Tuesday, October 5, 2010

The Fault You Find in Others Is Ego Hiding in Yourself

Most new age spiritual books would agree that ego disguises itself in many forms to keep from being discovered. It lives in the darkness of the unconscious. Ego hides like this because to be found out, to be brought into the light, means it can no longer survive.

Your task on the journey to spiritual healing is to ferret out every emotional nook and cranny where ego might be lurking. A favorite and subtle hideaway, for example, is in ego’s technique of finding fault with others. Searching for ego in our own fault-finding statements and thoughts—even if the fault we’re finding is with ourselves—will help us sniff ego out.

New Age Meditation Can Help
Do you ever think or say things like: “He doesn’t know what he’s doing.” “She was so rude to her friend.” “He was entirely in the wrong.” “She doesn’t care if she hurts other people.” These represent the kinds of thoughts or statements you will want to catch yourself saying or thinking. Since we’re usually not aware that we think and say things that find fault, it helps to quiet your mind and pay attention to the thoughts that come to you. One way to do so is through spiritual meditation, and specifically, new age meditation techniques that are less time consuming, yet very effective.

When you find these types of criticisms or judgments coming from your lips or entering your mind, turn them back onto yourself and explore as candidly as possible whether the fault you find in others might apply to you just as well. If you find evidence to that effect, own it without embarrassment or shame. Congratulate yourself: you have just put your finger on ego. You have shined Spirit’s light on it, flushing it out of its cobwebby darkness.

Remember: the more you are able to learn about yourself by studying your ego-projections on others, the less critical you will become of them (and yourself), the more compassion for other people’s foibles and frailties you will feel, and the closer you will be to realizing the happiness you’ve longed deserved. There are a number of spiritual healing books out there to help you, including spiritual books for women. One such book for men and women is Beyond the Ego, which earned a five-star rating (out of five) by Foreword Clarion Review. Visit www.beyondtheego.com to learn more about how you can reduce your own fault-finding, and as a result, live a happier, more peaceful life.

All Behaviors Make Sense

In the days when abnormal behavior was believed to be the result of demonic possession, the treatments for such individuals seemed to make perfect sense at the time—for example, feeding people a mixture of sheep manure and wine to get them to “vomit up” the demon—although now they sound barbaric.
This is because beliefs drive behaviors; the examples are endless, millions if not billions of them every day. The belief that cholesterol causes heart disease drives people to behaviors that reduce their cholesterol levels. The belief in the superiority of the Aryan race led to behaviors that exterminated six million Jews. The belief that one is a victim easily leads to behaviors that support this victimization.
A belief can be conscious or unconscious. An unconscious belief that profoundly affects us all is the belief in ego-separation, the concept that your life, my life, everyone’s life, is separated from the life of all other beings and all other things.
For the sake of ego’s survival, this concept powers superiority-related behaviors that are the source of immense pain and suffering: subjugation, division, arrogance, conquest, selfishness, greed, pride, envy, judgment, gluttony, fear, and wrath. People unconsciously act out these superiority-related ego-behaviors every day.
The Answer: Spiritual Awakenings
To become conscious of such behaviors, you must undergo a series of spiritual awakenings, which means raising your spiritual awareness one step at a time. First become conscious of what propels them: the belief that we are isolated and disconnected beings. That belief is the DNA of ego consciousness. But becoming conscious of this belief—which is to say becoming conscious of consciousness itself—this is Spiritual Consciousness.
Then you must become aware of how ego functions inside of you: where it hides, how to look for it, how to recognize it when it appears. Spiritual guidance can help a great deal in this regard. As you become more and more aware, you will experience a deepening in your understanding of others: why people act in selfish, greedy, arrogant, fearful, hurtful, and judgmental ways. Always, these acts result from the belief in our separateness from others. Always, in short, they result from ego. And always, they make sense from a spiritual perspective. In this understanding grows the seeds of acceptance, non-judgment, compassion, charity, benevolence, love, and all things of the Spirit.—of Pure Consciousness. 
Visit www.beyondtheego.com to gain more understanding of your own and other people’s behaviors. There you will find a spiritual healing book that is of great help, one that earned a five-star rating (out of five) by Foreword Clarion Review.

