Dying to self – Experiences
It was early on a sunny summer morning and I went for a walk along the boardwalk. It was a beautiful day. An expensive-looking yacht was moored in the bay. The sun was shining, the sky was blue and the tide was high and as calm as a mill pond, unlike my head which was in a whirlwind of questions I couldn’t answer.
Over and over I replayed and replayed the sequence of events that had led to this moment, the loss of all my money, the death of my business, and the imminent death of my reputation when I filed for bankruptcy.
Thoughts of despair, thoughts of failure, thoughts of shame for failing my family…
I found a quiet spot, on the cliff path adjacent to the boardwalk, sat on a bench and focused on my breath and meditated. I concentrated on the sound of the sea lapping on the beach, the seagulls overhead… my mind calmed down and I felt at peace.
After about 30 minutes, I decided that I should go back to the house since my family would wake up and not know where I was. As I was walking down the path back to the boardwalk, an extraordinary thing happened: Suddenly and without warning of what was about to happen, I felt as if I had become two-dimensional and was as thin as a sheet of paper. and it had taken the form of an open door frame… and then it happened…
Suddenly I became aware of a huge surge of energy flowing through this open two-dimensional door frame shape, I could see it coming from behind me, flowing through me and emerging in the distance. It was like a river about four feet deep and six feet wide…and it poured through me…swirled me…and I heard a voice in my head say:
“I am the Life, The Energy of Life, and I flow through you; I always have and I always will…”
I came to myself and the moment was over. The meaning of that experience stayed with me, and remains with me to this day, ten years later. The veil was lifted and I was able to glimpse a reality much deeper than the world of my thoughts.
Has my life suddenly changed? No. Things were still difficult and stayed that way for a while longer. But my sense of the underlying reality that I had experienced changed my perception. From that day on I abandoned my heavy thoughts and behaved much more intuitively. In a very profound way I understood what it means to go with the flow.
So what does all this business of abandoning the ego really mean?
Well, it does NOT mean sitting in a cave on a mountain in Tibet chanting Om.
It’s about developing a good working relationship with your mind and understanding the functions of your mind and yourself, and understanding where it all goes horribly wrong because of:
- Your ego’s desire to be in control
- Your ego usurping the role of your higher self
- Your ego disconnecting you from your true source of power
Letting go of the ego, or in the Christian expression dying to self, is a practice that occurs naturally when you quiet your mind and shift your focus away from yourself in mindfulness practice, gratitude practice, or, indeed, any practice. meditation practice that allows a space between the stream of thoughts and for awareness to arise.
It can also occur in response to a direct request (or prayer) to your higher consciousness/higher self for help.
Putting someone else first and acting selflessly is another practical way to let go of the ego.
Letting go of the ego is not a one-time experience, but rather a frequent activity that needs to be done at least daily, and often many times throughout the day.
Very often, you just need to get out of the way, stop trying to figure out “How?” and let the energy flow. As someone once told me: “Water your garden without standing on the hose!”
So is the ego bad?
Absolutely not. The ego is your operating system, we may like your own personal “Windows 10”!
Your ego is essential and does a wonderful job of running things for you and organizing your mental and emotional resources to work for you.
But your inner “Windows 10” has one big fatal flaw, it creates and maintains the illusion that you are who you really are, and in doing so, cuts you off from your relationship with life energy.
The key is to balance the inner world of consciousness with the outer world of duality. You need your heart for one and your head for the other.
the ego is cunning
Your ego is smart and cunning because it will always be looking for ways to assert itself in all sorts of subtle and not-so-obvious ways.
Stuck in search syndrome
For example, over many years I have attended a lot of different spiritual groups and have heard people (often seasoned practitioners who really should know better) say things like: “One day in 10,000 lives, I hope to be enlightened..”
From in another context: “One day when I get to heaven, I hope to be more like Jesus.”
This is a clever ego deception because being caught up in the search is the biggest obstacle to present moment awareness. There is nothing of truth that we can find anywhere else except NOW right here in this present moment.
The ego paradox
To drop the ego effectively, you must have an ego to drop!
The healthier and more strongly developed your ego is, the more effectively you can drop it.
This may sound strange, but there is something that I have observed many times over the years within Buddhist groups and also within Christian groups and it is particularly prevalent among young adults.
The “wounded seeker” syndrome
It’s what I call the “wounded seeker syndrome.” What happens is that spiritual groups are usually welcoming and inclusive and therefore provide a safe haven for these poor souls who, for various reasons, have not yet learned to cope with life and have sought refuge in these circles. .
“There’s nothing wrong with that,” I hear you say, and to some extent you’re right, but the problem comes over time, usually several years, as these people develop a sense of self/ego that identifies strongly with a role within the group. limits of the group to which they are affiliated.
Unless wise and skillful leadership works with these people and guides them to the help they need, they never move and they don’t grow, and without a developed ego to give up, they fall apart when they try.
As paradoxical as it sounds, until you have a strong and well-developed ego, it is difficult and sometimes dangerous to try to drop your ego.
If you feel that this is where you are at the moment, I would strongly and lovingly recommend that you seek help if needed and deal with your unresolved issues first.
In order to give up everything you have to have everything to let go of in the first place!
But I am wary of dying to myself and abandoning the ego…
I understand your concern and maybe I can paraphrase it this way:
“It’s all very well to talk about all this stuff about giving up the ego or dying to self, but if I’m giving up control, if I’m not in control, who or what is it?
I could say you’ll never know until you do, but that probably won’t help you.
The truth is that this can only be experienced, and what you will be experiencing is framed differently depending on the spiritual expression within which you are practicing.
Within the Buddhist tradition, what you will experience is described as the “ground of all being” or “emptiness,” the consciousness that is beyond form and substance, the energy from which all things arise and in which they decay and recede.
I also want to offer another perspective that draws from the deep well of the Christian experience of The Energy of Life that expresses this experience as relationship.
One of the unique characteristics of the Christian approach is expressed in the sayings of Jesus and is experienced in the relational aspect of God as Father: a loving Father who cares for you and seeks relationship.
Two final thoughts:
“Whoever tries to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life will keep it”
“If you want to be given everything, leave everything”
Read more: Dying to self