Een groot, sterk of zwak ego

Er is nogal wat verschil tussen een groot, een sterk of een zwak ego. Zowel een groot als zwak ego kan een serieuze hindernis voor spirituele ontwikkeling zijn. Voor een sterk ego is dat vaak moeiteloos en bijna vanzelfsprekend.

Mensen met een sterk ego hebben veel zelfvertrouwen, voelen zich meestal veilig, zijn emotioneel stabiel en kunnen flexibel omgaan met de stress van alledag. Ze zijn niet snel gefrustreerd en geven niet direct op als het tegenzit. Ze passen zich makkelijk aan als de omstandigheden veranderen, ze zijn zelfstandig, zelfbepalend, volwassen en authentiek, maar kunnen ook goed naar anderen luisteren.

Mensen met een groot ego daarentegen hebben veel minder innerlijke stabiliteit en zijn dus ook sneller van slag. Ze zijn vaak rigide en dogmatisch, reageren soms als gebeten als ze zich bedreigd of beledigd voelen, menen dat ze op van alles en nog wat recht hebben en zijn tegelijkertijd boos dat ze dat niet krijgen. Ze zijn eerder arrogant dan zelfverzekerd. Integriteit zegt ze weinig, eigenbelang des te meer.

Bestaat het ik?

In sommige spirituele teksten kun je uitspraken tegenkomen als “het ik bestaat niet” of “het ego is een illusie”. Is dat waar? Laten we eens kijken naar wat het woord “bestaan” eigenlijk betekent.

De meest simpele vorm van bestaan is wel fysiek bestaan. Een stoel bijvoorbeeld, of een betonnen muur, of een wolk. Het zijn dingen - ze zijn fysiek, concreet, tastbaar, zichtbaar. Ze zijn zintuiglijk waarneembaar – niet alleen voor mensen, maar ook voor andere wezens. Een boom bijvoorbeeld is ook voor vogels zichtbaar. Fysieke objecten hebben ook altijd een locatie – je kunt aanwijzen waar ze zijn.

En er zijn gedachten, emoties, herinneringen, dromen – er is zoiets als de geest.

Een ego is nuttig. 

Een ego is zeker niet alleen maar een vals of onecht zelfbeeld. En het is ook niet iets waar we zo snel mogelijk van af zouden moeten komen. Het hoeft geen belemmering voor spirituele groei te zijn. Integendeel, het is heel handig, zeker als het min of meer probleemloos functioneert en doet wat het moet doen.

De term “ego” wordt vooral in spirituele kringen vaak gebruikt, meestal zonder goed te definiëren wat het eigenlijk is en waarom we het hebben. Het enige wat wel duidelijk is, is dat het ongewenst is. Dus waar is een ego goed voor?

In dit artikel noem ik een aantal van de belangrijkste functies en gebruik daarbij soms wat technische termen uit de psychologie. Het is bedoeld om aan te tonen dat “ego” niet de slechterik is waar hij in spirituele kringen zo vaak voor gehouden lijkt te worden.

Ego is geen probleemEgo is in spirituele kringen zo ongeveer wat de duivel in het christendom is. Het definieert wat slecht en ongewenst is, waardoor des te duidelijker wordt wat goed en wenselijk is. Ego is als een valse zwerfhond in het dorp van spiritualiteit: niemand wil hem nog binnen laten en te eten geven.

Waarom is dit eigenlijk zo? Wat is dat ego precies, waar komt het vandaan, wat doet het, waarom hebben mensen überhaupt een ego als het blijkbaar iets is waar we, althans volgens sommigen, zo snel mogelijk van af moeten? Wanneer ontstaat het, welke functie heeft het, in welke zin is het echt en onecht?

Zijn wij ons brein?

 “Wij zijn ons brein, van baarmoeder tot Alzheimer” is de titel van een populair boek van dr. Dick Swaab. Het betoogt dat wie wij zijn en wat we voelen, denken, willen en doen allemaal bepaald wordt door onze hersenen. Elke ervaring die we hebben, elke emotie die we voelen, elke gedachte die opkomt, elke impuls die ons verleidt om iets doms te doen en elk inzicht dat we dat toch maar beter niet kunnen doen komt voort uit, of is een vertaling van een hersenproces. Het is een soort één op één relatie: wat we ervaren wordt mogelijk gemaakt door onze hersenen.

Het biedt een verklaring die heel veel omspant en het lijkt ook een origineel antwoord te geven op de vraag: wij zijn wij nu eigenlijk ? Wel, we zijn onze hersenen. Onze identiteit wordt daar bepaald, want elke expressie die we kenmerkend voor onszelf vinden heeft daar zijn oorsprong. Het biedt ook af en toe een welkome verklaring voor elke vreemde of ongewenste eigenschap die we bij onszelf opmerken; we zouden misschien wel anders willen, maar ja, de hersenen werken blijkbaar niet mee. Want vrije wil is in deze visie ook een illusie: we denken iets te willen, maar het zijn in feite onze hersenen die ons gedrag leiden.

