The ego is: The Grinch that Stole Christmas

“Peace on Earth, good will toward men . . .” so says Luke 2:14. And this is that season, isn’t it? Of course, as we look around the earth we see very little of either. Why is that? Why is it so hard to find peace and good will? Oh to be sure, there are many who feign peace and goodwill. They appear to be the “good” people, but too often it is an act; an ego defense. So good and evil are really two sides of the same coin- some sort of compensation for personal, societal, or national pain.
So where did human kind go wrong? How did the wheels come off the world’s bus in such a profound way?

Believe it or not, it all starts around 3 to 5 years of age in each individual. As we learn language we develop two distinct styles of communication. One style is designed to communicate with other people. But the real problem lies in a type of speech called “ego-centric” speech. What is ego-centric speech? It is a running commentary that children of around two years of age have that describes what they are doing and why they are doing it. At this age, the child is acting on impulses from the limbic system and nonverbal emotional messages from the limbic and right hemispheric formations. The child assumes there must be some logical explanation as to why they are following these impulses. So they use their newly discovered talent for language to explain why they are doing what they are doing. In other words, ego-centric communication is an elaborate form of rationalization for the ongoing behavior that is being dictated by more primitive and nonverbal parts of the brain.

Well, things get pretty scary at around 3 to 5 years of age. This ego-centric communication becomes internalized. This overt thinking gradually becomes internalized eventually becoming completely hidden to everyone but the commentator, a five year old child. At this point the child is not only speaking in words, but is thinking in words. This ego-centered speech becomes more and more complex and more and more addictive to the point where as adults we cannot shut off the constant commentary.

What’s at issue here is not that we talk to ourselves, but the quality of the communication. The impetus for this internalized view of the world is impulsive, emotional, and self serving. The quality of this does not change with age. The internal commentator is concerned with one and only one thing – self enhancement!
This is bad enough, but then something even more sinister happens. Because this internal commentator is so ubiquitous and continuous, we make a fatal assumption. We believe that this internal voice is me! By identifying with this voice and giving it credence we become what only can be described as “lost souls.” We are forever in the grip of the emotional distortions of a five year old who is concerned only with him or herself.

This internalized ego-centric speech becomes what many writers and teachers call the “ego-mind,” the “false self,” the “thinker.” It’s proud, it’s arrogant, it’s ignorant, and most everything it says is bullshit. It is easy to see why there is no peace on earth or goodwill toward men.

Witness Thought Transformation™ will set the world free from the voice in the head that is masquerading as “me.” It is simple, it is fast, and it is a revolution. To hear some testimonials about it, go to my home page and set yourself free from ego-centric speech.

Learning Annex

I did my regularly scheduled Learning Annex workshop yesterday at the Creative Chakra Spa in Marina Del Rey. As always Sandy was a wonderful host. We had a great group. Many seemed to get it. It was my first opportunity to use my revise power point program. I liked the new format and it seemed to have a better impact. Those of you who attended, feel free to comment here.

New Name

Hi everyone. I have changed the name of my blog to more closely relate to what I am up top these days. Those of you who follow my work know about my thought watching technique. I call it Witness Thought Transformation™ or WTT. Also, it’s time to make this blog less preachy/teachy and more newsy. So enjoy the new format and emphasis!

Thinking vs. Knowing

"The Most Direct Means To Eternal Bliss" is the name of the book by Michael Langford. It is a quirky little book, but boy is it powerful. The ideas are expressed directly and to the point. I have to thank Del Martinis for calling it to my attention. In the book, Langford makes the point that Thinking and our addiction to thinking have convinced us that conceptual knowing is the same thing as insight-awareness and direct knowing.

If you study your mental activity carefully, you will soon see that there is a distinction between this knowing-insight-awareness and thinking or conceptualizing. Another distinction that we might make is the difference between thinking and intuitive knowing. When we intuit, we just know. There is no internal verbalization or dialogue, we just know.

I have long come to the conclusion that what we intuit is the only thing of value in our heads. Thinking is of no intrinsic value. Oh, it has its place. It is a tool, kind of like an index finger. My left index finger has immense value and utility, but I would never ask for its advice. However we are skirting the real problem with thought.

