Energetic Pukery

Image taken from Google Image search

Do you ever do something and then IMMEDIATELY afterwards you’re like, “Get me away from this, kind of right now”? With the exception of a few rambunctious years in my early 20s, I’ve always been pretty self-aware, however, more recently I’m noticing this energetic “thing” that occurs within myself – and I don’t know what to make of it. Allow me to paint you a picture.

So… I’m sitting in my living room doing a whole lot of nothing (usually reading) when I’m rather suddenly struck with this longing – intense desire and craving – for something. Could be anything. It might be Cadbury Eggs. It might be Doritos. It might be water. I usually sit with that craving for a minute or two. During this time a number of things could happen: I assess the effort needed to satisfy that desire, I assess whether that effort is something I care to put forth, I assess where that desire is coming from, etc… And then, often but not always, I take care of that longing. I go and get my fill of Easter Candy. I go eat many Dorito chips. I drink a bottle of water. Fine. Dandy, even.

But then something else happens, almost invariably, and regardless of the degree to which I engage in the aforementioned want. The closest mental-emotional label I think I can assign to what happens after would probably be aversion – but I’ll tell you right now that’s not the best fit. I long for the taste of Cadbury Eggs, so I eat one (or ten, the amount truly is irrelevant) and the desire is fulfilled and then right after that I feel very strongly that I want nothing to do with Cadbury Eggs. I don’t regret having eaten the one (or ten), and I’ll (probably) absolutely do it again if/when that feeling next arises, but no matter how many times it happens this is the pattern – predictable as the seasons. This applies to many things whether we’re talking work, food, sex, books, gardening, … you can just about name it. There are naturally a few exceptions, but all of those aside this is 100% applicable to any desire or want that hits me in this way. I want, perhaps very strongly, and then I do not want – at all. It’s quite like some kind of switch is flipped. Very clearly on, and then very clearly off.

I don’t really know what to make of it.

I don’t fight the craving or the want. I never really feel any form of regret or guilt because of it. I think what might be happening is that I am increasingly able to fully let go of the want that “attacked” me. I think this process is one where I’ve recognized when it arrives, I have a brief look at it, and then after (usually) engaging it I let it leave fully and cleanly.

It reminds me of what we’re advised in meditation which is not to fight thoughts that arise, just observe them and subsequently release them, or rather allow them to keep moving. My hopeful side says that this advice translates into this scenario regarding wants – I’m seeing it arise, I observe, I engage (which is an exception to the meditation advice), and then I release (I think this translates as realization that the usefulness has passed). Of course the release part is what’s trippy. And if I can continue to speculate, I’ll say that it’s not true aversion, but rather my conscious mind making something out of nothing – literally nothing, meaning the absence of the usual attachment to our wants and desires, and then trying to give that nothing a label.

But let’s suppose that I’m giving myself too much credit. Then what? I mean that question pretty much literally – if not the above, then what’s going on here? Why am I experiencing wants, sometimes quite intensely, and then upon satisfying them feeling no connection thereto? Maybe this is a silly thing to question.

Aum Shri Mahaganeshaya Namaha
Aum Shanti

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Sri Rudra

Earlier last week a coworker introduced me to a game / app that, depending on your phone is either free or very inexpensive. It’s called Plague, Inc. and it’s essentially a game of strategy. The game goes like this: You’re a disease (fungus, bacteria, virus, etc…you get to choose) and your goal is to spread throughout the planet employing various transmission methods, symptoms, and “abilities” until all of life on the planet is not only infected, but also extinguished.

I love this game right now and I may well have a temporary addiction to it. No joke.

I like the game because it’s based in potential reality and it makes you think and well… it’s fun. At the start, you go through a few steps to “build” your disease and this includes naming it. One of the first names I gave my disease was Kalki. This is the name of God’s “End of Days” avatar, for the not-so-really end of days. I thought it was fitting because I’ve read that it’s possible Kalki will come as a virus or something that will pretty much wipe out humanity at the end of the Kali Yuga.

Since I’m not very much of the vaishnav persuasion, I’ve switched the name of my disease to Rudra, a fierce form of Mahesh / Shiva. Since Kalki, being of Vishnu, comes more to restore / balance dharma on the planet and not so much to wipe the so-called slate (entirely) clean, it seems more fitting that one of Mahadev’s names would be used (at least by me). Mahadev is, after all, the one who’s dance brings actual, lasting balance as it eliminates the entirety of phenomenal good and phenomenal bad, the result of which is the Mahapralaya – when everything phenomenal and causal is finally given rest.

