Satsang with Oliver - questions and answers 36-40
Spiritual literature often mentions the term "ego". Actually the ego is always shown as something bad. Something one has to get rid of. What exactly do they mean?
If you've read this website carefully you may have noticed that I almost never use the term "ego". It's for the following reason: As you wrote, ego is often described as negative. It's shown as something, which prevents you from liberation. Generally a lot is said about the ego, whilst every teacher seems to have a different concept of it. So it's quite a problematic term which, absorbs the mind but generally causes more confusion than clarity.
Therefore, I suggest to see the ego as a crowd of thoughts. These thoughts aren't more important or special than others. No matter if I think about my shopping list or about the separation of "my" ego from "other" egos: Thoughts are thoughts. They are empty. Nothing. In case of the ego one single thought (the thought of separation) has identified itself with a crowd of other thoughts and now occupies itself with them eagerly. This little thought creates a separate person with its own history and character (ego) and tries to keep it alive. Don't care about it. That's the game of life. It doesn't concern YOU, Oneness. It appears IN you.
If you tell me that I don't have a free will and that I can't do anything in order to feel better I feel very stressed. I'm impatient and want to do something to change the situation. I can't just hang around and wait.
It's completely clear that you feel stressed by the thought that you don't have a free will. But this "you" (the person who is stressed) is just a tiny little thought, which has built up a bloated building named "I am a separate individual" and is now trying to defend it by all means. The thought of a concept of a free will hangs on to this defence doggedly. A very exhausting undertaking.
But when I talk to you I never talk to you as an apparent individual. I'm not interested in that individual even if this might sound heartless in the beginning. I'm talking to you as unity as if I was talking to myself. You, what you really are, unity, pure alive existence, doesn't have to do anything at all in order to just be. This "just be" is always endless freedom and happiness, even if the apparent "me" is unhappy, doesn't feel free or is even depressed.
You ask what you can do because you're impatient. Well what do you normally do? What do you like? What do you normally do voluntarily without being pushed by somebody? It can be anything, for example reading, eating, watching television, playing soccer, meditate, boxing, sleeping, working, sitting on a chair and reading the newspapers, drinking coffee, etc. It doesn't matter what.
I suggest that if you want to do something, just do things that mean no effort for you because you love doing them anyway and forget about the concept of the free will, of the endless bliss and freedom and just LIVE as life lives you. That's all!
What actually is the difference between "awakening" and "liberation"?
Well, even confirmed non-dualistic teachers often make a difference between those two terms. From my own experience I can say the following: Awakening happens in one single moment, which is felt at an exact point in time. It's the sudden realization that there are two me's: the personal me (identification) and the impersonal ME (Oneness). As long as this "being awake" is considered by the personal "me" as a state it wants to hold on to (because it feels good) it's not liberation. Liberation occurs when the person who is in the state of being awake, disappears. This process can last for a long time. Afterwards, there isn't an awakened person, anymore but only impersonal freedom.
Oliver, you say that fear can arise even if a fearful "I" does no longer exist. OK, but how to handle the nasty physical reactions?
You have hinted at it already: If no "someone" is here anymore, no one is handling any physical reactions in any way. They are just there. They emerge and usually disappear again quickly as they no longer receive any energy from "somebody" (= thoughts) who gets all worked up and intensifies the reactions by identifying with them, giving them time and their own story. Also see Questions 3 and 18.
Oliver, please help our minds: Are we actors in the movie of life, or the movie itself, or the screen or only the spectators?
You are all actors in the film as well as spectators in the movie theatre. You are the screen, you are the movie, the projector and the light. But you are also the movie seat. And you are the popcorns. No part of this cinematographic experience is separate from the other. Enjoy this lively movie occurrence, because that's what it is here for.
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