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.
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.
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 