I can see, given that folks raise hell over our gods showing up increasingly in secular usage, that some would be offended by the idea that a devastating disease would be named after something holy. I’m not, although I did hesitate to share all of this because I know many non-saivas already have an inaccurate and incomplete understanding of Shiva to be that He’s primarily known for destruction – and even then the common understanding of that word, destruction, is misapplied. However, in regard to gods in secular settings, in my opinion this isn’t the same as putting god on a pair of socks or a bikini bottom. What do you think?

For your viewing pleasure I’ve included many shots of different parts of the game in its progression.

Aum Shri Mahaganeshaya Namaha
Aum Shanti

The Bad Good Guy

Taken from Google Image search

Everyone learns. Everyone has to. Necessarily, then, everyone has a teacher. Sometimes that teacher is a life event. Sometimes that teacher is a book with written wisdom. And sometimes that teacher is another human being. Life and our karmas provide us the type of teacher that we’re most likely to respond to, although as humans most of us have the same learning capacities regardless of the teaching method. Recognizing those teachers and those learning opportunities is another ball game, though. And appreciating those same things for what they bring falls in an entirely separate ball park altogether.

Along these lines, most people accept the value of “tough love” in some form or another. And regardless of how that “tough love” is defined, most people recognize that there are a great many people who are thick-skulled enough that tough love, which is often (but not always) synonymous with “the hard way,” is about the only way to get the lesson through. Basically, if you’re not good enough or responsible enough or otherwise smart enough to do what you ought to do, then you become a slave of sorts – to life’s current, your karmas, etc… The more “right” effort one exerts in his / her life, the more control he / she gains over the ability to transcend this current of life and his / her karmas. It’s a balancing act that is immensely tough for most in the beginning, but (only) with continued effort becomes progressively easier. Many times, too, people begin this journey actively but seem to run out of gas and end up with an “Ah, fuck it” kind of moment, after which they temporarily slack off. Whether they like it or not, this slacking can only ever be temporary before the natural way of things will force them to eventually face the music, so to speak.

A very challenging student (nearly hopeless?), in my opinion, is one who not only insists on learning the hard way or through tough love in its myriad manifestations, but then also refuses to value that approach when his / her karmas facilitate that. It’s literally like asking for a value meal by number and then throwing a tantrum when the packaged meal arrives – despite the fact that it’s exactly what was requested.

For many this hopeless approach is the default until a light goes off in their heart-of-hearts, however a truly wretched person indeed is one who continually attempts this and instead of eventually tackling the karmas they’ve done their damnedest to put off till later, still insists on not owning up. A particularly thankless variety of this kind of student will even go so far as to reach out to others to gain (faux) sympathy and to attempt to guilt whatever teaching medium was provided to them by life / their karmas. Surely, only the most ignorant and underdeveloped bites the hand that feeds it.

A silver lining here is that these kind of so-called students (I say “so-called” because the label of student implies actual or attempted learning.) provide human teachers the chance to test their own patience, ego, and teaching proficiency. All things being equal, though, surely the journey for such a soul, while not being any longer in distance than any other soul, will be unquestionably more painful, challenging, and miserable.

To all my teachers I extend my deepest gratitude and apologies for any struggle on my part. To any students being taught by Life through my own words or deeds, all the grace that is mine to give I gladly forward to you.

Aum Shri Mahaganeshaya Namaha
Aum Shanti

Guilty Programming

Art by Sanjay Patel

Through The Wormhole with Morgan Freeman often is on my television often eveningly. Most of the time I don’t get to enjoy any of what’s on my television, let alone something as useful as this show – I’m (almost) eternally buried in school work. However, in an effort to spend more time near my beloved, I’ve been spending less time in my temple room and instead have been doing assignments on the first floor, in the dining room which connects to the family room where the only TV we own is situation centrally.

I’ve found, far more often than not, that Through The Wormhole is essentially Hindu in nature. In many episodes, no joke, the same laws of physics or… well, anything, the things that are discussed are eerily similar to the notions and concepts put forth by Sanatana Dharma. A recent episode was no exception. Icing on the cake however, was that a segment of the episode reminded me closely of a conversation I had with someone some time ago.

