Is there a contradiction somewhere there? 
“Pain is Pain. Broken is Broken. FEAR is the Biggest Disability of all. And will PARALYZE you More Than Being in a Wheelchair.” - Nick Vujicic-
Dissolving the Ego in Meditation
Ego
While the ego works tirelessly to feed itself, the soul can ‘be’ to embrace itself. Meditation is a great way to ‘let go’ of the world around you. Meditation is the practice of turning inwards to the force that lies within.
It is a tool that every human being has the ability to do, yet so few practice it. Why is that? It’s probably because the ego races the brain, and that most of peoples views of meditation are distorted.
The mind may interpret meditation as something that ‘ weird people ‘ do, or people who need ‘ calming down ‘, or ‘those who do not fit in’. You may have heard how people say “ I’m too busy to meditate ” or “ I don’t need to meditate “. Firstly, there’s a quote by Ajahn Chah, that goes like this: “ If you have time to breathe, you have time to meditate. “, which is completely true.
“ You should sit in meditation for twenty minutes a day – unless you’re too busy; then you should sit for an hour “.
Believe it or not, meditation actually frees up more time for you because it enables you to see beyond your conditioning by using the contemplative eye, that is the eye of observation and awareness. It frees your mind to do plenty of other things. Your days will become more enjoyable. To respond to the second statement of “ I don’t need to meditate “; meditation does not provide a need.
Meditation is the art of returning to your true-self. There is no need involved in this. Arguably, one could argue that it takes more strength to meditate than it does to lift heavy weights in the gym. After all, it must take willpower and resilience to ‘be still’, and observe the mind without judgement, in such a frantic world. Don’t confuse ‘being still’, with sitting still. Sitting still means doing nothing, whereas ‘being still’ implies the withdrawal and retreat to the center of your soul.
One more point that needs to be stressed is how the human brain perceives things. The mind cannot comprehend certain events or circumstances, so it will form its own picture, alienating those who do different things. This picture is generated on the basis of past events and experiences, all of which make up the ‘conditioned mind’.
The ego in the mind makes people believe that some things in life should never be explored. This is a limitation. People are imprisoned by their thoughts. Nobody can tell you what meditation exactly is, nor what you will feel when doing it. You must do it yourself, before drawing a conclusion. If you cannot reach the peak of the mountain and see all of what surrounds you, then your opinion is invalid .
Eternal Peace
Ego destroys the present moment. How do you let go of ego? Well, the answer lies within. You simply don’t. Being aware of the ego automatically dampens it down, slowing its momentum, and eventually destroying it. You can manually shift the gears in your brain from automatic ‘doing’ mode to conscious ‘being’ mode. That being said, don’t over-think ego. Be still. Be aware. The ego will get bored… And eventually leave too. I bet you have all heard of the phrase ‘a need for a need’? A hidden dissatisfaction of some sort. You ‘want’ something yet you are confused as to what you ‘want’. Maybe this dissatisfaction arises as a result of neglecting the soul?
Once the ego crumbles, your soul will be revealed. So what is the opposite of the ego? Peace. Wisdom. Love. Unity. All of these will arise. If you do not let go of ego, then life will be extremely difficult, and suffering may come (although that may be necessary for you to awaken to your true self). Realize that the present moment is all there ever is, even now, right now, this is a moment of your life that you should cherish. Smile! This realization will empower your inner being and nourish your soul with freedom and prosperity.
Letting go of ego, learning to ground yourself in the ‘here’ and ‘now’, and turning inwards to the deepest-most-inner-depths of your soul, will ultimately, lead to inner peace, and provide a great sense of worth. What a great revelation it is to know that the happiness you had been ‘wanting’ for so long, is actually inside of you. Start appreciating everything in life, even the moments that you think are ‘little’, and don’t take anything for granted. Discover your indwelling spirit that lies within.
Written by Sam Tabibzadeh
In order to reach union with the Divine
it is necessary to leave the intellect behind.
One must let go of things and empty oneself
of everything in order to make room for
the flood of Divine illumination.
St John of the Cross
“Man can certainly flee from God… but he cannot escape him. He can certainly hate God and be hateful to God, but he cannot change into its opposite the eternal love of God which triumphs even in his hate.” - Karl Barth-
The more we live in our head the more we become judgmental and egocentric. There are stories of hard headed persons who suddenly saw light and were brought to their heart and they changed forever. When we learn to see the world through our heart we feel love and forgiveness, compassion and empathy. Then the head works in the light of the heart. It is a transformation. This change alone can heal you and make you a man of wisdom and humility. Unaffected by worldly pains you live in the light of your soul, in the heaven of your spirit.
Light! There is only Light! That is love.
