FROM A SITE VISITOR: So the whole problem really begins with ego, right? Sam (PS Thanks for the blog site.)
F.: Hello, Sam. On the simpliest level, that’s a valid conclusion. As indicated in the title FROM THE I TO THE ABSOLUTE (a Seven-Step Journey to Reality), the Advaita “path” is really a “journey” that moves one away from identifying with the (false) “I” to abiding as the Absolute.
Once the body is taken to be the core identity, and once the “mind” has been distorted via programming and conditioning and enculturation, then the foundation has been laid...the foundation on which all personas will be built. After that, ego-states become the invisible force that drives all thought and conduct, and that results in a loss of any ability to choose. (If you are in a car and being driven, then you are in the passenger seat, the back seat, or the trunk, but you are not behind the steering wheel. One being driven has no ability to determine what the car does or where it goes. So it is when persons are driven by the agendas of their ego-states.)
“Ego” in Latin means “I,” and refers to the false identities (or roles or false selves or images or characters or shadow selves or personas) that are assigned and assumed and that are supported by ego-defense mechanisms once they are taken to be “Who I Am.” The ego-states can be recognized since they always follow the phrase “I am”: “I am a boy/girl”; “I am a lover”; “I am a wife/husband.” Once an ego-state is assumed, it immediately self-promotes itself to super status: "I am a Super Husband" or "I am a Super Wife" (and therefore deserve super, special treatment). Some of the ego-defense mechanisms that persons employ to try to sustain their false image(s) include: rationalization, projection, displacement, denial, intellectualization, repression, sublimation, and suppression.
The Advaitin practice of focusing on the “I AM” only is an invitation to ignore those false identities by breaking the habit of following the I AM with a litany of labels that your culture (or other cultures) have dreamed up. It is a means by which those traversing the first three steps of the “path” can begin to abandon the habit of constantly defining and re-defining who they think they are by using the labeling tools of their culture. Why abandon ego-states? Because they become the invisible driver in your relative existence, because they will become a hijacker and will hold you captive, and because they are the source of all destruction in the relative existence, including self-destruction.
The assumption of ego-states is at the root of all relative existence problems. Mentioned yesterday, one woman has defined herself with the limiting identity of “wife” (in fact, “The Super Dutiful Wife”) for twenty years. She gave her consent for her story to be shared, so it follows as an example of what can happen when ego-states are finally exposed and then trigger a desire to self-destruct:
“My husband is leaving me after 20 years. We never had children because he didn’t want them; he made me take charge of projects he wanted done but then raged when the bills for those projects came in; we have both held jobs throughout the entire marriage but he took both checks and controlled how the money was spent. He wanted sex nearly every day for 20 years, and so we had sex nearly every day.
“Friends said his talk about how ‘men like to trade up when they get in their forties and find a younger woman’ showed he was capable of doing exactly that. They made me furious when they said that. Friends and family said he probably had a companion on his frequent out-of-town trips when he made excuses about why I couldn’t go along. When he got an apartment in addition to our house so he could have ‘a quiet place to go to relax,’ friends said I should check that out, but I trusted him and I guess I didn’t really want to find out anything different from the way I thought things were.
“Then, a few weeks ago he said he wanted a divorce and I should ‘handle it and move on like he’s moving on.’ Now, people who knew both of us have told me that he’s been having an affair for years. Up until recently he’s always been a loving, faithful, caring spouse and I was always sure he would honor his vows and me forever, so I think he’s just not himself right now and will come to his senses and return. If he doesn’t, I will kill myself.” (She was advised to seek immediate professional help, and she is now seeing a therapist.)
To see how all reason and logic is abandoned when a false identity is assumed, around marriage for example, this example was offered in December of 2005:
A document (such as a marriage license) can inspire a false belief that a dependent role can define who you are. How grand is the lie? Take the fictional Thomas Smith as an example. He married Jane Jones and a man in a robe told her that she was now Mrs. Thomas Smith. She assumed that new identity and all the fears and expectations and desires that came with it. But her fears were realized when Thomas left her for Mary Martin. In a court, a man in a robe told Jane Jones/Mrs. Thomas Smith that she was no longer Mrs. Thomas Smith but could once again be Miss Jane Jones; shortly after that event, another man in a robe told Mary Martin that she was Mrs. Thomas Smith.