During our talk, he mentioned something about impure thoughts and working through them. Now, I’ll leave you to whatever conclusion you’re most inclined to regarding the definition of what an impure thought might be. Our talk included whether impure thinkery would affect one’s karmas.

I do think our thoughts ultimately affect our karmas. However, my take from the beginning was that impure thoughts don’t really exist. Lemme share…

1) Thoughts are just thoughts. Like literally anything else, the perceived goodness or evilness of a thought or anything else depends entirely on the one doing the perceiving. This is supported by quantam physics believe it or not. A recent article I came across on Facebook can be accessed here, and in plain English details that even “solid” matter only behaves they way it does when it’s being observed. To be sure, your table is only a table so long as consciousness is “watching” it be a table. Otherwise it not only becomes part of “everything everywhere,” but also literally flickers in and out of existence.

Thoughts are no different. Their flavor and indeed their very existence depends on them being observed. And when a human mind is being used as the tool to do that observing, you end up with “good” and “bad” because the human mind is a programmable thing that comes with all kinds of preconceptions.

This is why so many people ruin their own meditations. They struggle to sit back and watch the inside of their mind. For one, they think they are the mind. This is the first and biggest problem. If original sin exists, and is truly passed from parent to child going back to Adam and Eve, THIS is it. For another, they instantly become frustrated when a thought arises, because the preconceived notion of what meditation is starts a fire that every following thought ends up fueling. This is what happens when someone tries to make meditation happen. Interestingly, those thoughts are neither natural fuel for that fire, nor automatic. We label them as “bad” instead of letting them arise and fall away, and in doing so add them to the fire. Thoughts are just thoughts. None are inherently good or bad, and even after you label them thusly, they still aren’t truly either. Jnana Yoga is this realization in one’s life – it opens the way for a foundation to be set, it allows for progression from that starting point to occur, and Jnana is verily the culmination of full realization.

2) When we misidentify, we add those thoughts to the fire by labeling them good or bad… or impure. Whenever we do this, THAT’S the first chance they have to manifest within our karmas. Prior to that there’s no impression of those thoughts upon us. These impressions are known as Samsaras. Samsaras are like groves on the wheel of death and rebirth. Truly, regardless of how minimal or severe those groves are, a grove is a grove and it still needs buffed out. These groves are the karmas we experience. Being able to identify those groves specific of your karmas/karmic wheel is a part of Jnana yoga. Part of Jnana yoga means looking upon them with Truth as your light and as your sight, and this results in no longer making a mountain out of a molehill … or no longer calling impure something that has no actuality. When you manage to stop this you are resolving your karmas and may finally exit the wheel of death and rebirth.

This is actually something I could go on and on about. The Jnana texts are full of this kind of wisdom, shedding light on the nature of Reality. It’s never wrong to call a spade a spade, but deciding whether a spade is malevolent or beneficent… or impure – that’s where we often get ourselves into trouble.

ॐ असतो मा सद्गमय ।
तमसो मा ज्योतिर्गमय ।
मृत्योर्मा अमृतं गमय ।
ॐ शान्तिः शान्तिः शान्तिः ॥

My sincerest hope is that we can all learn to be free from the baggage we’ve inherited and so far have mostly either refused to question or been to lazy to question.

Aum Shri Mahaganeshaya Namaha
Aum Shanti

Ugly Face

Taken from Google Image search

As a Jnani and aspiring Jnanayogi, a significant part of my work is to recognize my ego in all its subtle forms. There are days when I’m on top of my game and not a thing slips by. And, as could be expected, there are days when I fall flat on my face, stand up, and fall flat on my face again. As frustrating as that can be, and as damaging as that can be to one’s confidence in his sadhana, in times like those I remind myself of the Bhagavad Gita’s message that no effort is wasted and no worship unaccepted.
Recently (Monday night) I really struggled.

You see, my Beloved takes FOREVER to do his laundry. Always. Without exception. I scramble to get all my clothing, our bed clothes, and towels all washed and dried before he attempts to start on his own because I know that once he starts it’ll take him – no joke – the better part of three whole days to complete the task. This is in part due to the enormous wardrobe he maintains and in part due to his inclination to sit in front of the television and lose track of time. Knowing this, and respecting it, I requested that my current favorite hoodie be tossed into the dryer with some of his wet clothing to kind of refresh it until I’ll once again have access to our machines. He obliged. Here’s where the drama enters.