The voice in our head that we think is me talking to me is not a me that lives in a familiar "I" position in the head. That "me" is a concept Langford says, "If your native language is English and you speak in English and you write in English, those same English words in your mind are thoughts."

This "me" that speaks to us from inside is nothing more than an artifact of the ego that produces a thing we call ourselves. What is humorous about looking at it the way Langford words it is that if you are a native Spanish speaker, your self is probably Mexican. While, since I am an English speaker, my self is an American.
This is really getting absurd if you think about it. How can this so called self be linked to a culture? It can't be. That would make no sense. So the entire idea of a self linked to the voice in our heads collapses and the ego is exposed for what it is - a fraud masquerading as a so-called self.

I had never thought of this English/Spanish twist until I read Langford's book and started playing with his English in your head idea. But it sure helped put into perspective this lie that humanity has lived with. Finally, thought itself has no inherent intelligence. It is a maze of concepts that the ego uses to keep us trapped in the belief that we are the ultimate concept - a self.

The sad fact is that this deception keeps us from knowing who we really are which is the One - the SELF.

SuccessTracs

The last couple of months have been very busy. I want to announce the availability of my inteview with SuccessTracs. You can click on the link to the right to get a free copy of the mp3 file. It ran about an hour. In it I reveal what happened to me that led to all of this and my work on the voice in the head. It really is the story of how Witness Thought Tranformation was born and how it works. I hope you listen to it and give me any feedback or ask any questions.

In case you have never heard of SuccessTracs, it is part of Harv Eker's Peak Potentials organization.

A Crisis of Ego

“There is such terrible darkness within me as if everything is dead. It has been like this more or less since the beginning of the work.” Imagine yourself feeling like you had been called of God to do a Holy Work only to be filled with darkness from the effort. The person quoted above is shockingly Mother Teresa from a recently published book that, against her wishes, exposes her private letters.

Ironically, I have often posed the following question in my workshops, “Did Mother Teresa minister to the poor in India because she was called or because she was trying to prove to her father or mother that she was good enough?”

This new book answers my rhetorical question – she was called and then ego needs took over and it became about whether or not she was good enough. She recounts in her letters that after Pope Pius XII died, she prayed to him for proof that God was pleased with her work. In short she wanted approval.

Those of you familiar with my Lion/Unicorn model of relationships you can indentify Mother Teresa right away. She is a Lion. While Unicorns are seeking safety, Lions seek approval. Where does this come from? When we are children, we all have unmet emotional needs. Unicorns need more safety than they seem to get, while Lions need more approval from parental interaction than they perceive they get. When we grow up, the burden of supplying these emotional needs is transferred to our spouse, pastor, therapist, God, or whoever meets the frame of reference of that parent in our lives. This is a trick of the limbic system in the brain, the monkey brain. It cannot tell the difference between Dad or God or Mom or one's wife. So the burden of emotional fulfillment gets put on someone in our lives who represents that early parental relationship.

So for Mother Teresa, what started as a “call of God” turned into the effort of her ego-mind to fulfill her unmet emotional need for approval. This twist of purpose was without a doubt the source of her experience of internal darkness.  Her work was hijacked by her limbic system – that ego-mind. And as we know from scripture, that work is like dirty rags in the side of the Lord. Ironically, the very Lord she sought to serve became the parent from which she also sought approval thereby negating the fulfillment of doing the work with pure motives and innocent perception.
The author of this tell all book argues that the “depth of Mother Teresa’s spiritual suffering increases her saintliness.” No, in fact it increased her unconsciousness. The revelations in Mother Teresa’s letters show that the “wages of sin is death.” In other words, when we don’t get it and allow ego motives to pollute our lives, spiritual death is the result, and darkness ensues.

The lesson of the life of Mother Teresa is that good works don’t make us a saint – awareness does. She was unaware of her ego motives. They took over the work, and suffering resulted. The story of Mother Teresa therefore becomes a cautionary tale and another example of how the “no pain- no gain” philosophy at the center of religion is a blind alley that leads to spiritual death.

Only by becoming aware of the tricks of the ego-mind can we truly inherit the life laid out before us and do the work we are meant to do. It is a life free of hidden motives and agendas, free of the need to prove ourselves worthy.

