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the Hunt for Truth

Tag Archives: ego

How is feeling upset my problem?

11 Friday Apr 2014

Posted by Hunt 4 Truth in B4Peace, Consciousness, Culture, Happiness, Health, I can improve today, Inner peace, Lessons, Meditation, Mindful, Peace, Philosophy, Psychology, Self-assessments, Self-improvement, Spirituality

≈ 31 Comments

Tags

B4Peace, Blog for PEACE, Eckhart Tolle, ego, Healthy Minds, mind, Mindfulness, self-awareness, serenity, stillness, Thought

I’ll begin with a short story that Eckhart Tolle likes to tell:

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Two Zen monks, Tanzan and Ekido, were walking along a country road that had become extremely wet with mud and deep puddles after heavy rains.
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Near a village, they came upon a girl who was trying to cross the road, but the mud was so deep. it would have ruined the silk kimono she was wearing. Tanzan at once picked her up and carried her to the other side.
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The monks walked on in silence. Five hours later, as they were approaching the lodging temple, Ekido couldn’t restrain himself any longer. He finally snapped, “Tanzan, why did you carry that girl across the road? We monks are not supposed to hold girls like that.”
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“I put the girl down hours ago,” said Tanzan. “Are you still carrying her Ekido?”
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Sometime I just go with what the expert says. In this case, I have a few clarifying paragraphs.

The story that Tolle relates is used to illustrate a point that we have a vulnerability protection system. He calls it the ego. 

I just want to clarify what happened (in this story).

First, the mind is not who we/you are. However, the body believes whatever thoughts that mind allows. Thus as the information is processed in the body, it actually changes subtly the body; the brain and molecules, etc… we know there are chemicals and brain waves and signals being transmitted throughout the brain-heart-gut-body (form, aka. mind-body, un-awakened consciousness). The information, together with form, is ever changing. Thinking, therefore, requiring time, occurs in form (as interpretations of information / consciousness) … not in a/the single unchanging mind (divine mind).

This is confusing and difficult when there is an upset.

In the story, Ekido believes that Tanzan did wrong by carrying the girl. The monks have been walking for a long time when Ekido finally tires of his burden. Ekido has been carrying his belief of the wrongness for hours. He’s been feeling upset. Finally, he relieves himself of this upset by confronting Tanzan rather than himself. He might have said right away to Tanzan, “I got uncomfortable with what happened. What is bothering me is my thinking that it was wrong. We are not supposed to hold women. Still, no harm came of it. She clearly needed some help. I ought to get over this.”

Instead, Ekido allows the disturbance to grow into greater discomfort. He begins to believe that Tanzan is the cause of his discomfort. 

Negative thinking about it may have seemed to be the best thing. However, negativity attracts more negativity and the mind then is left feeling badly and having a pressing urge to find some relief. Typically, a person acts out when under this sort of pressure. If there is someone else that can be blamed, that seems the right thing then to do. The upset gets taken over by the body’s pain management system — the source of the pain being out there, Ekido accuses his friend of doing a wrong. 

Ekido unknowingly was maintaining a separation from the present moment while he was feeling disturbed. This gets tiring. The disturbance feeds into a delusion that Tanzan is responsible for the upset. His mind is unable to break free of the discomfort while ruminating about the past event. Finally his mind then convinced him that the problem can be fixed by blaming Tanzan. Fortunately Tanzan feels free to accept that Ekido is needlessly upset and his reply is matter-of-fact rather than defensive. If Ekido wants to think excessively, he may. The thinking was tiring his mind. Since the incident is past and Tanzan was free of it when he put the girl down, Ekido wasted his time carrying the upset for miles.

There are two parts to Ekido’s problem. First off, he is excessively thinking.

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Here is a training video by Eckhart Tolle…
“How do we break the habit of excessive thinking?”

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Eckhart explores excessive (addiction to) thinking, offering a handful of ways to put the stop to thoughts and to choose presence of now instead. When body sends a signal, mind gets a thought. You may allow this or you may choose to diminish the thought by coming back to the presence of now.

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A second problem for Ekido is that he didn’t have any control to change what upset him since the upset is about Tanzan’s action. The inner dialog lead to excessive thinking about something that was beyond his control. Some of us spend our time when dealing with people trying to change circumstance that are beyond our control. This is, it turns out, usually just a waste of time and energy. 

We may even threaten, scold, manipulate, coerce, bully, plead, beg, shout, pout, bribe or try anything to make a situation go the “right” way — often, only to see things getting progressively worse before they get better. Since negativity attracts more negativity this is quite stressful and the mind-body then is left feeling badly. 

Peace is my goal and tolerance, acceptance, compassion, genuine concern and loving presence is my way to get this. Getting better at this began for me with reducing stress and finding inner peace. I began to understand that I was reactive to the content of my life situations and that I was sacrificing sanity this way. Self-will was inadequate. Controlling my surroundings by exercising self-will was not healthy. I began to look for solutions and I found that there are hundreds of great ways to reduce stress and gain personal freedom. Today’s second video may help you to gain some peace of mind for dealing with stress. 

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“How to live without Stress in your day-to-day life”
by Eckhart Tolle

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Learning how to achieve peaceful living may be much eased by knowing how to live without reacting to the “content” of our lives. There may be realization that the form of thought need not make a home in me as a lasting identity.

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I hope you find this training useful. I added some more in the comments section and there are additional related articles listed too.

Need help or want to collaborate with me?
e-mail me at thehunt4truth@yahoo.com

Thanks for visiting.