I wrongly assumed that, once that load was done in the dryer, he would kindly hand my hoodie for me. A while later, he was in our laundry room switching loads and was in the process of pulling that same load from the dryer when I entered to tell him something funny I’d just seen on television. It was then that I noticed that not only had he neglected to kindly hang my hoodie for me, but the garment was piled upon itself on top of the dryer in front of him and becoming increasingly crumpled by the folded shirts he was beginning to pile on top of it.

And now Josh’s feelings are hurt.

I made a comment that he should have hanged it. I hanged it. And then I threw a small tantrum as I cut my story off, hastily collected my things and went upstairs – making sure he was aware of my displeasure. This is where it all gets somewhat messy. I always treat his things with high respect and take care so as not to damage them or do anything with/to them that he wouldn’t do or wouldn’t want done. This is the Golden Rule, right? It’s also being a good Hindu. You see, in the same way that nature should be greatly respected because it belongs to The One and indirectly represents that One, the items my Beloved owns and cares about are similarly (somewhat) representations of him. It’s like taking care of books you own because you love goddess Saraswati – books bring you knowledge, and in that way bring you to Her (or bring Her to you). To deface books, is to slap Her in the face. And so, because I would never slap my Beloved in his face, I care for his things without being asked.

So why doesn’t he automatically show the same care for my things – especially when he knows I’ll bitch big time when he doesn’t? Earlier that same night I’d discovered that when he placed baskets of dirty clothes on top of the washer, he’s pushed by gym bag off to a hard-to-access place behind the machine and left it there. The bag is now damaged, actually.

Part of me is hurt that he doesn’t automatically show me the same care that I show him with these things. A part of me expects to receive the same considerate care that I afford him – not because I hope for it in return for what I’ve given (that would obviously be attachment to karmaphala), but because that care should (in theory) be coming from him to begin with – at the same time I’m giving to him. Does that make sense? Whether you think that’s still karmaphala or not, that expectation or hope, rather, is still not an expression of love. The cynical part of me wonders if he’s doing that on purpose because I’d done something else to piss him off – pay back, right? I doubt that because he’s not a malicious person, generally.

Whenever this situation arises (and it has more than once over the last 9+ years we’ve been together), I experience LOTS of thoughts and emotions that would generally be considered unpleasant. Mind you, I don’t care about the hoodie, or the gym bag. I care that he cares – or that he doesn’t. Interestingly, as the years have passed I’ve developed the ability to realize I’m aware enough to be able to recognize these thoughts and emotions as “not me,” but I still feel less in control of them than I should be. I mean to say that I’m aware that I’m aware. This happens when I sleep, too, but that’s a whole other ball of yarn. If I were as much in control as I think I should be, if I were as aware as I think I should be, I would be able to circumvent this drama altogether. Oh the tumultuous bliss of being human!

It’s a strange experience to recognize this internal cyclone as something not yourself. Strange, but good. It gives that whirling energy an identity of its own – which I suppose it already had. After all, that energetic identity being mistaken for my real identity is part of the illusion/delusion of Maya.

So, what does all this mean? I’m not sure I know exactly. I feel like it means that I’m progressing, despite my occasional tantrums. I think it also means that these tantrums bring additional opportunity to be the witness – I’m still unable to manage the energy that manifests the tantrum to begin with, but I’m increasingly able to “disconnect” from that energy instead of being caught up or lost in it, as many people are. Hopefully, this means that I’m progressing toward increased mastery of those emotions, even if only indirectly. I’ll focus on what I perceive to be the silver lining with this, which is that a person less influenced by his emotions than he once was, is that much less reactive and proportionately more on top of his karmas in that context.

It’s awfully deep for a fit thrown over a hoodie, I’ll admit. But it’s increased wisdom, no less, and I’ll take that where I can get it.

Om Shri Mahaganeshaya Namaha
Om Shanti

Rime-n-Reezun

Image taken from Google Image search

Two times in the last 48hrs I’ve encountered things from freinds who were in one way or another kind of questioning the “why” behind certain actions. I think this is important and wanted to post briefly on this.

I recall from when I was a child some discussion with my mom or maybe overhearing her remark about something… the lesson was, if you’re not grown enough to talk about your actions without embarassment, you probably shouldn’t be performing those actions. Agreed.