EastWest Book Store

I wanted to take a moment to thank all of you who came to my workshop Sunday at the EastWest book store in Mountain View, California. What a fantastic book store! Wow. We had a great group and I look forward to corresponding with you all in the future. The bookstore itself was well prepared and they made me feel most welcome. Even the introduction I received was well done. So thanks to EastWest for a most successful event!

The World of the Flesh vs.The World of the Spirit

 
I am currently writing a book about awakening as it is explained in the New Testament. One of the puzzles of Paul’s writings is his tendency to have one foot in one world and the other foot in an entirely different world. Elaine Pagels explores this dilemma in her book, The Gnostic Paul. These two worlds that Paul speaks about are the world according to the “flesh” and the world according to the “Spirit.” What are these two worlds?

The world of the Spirit seems obvious. In us and all around us is this invisible “Kingdom” that we can’t seem to see, but the mystics of the ages have seen it plainly. The world of the flesh is very different. The Greek word that is translated as “flesh” means literally “the meat that hangs on the bones.” Paul uses this term to mean that which is superficial – those things we see on the surface or what is obvious. We are in the world of the flesh when we are taking things literally. Paul tries to explain this in Roman’s chapter 4. Paul says that if we look at Abraham according to the flesh, or in other words the standards of the external world, we see that his “works” make him a man among men. Abraham was a success by all earthly measures. What are works? In the Greek of Paul’s letters, it means labors or doing.

But Paul goes on to say that according to the world of the Spirit none of this mattered. What he did as a man was of no account. His material accomplishments were of no importance. It was his connection to Spiritual reality that made him “justified by faith.” Faith by the way does not mean convincing ourselves of something we hope. It means confidence. When we turn inward and discover the Truth of who we are, we become confident because it is knowledge that cannot be taken away since it grows out of direct experience. If you eat hot peppers you don’t need to hope they are spicy. If you never have another pepper, your faith in their spiciness will be unshaken. This is what Paul is saying about Abraham. His certainty of the world according to the Spirit set in motion the process of spiritual vindication very much like a condemned man being acquitted. I am using Paul here since it is all over my desk at the moment. But I could have referred to Ramana Maharshi, the Buddha, or any number of awakened teachers who have said the same thing using other words.

Self-realization or enlightenment or whatever it is to have the Truth revealed to us comes by Grace. Paul hammers this point. It is a gift the timing of which cannot be calculated in the world of the flesh. To prepare for the ultimate, we are told by sages for thousands of years to surrender, to give up. Only when the false self collapses will the true Self be revealed.

One of the concepts I try to get across in my counseling sessions and workshops is the idea of Presence. If we go back to our catechism or whatever religious training we may have had, we are taught that God has three characteristics: all powerful, all knowing, and Omni-present. Omni-present means infinitely present. A good way to think about this is that we, human beings, are in existence, but God is Existence Itself. The point of view of Existence Itself is the world of the Spirit that Paul talks about.

Think of it another way. Your life is a wonderful novel called “You.” But who or what is reading the story of “You?” It certainly can’t be the little “you” that you think you are. From the point of view of “you,” life is filled with ups and downs: politics, pathos, and pathology. This is the world of the flesh.

From the Reader's point of view, nothing in the novel is actually real, serious, or threatening. That is the world of the Spirit. That’s why Paul tells us that from this point of view there is no law, there is no condemnation, and there is no death. Just because the character in a novel dies, it does mean the reader dies too!
In our spiritual pursuits and practices, we constantly straddle the line between these two worlds. We need to clearly distinguish what practices are of the flesh or are focused on the external, superficial world and what practices take us deep into and closer to the world of the Spirit. Below are several comparative examples of each. My criteria for making these distinctions are simple. Is the purpose of the practice to enhance the world of the flesh or deepen one’s experience of the Spirit? 

