KARMA #6
“Behind my work was ambition, behind my love was personality, behind my purity was fear, behind my guidance the thirst for power. Now they are vanishing and I drift. I come Mother, I come, in your warm bosom – floating where-ever you take me – in the voiceless, in the strange, in the wonderland. I come a spectator, No more an actor.” Swami Vivekananda
SUBORDINATE EGO TO
THE HIGHER SELF
(Ego’s Triad on the Tree of Life)
All must be done for its own sake, not for reason of any outcome.
All is a journey not a destination and it is a continual arriving.
We need to do things for their own sake and not because of any ego driven agenda – hidden or otherwise.
If rewards were always immediate there would be a huge incentive to always perform correctly because of the gratification we would expect from our actions. We would be like a well trained animal driven by a Pavlovian response.
Karma depends not only on what we do, but how we do it, why we do it and how we feel about it. If the last is grudgingly or because it benefits us materially there will be a karmic consequence or it may be karmically neutral.
“The Light of lights looks always on the motive, not the deed… the shadow of shadows, on the deed alone.” W.B. Yeats
Do you listen with your heart or are you hearing with your ego. The possible peril is not a punishment, it is a consequence. Choice is not enough, action must follow.
Karma is the law of cause and effect. The Creator does not micromanage. Karma is built like a default into the soul.
“Chitragupt
who is supposed to be writing out our deeds in an account book is no other than the conscious and unconscious parts of our mind. The Lord of Law, to whom we have to render the account is the Soul within us.” Gopal Singh
Everything we do is registered in the Akashic records or the Book of Life. We do not get away with anything. One's lawyer cannot help us when we are taken to account before a spiritual tribunal at the end of our days.
“The last temptation is to do the right thing for the wrong reason.”
T.S. Eliot
“Give all thou canst; high heaven rejects the lore of nicely calculated less and more.“ W. Wordsworth
1. Ego or self-Cherishing (as in the small self)
2. Desirous Attachment
3. Judgment
Although all three below are derived from ego and overlap, it is helpful to distinguish between them.
Ego – self Cherishing the Persona
“God cannot be realized if there is the slightest trace of pride.”
The Upanishads
The search for the Real, True or Higher Self or Soul is at the core of all spiritual motivation whether we know about it, believe it or do anything about it or not. We are made in the image of the Divine and are all searching for the 'light' even if subconsciously.
The Higher Self or Soul cannot be realized in the presence of a dominant ego.
“To know the real Self to be one’s own is the greatest attainment… To know wrongly the non-self, such as the ego, to be the Self is no attainment at all. One therefore should denounce this perception of taking the non-self for the Self.”
Sri Sankaracharya
Ego (together with Monkey Mind and the Shadow) get in the way of our connection with the Higher Self.
Although Ego is essential for self-mastery and necessary at other times, as a rule it gets in the way of spiritual growth. Non-Attachment to the ego is commendable.
Attachment to the search for the Self or one’s Soul is essential.
Attachments to Ego, Desirous Attachment or Judgment will become the conditions for tying us, according to yoga, to the "yolk of ego" and inheriting more lifetimes.
The challenge is relief from ego, how to be free from its tyranny.
The way is relief from ego, surrendering and releasing one’s instinct for protection and cultural conditioning; subduing its tyranny but with respectful and grateful acknowledgement for its appropriate worth.
The “prize” – the place of arrival – is relief from ego and a true sense of the pleasure of its place.
Jung doubted that the Western Mind could ever completely get rid of Ego although this is suggested in Eastern teachings on enlightenment. It occurs, but only temporally, in the Oneness Experience or Unity Consciousness. This is when the Knower, the Known and the process of Knowing fuse into one thing. Maslow called this a Peak Experience which occurred among other things during childbirth, orgasm, unravelling a scientific mystery, extreme sporting escapades, partaking in drugs or entheogens, dancing (when one becomes the dance,) in nature and other circumstances. It cannot be anticipated or programmed and usually comes for most of us through grace. However, there are some advanced practitioners who can induce it.
Ecstasy or oneness can occur during these rare events.
Ego is necessary in its rightful place. We need to discern carefully when that moment presents itself.
“In the samadhi that comes at the end of reasoning and discrimination no such thing as “I” exists but it is extremely difficult to attain as “I” consciousness lingers so persistently. This is why humans are born again and again.” Sri Rama Krishna
Whatever the stimulus, the rapture is fleeting and we soon return back into a sense of duality. The challenge is to be aware of this duality and still be able to see the divinity and our oneness with others.
For some it is a life changing experience, others may rationalize it away, trivialize it or forget it. However, it can give one a sense of the other 99 percent world that we usually cannot access. The Zohar teaches that we live in a one percent world.
God does not measure results, only the trueness of intent and the fervor of effort. This is why there is such joy in daring one’s best.
If God were after numbers he would have made the way to him abundantly apparent and attractive – enticingly so, ego free and forever lasting.
And of course, the Creator has also granted us our own lens for seeing and our own will for choosing what we see.
Intent, willingness, openness and trust – if you want it all you must offer all.