Embarassment doesn’t pertain to what either of my friends were dealing with (one was writing about tilak/bindu application and the other about wearing a brahmin thread/upanayan and having to explain it to his significant other), but there’s an underlying principle at work in all of these contexts – know why you’re doing anything you’re doing as well as why or why not you should be doing it.

The friend writing about tilak application touched on this. He mentioned wearing it out and abouty, including at work where it would be a bit out of place for him. He also mentioned other outward expressions – like wearing an Om pendant on the outside of one’s shirt – and how that kind of thing is sometimes perceived. He also mentioned applying tilak with a mostly invisible substance, knowing it was there although no one else did. I think that’s brilliant.

The other friend indicated that he wears the brahmin thread and that his spouse was having a hard time understanding why. A number of questions were asked this friend by many who noticed the post. On the surface, it seemed as though this “brahmin” didn’t actually know why he himself wore the threads. After more dialogue, it turns out that the spouse in question might be demanding a logic-based reason for wearing the threads – which will remain debatable. Otherwise, it’s a fairly cut-and-dry matter and an explanation should be relatively easy to provide by someone wearing the garment. I remain not entirely convinced that the person wearing the brahmin’s thread actually knows every in-and-out as he should, or perhaps he’s just a poor communicator when it comes to this stuff and talking about it with his spouse. Any which way, the numbers don’t quite add up as they should in my opinion. I’m thinking that someone demanding a logic-based reason for this samskar could receive a full answer from someone wearing the thread and would fill the rest of the blanks in for himself. That is, unless the spouse is a bit unreasonable to begin with and might be looking for reason where there is none, and refusing to accept anything else.

Whether you’re talking tilaks or threads, it’s all the same – the what simply doesn’t suffice, unless you’re cool with looking like a shallow doofus. You’ve got to know something’s why as well as that why’s implications, or you probably shouldn’t be doing it. It’s part of what sets the reals from the wannabes.

Om Shri Ganeshaya Namaha
Om Shanti

That Which Comes After Sweetest

I said in an earlier post that knowing the what or even the how doesn’t suffice for me. For myself, knowledge must be thorough and as all-encompassing as is possble. This is probably because Jnana Yoga is my path, and probably is the very reason Jnana Yoga is my path.

Here’s what I think I’ve shared with you so far…

So very much of our functioning in life centers around egoic identification. Some of this is practical, like using words such as “I” as a simple reference point. Most of this, however, surpasses practicality and is really where we get into trouble. Instead of using personal possessive pronouns as reference points in life, we become forgetful and convince ourselves that our beloved reference points are actual extentions of ourselves and when those reference points are “relocated” or our relationship to them is otherwise adjusted we experience misery – much as when a relationship ends and we crash and burn. Because of this usual occurence, people do more often than not serve as the tentacles of our ego.

Ego is about as close to being any devil as there ever was, and while “people” as they are, are not necessarily ego, our identification with them – something that’s literally impossible to avoid because of how we’re created and raised – is securely based in ego (in the I-thought, and consequently associated with me, my, and mine).

But this isn’t all bad. Obviously, this outlet for our ego is likewise an effective medium for us to experience profound connection and love, and I do believe that others in our lives are very often Love’s manifestion, and on that note it becomes apparent (and rather full-circle) that the Source of love in our life is likewise linked to the pain experienced. That connection, of course, is that the pain experienced is technically an act of sweet grace from the all-pervasive Love. We’re afforded (sometimes) wonderful people in our lives (sometimes not-so-wonderful) to serve as extensions of our ego – to cause ego flares.

Little by little, it’s only through these ego flares that sweet grace-bestowing Shivashakti works on and with us so that little by little we suddenly arrive at a place within that literally transcends ego/anava mala, and we find ourselves in the unfoldment of consciousness, otherwise known as Self-Realization. People are an extension of our egos, as a grace-filled act of God, precisely to facilitate the maturation and intensification of our anava mala/ego – without which liberation for us is at least 1/3 impossible.

So there you have it. Ego in a nutshell of around 3200 words. I’m sorry to have made you read through all of it, but I hope you see what I’m trying to communicate to you, my dear reader. As a thank-you for reading this far, I’d like to share a video below of a song that struck me once while at the gym. The song repeats “I love you” about a billion times. That phrase, as well as the beautiful souls interacting sweetly in the video suits everything I intended to convey in this series: Others are a sweet, sweet, part of our egos.

