the ego process

[Guest guest]

Frank says...

>.........it's like a dim star that can be seen

> as long as you're looking slightly askance. as

> soon as you train your gaze on it, it

disappears.

> same with the matter of subject/object

delineation,

> as well as the existence of the ego, the Mind,

and

> obstacles, problems, anxieties, etc. within

ego-Mind.

> as soon as one attempts to directly behold any

of

> these, they disappear. this is the successful

result

> of the application of the atmavichara

(Self-enquiry).

 

yup... when you look for the ego it's gone.

That's not

that hard to "see" if anyone actually tries. What

was

much harder was to "see" what it was that

disappeared

when looked for but yet seemed to reappear when

not

directly scrutinized. Bit of a Catch-22 there but

I think

I finally have it... see what you think...

 

" the ego is the process which takes something

else to be itself "

 

The "something else" could be the body, or the

name or

the reputation, memories, etc. but the process

always has

the same feature of being different than the thing

which

it claims to be. I think this is why it has been

called a

thief, a lie, etc. This is the actual reason why

it disappears

under scrutiny because it never was nor could be

something

else. No thing can be some other thing but this

is exactly

what the ego purports to be in every instance. I

think this

is why the Buddhists say the truth is

non-attachment to any

[other] thing as being a self or belonging to a

self. I think

this is the meaning of the metaphor mentioned by

Ramana

about the bird circling around a ship at sea

having to return

for lack of finding any other place to land. The

"self" can't

be identified with any other thing so it must

return to itself

unnamed, undefined, unbounded...

 

-A.