“Christ” Is the Highest Level of Consciousness

Christ in English comes from the Greek word Khristós, which means the Anointed One. In Hebrew Christ means Messiah. The word Christ is often mistakenly used as the surname of Jesus because of the many references to Jesus Christ in the Christian Bible. The word “Christ” is actually a title, as in Jesus the Christ or Christ Jesus, meaning Jesus the Anointed One, or Jesus The Messiah.

In other words, Jesus and Christ are two different concepts. Jesus was a man, made of flesh and blood. Christ refers not to the physical man but to the “Christ Consciousness,” the “Divine Awareness,” the “Spiritual Consciousness,” in which the man Jesus walked and lived. It is not exclusive to Jesus. It is the very state of consciousness that is our own spiritual nature. Indeed, it is who we most truly are as beings. 

Spiritual Enlightenment Books: A New Way to Go
For slightly more than two millennia, Christians have looked for the second coming of Jesus in bodily form. More likely that “second coming” is in fact already in progress—and at a gradually increasing rate. That is, the second coming of Christ is a second coming of the Spiritual Consciousness incarnated in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. And what is the essence of this Spiritual Consciousness? It is the awareness that we are all one; it is the belief in and the enactment of love, compassion, benevolence, hope, charity, joy, acceptance, understanding, peace, selflessness, and kindness to all.  

How do we achieve Christ Consciousness? It is achieved by neutralizing ego-consciousness. Neutralization of ego, not participation in it, must be our goal. Spirit is light, ego is darkness. Darkness cannot exist in the presence of light; ego cannot exist in the presence Spirit.

When we become conscious of ego, when we learn to identify it, watch it, study it, and stay attentive to it, we are well on our way to spiritual enlightenment. We have begun the process of our second birth—our rebirth into Spirit Consciousness. Along the way, ego will resist the transition and fight to survive.

To help facilitate this process, spiritual coaching and seminars can be very helpful, as well as new age meditation and spiritual enlightenment books. One such book is Beyond the Ego, which earned a five-star rating (out of five) by Foreword Clarion Review. Visit www.beyondtheego.com to learn more about achieving Christ Consciousness. 

Not hurting can be a choice

No one wants to hurt emotionally. Grief, anger, depression, loneliness, hopelessness, and anxiety are examples of emotions that are exceedingly painful to deal with. Much of what we do to help people stop hurting emotionally tends to treat the symptoms of emotional pain rather than addressing the underlying cause. This is why more and more people are turning to spiritual healing as an alternative to traditional treatment.
The underlying cause of emotional pain is ego. Ego was born out of the belief that we are isolated and disconnected beings, and based on that belief, we behave in ways that sooner or later cause us emotional suffering. Ego attaches to our pain and promotes it whenever and wherever possible. But because ego’s workshop is the unconscious, we aren’t aware of its power. Ego works continuously behind the scenes, perpetuating habitual behaviors and patterns of thought that inevitably lead to emotional turmoil and unhappiness.

For example, a man is outraged when his wife tells him “Don’t be a wimp” with regard to his manager at work. This reignites what he felt as a boy when he lost a fistfight with the school bully and his father called him a wimp. So long as we’re under ego’s invisible spell, it is next to impossible for us to choose not to hurt emotionally. The emotional pain of our formative years will revisit us, triggered each time by an emotionally charged stimulus.

Learn Not to Hurt: Seek Spiritual Awareness
Ego piggy-backs on the pain people experience in their childhoods, which no one completely escapes. Ego causes us to hurt all over again each time something in adulthood sets off that emotional bomb. But once free from ego’s influence, choosing to not hurt actually becomes a viable option. In the absence of ego, there is no need for the pain to continue.

As your spiritual awareness grows, ego fades. The emotional pain it was attached to fades as well, which leaves you free to choose not to hurt. The man whose wife told him not to be a wimp with his manager now can say, “I agree; I have to be strong in my dealings with him.” This sort of spiritual transcendence is also available to you. With ego under your watchful eye, you can finally choose to not hurt emotionally in all the old, ego-driven ways. You are just that close to finding joy and peace in situations that, in your past, were a source of considerable pain.