Om Shri Mahaganeshaya Namaha
Om Shanti

Sweetest Satan

Image taken from Ananta Vrindavan Images

Hinduism Today magazine has long been one of my favorite publications. It’s a wonderful and credible source of Hindu vidya, and although the publication was founded by monks from a Shaivite lineage, the magazine itself often contains considerable information pertaining to many of Hinduism’s other sects. The magazine is officially Shaivite, but I think most readers would find it actually quite Smarta. The lineage leading up to the modern day Saiva Siddhanta Church is old and very much intact, and the fact that it manages to have such an immense and open presence here in the West, while remaining so very orthodox is great. For a while I saved every issue, and then as an act of nonattachment I stopped, and now I am again. Some issues carry more weight than others, but every single issue is my favorite issue.

In the most recent issue of the magazine published, there’s an article titled, “From Bondage to Liberation: Explaining the ego’s initial subjugation of the soul as a form of Shiva’s grace.” It couldn’t have come at a better time, considering the formation of these posts, and I feel it offers a warm-n-fuzzy feeling or silver lining to the information presented leading up to this post. I hope you agree.

Grace is a funny religious term. I don’t like it usually. Same goes with the notion of mercy. For one, the difference between the two is often poorly understood (as with myself) or misunderstood entirely (as with many people, in general). The simplest definition of grace that I’ve been able to find is “unmerited favor,” which pretty closely matches my current understanding. The connotation is one of doing something nice for someone even though they don’t necessarily deserve it. There’s nothing inherently wrong in that notion, as far as I’m concerned, but I don’t really understand God to operate in that kind of mode. To me, to suppose God shows grace to humans is rather negating to the concept of karma, which itself is fairly supreme. I can see gurus showing grace and mercy, and in some cases I think this is exhibited in the form of the guru mitigating a devotee’s karmas for the advancement of that devotee. But I digress.

So… back to ego and grace and Hinduism Today’s Satguru Bodhinath Veylanswami. According to the article in this issue of the magazine, egoity is named “anava mala.” According to the Mrigendra Agama, anava mala is the “individualizing veil; egoity.” Also according to this Agama, the grace of Shivashakti is bestowed upon not only sentient beings, but also upon “inert things,” and this acts as an intensifier to that anava mala.

Superficially, this sounds counterintuitive. Why would God’s grace intensify our egoity? To be clear, the Mrigendra Agam clarifies, “…but not with the intention of making the soul suffer. Whatever action is done by Lord Shiva, it is indeed and effective and unfailing help to the soul. It cannot be considered otherwise.” The text continues, detailing that liberation cannot happen until the anava mala is removed entirely.

“But even when the power of anava mala becomes ripe for such maturation, its intensification does not, and cannot, take place of its own accord. It is seen that always and by all means, the non-intelligent object, in this case the ego, is kept in action only by an intelligent being,” states the Mrigendra Agama. The Agama then likens all of this to a physician who’s applying a stinging medicine to a wound. The sting is technically painful to the patient, but certainly for his own good. Later, the Agama continues, “Even so, for the sake of the removal of anava mala, the experiences should not be considered as afflicting or aggravating activity, but rather as healing, for they drive the soul’s evolution through the understanding born of its experiences.”

“Since Shiva is all-pervasive, His immediate and active presence in all objects and beings cannot be set aside. But where there is no need for His action, He remains neutral and free from any action… For those souls in whom anava mala is reaching its phase of maturation and removal, Shivashakti descends immediately and unfolds in the form of grace. Grace is indeed the compassionate function which makes the intensities of anava mala’s bonds ripe enough for removal.”

Later on we’re explained that a specific form of Shakti manifests to help the loosening of the ego through intensification. “Tirodhana shakti is a pure and asupicious power, which takes command of and works in concord with the ego’s obscuring potencies in order to sytematically work through them.”

This deep and metaphysical explaination closes with, “Grace is, in actuality, the cognitive power of the bound soul brought about by its evolution through the ego’s dominion and the maturing process of the inert bond. The simultaneous occurance of cognition and the ego’s intensification is considered to be the bestowal of grace” and that this explanation applies identically with the preponderant states of karma and maya, the soul’s other two bonds (anava mala being the third bond of the soul preventing liberation).