The World of the Flesh/ The World of the Spirit
Goal setting/ Surrender
Law of Attraction/ Non-attachment
Affirmations/ Attention to what is
Hypnotism, reprogramming,
psychotherapy, mental manipulation/ Deep insight, witnessing, self-observation
Prayer, supplication/Radical acceptance
Self improvement/No-self, self-transcendence
Creating, co-creating reality/Seeing reality
Individual human potential/Oneness, Unity
New Age practices/Stillness beyond fascination
7 habits, success principles/Living in Harmony with what is
Positive thinking/Disidentification with thinking

So we need to make a decision. Are we going to live in the world of the flesh or the Spirit? The world of the flesh produces a spiritual practice based on self enhancement. In other words, the target of our spiritual practice is the betterment of the objective world of form – our life situation. But there is a hopeless truth in this. The destination is death. The story of “you” always ends with a funeral. So if you have worked diligently for a better "story," it pretty much always ends the same way.
For the Reader of the story of “you” with feet planted firmly in the world according to the Spirit, there is abundant, never ending, everlasting life. Because when the pages of the book are closed, the Reader opens another story and another in a never ending saga of Life unfolding; the Divine Expression revealing its own Self to Itself through the story of Bob, and Suzy, and Benedict Arnold, and the bird on my roof and the scorpion in the desert and the rock.
The Reader is our Natural State. It is who we really are. The world of the flesh will never satisfy. Meanwhile the world according to the Spirit is life and peace.
 
 

Being More Present

So many people these days are telling me they need to be more present. They need to be in the now moment. They want to be grounded in the present moment. I tell them something that often times surprises them. You are present. You are the very definition of presence. The problem is that we have become experts at leaving presence.

The key to staying present is so simple it is absurd. Pay attention! When we pay attention, we are present. We are here. We experience now. So how is it we stop paying attention to now? That is the simple part – we think. When we are thinking, we can only be thinking of the remembered past or the imagined future. So by definition, thinking takes us away from presence. So when we go up in our heads and start believing in and identifying with our thoughts we go away. It is just that simple.

Of course there is a terrible price that we pay and that is suffering. For when we go into our heads, one thought leads to the next. Soon when are into a story then into drama. This results in feeling like hell inside. We want to get out of hell, so we struggle. We react, we fight, and we beg God to end our suffering. We turn to drugs and alcohol. We want a different sex partner. We desperately rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic in an effort to change our internal state. None of this was necessary if we had only stayed present.

Thinking is this terrible compulsion we have to take the peace of the present moment and turn it into an intolerable experience. Such is the human condition. Oh, and by the way, we are going to turn it into an intolerable experience for those closest to us also.

Try this experiment for a moment. Stay present and search for the past. Where is the past? Is it in your current experience? What were you doing five minutes ago? Is that in your current experience? No, of course not. Five minutes ago is a function of your head. Inside your head is this psychological experience we call the remembered past. It doesn’t exist in the present moment.

Now staying present, try to find the future? Look around. Do you see the future? Did you know that in the now there never is a future? The future literally and figuratively never happens. Now is the only thing that ever happens. Try as you might, you can only experience the past or the future in your head. Therefore it is not real!

In our current experience, there seem to be what we call memories of the past. Who cares about them? The present is so overwhelming, such a perfect Divine expression, who would ever want to waste the present by recreating the past in their head? The same thing with the future. The imagined future is a place of fear and stress. Who wants to leave “the peace that passes all understanding” to start speculating about an uncertain future? Does anticipation affect the future? It gives us the illusion of control. But ultimately we have no real control. It is the trick of the ego-mind to think so, and yet it grips us, moment by moment.

The past and the future do not exist in the present. But there is something wonderful that does. It is the Presence of Life. The Truth of what we have always been looking for. The fulfillment that was supposed to be just around the corner is here now, if we will only look now. Want to be more present? Pay very close attention to what is. Marvel at its beauty and perfection with all of its adventure, and pathos, and pain, and joy. Life might just turn out to be the heaven you were longing for.

Life Happens - Action vs. Doing

For some time now there has been a popular bumper sticker that says, “(Blank) happens.” We all know what goes in the blank. If we place the words “Life” in the blank, we get “Life happens.” Let me ask you a question, is Life “happening” to you or are you “doing” Life? This is an important distinction since in the one instance we are being lived by Life. In the other instance we have control over Life. This is action vs. doing.

In the dictionary, action is a noun that is defined by words like exertion, process, or activity. Doing is always defined with an infinitive “to” in front of it. The “to” takes the place of a subject or person that is doing the doing. Being the “doer” brings with it an enormous responsibility. We have to anticipate the coming of each moment. This means we must constantly be projecting ourselves into an imagined future. We must get ready, we must take control, and we must “make it happen.” The illusion of our efforts is that sometimes this does seem to work. Work harder – you make more money, if you are vigilant, you avoid accidents, if you look forward, you see obstacles.