She assumed that new identity and all the fears and expectations and desires that came with it. But her fears were realized when Thomas left her for Patty Prentiss. In a court, a man in a robe told Mary Martin/Mrs. Thomas Smith that she was no longer Mrs. Thomas Smith but could once again be Miss Mary Martin; shortly after that event, another man in a robe told Patty Prentiss that she was Mrs. Thomas Smith.
Do you see the insanity of assuming identities? "Mrs. Thomas Smith" was a role assumed by three different persons, and all three really believed that they were who and what their culture told them that they were. But the culture told three different persons that they were the same person. In the remote past, Jane was Mrs. Thomas Smith; in the past Mary was Mrs. Thomas Smith; in the present, Patty is Mrs. Thomas Smith. One can guess that in the future, Patty will not be Mrs. Thomas Smith.
From this example, isn’t it clear that any assumption of any persona as a real identity is an insane case of mistaken, false identity? Are you assuming any false identities as real identities? Are you unconsciously listening to all the persons in your culture who haven't a clue as to Who They Truly Are while unconsciously allowing them to tell you who or what you are? Then you'll also unconsciously accept all the fears and desires and expectations that come with roles and that guarantee misery in the relative existence.
It is no wonder that so many persons reach a point where they admit, “I don’t even know who I am anymore.” Tomorrow, the destructive force of ego-states will be discussed via the example above in which a woman who has said “I am a wife” for two decades now faces the reality of having to declare, “I am not a wife.” As a result, she has threatened to kill herself (meaning, the “not wife” is sensing the “loss” of a false self, is feeling that a real self is dying, and is ready to avoid having to process the imaginary demise of a culturally-assigned identity by killing herself). If only she had made that “not wife” declaration decades ago and had found her True Self, then all of the “wife-type happenings” could have continued without the limiting, false identification with a role that has now triggered a desire to self-destruct.
F.: Hello, Sam. On the simpliest level, that’s a valid conclusion. As indicated in the title FROM THE I TO THE ABSOLUTE (a Seven-Step Journey to Reality), the Advaita “path” is really a “journey” that moves one away from identifying with the (false) “I” to abiding as the Absolute.
Once the body is taken to be the core identity, and once the “mind” has been distorted via programming and conditioning and enculturation, then the foundation has been laid...the foundation on which all personas will be built. After that, ego-states become the invisible force that drives all thought and conduct, and that results in a loss of any ability to choose. (If you are in a car and being driven, then you are in the passenger seat, the back seat, or the trunk, but you are not behind the steering wheel. One being driven has no ability to determine what the car does or where it goes. So it is when persons are driven by the agendas of their ego-states.)
“Ego” in Latin means “I,” and refers to the false identities (or roles or false selves or images or characters or shadow selves or personas) that are assigned and assumed and that are supported by ego-defense mechanisms once they are taken to be “Who I Am.” The ego-states can be recognized since they always follow the phrase “I am”: “I am a boy/girl”; “I am a lover”; “I am a wife/husband.” Once an ego-state is assumed, it immediately self-promotes itself to super status: "I am a Super Husband" or "I am a Super Wife" (and therefore deserve super, special treatment). Some of the ego-defense mechanisms that persons employ to try to sustain their false image(s) include: rationalization, projection, displacement, denial, intellectualization, repression, sublimation, and suppression.
The Advaitin practice of focusing on the “I AM” only is an invitation to ignore those false identities by breaking the habit of following the I AM with a litany of labels that your culture (or other cultures) have dreamed up. It is a means by which those traversing the first three steps of the “path” can begin to abandon the habit of constantly defining and re-defining who they think they are by using the labeling tools of their culture. Why abandon ego-states? Because they become the invisible driver in your relative existence, because they will become a hijacker and will hold you captive, and because they are the source of all destruction in the relative existence, including self-destruction.