What Is "Ego"?

(multiple-choice test)

A) It means "I"

B) It's what you're talking about or referring to when you say "I" (like, "I want this, I do that")

C) It's probably your answer to the question "who am I?"

D) "We're all sentenced to solitary confinement inside our own skins." - Tennessee Williams

E) It's your "identity", or who you think you are.

F) It is something close to what we mean when we say somebody has "a big ego": in other words, they see themselves as being something they're really not. It's an inaccurate self-image, a wrong idea of who you actually are.

Interview Shinzen Young on enlightenment

(This interview discusses the notion of a self in relationship with enlightenment, and the important role of a teacher).

Har-Prakash Khalsa: Given that, in your own words, “enlightenment is a multi-faceted jewel”, is there a description of enlightenment that you like?

Shinzen Young: In this regard I tend to go towards my Buddhist background. Scholastic Theravada Buddhism says that three things go away at the initial experience of enlightenment. It’s very significant that it’s put in terms of an elimination process; something goes away, rather than an attainment, a “getting” of something. So enlightenment is not yet another thing that you have to get. And meditation as a path to enlightenment could be described as merely setting the stage for Nature/Grace to eliminate from you what needs to be eliminated.

The technical terms in Pali for the three things that go away are “sakkaya-ditthi”, “vicikiccha”, and “silabbata-paramasa”. Sakkaya-ditthi is the most important. Sakkaya-ditthi is the perception that there is an entity, a thing inside us called a self. That goes away.

HPK: When you say “the perception that a thing inside us called a self” goes away, do you mean completely away?

A Non-Dual View of Enlightenment

What are the problems with believing enlightenment is an event that happens to a person?

First, if we accept that a person experiences knowledge of the Non-dual, then we are left with the person as a subject and the Non-dual as an object. Hardly non-dual. Yet personal experience reveals that the Non-dual is not absence of experience; but at the same time, there is no duality. How can we describe enlightenment in order to facilitate an understanding of this, without falling into either trap?

Second, we are left with the consequences of describing someone as an ‘enlightened person’. Not a person who has experienced enlightenment, but an enlightened person. Can you see the difference in emphasis? The first is a description that matches the facts; the second is the ascribing of a certain quality to an individual, and it is very rarely used in the sense that ‘this person has experienced enlightenment’. I would argue that every single bad model, ridiculous expectation and delusional fantasy around what it means ‘to be enlightened’ stem from using enlightenment as an adjective, and it’s a huge contributing factor to the facilitation of the abuse of power by many a guru or teacher. Consider: if enlightenment could not be used as an adjective, exactly how would you ask the question ‘what does it mean to be enlightened?’

Enlightenment is an event that happens to a person

(or The Small self/Big Self Fallacy)

There is an Indian school of thought regarding enlightenment that came to prominence in the 20th Century and is currently of great popularity in the West, especially in America. It is sometimes referred to as ‘Non-dual spirituality’, ‘Direct-path’ Advaita, or amongst its detractors, as pseudo-Advaita.

This school of thought is a development upon the Indian tradition of enlightenment known as Advaita Vedanta, a teaching that began with Gaudapada in the 7th Century, and championed by Shankara in the 8th. Advaita means ‘not two’, and Vedanta means the ‘end of the Vedas’. The Vedas are a collection of Holy texts that teach enlightenment, and within this tradition enlightenment is considered the liberation (moksha) of the individual in the knowledge of his or her divine soul, or Atman. Before Advaita Vedanta, a popular idea within the Vedanta tradition was that an enlightened person, although realising Atman, is still a separate entity from Brahman, the ultimate principle. Based on personal experience, study of the Vedas, and the teaching of his lineage, Shankara presented the understanding that Atman and Brahman are in fact the same thing. The end of the Vedas is literally moksha, and Atman and Brahman are one (‘not-two’). The core texts of Advaita Vedanta are the Vedas (although Shankara did provide commentaries), particularly the Upanishads, which sanction monasticism and teach Bhakti (devotion or surrender) as the method to achieve liberation. Shankara was the founder of Shanmata practice.

Today, Advaita is taken to mean not the unity of Atman and Brahman that is described at the ‘end of the Vedas’, but the Buddhist doctrine of the ‘non-dual’ nature of enlightenment: ‘In seeing, there is just seeing. No seer and nothing seen. In hearing, there is just hearing. No hearer and nothing heard.’ (Bahiya Sutta). Some Advaitists teach that bhakti and monasticism are obstacles to realising moksha, effort and seeking must be given up, and that a person cannot become enlightened, because they already are. An example of this is given by the Indian guru Gangaji: ‘You are already the Self [Atman]…you are already free!’. Another by Lakshmana Swami when he says ‘The Self is always present. There is no question of realising it.’ (Thompson, The Odyssey of Enlightenment. Origin Press 2003.)