However, the doer lives a miserable life. The doer lives with the illusion of control that the world is run by cause and effect. If we want the kind of life we want, we must constantly be the cause. If things don’t turn out the way we want, we must have failed. Or we resort to saying, “(blank) happens.” Doing requires a “doer” doing the doing. The ego wants to take credit for this doing. We point with pride to our doing. After all, don’t we all believe that, “my doing is better than your doing?” Of course, the illusion of doing collapses when you are run over by a truck or are diagnosed with cancer or your child is killed by a stray bullet. Where was the cause and effect in that?

The illusion of doing ran smack into a road block back in the 80’s. It happened in a Berkley research lab where scientists found that our awareness of doing happens a half second after action has actually started. Literally, what was discovered was that action is taken and then the ego-mind steps up to take credit for the effort.
Try this little experiment. Try to predict the exact moment you will next stand up or sit down or go the kitchen or scratch your elbow. Really analyze the mental process that goes into making an effort to take action at any given time. Unless you love the “doer’s” lie, you will discover even though you planned action or thought about taking it, decision, and action are never simultaneous. What actually happens is that we discover ourselves in the process of taking action. You may have been thinking of getting up or scratching, you may have planned to start the car, but the actual moment of volition cannot be experienced!

Life happens. Life does not need a doer. The doer is an illusion. For all of the enormous head of steam we build up to conquer Life, to control it, to live it, it is all for not. The shoe is on the other foot. The doer is being done, and there is nothing any of us can “do” about it.

Action happens. When we take action, we don’t rehearse, we don’t plan. We don’t anticipate. Action is the spontaneous expression of Life. It will be expressed. Action has an intuitive sense about it once you get the illusion of the “doer” out of the way.

But does that mean we just give up? No, we can’t give up. We are going to do what we do. Action will happen. Life will happen. But what this all does is to put us in a situation where it is no longer quite so serious. Life is an “E” ticket that comes with the illusion of doing. What could be more exciting! When we read a great novel, we become identified with the hero or heroine. Now, that makes for an exciting read. However, we never forget that we are the reader. In Life, we have forgotten who we really are. And in doing so, we have become invested in our version of an outcome. The illusory “doer” emerges along with much misery and suffering.

We cannot give up. We have been given a role and we are going to play our role. But Life is expressing itself spontaneously without our version of cause and effect. Knowing that, we relax and surrender to the process of living. Without the illusion of “doing,” each moment is unfettered by expectations and anticipations. We begin to see What Is as the Divine Expression – the only expression of Life.

When we stop worrying about what to do next, we are free to notice What Is. We find that What Is is enough. It is perfect and sufficient. The fulfillment that we have always been struggling for has been within our grasp all along. Living Life requires none of striving, struggle, or toil.

What is the purpose of Life? Life itself. How then shall we live? It is happening right now. Have you noticed? Living is happening. Life happens. Forget doing. Become involved in the action of living. They are mutually exclusive. Doing presupposes that Now is not enough. Action is the process of living Life without ever really knowing what will happen next. If that frightens you, perhaps it’s time to question your assumptions. The tragedy of the “doer” is that the action of Life has passed by by the time the “doer” becomes aware of it.

The awakened teacher Byron Katie says in her new book, A Thousand Names for Joy, “The only time you suffer is when you believe a thought that argues with reality.” The “doer” is an argument with reality. “Once you no longer believe your own thoughts, you act without doing anything, because there is no other possibility.”

Passivity is not Spirituality

“The Secret” and the Identified Thinker

(from my March Newsletter)

Buddha said. “We are what we think. All that we are arises through our thoughts. With our thoughts we create the world.” Wow! This sounds like powerful stuff. All we have to do is harness our thoughts and we are cool. We can fix our relationships, create wealth, and turn life into that wonderful fulfilling thing we keep reading and hearing about. Right?

Even as this is being written, tens of thousands are being enticed to learn “the Secret.” What is the secret anyway? It is the law of attraction. This is “manifesting” living under a different guise. So all we need to do is to control our thoughts, think good thoughts, set a goal, and visualize it and everything turns out okay. This is better than that old religious “pie in the sky.” This is pie in the head!

