Ego gives you the sense of individuality in the physical world; it allows you to perceive things as separate from you, shaping your perception as you accumulate experiences, and makes you think things like, “This is me, this is mine,” and “I am this way or that way,” allowing you to express the individuality of your soul. But this I-sense is an illusion that also isolates you and gets in the way of the freedom and peace you yearn for.
In spiritual terms, the ego is a virtual construct of the mind resulting from the identification with the physical senses; it can’t exist on its own, like the other energy layers that configure your individual soul and continue your journey when the physical body dies. It is shaped anew at each incarnation with past impressions accumulated in the subconscious or causal body of the soul. A new incarnation means a new ego, but once it’s formed, during the first 7-year cycle of life, it gets fixed with past unresolved issues and tendencies (reactivated during childhood), to take control of your perception.
You experience most things through the ego-mind, going from pleasure to pain, through desires and attachments, facing the issues you came to heal or resolve, and looking for peace and happiness outside of yourself. That is, until your struggles nudge you strongly enough to seek something more permanent and real. Healing can only happen when this false I-sense is replaced by love. In other words, when you surrender the ego to the spiritual forces animating life, to realize your true nature.
But this is not an easy nor a quick process, because we’re all identified with our ego-mind. How can I perceive myself, know myself, heal myself without this mind that helps me understand and process and choose things? How can I experience things and interact with others and accomplish my goals without it? And how can I express my individuality if I don’t have this identity that separates me from the outside?
Well, the truth is that there’s no separation: your life is a projection of your mind and the world is a projection of the collective mind you’re part of as well. But the mind is a tool that allows you to experience things, make decisions, and take action; it’s not the real YOU, so it cannot make you feel truly connected to yourself until you utilize it to access deeper aspects of your soul. Your thoughts, emotions, beliefs, memories, desires, and tendencies are simply energy fluctuations you can believe, identify with, and act upon—or not.
Relinquish Ego To Divine Love
There is a story of an Indian cowherd boy who’d take his family’s cows to the meadows every morning. Then he’d bring them back to the shed at the end of the day, tying them up to individual posts to prevent them from roaming around. One evening, as he was tying them up for the night, he noticed that one of his cows was missing her rope. He feared the animal would run away, but since it was too late to buy a new rope he sought the advice of an older man who lived nearby. The wise man instructed the boy to pretend to tie the cow, making sure the cow saw him do it.
The young cowherd did as the man suggested, pretending to tie the cow as if he actually held a rope in his hands. The next morning, when he came to take the cows to the meadows, as usual, he noticed that the cow he had tied up with an imaginary rope had remained in the shed throughout the night.
He proceeded to untie all the cows, and one by one they all went outside, except for the one with the missing rope, who remained completely still; she just stood there, on the same spot she had been all night. The boy tried to coax her to join the herd, but she wouldn’t budge. Perplexed, he went back to the person he had consulted the night before. This time the man told him, “The cow believes she’s still tied up. Now you must pretend to untie her.” The boy did as he was told, and the cow happily left the cowshed.
Ego works in the same way. It pushes forth thoughts, emotions, and beliefs you get attached to, even if they’re not real or true. Perhaps a situation or a person awakens a painful memory, an old pattern of perception, or an illusion you’ve kept hidden. Or maybe your resistance to grow gets triggered when you seek to experience or learn something new, taking any form it needs to stop you from stepping out of a fixed identity—the egoic self-image you’ve been unconsciously tied to, like the cow in the story, since childhood.
The power of ego comes from your soul, which at its core is the Pure Consciousness (of God) projected into the mind; this allows Consciousness to become aware of the world it creates. But once identified with the physical senses, the ego-mind has access to all your files, both conscious and unconscious, and all your soul memories. As your soul brings forth the path you’re meant to navigate to heal, ego also pushes its fixed perception—through the creative power of your soul—to color your reality and stop any attempt to free yourself from its control: it keeps you emotionally stuck in the child archetype.
Just think of how you get bombarded with thoughts or distractions when you try to establish a meditation practice, which is one of the most effective ways to quiet the mind and dissolve ego, clearing a pathway for Consciousness to manifest through you. This is the love, peace, and happiness you yearn for, which are different qualities of the same substance you’re made of: they’re your true nature, the real YOU you may have glimpses of when you’re enjoying something or feeling love, compassion, gratitude, and faith.
Nurture those qualities rather than relying on the mind or physical senses to dictate how to act and react in the world. In a word, disbelieve the mind, it’s a trickster, a liar, a bully keeping you trapped in the past, and nurture silence. All your fears, obstacles, and troubles are aspects of ego, whether they have to do with relationships, money, success, health, spiritual aspirations, or anything else. Replace ego with love and humility, to find the inner peace and contentment leading to real freedom and overall well being. Trust that you’re always guided and supported from within, to discover how powerful your soul is, but accept external guidance and support, to dispel the fears and illusions blocking your clarity—your blind spots.
When you tap into the subtle aspects of who you are and have always been, by relinquishing the control of the mind to the intelligence and openness of your heart, and shift the familiar perception of yourself and others with honesty and compassion, you will experience the joy and love waiting to be released from within, like the cow of the story. So contact me today to understand how your ego is directing your life-movie and learn tools to reclaim the power of your perception to shape a life (or spiritually-based business) in alignment with the true YOU!
© 2017 Yol Swan. All rights reserved.
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