One exceptionally helpful spiritual healing book is Beyond the Ego, which earned a five-star rating (out of five) by Foreword Clarion Review. Visit www.beyondtheego.com to learn more about how you can stop hurting. 

No Wisdom Is More Profound Than the Wisdom of Our Bodies

The wisdom in our bodies is profound. It heals wounds and we haven’t a clue as to why or how the healing actually takes place. Our bodies are the temples of the living Spirit. Some would argue that spiritual transcendence means, at least in part, to stay attuned to the messages our bodies send us. This is because the body knows perfectly well the nature of peace and joy, harmony and love.
However, ego floods us with so many problematic thoughts and distractions that we often forget to listen to our bodies. We hurry, we worry, we regret, and we fear. These are loud ego-noises that summon our full attention, obliterate the body’s small voice, and cause us to ignore its early-warning signals of problems to come if left unattended. Ego so dominates and consumes our thoughts that we often don’t hear what the body is trying to tell us until we grow faint with hunger or lack of sleep, or collapse in pain and must be rushed to the emergency room. In most cases of serious illness, our bodies give us forewarnings that we fail to heed because of ego’s incessant thought-noises and the emotional turmoil this brings.

The Answer: New Age Spirituality
New age spirituality teaches us the importance of quieting the ego—which happens only through becoming aware of it. When we do so, ego-noises cease to control our thoughts, we begin hearing our bodies when they tell us, even if subtly, that some imbalance is beginning to happen and that help is needed through exercise, sleep, change in diet, medical intervention, or a vacation from chronic stress.

When we achieve this level of awareness, we will be treating our bodies as the temples they are: temporary housing for Pure Consciousness in human form. Pure Consciousness knows we are meant to be joyful and peaceful. It knows that when we discover this state of being, ego will be absent and that finding inner peace in both body and soul will naturally result.

To help you understand these issues better, look for spiritual books online. One great book for doing so is Beyond the Ego, which earned a five-star rating (out of five) by Foreword Clarion Review. Visit www.beyondtheego.com to learn more about being at peace in body, mind, and soul.

Happiness requires courage to face the light

Love and fear are the deepest, most powerful emotions known to humankind. Every feeling and every action can be traced back to one or the other. And what is the source of these two fundamental emotions, love and fear?

Fear can be either primary or secondary. Primary fear is instinctual. Birds fly away when the cat comes near; dogs bark at a strange noise or unfamiliar face; baseball players lurch away to miss being hit by an oncoming pitch. Secondary fear is unconscious—the fear of fear itself. It is crippling. A man once bitten by a snake remembers his fright, and now fears snakes of all kinds.
 
Ego is the source of all secondary fear. It is grounded in the belief that we are separated beings in the world, which in turn gives rise to a deep sense of insecurity (i.e. fear) about our existence. Consequently, ego is madly in search of security, of certainty, of permanence, in any form it can find. This is why we attach to ideas, beliefs, and possessions so firmly. We fear that without them, we will die. We fear our own fear of death.

Facing Spirit’s Light Is Finding Inner Peace
Spirit is the source of light, love, freedom, happiness, and joy. Yet as much as we want these things, ego is afraid of them. Ego fears that light will snuff out its craving for permanence, certainty, and security—which of course is to snuff out ego itself. To ego, therefore, light portends its own death. In fact, what Spirit will do is snuff out the pain caused by ego’s craving for permanence, certainty, and security. The end of our pain lies in our courage to face the fear of letting go of ego—of that which causes our pain.

How do you let go of ego? There are a number of ways to find help: spiritual seminars, peace of mind books, and spiritual meditation—including transcendental mediation—are a few ways to get started. Whichever path you take, in the end, letting go of ego is having the courage to face it. And to face ego down you must first locate it within yourself, then watch it and learn its insidious ways. Indeed, there is no subject on earth that deserves more scrutiny that the study of your own ego. Not only your personal happiness, but also the fate of the planet depends on this kind of study.

Visit www.beyondtheego.com to learn how Beyond the Ego, which earned a five-star rating (out of five) by Foreword Clarion Review, can help you gain the courage to face Spirit’s light and rid yourself of the painful influence of ego.