Certainly by now, your head may be swimming. Fair enough. But where do we stand? I’m feeling like it might be appropriate to bring this post to a close and attempt a summary in another. Of course, why not have skipped all these many words and just cut right to the summary? It’s not my style. The friend who’s been mentioned before in these posts encouraged me to write a paragraph of 20 words. It made me chuckle. 20 words isn’t a paragraph (for me). It’s a sentence.

One more post. Then I’m done. I promise.

Om Shri Mahaganeshaya Namaha
Om Shanti

Sweeter Satan

Taken from Google Images, “Ego”

As I mentioned in the last post, I believe that other people are indeed often extentions of one’s ego. I intend to explain in this post and perhaps another post or two why I believe that. As I mentioned in the last post, a certain friend has often been the impetus for posts here on Sthapati. It was similarly his idea that I break this information into multiple posts instead of slamming you all with the book this is turning out to be.

Also mentioned in the last post, in addition to that friend, were other sources of knowledge and guidance I draw from on this subject – and many others. I’ll start now with sharing some material directly from Tolle’s, A New Earth:

“In normal everyday usage, ‘I’ embodies the primordial error, a misperception of who you are, an illusory sense of identity. This illusory sense of self is what Albert Einstein, who had deep insights not only into the reality of space and time, but also into human nature, referred to as ‘an optical illusion of consciousness.’ That illusory self then becomes the basis for all further interpretations, or rather misinterpretations, of reality… If you recognize an illusion as illusion, it dissolves. The recognition of illusion is also its ending. Its survival depends on your mistaking it for reality… What you usually refer to when you say ‘I’ is not who you are. By a monstrous act of reductionism, the infinite depth of who you are is confused with a sound produced by the vocal cords or the thought of ‘I’ in your mind and whatever the ‘I’ has identified with…”

He goes on to explain a person growing up and becoming identified with the I-thought, “When a young child learns that a sequence of sounds produced by the parents’ vocal cords is his or her name, the child begins to equate a word, which in the mind becomes a thought, with who he or she is. At that stage, some children refer to themselves in the third person…Soon after, they learn the magic word ‘I’ and equate it with their name, which they have already equated with who they are. Then other thoughts come and merge with the original I-thought. The next steps are thoughts of me and mine to designate things that are somehow part of ‘I.’ … When ‘my’ toy breaks or is taken away, intense suffering arises. Not because of any intrinsic value that the toy has, but because of the thought of “mine.” As the child grows up, the original I-thought attracts other thoughts to itself: It becomes identified with a gender, possessions, the sense-perceived body, a nationality, race, religion, profession. Other things the ‘I’ identifies with are roles – mother, father, husband, wife, and so on… Most of the time it is not you who speaks when you say or think ‘I’ but some aspect of that mental construct, the egoic self. Once you awaken you still use the word ‘I,’ but it will come from a much deeper place within yourself.”

Tolle continues a little later to detail how identification is one of the most basic structures through which the ego comes into existence. Apparently, the word identification derives from two Latin words, idem meaning “same,” and facere which means “to make.” So when I identify with something, I “make it the same.” All of this can be somewhat tough to follow if you’re not used to diving deep, but if you’re a nut like me who does nothing without diving deep, this stuff is like gold. For me it’s never enough to know the what or even the how, but the why is also mandatory.

When I came to this world, like anyone else I was in bit of a fog. Through repetition and some basic infantile cognition, “I” came to know that Josh = my body, and later began expanding that association – no, that identification – outside of my personal borders. Suddenly, instead of just me being “I,” there’s now my things, my accomplishments, and …my beloved. From a purely linguistic standpoint, there’s nothing wrong with using words like I, me, my, or mine. Much like having the right tools to get a job done, personal and possessive pronouns are required to communicate relative ideas. From that strictly utilitarian perspective, there’s nothing egoic about those identifiers.

