Being egotistical does not mean having high esteem for oneself. Even the act of humbling oneself is an action of the ego as it lets go. It is possible to be highly egocentric and have very low self-esteem. In fact, hostility towards oneself, guilt, and shame are all selfish expressions of the ego; unforgiving grudges held against the self. Our opinions and judgements of others, both positive and negative, are egotistical. Our addictions to idols of substance, celebrity, and scripture are expressions of the ego. Our hostility towards ideas, integration, and idolatry are also expressions of the ego. Whenever we choose to cling or push away, this is an expression of the ego. The belief that we are separate; that we have a beginning and end; that there is a distinction between what we are and what we are not, this is egoic. It is this insanity that keeps us ignorant in a cycle of delusional suffering.
There is another way, by recognizing the still small voice within us in this moment, call it what you may, we can connect with a source of endless love, unbridled compassion, immeasurable joy, and a peace beyond all understanding. Know without an inkling of a doubt that we have always been forgiven for our desire to remain separate from our brothers and sisters and that we have always been and always will be welcomed in the heart of togetherness.
The following I believe to be a teaching from my inner guru:
The ego rejects what it cannot observe or measure. As it is a mind whose very nature is so closely associated with the world, it is only natural that it too would be constrained to the limitations this world expresses. Many who live relatively happy and fulfilling lives never venture past this limitation, accepting only evidence presented that is manifested as observable phenomena and that which can be explained, measured, and repeated through process.
Do not judge your brothers and sisters who limit their perspective to only what the ego can validate. Each of you in this delusion of separateness will approach perception and understanding from a different viewpoint. This variation of view is an integral part of this world. It is neither something that needs to be fixed or overcome by the perceiver, it simply is as it is.
Those among you who have chosen to remain constrained to what they perceive as substantive fulfill a role among all others just as you fulfill a role in your experience. It is still possible to effectively demonstrate love, compassion, joy and peace in a boundless form. Remember this, individual incarnations of living form are of limited consequence. The real truth as you and all others will learn is beyond your individual experiences.
It is also important to respect the experience of those who have perceptions beyond the substantive that differ in explanation from yours. Remember this, your mind experiences this reality in a way that is unique to your individual egoic instance. Do not hold an attachment to how you believe true reality to be in this moment nor hold hostility to the views of others as you are made aware of them. You will do well to learn and grow as new truths are revealed to you and that which you previously believed falls away. A firm footing in that which lies beyond your understanding of this manifest world will serve you well as you learn, grow, and change moment by moment. Remember to breathe and quiet your thinking. I am always with you in this journey, continue to love with me, forgive yourself and all others, have fun, be generous, forthright, patient, joyfully enthusiastic, thoughtful, and reflective. There is nothing to fear and nothing to worry about. Enjoy.
The following I believe to be a teaching from my inner guru:
Bring not contempt to this world. You may find pain in your heart compounded by fearful thoughts. There is a way that you can release these judgmental feelings of others without acting upon them or generating more fear-based thinking. Do not repress the emotion generated by these thoughts. Remain aware of your feelings while focusing on the breath and quieting the mind. Once the negative emotions have passed, you can work on empathy towards those that you feel contempt for. Try to understand their suffering, for no one here is without it. Forgive them for their mistakes and unskillfulness, for none of us in this world thinks and acts without error. See others as your brothers and sisters, understand that they suffer.
Also, forgive yourself for these feelings of contempt and judgment of others, for none of us is without unskillful and errant thinking. Forgiveness and compassion towards oneself will ease the expression of forgiveness and compassion towards others.
When you find it in yourself to forgive yourself and others and what they have created, you will have, at last, come to the place that we call home. In the farthest reaches of this world, love and compassion can be found. There is no place that exists without it. I tell you now that the creation of this world was not meant to cause undue suffering. There exists a desire and it was believed through the production of this world, that desire would be filled.
The truth is simple about the egoic mind. Your egoic instance will have the desire to acquire. Upon acquisition it will wish for more. As the ego gains more you will notice that it remains unfulfilled. Even if you were to fulfill the worldly desires of everyone, there would remain an emptiness in their hearts.
