeply buried in the persona is why the ego stays so well hidden, even after one finally goes looking for it.

It took an intense weekend of self-development training to enable me to see the who I thought I was wasn't the who I really am. Seeing those three events with perfect clarity allowed me to realize that what I had made them mean shaped the who I was. As a result of those insights and realizations something fell away and I experienced an unbounded peace and bliss. This happened in 2005.

I'm not saying that I am now ego-less; I'm not, but who I am for myself is now much more flexible and I am able to see the play of the manifested with that of the un-manifested. Dismantling the false or ego self is an absolutely essential step in the spiritual awakening process.

Where are the prophets of doom....now December has come and gone?

Yesterday, I found myself  thinking about this blog and noticed just how quiet certain Yogi Masters are now. To be totally honest, teaching Kundalini Yoga and being very familiar with the writings about the shift from Pisces to Aquarius, I also found myself uncharacteristically restless on two portentous dates in December, i.e. 12/12/2012 and 12/21/2012.

On the first of these dates, at 12 minutes past the hour I left my job and went into the ladies toilets where I meditated for 12 minutes. Even as I was doing this the more rational part of me was screaming 'what are you doing this for?' I ignored it and carried on meditating. I didn't notice anything different afterwards, but then again, I wasn't looking for anything. After all, the big one was 12/21/2012. What I was doing was only preparation.

The day of 12/21/2012 dawned and it struck me that there were other parts of the world where it was already 12/21/2012 and there was no reports of anything out of the ordinary. I was flying to my family that day for Christmas and so, counting flight time, I found myself being up all day and night of the 21st. If being mindful and aware were the criteria for being able to receive whatever shift was coming, no-one was more qualified! Again my journey home was completely smooth and uneventful, no different than the everyday flow of life.

12/22/2012 dawned. When I woke up, I felt I had been well and truly fooled, taken in by prophets of doom, who had absolutely no proof, but had been so convincing that many people, including me, had listened. I could have pointed the finger at spiritual people, especially yogis, but to be fair, many people who don't see themselves as 'spiritual' were also anticipating 'something' would happen.

Having now had time to ponder the whole event, I think it shows how we as human beings are prone to fabricate meaning where there is none. All that happened, I assume, is that Mayans ran out of paper for the end of their calendar.

What some of us present day human beings did was to spin this into an end-of-the-world, doomsday scenario. We put meaning into totally meaningless events and then lived the month of December as if our interpretation really meant something. When you look at it like this, it is so ludicrous as to be funny.

There has been very little comment from those who were most vociferous, but I came across this post on Facebook which I am copying and acknowledging the writer for because he's had the courage to write what I was thinking and has phrased it better than I could.

"December 2012 has come and gone. No end of the world and no shift in  consciousness. No aliens arrived to ‘save the planet’ either. No  ‘rapture’ or anything of the sort. No three days of darkness. No planet Niburu.

"I hope this shows very clearly that all those who have been preaching these various events have been mistaken and that they would do well to examine and alter the processes by which they came to their completely incorrect conclusions and explain how they came to make such mistakes that have caused so many people so much distraction and caused many people to make decisions that have caused them serious setbacks if they wish to be taken seriously on any matter in the future. 

"Theirs is the  responsibility for having distracted the attention of the human species from the serious issues of Rapid Resource Depletion (RRD), Pollution and Global Climate Change (P&GCC), Global Monetary Collapse (GMC), and the increasing incredibility of the Growth Model of Development (GMD), which have to be responded to effectively and immediately."
~Nirmalan Dhas