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

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A Christian kind of Hindu

The other day a friend posted to Facebook a quote by Jiddu Krishnamurti. The focus of the quote was nonviolence, often translated as ahimsa. According to Krishnamurti, just about any identification meant trying to separate ourselves from others, which he perceives to be a form of violence. And so, to say you’re a Hindu or a Christian is a violent act because it creates a split between you and those not identifying as Christian or Hindu- or, more generally, between the identity you assign yourself and any different identity someone else might happen to be inclined toward in their own way. I suppose on a super subtle level, I agree. The Jnana involved here is something I align with, and I also think this mostly clicks with Raja Yoga as well. I think, though, that this over-simplification verges on theoretical negation of other paths like Bhakti and possibly Karma. With that in mind, and within the context of living in the three-dimensional realm, from where I’m composing this right now, I mostly disagree. I’ll try to explain. Wish me luck.

 

1) I think violence, in the strictest definition of the term, is generally inescapable (and is inescapable only in the context of this very strict definition) – after all, the necessary act of breathing kills! Having said that, I don’t think violence (again, in the strictest sense of the word) is inherent in life or in creation. It’s often unavoidable, but not necessarily automatic. That might sound contradictory, but to me it isn’t. Life is neither coming nor going; it simply is. As such it isn’t phenomenal. Because it isn’t essentially phenomenal, but does manifest phenomenally, violence is able to be both inescapable and not inherent. Truly, it’s Sat-Chit-Anand. Brahman. It’s these kinds of seeming contradictions that make Hinduism so inherently balanced. In many (most?) other paths, things are black OR white, which lends itself to lop-sidedness and possibly extremism. But within my faith things are often black AND white, thus a more reasonable, balanced, and accepting/tolerant approach.

Back to the quote and a few of my earlier assertions… If violence were inherent in phenomenal life, Gandhi’s mission would have been an entire waste. Additionally, violence (strictly defined, or not) is usually associated with some form of destruction. And unless we’re discussing material existence, which would mean our topic should be attachment (not unity), not only does science teach that energy/life is never actually created or destroyed, but also it doesn’t reason well that life would be well-sustained within material existence if destruction/violence were inherent to its essence.

If this were the case (if violence/destruction were inherent), Vishnu wouldn’t have been named The Preserver. In fact, with the realization that literally everything we do likely causes some form of harm or destruction, Vishnu COULDN’T have been named The Preserver or The Sustainer, because in that context preserving/sustaining would be impossible. However, our immediate physical universe seems to be holding together pretty reasonably, and we believe the same about our spiritual skies, so I’m inclined to reason that Sri Vishnu is doing just fine and that violence isn’t as inherent as it might seem at first glance. This is the first exception I take with Krishnamurti’s quote. It’s too much of a generalization and round-aboutly negates the function of Sri Vishnu. I ain’t havin’ it.

2) Another thing I think Krishnamurti doesn’t consider in this case is that ahimsa doesn’t simply mean violence. It also means aggression. And because of this additional layer of meaning, typical of Sanskrit words, a number of other variables in existence open up to us. Contrary to Krishnamurti-ji’s claim, it’s quite possible to assert that I’m a Hindu without the assertion being an act of violence, so much as an act of Bhakti. Bhakti doesn’t work well at all without identification, which is what Krishnamurti’s words in this case hinge on. At a bare minimum, the positions of the adorer and the Adored must be established, or a relationship of devotion is nearly impossible to forge. And even if my own Self is the object of my devotion, saying “Namastu te” still involves identification. At face value, there’s nothing inherently violent in this process/act, and the process of walking the path of bhakti can’t really begin until one identifies both roles.

I will allow, that more often than not, when Christians and Muslims make a definitive assertion regarding their faith, it is something that indeed could be viewed as an act of violence. Christians proudly proclaim that their guru/avatar Jesus, is THE Way. Likewise, the Islamic equivalent of the Christian Sinner’s Prayer, “Laa ilaha il-Allah, wa Mahammad ur-Rasool Allah,” boldly states not only that The God is the only god (which is actually pretty much just common sense), but also that Muhammad (the Muslim guru, but not avatar) is God’s final messenger to humanity. When we consider these authentically exclusive religions, I can definitely agree that identifying one’s self as an adherent is veritably an act of violence. In my opinion, these religions actually prove Krishnamurti right because it’s very difficult indeed to join those religions, specifically, and not subscribe to the Us-versus-Them identification Krishnamurti is hinting at. The incredible amount of exclusivity alone-just in joining!- seems to constitute violence.

As with many things, I consulted my beloved to get his take on exactly what behaviors define violence. His answer was that (most) actions alone aren’t enough designate violence, but that intention plays a significant role as well. He did, also, carry the opinion that speech alone isn’t usually enough to “be” violent. So, from where he stands, actions are violent depending on their intent- something that occurs easily enough. Violence in speech, though, is a tougher matter.

For me, all things are connected and evolve together. Thoughts often become speech. And the two often heavily influence our actions. Asserting something isn’t automatically violent, but rather depends on the thought patterns which were foundational to that speech.

And there you have it.

Om Shanti