Freedom Is Release from the Grip of Ego

From birth we learn to function under the influence of an ego-driven world. We are trapped in ego’s prison and don’t realize it. We like to think of ourselves as free. But ego feeds on one-upmanship and is nourished by the subjugation of the have-nots. Unchecked, this ego-greed would lead to total anarchy, so we adopt laws—both religious and legal—in an attempt to control it. As a result, we must wonder just how free we really are.
 
If there were no ego, there would be no need for laws. Neither is it possible to legislate morality. What is possible is to impose rules and regulations on people’s behavior, along with consequences for not conforming to them. This is more a matter of attempting to create a system for social order, however, than a matter of legislating morality.

Morality has to do with the intentions of the heart, which clearly cannot be legislated. And so, laws designed to prevent criminal and civil violations, at best, only impede these negative behaviors. Laws do not stop them, since laws have no power over ego. People still kill, lie, cheat, steal, commit adultery, and bear false witness every day.

Freedom Is Finding Inner Peace
When the heart is free to love, there is a personal morality that transcends the rule of law. It is a pure love, grounded in compassion, understanding, acceptance, non-judgment, friendliness, kindness, forgiveness, benevolence, charity, and positive intentions for all. But note that morality and ego are inversely proportional: the greater the presence of ego, the less the presence of morality—that is, the less loving the intentions of the heart.

Finding inner peace means experiencing pure love, which is humankind’s birthright and the natural state of being. The freedom to express it is blocked only by ego’s selfish ways. Love cannot be willed; it must be felt. And feeling it is a matter of watching how ego works without judging it, studying its influence on your life without embarrassment or shame. In short, your goal is to hug ego, not to slug it.

Freedom from Ego: Read Spiritual Healing Books
Most spiritual healing books, including spiritual books for women, would agree that self-love is essential, yet different from thinking you are superior to others. Superiority is ego. Self-love is freedom from the grip of ego. Self-love is acceptance of self. With true self-love, you understand what prior behaviors were ego-driven—and in that prior context, they make perfect sense—and you are then free to love yourself, which is prerequisite to loving others.

Visit www.beyondtheego.com to learn how Beyond the Ego, rated five stars (out of five) by Foreword Clarion Review, will furnish the spiritual guidance necessary for you to be free from the grip of ego, and to love yourself in a healthy way. 

Youth Is a State of Being, Not of Age

“Youth is a state of mind” is an expression you’re likely familiar with. But for people who reach spiritual enlightenment, what may be truer is that youth is a state of feeling—that if you feel young, then you automatically act in youthful ways: exhibiting relatively high energy, laughing often, trying new things, staying active, playing freely, and displaying a sense of humor.

Feel Young: Seek Spiritual Awareness
How do you go about feeling young? The answer to this lies in reaching the spiritual awareness that gives you an understanding of the relationship between ego and Spirit. We are Spiritual beings having an ego experience. Based on your experiences in the formative years of your life, you have, as all people do, developed a belief in separateness. This is ego, which must be defended based on the misidentification of who you are. Your unconscious belief that you are an isolated being in the world leads sooner or later to dissatisfaction and suffering.

This state of ego-being will continue until you become conscious of your ego—watching how it functions, noticing where it hides, and focusing on the fact that it will do whatever is necessary to advance your superiority or induce your emotional pain. To the extent that your awareness of ego grows, your youthful Spirit returns proportionally. And Spirit is the source of youthful energy. Regardless of chronological age or the state of one’s physical body, Spirit is the energy source that was given to you at birth, the energy source that will remain with you in this life and beyond.

Youthfulness and Spiritual Enlightenment Books
Ask an elderly person who has found the peace of Spirit how old he or she feels and you will likely hear a reply such as “I feel as young as I did in my youth.” This person has found the peace and joy of feeling youthful—and thus of remaining so. This is the core truth of the statement that “youth is a state of being, not of age.”

By living in the Spirit and keeping watch over your ego, you can do the same. Make it a point to read spiritual enlightenment books, where you will learn the path to youthfulness that you may have forgotten exists. Visit www.beyondtheego.com to learn how Beyond the Ego, rated five stars (out of five) by Foreword Clarion Review, will help you recapture your youthfulness and bring more happiness into your life.