But before we run off thinking that the Buddha has given us a recipe for the next new Cadillac in our driveway, consider this quote, also from the Buddha, “The world, indeed, is like a dream and the treasures of the world are an alluring mirage! Like the apparent distances in a picture, things have no reality in themselves, but they are like heat haze.”

Now if we put these two quotes together, we come to an inescapable conclusion. Our thoughts create a world of illusion, “an alluring mirage.” This would seem to indicate that there is a deeper reality at work than those involved with New Age multilevel marketing want us to believe. They say all we need is to turn our dreams over to the game show host that lives in our heads and we can get what we want, when we want it. Want a better life? Get a better game show host.

What if your lot in life is tragedy? What if you are stricken with disease, pain, or poverty? Well this simply means that you have not pumped yourself up often enough with the right affirmation. You have allowed negative thinking to metastasize into a bad story in your life. Imagine the horror and guilt of someone who is struggling with enormous challenges only to be told by their new age friends that none of this would have happened if their thinkin’ hadn’t been stinkin’.

But let’s turn this thing on its head for a moment. If thoughts create reality and attract good into our lives, then why is the world such a nasty place, and why are you and I so arrogant and self-serving? Could it be that the world of thought itself is the problem? Could it be that our true calling is to analyze the thinking that is already there?

When we stand aside and watch the voice in our head we are appalled at the hostility, the judgment, and the self-enhancement that motivates the voice. But we cannot stand aside. We imbibe the voice as “me.” We identify it as ourselves. As we do this, we become the content of our thoughts and we look out through our eyes and we see what Paul called the “world of the flesh.” Everything we see is drama! When we identify with thought, we are what we think. All that we are indeed arises from thought. When we identify with thought, we quite simply have no idea what we are actually thinking since that “thought” masquerades as an illusory “me” that lives in our heads, and we pay no further attention.

Perhaps the problem of the identified thinker is best summed up in Genesis 3:22 where God throws Adam and Eve out of the Garden. In The Message version of the Bible it goes this way: “God said, ‘The Man has become like one of us, capable of knowing everything, ranging from good to evil. What if he now should reach out and take fruit from the Tree-of-Life and eat, and live forever? Never—this cannot happen!’" There is a basic incompatibility between “knowing” and “living.” The identified thinker knows, judges, and thinks, “I am my head.” It convinces us that we “know everything.”

If we remain the identified thinker “The Secret” will morph into greed and desire cloaked in spirituality. The first principles of discovering the true Self are surrender, acceptance, and compassion. “What is” is the Divine expression. Life unfolds in each moment inviting us to pay close attention to It. No one wants to talk about THAT secret. Radical humility is not a topic for a bestselling book or DVD.

Ask yourself this question. Do any of the Awakened Masters of the ages recommend mind stuff as a path to spiritual awakening? So what motivates this effort - “s”elf interest, which is exactly what must die if we are to Live.

The Voice in Your Head

The Hijacking of the Limbic System

Perception - Seeing is Believing

American Idle - When You're Sooo Bad, You're Good

I don't know why, but my wife and I have never really been hooked on American Idol, that is until this season. For some reason we really are enjoying watching it each week. One thing that is astonishing is the numbers of low functioning people that show up with the expectation of being advanced in the competition. I didn't have to watch too long before I realized that the traits I was seeing on the screen matched so many people that I see in therapy.

Here are a few of those traits:

A sense of entitlement. It seems that every looser shows up with the expectation that they automatically deserve promotion. It never seems to occur to these people that real talent is something that must be cultivated and worked over a number of years for hours a day - unfailing practice, passion, and self evaluation.

Unrealistic expectations. Success to these people is automatic. It is not a result of hard work, many failures, and paying your dues. All they think they have to do is show up.

No objective view of themselves. The rejects on American Idol honestly think they are good singers when they in fact are bad enough to make the dogs howl. This isn't too different from most of us. We honestly think that our act is pretty special, even as the world turns up it's nose.

American Idol should change its name (at least in the first few weeks) into American Idle since that is what we are seeing. Night after night we see the lowest common denominator show up expecting stardom. Unfortunately I all too often see this in my office. We hold ourselves in such high regard, we cannot see our faults, we do not see how we really come across at all, and we are put off by anyone who tells us differently.

