What Power Does the Ego Have?

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Friday, 29 January 2010 19:12 Written by Nirmala

In response to yesterday's post, Half the Truth, I received a follow-up question:

Thanks for your answer. It is an honor that you put this conversation on your blog, but, please don't put my name and my e-mail eddress on there.

Now, you said "The ego wants to create what it wants regardless of what Being wants".

But my questions are: Does the ego have the power to create what it wants to be, have and do ? Does the ego have the power to block the natual flowing of life through me ? Or can the ego only create psychological suffering or happiness, but it does not have the power to block the flow of life or  to create what it wants ?

Here is my response:

As a rule, I will not include anyone's  name or email on here without their permission.

And as for your follow up questions, it is not a matter of yes or no. It is more a matter of degree. The ego has a small degree of power to create what it wants, and at times to block the flow of life temporarily. However in a sense it does have a lot of power to cause you to suffer, although ultimately suffering itself is just a thought or belief. There is no actual thing called suffering. It only exists as a thought.

For example, there is probably some furniture in the room where you are right now. You can think about the furniture but it also has a bigger reality as physical objects. Compare that to an imaginary baby elephant in the room where you are right now. You can think about it and even imagine it in great detail, but it is still not really there.

So suffering is all imagined like the baby elephant. That is why the ego has so much power to cause us to suffer.....because it does not take much power to imagine something. It is the gap between our idea and the reality that causes all of our suffering. You can read more about this here.

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Half the Truth

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Thursday, 28 January 2010 15:56 Written by Nirmala

Another inquiry via email:

Dear Nirmala,

When you say "The good news is that even before you trust this deeper knowing, it has been working perfectly all along. The difference is that when you trust it, when you surrender to it, you don't suffer anymore. When, instead, you pay attention to your ideas about how things should be or how you want things to happen, this innate wisdom still gets you where you need to be, but because you are so busy with your ideas about it, you suffer. The good news is that this innate wisdom is not something you add or something you do or something you need to master, it is who you are."

This means that: Life is happening by itself through me as it desires and I can do nothing to create the life I DESIRE to be, have and do?

I can create with my mind only a description of what is happening but I have no power to block life expressing through me and no power to create what I desire?

Here is my response:

Thank you so much for your very good questions.

It is part of the limitations of concepts and thoughts that whenever anyone speaks or writes anything they are only speaking part of the truth. I would even say that the best anyone has ever done is communicate half of the truth! This is true of everyone, even spiritual teachers.

And so the quote you refer to offers some truth, but really only part of the truth. Perhaps the value of it is that it offers a part of the truth that is often overlooked or not even considered by most people. The deeper or bigger truth is that there is an innate wisdom unfolding this life that always gets you right where you need to go.

And yet it may also be true that this innate wisdom moves through you as your desires and even more importantly as your deepest drives and motivations. In fact it appears that the Mystery that is unfolding this life loves to play and create so much that it even gives you the power to choose and act as an apparent individual. And so even the apparent ego or false identity we form makes choices and even takes life and awareness in directions that cause us to suffer. The ego wants to create what it wants regardless of what Being wants! There is no mistake in all of this. The mystery loves this unpredictable ego it creates! There is also a deeper movement in us of our essential selves that moves in harmony with the wisdom of Being, and yet is still an apparent individual acting and choosing, only in alignment with Being.

The ego's desires move us at times and at other times we are moved by deeper drives coming from our essence. And we also are free to recognize that there is an even deeper source of it all and to surrender our life to that. We can paradoxically choose what is already chosen by the wisdom of Being.

This is not black and white and there is quite a dance between the ego and essence and Being that allows Being to create unpredictability and surprise within itself. Maybe that is the only way that something that is already infinite and eternal can create and play: by allowing something new and unpredictable to be created within itself.

So again there is no final truth in anyone's words. If you are enjoying creating and expressing through your desires, then go for it! And you can also rest sometimes and explore what life is like when you surrender your doing, or even more simply notice that life is unfolding beautifully even when you are just observing it. Surrender is not something we do really, it is more a result of the observation of the bigger truth that everything that happens is already a part of the intelligence of Being at work. This recognition naturally leads to a balancing of our tendency to overdo our doing, which is where our suffering lies.

I hope this helps, and I will share our exchange with others on my blog in case it is helpful to them also.

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The Gift of Free Will

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Wednesday, 27 January 2010 15:42 Written by Nirmala

Someone emailed me the following:

Just read your blog. No one seems to talk about where thoughts and feelings come from. That's because it's unknown. It's not possible that we can think and feel for ourselves. Thoughts and feelings are given to us--but where they originated can't be known. So whatever it is that "notices" or "questions" is given. We can't "create" anything. If anything changes, it's because we are changed. We don't change ourselves, or make choices or have free will. Obviously it's necessary that we live, because we're alive, but the only thing that we "do" is observe. We're not capable of doing anything else.

And here is my reply:

Thanks so much for your perspective. I do think ultimately you are correct that we do not "think" most of our thoughts as much as we receive them like a radio receives the signal from the station.

But it is also possible that whatever it is that sends the signal of our thoughts (which can not be known as you point out) also gives us the experience of individuality and free will in the same way as it sends us thoughts. It still comes from the same source, but perhaps that source loves the mystery and surprise it gets when it gives a part of itself free will to act in unpredictable ways.

So while that apparent choice and free will are ultimately a gift from something more mysterious, it still could be our relative experience that we have the free will to act and choose. It definitely would make for a more interesting illusion!

There is a fairy tale or story at the end of my free ebook, Beyond No Self, that offers one explanation of how the mystery could give its creations apparent free will and choice by creating copies or clones of itself to live these apparent lives as individuals. You can read the story here (scroll to the bottom of the page where the story is in italics).

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