Self vs Ego
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No one can be truly happy if their life is not authentic. Authentic means that it is truly yours, coming from your source; not from your parents, your teachers, the movies, from social or traditional conditioning. But from YOU, your Self, your essence, your soul.
The Ego is an idea, a concept of who you apparently are. This idea has formed in the first years of our upbringing. We heard our parents defining us by calling us a particular name, telling us we are nice or bad, in total: our environment related to us through their image of us – and our minds formed an image of ourselves based on their projections. We became an Ego.
Education fails to give our children what they would need in order to find their own truth, values and authenticity. Society still forms the new generations according to their blueprint. Conformity however leaves us insecure and unhappy deep within.
The vast majority of people on the earth suffer an often unconscious unhappiness which makes them vulnerable to become consumers of an industry that sells us substitutes. This creates our life style. Most of us have become dependent on substitutes like entertainment, unhealthy food pleasures, luxury goods, intoxicating substances, and so on and so forth. Other escape routes from the inner pain of living a second-hand life are workaholism, sexism, narcoticism and the whole range of modern society disorders: panic attacks, anxiety, burn-out, bore-out, depression, just to name a few.
Taking all factors into consideration, it all comes down to this one conclusion: we need to find our lost Self, the one that is real, not our adopted image of ourselves.
Anybody taking a good look at our world can tell very soon that something is profoundly going wrong. And the more we try to fix it, the more we seem to fail.
It reminds me of the short tale of an Indian character named Nasrudin. Nasrudin one night left the local tavern and realized on his way back to his house that he doesn’t have his keys anymore. Desperately he started looking for his keys under the nearby lantern which shed a small radius of light onto the street. On his knees Nasrudin crawled and searched every spot of the lit up pavement. A friend came by, saw Nasrudin on all four and curiously asked “What are you doing Nasrudin?” Nasrudin answered: “I’m looking for my keys!” After a moment of screening the situation his friend asked: “Where did you lose them?” Nasrudin spontaneously answered “Over there!”. His surprised friend replied: “Then why don’t you search over there?” “Because there is no light!” was Nasrudin’s answer.
For Nasrudin it doesn’t make sense to search for lost keys where there is no light, irrespective of his memory telling him that exactly there he lost his keys; what makes sense for Nasrudin’s mind is to search where search makes sense: in the light under the lantern.
This story is told to point to the observation that most people look for their lost parts of themselves within the light of their mind. And wonder why they fail to find them.
To questions can be asked here: Why not wait for the next day when there is all light again?
What does “next day” mean? One day, next life? Who wants to wait that long?
Or, are there any flashlights available? The flashlight is the teachers who have done the search previously and therefore know the territory. An old saying says, when the student is ready, the teacher appears.
Those lucky to have established an authentic life are happy human beings. Happiness is, when nothing is missing. An authentic life doesn’t need anything specific. Its happiness is its own alpha and the omega.
Love is the natural state a person experiences when they live authentically. Love for themselves, love for others, love for the world and love for life.
Don’t fall for the moon light any longer, it is only a reflection. The moon is cold and lifeless, just like the Ego. Go for the sun!
With love ❤ Marc