Most Worry Is Wasted Energy

How easy this is to say, yet how difficult at times to do. The reality of paying tomorrow’s rent or facing the likelihood that your job is seriously in jeopardy is enough to cause anyone worry, is it not?  Yet no matter how much you worry, it does nothing to change an outcome. In fact, worry often cripples your ability to make sound decisions that would have a greater influence on the course of events.

Worrying about tomorrow is a mindset driven by ego. The truth is that the now is all there is. Past exists only in memory, and future in anticipation, both of which happen in the now. Only now, in this moment, does one experience the discomfort of worrying about tomorrow. But ego distorts this fact because it is predicated on the unconscious belief that we are disconnected beings in an impersonal world. Believing in our disconnectedness, we feel separate from our experience, even though that experience is the now.

Feeling necessarily disconnected, we postulate a past and a future, thus allowing for what will inevitably follow—regret for the troubles of yesterday and worry about the troubles of tomorrow. Once having created the mindset of past and future, ego now takes full advantage of its opportunity to promote worry, which is always emotionally painful. Remember, ego never turns down its chance to make us hurt. Think of it this way: survival is the number one instinct of every form of life, and ego survives on our suffering.

Spiritual Awareness: No More Worry
To live by the principle “Do not worry about tomorrow;” is to move from a state of ego consciousness to a state of Spirit Consciousness. Remember, this transition will never be accomplished by trying to subdue or conquer ego. It must occur from gaining the spiritual awareness that ego must be embraced, not conquered. It is the willingness to understand ego’s true essence that we become fully conscious of it, and this is essential to putting ego to rest.

Spiritual Awareness and New Age Spiritual Books
The more you become aware of ego, the more it will fade away. What remains is your ever-increasing awareness of the now and your indifference to old habits of worry about tomorrow. Some people worry about lack of worry itself: that if they don’t worry about tomorrow, terrible things might happen. This is a form of magical, cause-and-effect thinking based on an unconscious wish for power—a belief that attitudes, thoughts, or behaviors can cause, or at least influence, future events. Paradoxically, if one’s worry were to have any effect on tomorrow, it would more likely influence it negatively because of the negative energy it creates.

For people looking for more tips and how to deal with their own worry, new age spiritual books can be very helpful as a way to gain a better understanding of the relationship between ego and worry. Visit www.beyondtheego.com to see how Beyond the Ego is one such book. It received a five star rating (out of 5) by Foreword Clarion Review, and it will help you reduce the incidence of worry in your life and bring you more peace of mind.

Happiness Is an Inside Job

Capitalistic societies are sustained by a consumer economy. The more goods and services people buy, the more the economy grows. Predictably, this creates an environment in which the advertising industry mushrooms, where the goal is to promote products and services in ways that increase consumer spending.

The means by which this is accomplished are only marginally regulated, and this often leads to a sizable gap between what is actually true and what the consumer is led to believe is true. This is why, for example, exercise equipment is demonstrated by people who, long before the product they’re promoting was even manufactured, were already fit and trim. Pay attention and you’ll see this strategy at work in the majority of commercials you come across. The overall message is that buying this or that product makes you a happier, more attractive, and more secure person.

Happiness and Spiritual Awakening
The truth is that no product can or will achieve happiness for you, at least not for very long. This is why our cravings for material possessions usually escalate at a rate that equals or exceeds our incomes; nothing one could purchase is ever enough to fill one’s soul for long. Propelled by marketing, however, we chase objects that we often don’t need and rarely use. Spiritual awakenings make us aware that material things are impermanent and, in the end, provide neither the happiness nor the security we yearn for.

Happiness and New Age Meditation
But how do you find happiness within? Clearly, you won’t succeed by pursuing it as your goal because the more one seeks happiness, the less likely one is to find it. Instead, happiness must be allowed. It is your natural state, your default position. Only ego interferes with your ability to be happy. Like a storm cloud hovering over what would otherwise be a perfect sunny day, ego shadows us everywhere though we are mostly unconscious that it does. Remove ego by becoming conscious of it, and sunshine and happiness remain.

Ego is removed by becoming conscious of it. New age meditation can help you achieve this goal, as can peace of mind books and spiritual coaching. To learn more about how you can find happiness and peace of mind by looking inward rather than seeking happiness through material possessions, visit www.beyondtheego.com for the answers you’ve been looking for.