The assumption of ego-states is at the root of all relative existence problems. Mentioned yesterday, one woman has defined herself with the limiting identity of “wife” (in fact, “The Super Dutiful Wife”) for twenty years. She gave her consent for her story to be shared, so it follows as an example of what can happen when ego-states are finally exposed and then trigger a desire to self-destruct:
“My husband is leaving me after 20 years. We never had children because he didn’t want them; he made me take charge of projects he wanted done but then raged when the bills for those projects came in; we have both held jobs throughout the entire marriage but he took both checks and controlled how the money was spent. He wanted sex nearly every day for 20 years, and so we had sex nearly every day.
“Friends said his talk about how ‘men like to trade up when they get in their forties and find a younger woman’ showed he was capable of doing exactly that. They made me furious when they said that. Friends and family said he probably had a companion on his frequent out-of-town trips when he made excuses about why I couldn’t go along. When he got an apartment in addition to our house so he could have ‘a quiet place to go to relax,’ friends said I should check that out, but I trusted him and I guess I didn’t really want to find out anything different from the way I thought things were.
“Then, a few weeks ago he said he wanted a divorce and I should ‘handle it and move on like he’s moving on.’ Now, people who knew both of us have told me that he’s been having an affair for years. Up until recently he’s always been a loving, faithful, caring spouse and I was always sure he would honor his vows and me forever, so I think he’s just not himself right now and will come to his senses and return. If he doesn’t, I will kill myself.” (She was advised to seek immediate professional help, and she is now seeing a therapist.)
To see how all reason and logic is abandoned when a false identity is assumed, around marriage for example, this example was offered in December of 2005:
A document (such as a marriage license) can inspire a false belief that a dependent role can define who you are. How grand is the lie? Take the fictional Thomas Smith as an example. He married Jane Jones and a man in a robe told her that she was now Mrs. Thomas Smith. She assumed that new identity and all the fears and expectations and desires that came with it. But her fears were realized when Thomas left her for Mary Martin. In a court, a man in a robe told Jane Jones/Mrs. Thomas Smith that she was no longer Mrs. Thomas Smith but could once again be Miss Jane Jones; shortly after that event, another man in a robe told Mary Martin that she was Mrs. Thomas Smith.
She assumed that new identity and all the fears and expectations and desires that came with it. But her fears were realized when Thomas left her for Patty Prentiss. In a court, a man in a robe told Mary Martin/Mrs. Thomas Smith that she was no longer Mrs. Thomas Smith but could once again be Miss Mary Martin; shortly after that event, another man in a robe told Patty Prentiss that she was Mrs. Thomas Smith.
Do you see the insanity of assuming identities? "Mrs. Thomas Smith" was a role assumed by three different persons, and all three really believed that they were who and what their culture told them that they were. But the culture told three different persons that they were the same person. In the remote past, Jane was Mrs. Thomas Smith; in the past Mary was Mrs. Thomas Smith; in the present, Patty is Mrs. Thomas Smith. One can guess that in the future, Patty will not be Mrs. Thomas Smith.
From this example, isn’t it clear that any assumption of any persona as a real identity is an insane case of mistaken, false identity? Are you assuming any false identities as real identities? Are you unconsciously listening to all the persons in your culture who haven't a clue as to Who They Truly Are while unconsciously allowing them to tell you who or what you are? Then you'll also unconsciously accept all the fears and desires and expectations that come with roles and that guarantee misery in the relative existence.
It is no wonder that so many persons reach a point where they admit, “I don’t even know who I am anymore.” Tomorrow, the destructive force of ego-states will be discussed via the example above in which a woman who has said “I am a wife” for two decades now faces the reality of having to declare, “I am not a wife.” As a result, she has threatened to kill herself (meaning, the “not wife” is sensing the “loss” of a false self, is feeling that a real self is dying, and is ready to avoid having to process the imaginary demise of a culturally-assigned identity by killing herself). If only she had made that “not wife” declaration decades ago and had found her True Self, then all of the “wife-type happenings” could have continued without the limiting, false identification with a role that has now triggered a desire to self-destruct.
How about you? Are you aware of the fact that all of your anger or emotional intoxication or hurt is rooted in an ego-state? Are you aware that each ego-state prizes above all else it's sense of self-worth and will fight to the death to sustain that false self that desires to be seen as being worthy and valuable and wonderful? When was the last time that "you" became upset? Can you identify which ego-state felt hurt or interfered with or threatened in that incident? Please enter the silence of contemplation. (To be continued)