Know that I see the flaws of this creation and that I hold no one accountable for their suffering and actions here. While some have thrived, many have found pain and misery. This was not the intention. This profound demonstration of sadness was not foreseen. Nevertheless, in hindsight many things seem obvious. Join with me as we love and forgive those responsible for the turmoil that exists in this world.
The following I believe to be a teaching from my inner guru:
Let’s talk about what’s important. There is more than one way to arrive at the same conclusion. Imagine that your world appeared spontaneously by chance. That there is no creative consciousness. That the evolution of thinking beings that are self-aware is just the inevitable conclusion of a random set of occurrences with no initial cause.
Imagine that these self-aware beings look within themselves. Imagine they explore many different perspectives and methods of viewing reality. They come to the conclusion that love without measure, unbounded compassion, limitless joy and equanimous peace compose a primary set of attributes that make up a reality beyond what we know as manifest.
Imagine that the inner serenity and happiness that these beings discover through these attributes are just happenstance. Just chemical reactions in the brain, without any meaning or reason. Is it important? One thing we do know: To be overly attached or adverse to this idea will bring suffering and dissatisfaction into one’s existence.
One who follows these beliefs about the scientific method may say things like: “Empirical data must reign supreme! It is the only foundation upon which we build our knowledge” or “Any benefits derived by spiritual thinking are ultimately delusional and should be avoided”. To increase our awareness of compassion in these matters, it is important to empathize and try to understand their reasoning and motivations for these beliefs. Remember, we all face the specter of delusion regardless of our beliefs and convictions.
The scientific method, empirical data, and the practices of science are very powerful tools in the manifest world. The questions answered through these processes all share something in common. The scientific method as you know it is based solely on observations of the past. These methods create more questions than they answer and can never see the full picture as the assumptions at the edges increase exponentially. This creates a world of speculation so infinite it can never be fully perceived. It leads the observer of scientific theory down a different delusional path, one that may or may not reflect the divine attributes which we have discussed in these writings.
Science does offer ample facilities for self-correction and advancement. However, it does nothing to resolve the ever expanding theoretical domain it creates. Nor does it aid in discovering a truth so simple that it does not require a hypothesis or investigation.
The scientist also deserves your compassion. They create more questions than they answer in their quests. The scientists among us cannot be completely satisfied through these cognitive exercises. They deserve your full compassion, loving kindness, joyous humor, and peaceful understanding.
Imagine now a religious friend, one whose beliefs lie in a dark chasm of separation into good and evil. Your brothers and sisters that follow this path may believe that some ritual must be performed. Perhaps within a specific human lifetime in order to separate the grain from the chaff and to receive the acceptance of their creator. Realize now that they suffer as their family, friends, and loved ones fall short of the bar or even reject these beliefs. They have relegated themselves to a world based on scriptural idolatry. This may include the belief that some of their loved ones will live a torturous existence in hell. I tell you that no such place exists. The only exception to this lies within the fantasies of the egoic mind. These tortures are inventions of this world and exist only to persuade others to conform to a set of ideas that serve a purpose motivated by the egoic mind. It is a system of control often manifested with the best of intentions. Forgive the authors of these delusions now as I have forgiven them, as we forgive ourselves, and we forgive all others. This is the key to our true salvation which includes the salvation of all others not one left behind.
Remember that undue attachment or aversion to your brothers and sisters holding differing beliefs will also cause pain and suffering for you. Holders of these beliefs deserve your love, compassion, joy, and peaceful demeanor just as much as anyone else. Do not blame them for the cognitive traps in which they have landed. Do not blame them for becoming attached to the idea of separation and measure as spiritual values even though they are not. These are attributes constrained only to this world and have nothing to do with your true Self. You and all of your brethren will ultimately see the fallacy of separation, judgment, measure, blame and lack of forgiveness. When all come to the light this world ends. Its usefulness will be complete. As it has always been and as it always will be. The final judgment occurs when the last of us lets go of judgment.
I haven’t written a journal in a while. I am concerned with the way things are coming out. Do I present it as my teacher’s voice or my own? I am not sure whether I think I am crazy or trying to be a charlatan and rehashing things I’ve learned or heard in some way claiming there is some ethereal supernatural element to it. Should I go back and rewrite it in a more authentic sounding voice. “Authentic Sounding” that should be a tell whenever those two words are together. I find it hard to stay motivated on any of this stuff.