 Eric

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Is the ego the source of our thoughts or are our thoughts
generated elsewhere and passed through the ego?

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Apr 11, 2014 .

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Is the ego the source of our thoughts or are our thoughts generated elsewhere and passed through the ego?

03 Monday Mar 2014

Posted by Hunt 4 Truth in Consciousness, Culture, Happiness, Health, Inner peace, Inspiration, Mindful, Philosophy, Self-assessments, Self-improvement, Spirituality

≈ 9 Comments

Tags

anxiety, depression, Eckhart Tolle, ego, in the flow, mind, Mindfulness, present moment, PTSD, Tolle, well-being, wellness

Mind is expression of Energy originating from beyond the limits of space-time through the information layers of consciousness. 

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Most of this post is from work
by Eckhart Tolle.

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Eckhart Tolle is asked, “Is the ego the source of our thoughts or are our thoughts generated elsewhere and pass through the ego?”

Tolle begins, “There is no ego apart from thoughts. The identification with thoughts is ego. But the thoughts that go through your mind, of course, are linked to the collective mind of the culture you live in, humanity as a whole, so they are not your thoughts as such, but you pick most of them up from the collective (most of them). And so, you identify with thinking and the identification with thinking becomes ego, which means simply that you believe in every thought that arises and you derive your sense of who you are from what your mind is telling you who you are. Opinions, viewpoints, ‘that’s me.’”

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Did the universe make a mistake with the ego?

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“The realm of consciousness is much vaster than thought can grasp. When you no longer believe everything you think, you step out of thought and see clearly that the thinker is not who you are.”

The ego arises out of the state of identification with thought. The moment of freedom arises when we realize that we are not our thoughts—rather, we are the awareness. .

 

Eckhart, Could you elaborate on ego versus healthy self-esteem? How do you know when higher consciousness guides you? How do we break the habit of excessive thinking? What is music and why is it so important to us?Why Does the ego put up such a fight? Do you ever regret what you say? Do we have a choice in suffering? 

Be The River

For two years, a small man sits quietly on a park bench. People walk by, lost in their thoughts. One day someone asks him a question. In the weeks that follow there are more people and more questions. Word spreads that the man is a “mystic,” and has discovered something that brings peace and meaning into our lives. It sounds like fiction, but today that man, Eckhart Tolle, is known worldwide for his teachings on spiritual enlightenment through the power of the present moment. Read more.

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“Get out of your head and into the moment.”

~ Eckhart Tolle

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The above is from work
by Eckhart Tolle.

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The ego has the benefit of beliefs that will sustain it until I am dead. How much power will we wrest from each other is in the balance each moment. My day-to-day life is where it seems that the match occurs. Yet, really this is a match of mind and consciousness. One is eternal and all powerful. The other is temporary and yet seems all powerful. The ego makes its points by turning away in fear from love. The mind makes its points by looking through the anxious devastation of fear to see an outcome that is beyond the space-time present; manifest in the design of this universe, yet largely unknown to me.

I know that I am changing and according to what I am reading, so is my brain and my body adapting too. I wanted to learn how mindfulness is aiding me; spiritually, and how mindfulness and meditation and praying stimulate physical changes, so, I’d been posting on this as I was learning more.

Please, check my posts from the experts about how mindfulness is beneficial, see Make it so, Developing better brains, Stillness – your essential nature, Meditation changes brains, Mindfulness and prayerful healing, and others listed below.

Often, I’m told that prayer is all that is necessary for spiritual growth. I cannot disagree. However, I need stillness away from the ego to be able to do this. I put my mind to learning to want meditation time and I began to know the God of my youth, in a relevant and deep Christian way, as I pursued the practices of meditation. Later I began to experience the stillness and being in the flow, in the present of now, for periods of connecting but in still, timeless, moments. These experiences brought me to want to be joy as well as being softening humility and compassion for others.

The ego that Tolle describes is cunning and powerful and this is the ego that I discovered that I am otherwise unable to escape. It runs by fear, primal instinct, and it is a cunning foe, this arcane chameleon foe of personality shifting identities. 

I’ve taught in programs that serve people that dissociate. So, I’ve read about Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and Identity Disorders; always… have for years now. It may be, I am sure more than suspect, that mindfulness is a tremendous beneficial practice for people that suffer from PTSD and ego fragmenting dissociate disorders. The techniques are being researched and there is new hope for vets and abuse victims. The problems of PTSD and for others that dissociate are deeply attached to subconscious ego defense mechanisms that are hardly yet understood. With Tolle’s teachings and with mindfulness practices, there is great hope. 

I already know from research and seeing people get well that these practices are greatly benefiting people that suffer from anxiety and depression.

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Need help or want to collaborate with me?
Just e-mail me at thehunt4truth@yahoo.com
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Check back frequently. There is always more here to discover.

New post Eric

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Inner Peace

Inner Peace Award - I would have a no-awards blog but this award changed me. Thanks Suz. I'm glad I changed.

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For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: "Love your neighbor as yourself." https://hunt4truth.wordpress.com/ Absolute Truth is whole, complete and perfect. Absolute Truth is just beyond words, mental concepts, and form; Non-being, yet in everything and yet beyond thought forms. Prayer and meditation fashion in our hearts further honesty, openness, and willingness and thus, we may glimpse guidance and truth to rightly think and act. Any glimpse of truth is not Absolute Truth. It may be sufficient until we renew our commitment to serve God. Life is thus best navigated during mindfulness of prayer and meditation by an inner peace. "For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities — his eternal power and divine nature — have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse." Romans 1:20

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