~~Shuddhaanandaa Brahmachari
“Old age is like a bank account, you withdraw from what you’ve put in. So, my advice to you would be to deposit a lot of happiness in the bank account of memories.”-- Mrs. Jones
“As long as you are proud you cannot know God. A proud man is always looking down on thing and people: and, of course, as long as you are looking down you cannot see something that is above you.” -Mere Christianity (C.S. Lewis)
“And out of that hopeless attempt has come nearly all that we call human history—money, poverty, ambition, war, prostitution, classes, empires, slavery—the long terrible story of man trying to find something other than God which will make him happy.” -C.S. Lewis-
“Nothing," says the late General GORDON , "can be more abject and miserable than the usual conception of God *** Imagine to yourself what pleasure it would be to Him to burn us, or to torture us. Can we believe any human being capable of creating us for such a purpose? We credit God with attributes which are utterly hateful to the meanest of men *** I say that Christian Pharisees deny Christ *** A hard, cruel set they are, from high to low. When one thinks of the real agony one has gone through in consequence of false teaching, it makes human nature angry with the teachers who have added to the bitterness of life.” - Thomas Allin, (Christ Triumphant)-
“Above all, don’t lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love.”
– Fyodor Dostoevsky
“Refuse to be average. Let your heart soar as high as it will.” - A. W. Tozer-
“The happiest people I have known have been those who gave themselves no concern about their own souls but did their uttermost to mitigate the miseries of others.”-- Elizabeth Cady Stanton
1 Like
"All the broken and dislocated pieces of the universe - people and things, animals and atoms - get properly fixed and fit together in vibrant harmonies, all because of his death, his blood that poured down from the Cross. "
-The Message-
I am nobody special in the worldly sense of the term. But in dying to self and coming to faith in Christ I have eternal significance. I am special to God. His love is a holy love. Holy means to be set apart (special). I don’t earn my worth but it is a gift of God received by faith. My sense of belonging and sense that I count comes from being a child of God. The ego is nothing. The paradox is that we are set apart and special because we are united to all. We are light in a dark world. What the world considers special God doesn’t. What God considers special the world doesn’t. When I’m nobody I’m somebody. When I’m somebody I’m nobody. We become nobody so that Christ will be glorified in us - our true self. In and of myself I’m nothing so that Christ can reign in my heart. I’m covered and infused in God’s righteousness. Therefore, I have intrinsic worth because I’m in Christ. Everything I have; family, friends, possessions, health, all comes from my heavenly Father (Job 1:21). Knowing this, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me (Philippians 4:13). I am “fearfully and wonderfully” made (Psalm 139:14). In Christ, I have my true identity, apart from Him, I am nothing (John 15:5). ~~ Holly Tree
"I believe implicitly in the ultimate and complete triumph of God, the time when all things shall be subject to Him and when God will be everything to everyone (1 Cor 15:24-28). For me, this has certain consequences. If one man remains outside of the love of God at the end of time, it means that one man has defeated the love of God—and that is impossible. Further, there is only one way in which we can think of the triumph of our God. If God was no more than a King or judge, then it would be possible to speak of his triumph, if His enemies were agonizing in hell or were totally and completely obliterated and wiped out. But God is not only king and Judge, God is Father—He is indeed Father more than anything else. No father could be happy while there were members of his family for ever in agony. No father would count it a triumph to obliterate the disobedient members of his family. The only triumph a father can know is to have all of his family back home again. –Dr. Wm. Barclay
“The supreme need in every hour of difficulty and distress is for a fresh vision of God. Seeing Him, all else takes on proper perspective and proportion.” -G. Campbell Morgan-
“Listen with curiosity. Speak with honesty. Act with integrity. The greatest problem with communication is we don’t listen to understand. We listen to reply. When we listen with curiosity, we don’t listen with the intent to reply. We listen for what’s behind the words.”-- Roy T. Bennett
“A spiritual journey is becoming what one has always meant to be-come and always was. One with God’s Spirit.” - Jazz Feylynn-
"There are two basic motivating forces: fear and love. When we are afraid, we pull back from life. When we are in love, we open to all that life has to offer with passion, excitement, and acceptance. We need to learn to love ourselves first, in all our glory and our imperfections. If we cannot love ourselves, we cannot fully open to our ability to love others or our potential to create. Evolution and all hopes for a better world rest in the fearlessness and open-hearted vision of people who embrace life."
– John Lennon
“Patience is more than endurance. A saint’s life is in the hands of God like a bow and arrow in the hands of an archer. God is aiming at something the saint cannot see, and He stretches and strains, and every now and again the saint says–‘I cannot stand anymore.’ God does not heed, He goes on stretching till His purpose is in sight, then He lets fly. Trust yourself in God’s hands. Maintain your relationship to Jesus Christ by the patience of faith. 'Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him.” -Oswald Chambers-
As Arthur McGill succinctly notes, “The way of Jesus is the way of self-expenditure.” And as Paul describes in Philippians 2, this freedom to give our lives away is made possible only through the act of kenosis, of self-emptying and letting go so that our identities might be eccentrically grounded in Christ and the Father. If we receive everything - even our very lives - as a gift then we have nothing to cling to or protect. Following the example of Jesus, we become “nothing”. In a sense, we “die” - and thus we no longer have fear of dispossession, loss, diminishment, or expenditure in the face of death. ~~ Richard Beck, “The Slavery of Death”, page 77
Thus, the paradox of the cross: we must die - by losing and letting go - in order to find life, in order to experience resurrection - Beck, page 80