Hostility in the face of honesty. This brings me to my last point. If we don't get what we want from others, high praise in the face of our unrealistic self-evaluation, we simply attack, blame, and discredit the other person. Failure on our part is an excuse to lash out, berate, and belittle those who have not propped up our flagging ego.

Next time you see someone sing like a dog howling and throw a temper tantrum when it is pointed out, ask yourself this question: What must it be like to live, work, or interact with someone like me? Is is possible that any of those traits are on display in my life?

This type of serious self-examination might answer the ultimate question; why didn't I get a ticket to Hollywood?

What is Freedon (from my Jan. Newsletter)

I talk about freedom quite a bit. I am always saying to someone if you want to be “free” you need to do such and such. It occurred to me the other day that perhaps it might serve a larger purpose if I defined “freedom.” So here goes: Freedom is the Experience of Life beyond Self-Enhancement. 99% of all of our thoughts and most of our effort in life serve one purpose – extinguishing the need for self concern. Of course the ego will never let go of that agenda as long as it is in the driver’s seat of our lives. And try as we might, it is very difficult for even the most self-aware to let go of that strangling agenda.

But let’s get back to freedom for a moment. If freedom means to live life beyond self-enhancement the natural question becomes, “how is self-enhancement slavery?” Ahhhh. Let’s look a little closer at the activities that make up self-enhancement.

I think I will list them first before I make a comment: Being right, being first, winning, getting more, proving our point, satisfying biological drives and addictions - I guess I should just list the seven deadly sins. It becomes quite apparent that what motivates all of us is a desperate need to survive at everyone else’s expense. At some level even the nice people are looking out for number one. Don’t let that smile and all of the sweetness deceive you. And by the way, don’t be confused by some who are working hard ostensibly in the service of others. It is entirely possible that service can be driven by self-enhancement if getting safety or approval is the real goal.

What makes this all very convenient is that this allows us to ignore our arrogant, attacking, hostile, judging, and violent behavior as reasonable and completely justified by what is being done to us. We don’t have to take responsibility; we don’t have to know what it is like being in a relationship with someone like ourselves. This self-enhancement thing is very convenient. Ultimately it does boil down to one thing: every one else must die so you can live.

The slavery comes in when it is time to live differently, we can’t! Our lives are on autopilot to the extent that our agenda comes first, even if we would really like to put someone ahead of ourselves in the pecking order. We are helpless to let go of the agenda of “me.” As a psychotherapist, I can categorically state that I am not blowing this out of proportion. On the other hand, society’s tolerance for what we think is actual hostility and self aggrandizement is out in left field. The truth is mind blowing. We have built a culture that lets us off the hook.

Let me give you an example. Let us say we are watching a news account of someone who kidnapped and abused a small child. As we watch our mind is filled with judging and retaliatory thoughts. These thoughts and reactions we feel are completely justified given the depravity of the crime. But let’s ask ourselves and be honest, where is the depravity? This is what Jesus was talking about when he said, “But I say unto you, that whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.” (Matt 5:28) So if we apply this principle to our watching the news, we find that we have assassinated the perpetrator. That is a bitter pill to swallow. The ego-mind is out of control and dangerously insane!

Freedom means that we have moved beyond our involvement in the drama of life. We have moved to a level of fulfillment that can only be had when we are unconcerned with self-preservation. How do we do this?

There is a monkey brain inside us all that not only wants to live, it wants to be God. The only way to move beyond this is to become the careful student of the internal assassin, judge, and do-gooder. This means that we must “hold in captivity every thought.” When the voice in our heads starts to talk, when we paint self-aggrandizing pictures in our brain, we must be there as the watcher. Only constant vigilance will subjugate the internal game show host.

When we learn to watch the activity of the mind, we become the real master and are no longer the slave. But more important for our discussion, we move outside of the ego-mind to an experience of life beyond the identified thinker –beyond self-preservation.

Freedom is that life, the authentic life, which exists beyond the agenda of self-concern and enhancement. Learn to watch the internal thinker and you will suddenly find yourself in that world of freedom. It is a world beyond time, beyond drama, filled with the Divine Essence for which we all yearn.