I Do NOT Think – Therefore I AM (Aware)

“Stop thinking, and end your problems….I drift like a wave on the ocean,

I blow as aimless as the wind.”

[excerpt Lao Tzu, Tao Te Chin, verse 20]

A Cup of Tea

Nan-in, a Japanese master during the Meiji era (1868-1912), received a university professor who came to inquire about Zen

Nan-in served tea. He poured his visitor’s cup full, and then kept on pouring.

The professor watched the overflow until he no longer could restrain himself. “It is overfull. No more will go in!”

“Like this cup,” Nan-in said, “you are full of your own opinions and speculations. How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup?”

How often have you experienced a revelation, had an “aha” moment or had a new or startling thought? It is absolutely necessary to empty the mind (take out the trash?) regularly in order to create space, most importantly, to just be a being. A being doesn’t need thought to be. It simply is. An infant doesn’t need to learn how to be or to think about being.

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there. When the soul lies down in that grass, the world is too full to talk about

Rumi

Illumined Human (Part 2)

Becoming: Feet of Clay

Genesis 2 says that God created Adam out of the dust of the earth. World myths (Greek, Sumerian, Egyptian, Chinese, Babylonian, Hindu, Maori, Inca, etc.) depict people, male and/or female made from clay. Even Wonder Woman was sculpted out of clay by her mother Hyppolita! A Jewish  Talmudic legend portrays Adam as a golem (clay figure–a body without a soul) for the first 12 hours of his existence.

Egyptian god Khum creating man from clay

               It is safe to say that we all have proverbial “feet of clay” even before we left the Garden of Eden. If we were already clay or dust were we of heaven or of earth?

A long time ago I surmised that the reason we Earth beings left the Garden of Eden was because the divine actually wanted us to go—a reason and a purpose. Perhaps we had developed enough that it was time; or perhaps we hadn’t developed enough and needed a challenge course for growth.

So, as the Genesis 2& 3 goes, an apple tree was planted in the midst of other fruit trees in Eden and the young’uns were told you can eat the fruit of any tree except the fruit of the tree of knowledge. As any parent knows, if you put something where the child will regularly encounter it and then say, “don’t touch”, the temptation is irresistible. But even then Adam and Eve didn’t eat the fruit, so a serpent had to be devised to seduce them. And, voila! Success! Humans who lived in an eternal state of BEING fell into BECOMING. Birth, biography, death.

“What could you not accept, if you but knew that everything that happens, all events, past, present and to come, are gently planned by One Whose only purpose is your good?” 

A Course in Miracles

Not knowing its source, I kept  that quote on my refrigerator for years so that I would see it often. And, because I am aware that BEING is “One”, I concluded that I was an integral part of the planning.

“Is willing to accept that she creates her own reality except for some of the parts where she can’t help but wonder what the hell she was thinking.”

Story People, Almost New Age

Is our world is a virtual reality of our own design? This idea is closely aligned with the ancient spiritual tradition of India that we are living in “maya” (roughly translated as “illusion”). There is the beautiful maya of the natural world that is there to appreciate it and to meditate on its many mysteries, to teach us and help us grow spiritually. But it is the human maya that becomes our role play—our charade–and leads us into believing that this Earth life is our only true identity. However, it is not. It is a merely temporary reality.

: “Reality is an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.”

Albert Einstein

Any cursory exploration of quantum mechanics reveals that modern Western science has met ancient Eastern tradition.

Wordsworth captured this knowledge and the inevitable destiny of ego development in Ode on Intimations of Immortality.  An excerpt:

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting;

The Soul that rises with us, our life’s Star,

          Hath had elsewhere its setting

               And cometh from afar;

          Not in entire forgetfulness,

          And not in utter nakedness,

But trailing clouds of glory do we come

               From God, who is our home:

Heaven lies about us in our infancy!

Shades of the prison-house begin to close

               Upon the growing Boy,

But he beholds the light, and whence it flows,

               He sees it in his joy;

The Youth, who daily farther from the east

     Must travel, still is Nature’s priest,

          And by the vision splendid

          Is on his way attended;

At length the Man perceives it die away,

And fade into the light of common day.

I am

I am empty, so You fill me, but I am never full;

For I am a fountain pouring forth your love, emptying.

Beneath this craggy mountain shell is cavernous magic.

I am countenance, only an image, as the leaf is of the tree.

I am empty, so You fill me, but I am never full:

For I am a singing, starlit river carrying ecstatic rainbow fish.

Spilling into your vast, eternal ocean.

I am but an iridescent bubble, delicate and hollow,

Floating, shimmering, pretending to be knowable until I burst,

I dance in the breeze while I can, flit and spin myself

Into and out of being.

I am nothing. Empty. Without form.

I glisten and shimmer with dragonfly wings.

I hover and land then flit away on a moment’s inspiration.

Exhaling.

You breathe You into me, and I breathe You out.

I am empty, so You fill me, but I am never full:

I am a hollow shell holding the roll of the ocean.

I am a cupped hand holding light.

I am nothing. I am.