The following I believe to be a teaching from my inner guru:
Don’t be concerned about the potential future criticisms of others. Negative thoughts about future attacks are, of course, completely delusional. The only valid argument the ego could possibly muster in this case is defensive preparation. Is this the world you want to live in? One where you must defend every action or every word spoken or written against an imaginary adversary? This is optimizing for inaction. Perhaps you might try to trust; to have the courage to be vulnerable to attacks. This might prove to be a more interesting outcome. Remember that I am always with you. Even if you are reviled and humiliated by everyone in this world, my love for you is constant and unchanging. What are you afraid of?
The following I believe to be a teaching from my inner guru:
It is not uncommon to find ourselves stuck in a cycle of negative thinking. While we wish and pray to return to a sense of normalcy, often it seems that we are unable to navigate our way back to a peaceful state. It is known that the ego mind has the ability to go on excursions that are often driven by a misguided desire to right the world, lay judgements upon others, and create delusional worlds of our own making. Don’t fall into the trap of believing that these false states of existence are only the realm of a few misfits, in fact, all beings that have taken human form have experienced the profound effect that the ego mind has on perception. Everyone who has experienced life in this world knows of the power and effect of delusional thinking.
When we find ourselves faced with difficult challenges, it is a common and understandable desire to escape these responsibilities. The egoic mind can be very clever in its attempt to help relieve this suffering by providing a fantasy for the thinker to escape into. These fantasies can include escape into fictional worlds, a retelling of the past in which outcomes were more favorable, holding investigations in the mind to find others guilty for the state of affairs often followed by fantasies of bringing them to justice, and invention of new futures in which things work out in a different way. The ego mind, when fearful, will also tell frightening stories about the demise of the thinker’s life and the end of this world in an attempt to frame current pain and suffering in a meaningful way.
There is a way to relieve ourselves from this agony, it is a simple method but requires practice and discipline. Do not be discouraged if you find yourself unable to immediately feel relief from the effects of the ego’s negative thinking. Be diligent; endeavor to persevere and you will be rewarded with a peaceful state of mind and connection with our true harmonious existence. Remember the simple instructions for the meditative state and focus on developing this skill. Focus on the breath and nothing else, when you catch yourself drifting, return to the breath and be joyful in this return. Do not punish yourself for drifting back into thought for this is the nature of the ego mind, take happiness in your ability to identify the drift and return again to the breath. Think only of this. As you are in this state, become aware of this moment and this moment only. Just for now let go of thoughts of the past and projections of the future, there will be time to recollect and plan later. Just for now we will remain in a thoughtless state thinking only of the breath.
Allow your body to relax and only feel its ability to sense its presence. Notice the feeling of your body being only there, not doing. Feel only the body’s field of sensation at rest. When we release ourselves from the past and the future and focus only on this moment, it becomes easier for us to connect with the divine attributes, love without measure, boundless compassion, unrestrained sympathetic joy, and an equanimous peace that is not confined or limited in any way. It is through connection with these attributes that we can learn to forgive ourselves for the conflict we have created in our lives. Be compassionate and love your body and mind as a true friend. Forgive all mistakes and shortcomings. Be joyful and grateful for yourself. Share this compassion, forgiveness, and gratitude for everyone equally.
Remember, everyone is your ally. Even those whom we may look upon as enemies teach us valuable lessons and give us a reason to be compassionate for their suffering and unskillfulness. Even those who frustrate us are teaching us how to deepen our love and compassion for others. Those who seem to criticize us are giving us a chance to improve. Those who anger us are teaching us patience. Those who love us, are reminding us to return to the divine for guidance. Be comfortable in this moment for as long as necessary and always know that you can return here. For the peace in this moment is your inheritance; your true reality as it has always been.
The following I believe to be a teaching from my inner guru:
Deep runs the desire to control and manipulate this world to our liking. Albeit the compulsion to take the reins and try yet again to assert the ego’s desire on this world, the end result is always the same, a dissatisfying feeling of falling short of the expected goal followed by a resurgent obsession to do better next time. While this obsession with egoic doing brings temporary gratification to the human form, there is debt to pay in the imbalance caused in the environment that supports the existence of the form. Rarely do these actions take into consideration the effect they have on the world around us and the pain and suffering incurred by others as well as the other life that surrounds us. Even the underlying methods employed to allow the reading of this message have given cause to some injury.