Problems arise when, as the Latins implied, I begin to equate (“make the same”) stuff that’s not really me with my actual Self. The person identified (see how this words arises, time after time?) as my beloved is essentially nondifferent from my Self. We’re from the same Source, we have the same Self, and we’re headed toward the same Destination. Just about anything else is ego, is Maya. In truth, if something were to happen to him/his body, I would be no less. It’s because of my identification with him that the idea of or experience of his leaving causes misery – my ego percieves the notion of “my” beloved leaving as some kind of attack on me. If Truth or Reality is eternal, there’s no logical way we can say that the body or personality of our loved ones or of other people are “real.” The stuff our bodies and thoughts are made of existed as other substances before their current form, and after this all-too-brief human existence, those same stuffs will decompose. The actual Truth of that situation – which every single soul will encounter at least once in life – is that regardless of physical manifestation, there’s never any difference in actual distance between us and Love. We see our beloved’s form, we identify with it – literally that form becomes “my” beloved, the identification means my ego/mind perceive “my beloved” as an extension of who I am, and so when my beloved leaves – in whatever form that might take – I am miserable, because I’ve already ignorantly tricked myself into fully believing that a part of me is lost. Much like an arm being cut off.

Taken from Google Images

It’s because of this, that Hinduism has done so much exploration on the nature of the human’s internal landscape as well as other components like attachment. What are we really attached to? The ego is the object and the subject of all attachment. The ego is like a habit of smoking cigarettes – it’s both the problem and the apparent solution. Smoking causes issues which stress people out, and then it manages to fool people into feeling relieved when they smoke because of stress – which only causes additional problems for the smoker. The ego does the very same. We’re fooled into thinking something based in the original problem is ever part of the solution. We develop attachments to distract the mind from the ego, because as Tolle states, exposing an illusion disolves it. Our Self has no attachments, because all that truly is, is the Self – without going into it too much, this knowledge is precisely the foundation of Jnana Yoga, leads directly to experiential awareness of the One, and is why I can’t adhere primarily to bhakti margs, which for their own existence (at least at the level practiced and experienced by most humans) necessarily mandate, perpetuate, and promote the notion of “other” – which is a tool the ego uses to continue its own existence.

***If you haven’t gathered by now, the common application of the word “ego” isn’t nearly the complete definition of the word. Most equate ego with arrogance, but many humble people are still filled to the brim with egoism.***

But there may be some silver lining to this cloud, after all. According to the current issue of Hinduism Today magazine, Satguru Bodhinath Veylanswami explains through a Shaiva Agama how the ego is a tool of the One, meant to help us.

All that and a bucket of chicken coming up!

Om Shri Mahaganeshaya Namaha
Om Shanti

Sweet Satan

Taken from Ek Akshara/Facebook

After a recent post here, a friend (who’s been inspiration for a number of posts on Sthapati) suggested that other people aren’t actually extensions of one’s ego. I think he’s right, but in the rarest sense.

Most of the time, for most humans, others are an extension of the ego. Parents live vicariously through their children. Spouses develop codependencies, sometimes because their sense of self is so deeply reliant upon another. People often identify politically because of how they feel they relate to the politician representing certain views or goals. Quite often in life actually, and in many other arenas, people are an extension of one’s ego. Sometimes that means relative dysfunction, but far more often it’s a simple part of operating in this world – and it begins before we even cognitively recognize that we’re here.

For me Eckhart Tolle is a modern yogi. The man is shanti-incarnate and is one heck of a Jnanaguru. It doesn’t matter what he’s saying or talking about, for me, it’s impossible to listen to his voice and not be nearly blissed out. Please trust me, any person looking to change his own life would do well to study A New Earth. It’s not an enormous book, only about 310 pages, but the content is immense and makes wonderful protein for your brain and soul. I’m currently on my second time reading A New Earth, (the first time took me nearly a year!) and I find it even more valuable than the first time. To be sure, it was groundshaking the first time, but the content requires so much mental mastication (for me, to get the actual value), that unless you read it more than once you’re almost certain not to fathom fully all that you should from it.

At any rate, among the many jewels found within A New Earth, an excellent explanation of ego, its foundation, formation, perpetuation is laid out. If I were ever again to admit the valid existence of any notion like Satan or The Devil, which I do not on any serious level, I could only do so within the context of the ego. But, surprisingly for anything associated with The Devil, things aren’t all doom and gloom.

In the upcoming posts, please allow me to share more than a little in regard to all of this. I’ll be pulling from Tolle, my personal experience, and another source of spiritual guidance which I’ve found to be indespensible through the years: Hinduism Today magazine, specifically the current issue which places an oddly but sweetly graceful spin on the idea of ego & its purpose.

Stay with me here, and as always, your input or observances are welcome.

Om Shri Mahaganeshaya Namaha
Om Shanti