The dirty little secret of Awakening

There is something wrong with the Dharma.

A sickness is festering, unchecked, in the shadows of the great Saints, Sages and Prophets. Its symptoms include the countless examples of psychological, physical, and sexual abuses visited upon students and devotees by gurus, the financial exploitation, corruption, fraud, murder and drug abuse perpetrated by teachers from both the East and West, the political infighting evident in every major lineage and school, the outright failure of many traditions in producing awakened practitioners, the reluctance of genuinely awakened individuals in coming forward and openly discussing enlightenment, and the casual racism, sexism, fascism and homophobia still found in ‘spiritual culture’.

Ironically, all of this is the result of an endeavor to uphold the highest standards of morality.

Anatman

No self, no essence, no unchanging core, no real me.

In the history of ideas, there is perhaps no idea more unusual than the Buddhist concept of anatman, or "no-self". This idea of anatman, or "no-self", was taught by the historical Buddha, Buddha Shakyamuni, as being one of the "three marks of existence", along with duhkha, or dissatisfaction, and anitya, or impermanence. These "three marks of existence" are regarded in Buddhist thought as being the three fundamental conditions, which pervade the human condition. The three "marks of existence" of dissatisfcation, impermanence and "no-self" have been much written  about in the Buddhist literature now available in the English language, but the notion of anatman, or "no-self" can be especially difficult to penetrate and represents one of the most unusual, and yet important, ideas to arise in the history of ideas.

Essentialism

No essence, no unchanging core

Lisa Barrett

University Distinguished Professor of Psychology, Northeastern University; Research Scientist and Neuroscientist, Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School

Essentialist Views of the Mind

Essentialist thinking is the belief that familiar categories—dogs and cats, space and time, emotions and thoughts—each have an underlying essence that makes them what they are. This belief is a key barrier to scientific understanding and progress. In pre-Darwinian biology, for example, scholars believed each species had an underlying essence or physical type, and variation was considered error. Darwin challenged this essentialist view, observing that a species is a conceptual category containing a population of varied individuals, not erroneous variations on one ideal individual. Even as Darwin's ideas became accepted, essentialism held fast, as biologists declared that genes are the essence of all living things, fully accounting for Darwin's variation. Nowadays we know that gene expression is regulated by the environment, a discovery that—after much debate—prompted a paradigm shift in biology.

Questions to various teachers about the “story of self” after enlightenment.

1) In nondual realization, does one’s story drop away completely or does it tend to arise less?

RUPERT:

There are no rules, but usually, after it has been clearly seen that the inside self and its counterpart the outside world, are non-existent as such, these old beliefs will continue to arise for some time out of habit.

For how long these old residues of thinking, feeling, acting and relating on behalf of an imaginary inside self arise varies, but no longer fuelled by the belief that these thoughts and feelings represent the reality of our experience, it is natural that in time they die down.

SCOTT:

I can only speak from my direct experience. That’s true of all my responses here. The belief that the “story of Scott” is my real identity, is seen through. The self is seen to be illusory or dream-like, yet still there for conventional or “convenient” purposes. For the most part, the story doesn’t arise, except in very practical ways, like when I’m simply conversing with someone and I point to personal experience to relate to the other person’s story or conversation. This is how we engage each other as humans, whether there has been an “awakening” or not. In the story, the difference between how the story is experienced now (when it arises) as opposed to how it used to be experienced is huge. The story no longer causes suffering or seeking when it arises. And even if those movements arise, they vanish so quickly, leaving no emotional trace, like a paintbrush stroke on water. There is no sense of an inherent or separate identity that sticks around as a constant. The story is like a voice that sounds itself or doesn’t sound itself. Either way, there is freedom. No preference for thinking v. not thinking.

Overcoming Habitual Negative Thought Patterns

by Colin Drake

I recently received the following enquiry regarding anxieties, worries and memories:

After running the usual gamut of non-duality offerings over the last several years, I encountered "Beyond the Separate Self", which I've since read several times. The discussion that hooked me, as it were, was your description of the mind's tendency, especially when idle or unfocussed, to create apparent problems out of thin air and then, ridiculously, attempt to solve them. This has been, by far, the greatest sticking point along my spiritual "path". In particular, when I awaken in the morning, I find myself still beset by a habit that has been ongoing for many years. That is, I become entangled in memories, thoughts, and concepts from the past (and also, less frequently, the present and future).

What follows is a period of depression and anxiety which is particularly aimed at my childhood difficulties and "failures", followed inevitably by a powerful sense that "I can't get it! (non-duality, that is). The situation can be very discouraging, As you've probably heard endless times, I seem to be one of those people with a deep and thorough "intellectual" understanding of "Oneness" (my default term), but, when faced with real, or manifest, life, my old fears, anxieties, and worries seem to persist, although to a somewhat lesser degree.