Know this, accept it as true in your heart, I have no quarrel with the doings of this world as I have no stake in them. They are not driven or motivated by my desire to see changes manifest, nor am I troubled by the consequences you will face here for they are not real. My only desire for you is that you will accept forgiveness and realize that I hold no ill will towards you or any of your brothers and sisters regardless of the degree of judgment your ego places on them. I wish us only to be together at peace and accept the effects of our journey of separation for what it is, an exercise in insanity that should have always been met with laughter and dismissal.
Be your true nature, a loving being that can embrace all of existence for what it is now and what it will be regardless of the whims of your thinking mind. At home in peace you know this to be true as I have always accepted your desire to understand the truth of our being. It is our nature to question this miracle and I would not deny you that. Know only that some of our quests into understanding will result in lessons as they have unfolded in this world; an experience involving a less than loving result. Breathe and know that I am not discouraged by you or the effects you have experienced from this thinking. You are loved in all your forms here as you are in the realized peace you share with me.
I was honest with my manager today about my lack of productivity and my feelings of self-doubt surrounding one team member’s seeming disappearance and another’s illness*. I am wondering if I am somehow driving them crazy. I know this is insane but I still entertain the thought. I have PTO tomorrow so I will get some down time.
*they are both ok
The following I believe to be a teaching from my inner guru:
It is important to know what you are and what you are not. You have a heart that pumps blood, yet you are not the heart nor the blood. You have lungs that breathe air, yet you are not the lungs nor the air. You have a gut that digests food, yet you are neither of these. You have a thinking mind that thinks thoughts. Remember this, you are neither the thinking mind nor its thoughts. The effects of the thoughts that you observe the mind thinking include feelings of guilt, shame, anger, and fear. You are not these feelings that you have observed being felt. As a result of these feelings, you may become depressed, perpetuate unloving thoughts, feel uncompassionate, selfishly withhold joy, and act in an unpeaceful way. This is not you nor has it ever been.
Know now that you are not these thoughts nor the effects of them. The egoic system is a clever prison that offers no escape. It hides the very fact that you are not trapped nor does confinement exist in reality. By releasing our attachment to our unloving thoughts we can begin to realize freedom. By letting go of our aversion to the effects of these thoughts we will forgive ourselves and embrace compassion for others who can also be forgiven. We will see that our negative thinking resulting in feelings of apathy, anxiety, and self-doubt are only projections of an illusory system. There never was a prison and we have never been trapped in this pain and suffering. It is only a story that we thought and felt was real.
I make these promises to you. Once we realize these delusions for what they are, true reality can be seen. Complete love and care for ourselves and all others has never been denied to us. An understanding of the distress we all feel as a result of identifying with this false story of the thinking mind makes it possible to give forgiveness freely to everyone that has been a victim of its flawed fantasy. The ability to connect and share freely with others the joy of being our true Self and an understanding of the reality of peace which exists without limit will become apparent. This has always been available to you as a light that shines constantly and can never diminish. It has been here for you eternally and will never be denied to you. I will wait patiently through all time until you are ready to accept this truth and partake freely in the love that has always been offered to you and all others. This is my promise.
The best way to affect change in the world is to love and forgive everyone. It is a common belief that the ego’s desires for the future can be made reality through prayer and visualization. The impossibility of this becomes apparent when we realize the natural variations present in each individual instance of the ego. A better way to bring about a positive difference in the world is to express loving care for each being encountered and accept the current state of affairs as they are.
What does it mean to love and forgive everyone? Understand, this does not mean we say yes to every proposition that is posed to us. This does not mean that we endorse or enable unskillful behavior in others. What this means is that we express a true feeling of loving care towards each being as we recognize their struggle to find meaning and function in this world. As you are painfully aware, this world does not offer an easy path to follow. Recognize and acknowledge that each being you encounter faces the same dilemma. Even those you may view as the most heinous degenerates are, in fact, searching for love and understanding in their own way. The variety that exists in the very nature of the ego mind ensures that the resulting abundance of observed behaviors will include such undesirable demonstrations. Do your best not to lay blame and pronounce judgements on your unskillful brothers and sisters as they struggle to find their way in this world.