©Sharon Heller,   (Yom Kippur)  September 18, 2018

Ego Development and Loss of Ego

Self-awareness, ego and the persona

Let us think of the newborn for a moment. In healthy environments this precious being is welcomed with such love and joy. The aroma of the newborn is like a perfume of heaven. It seems to be alight with joy for no apparent reason or distressed by hunger or physical discomfort. Does the newborn know a religion? …a nationality? … its age? And, although it is no doubt affected somewhat by gender, does it know it has one? Does it know it has a name or even an identity? I would say, no, it does not. It is a Self. In it is the seed of its becoming. It has gifts, challenges and expressions inherent to itself and its genetics. Given a nurturing environment these indwelling characteristics will emerge in proper sequence as determined by a majestic natural process.

The infant is exposed to a human environment that is both a non-material energetic field (already experienced in utero) and a material world of atmosphere, language, gestures, beliefs, rituals, customs, diet, objects, etc. These outer influences act upon the innate Self. Along with learning the essentials of life, the child also learns that it is different from others. It is not only the inherent abilities and preferences that form but also the habits, attitudes and beliefs of the people in its environment give the child an identity that is external to the –the beginning of that conglomeration of external influences and memories with which the growing child identifies is what we often call “ego”.

The “ego” (Latin for “I”)  a term beginning in antiquity, then as part of the Freudian psychoanalytical model to the modern day usage for which there are at least six definitions (dictionary.com), it is still commonly used to mean sense of self or identity.

Identity is a necessary function of human existence. There are historical cases of children raised by animals, lacking human interaction for an extended period. These children do not develop certain recognizable human traits. The so-called feral children are not enculturated, do not learn human language, may not walk upright, and are often emotionally, socially and cognitively impaired. In some cases even sensory awareness (heat/cold) remains animal-like.

Identity can be lost, confused or poorly expressed because of neurological disease and disorders (Alzheimer’s, autism) or psychopathology (dissociative identity disorder, schizophrenia, narcissistic personality disorder, borderline personality disorder).

We want our children to develop a healthy identity and self-concept. Any parent of an infant knows that the world revolves around the child’s needs and desires and that the child’s awareness of the needs of others comes later. A healthy sense of self leads to a healthy sense of and respect for others.

A question arises then when in so many spiritual teachings there is talk of “ego death”. What does this mean? And why is it important?

“The psychotic drowns in the same waters in which the mystic swims with delight.”

― Joseph Campbell, quoted in  Psychology of the Future: Lessons from Modern Consciousness Research by Stanislav Grof

During one of our group mentoring sessions, the leader, a mystic (former priest and a PhD psychologist) stated that I (Sharon) do not have an ego. The uproar of all the egos in the room arguing that of course I also had an ego was pretty funny. It was probably just a question of semantics because words like ego, identity, self, persona, and awareness are so poorly defined.

Thanks to a near-death experience when I was 27, I left my body behind and experienced my SELF as an individual Being merged in the ONE. In that experience the identifiers of age, nationality, religion, and race were not just unimportant, they were non-existent. Upon return to earthly awareness, I found that I had insufficient buffers (separateness) to function well. I needed to re-create/re-learn my personae (multiple persona) for interacting in different social and cultural settings. But these were no more “me” than an avatar for my online presence is me. I understand that persona is a construct that is necessary for function. My persona expresses in various ways (gentleness, forcefulness, graciousness, self-interest) according to the situation and I do my best to fit the responses appropriately to the circumstances.

Obviously I have a sense of identity or I would be unable to use the word “I”. Fortunately I had a well-established sense of self when I “died” so that I was able to find my way back into everyday life. Otherwise, as Joseph Chilton Pearce so aptly quipped, I would have drowned in the waters in which I now swim. I do know that I am the proverbial drop in the spiritual ocean. I understand that I am One with the “is-ness of everything”.

Paradoxically, the spirit that I am has taken up a soul with its inherent qualities that express through a body that is influenced by genetic and epigenetic expressions and by memories and patterns retained within this adult body. I do my best to let the story of who I am “die” so that the reality of my larger, truer Self can have full expression in this life. It isn’t that I don’t have personal identity, it’s that I am defined by the larger rather than the smaller. Just as the body is needed for life on earth, so too are the soul-identity and the personae necessary and all deserve to have boundaries, self-protection and self-care. The “death of the ego” means only the birth of the awareness that I am so much more than it.

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting: 

The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star, 

Hath had elsewhere its setting, 

And cometh from afar: 

Not in entire forgetfulness, 

And not in utter nakedness, 

But trailing clouds of glory do we come 

From God, who is our home: 

Heaven lies about us in our infancy! 

Shades of the prison-house begin to close 

Upon the growing Boy, 

But he beholds the light, and whence it flows, 

He sees it in his joy; 

The Youth, who daily farther from the east 

Must travel, still is Nature's Priest, 

And by the vision splendid 

Is on his way attended; 

At length the Man perceives it die away, 

And fade into the light of common day. 




Earth fills her lap with pleasures of her own; 

Yearnings she hath in her own natural kind, 

And, even with something of a Mother's mind, 

And no unworthy aim, 

The homely Nurse doth all she can 

To make her Foster-child, her Inmate Man, 

Forget the glories he hath known, 

And that imperial palace whence he came.

Excerpt-Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood by William Wordsworth