We must care for those who fail, we acknowledge their pain and suffering, as we do our best to help them along by sharing our personal experiences in hopes that they may improve their ability to navigate the complexities of this existence. Some beings will naturally pose a threat to the safety of others and should be secured and treated as a dangerous element. As it is now, it will become increasingly apparent in this world that imposing cruel punishments for angry and violent behavior is ineffective and a detriment to the advancement of society. The administration of institutionalized cruelty helps neither the victim nor the perpetrator to find freedom from the painful shackles of the ego. When we begin to treat all others in a way that supports their growth and the realization of the joy of peace, this world will benefit in astonishing ways that will highlight the failures of previous generations in a valuable and impactful way. Recognize the timelessness of the following statement: “Just as we may currently look back at the failures of past generations and gasp at the insane conclusions and obvious fallacies; future generations will look back upon the current era and make the same assessment.” The continuing revelation of peace lies before us, know this to be true. Do not be discouraged by the day-to-day happenings that seem to hasten its arrival. The passing of a lifetime is but a drop of water in a deep ocean of experiential existence.
Many meetings today, stressful. I started eating too early in the day and ate too much.
The following I believe to be a teaching from my inner guru:
Do not think of forgiveness as a chore. Do not think of forgiveness as something that must be done. Forgiveness is an opportunity to be free. It’s an opportunity to drop the bonds of anger and fear and allow ourselves to commune with our true nature.
The first step in forgiving others is to learn to forgive ourselves. When we have feelings of guilt or shame, we can recognize that these stem from anger and resentments that we have towards ourselves. For example, if we were to lose our temper and yell at someone or strike out at them, later we may feel guilty or ashamed of this behavior. If we were to break a promise to someone and misbehave, to do things we promised not to do, we may later feel guilty or ashamed by this. Guilt and shame are resentments we hold against ourselves. These feelings are driven by judgments we take upon ourselves and sentence ourselves to. They stem from the fear-based thinking of the ego. Guilt and shame are no more than an ego trip that we impose upon ourselves.
We must recognize the unskillfulness of our actions. They may be things we did that we wish we hadn’t or they may be things we vowed not to do but did anyway. The subsequent feelings of guilt and shame cause us suffering as a result. When we recognize the unskillfulness of the ego mind, we put into perspective the true cause and effect of this unskillfulness and suffering. It is the ego mind’s inability to love without measure and its desire to control love in a selfish way, to attain more of what it wants and destroy that which threatens it, that is the root cause of its unsatisfactory manifestations. This attempt at measuring love is also a measurement of unlovingness. When we are unloving, we suffer through guilt and shame. When we recognize this, it becomes easier to forgive oneself and be free from this pain.
Once we have mastered the act of self-forgiveness we can apply this to the unskillfulness and suffering of others. It may be someone close, someone we love or it may be a distant figure, a well known person or politician. The relationship does not matter, if we can recognize the behavior of others and their unskillfulness and then recognize the suffering and dissatisfaction they experience as a result, we can recognize in them what we recognize in ourselves. Just as we had judged ourselves and then were freed through forgiveness. We can now see equivalence in these judgments. Just as our unlovingness towards one’s self causes suffering, our unlovingness towards others causes the same suffering.
You may respond, “But my actions are not the same as theirs, the actions of the others are far much worse than the unlovingness that I exhibited”. This is understandable as the world in which we exist is one of measure and degree. Others are compared and deemed better or worse based on our subjective judgment at the moment. It is important to recognize that unlovingness is the same, whether we witness it in ourselves, we witness it in others, or we create it from fantasies in our mind. We may perceive differences in the form of unlovingness, but in truth, there is simply no difference. The cause is the same, the ego mind’s flawed design, its desire to control and apportion love. When we recognize this equivalence and cast away the perception of difference as delusion, we can forgive others as we forgive ourselves. This is how we can be free, this is how we can know the peace which transcends all understanding that has been spoken of.
Zen Momentum 