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Our deliverance from the miseries of life hangs solely on our deliverance from the bondage to the ego.
6.8.4.1One important reason why the great spiritual teachers have always enjoined upon their disciples the need of surrendering the ego, of giving up the self, is that when the mind is continually preoccupied with its own personal affairs, it sets up a narrow limitation upon its own possibilities. It cannot reach to the impersonal truth, which is so different and so distant from the topics that it thinks about day after day, year after year. Only by breaking through its self-imposed pettiness can the human mind enter into the perception of the Infinite, of the divine soul that is its innermost being.
6.8.4.2To all things there is an equivalent price. For awareness of the Overself, pay with the thing that blocks your way--sacrifice the ego.
6.8.4.4He identifies himself with all the movements of thought, emotion, or passion--and thus misses his real being.
6.8.4.7If a man wants continual access to the Overself, he must remember that it is not free; there is a high price to be paid--the price of continual submergence of the ego.
6.8.4.10Rebirths, memories, occult powers—all these things exist and continue because they perpetuate the ego—the very thing we should try to escape from!
6.8.4.16Consciousness as ego has cut us off from the Source. But it need not do so forever. Through the quest, we can come closer and closer to the reintegration of a subdued ego with its Source, which will thenceforth act through us.
6.8.4.17So long as man is attached to the belief that his ego is real and lasting, or thinks and acts as if it were, so long will he be attached to material possessions and worldly desires. For the one is the root of the other.
6.8.4.19It is not possible for men to live together amicably while the ego rules them. All they can do until this source of all disharmony is itself ruled is to reduce their friction to a minimum by reducing its chief provocations.
6.8.4.25So long as the little self feels itself wise enough to make all its decisions and solve all its problems, so long will there be a barrier between it and the Higher Power.
6.8.4.28A man can hold only one thought at a time… Applying this, it follows that it is his holding of the thought of his personal separate ego alone which prevents him achieving identification with the Overself…
6.8.4.31,Your handicap is the strong ego, the I which stands in the path and must be surrendered by emotional sacrifice in the blood of the heart. But once out of the way, you will feel a tremendous relief and gain peace.
6.8.4.33Until he learns that his enemy is the ego itself, with all the mental and emotional attitudes that go with it, his efforts to liberate himself spiritually merely travel in a circle.
6.8.4.34We shall discover the truth about what we really are in the measure that we discover the error of believing that we are the ego and nothing more. This discovery will take effect and bring us on the way towards realization and liberation only to the extent that we live it, for philosophy is not philosophy unless it is practised in life.
6.8.4.40Man begins his search for the highest Truth with his ego and rises to its higher and higher levels, but in the end he must leave the ego if the Truth is to be found. The manner of finding truth is such that he must leave the ego's limitations and look to its origin, its universal source.
6.8.4.41We sit in the ego with all its limitations as in a prison and we do not know that we are prisoners, for we identify ourselves with it and blind ourselves by those very limitations …
6.8.4.42,The soul’s presence is to be realized, its consciousness is to be attained. But the ego's conceit overshadows the one, its turbulence obstructs the other.
6.8.4.45The ego is the centre of conflicts which lead to sorrow. There is no way of liberating ourselves from the latter without prior liberation from the former.
6.8.4.46How true is the Bible's metaphorical statement that man shall not look upon the face of God and live. Yes, he, the ego, must die if God is to be present.
6.8.4.52It is this personal ego which tricks us into believing that it is ourself, our true self, ever grasping and ever desiring, ever creating fresh illusions and false beliefs; it is this ego, with its wily ways, which keeps us from discovery of reality.
6.8.4.66While the human entity lives apart from the consciousness of its own real Self, it cannot live in peace. But when it is able to repose completely in that Self, there will be no second thing to draw it away from that peace.
6.8.4.69When his various thoughts and feelings begin to appear as objects to his I, it is a welcome sign that he is no longer so bound to his ego as before.
6.8.4.72Such is the separative ego's hold on most men that although they carry the divine treasure with them they regard it not.
6.8.4.73When the mind is clogged by memories, hoarded from the ego's past experience, it cannot free itself from the ego, and ”come home.”
6.8.4.74The patterns of habit in thinking and behaviour become so rigid with time that the introduction of a new style of life, however desirable it may seem, initiates a long struggle.
6.8.4.76We are prisoners of our ego because we are prisoners of our past.
6.8.4.77The constant movement of thoughts and the ego's fascination with itself hide from us the divine Overself, from which both are derived.
6.8.4.82Even if the highest truth were to appear in all its glorious fullness before his mind, he would be unable to recognize it for what it is--much less understand it--if there had been no preparation or purification for it...
6.8.4.87,The ego gets in its own way and shuts out the truth. It is so immersed in itself that it sees nothing else than its own views, its own opinions …
6.8.4.90,His way to the goal is blocked by the ego…
6.8.4.95,Memory creates for us the patterns, traditions, values, and habits by which we live. It is the dominant authority. But it is also the tyrant which keeps us captive and denies us freedom--a deprival which effectually prevents the finding of truth and effectually builds a barrier to reality. Anyone can remember the ego-coloured past in this way, but only the sage can forget it and dissolve all these patterns.
6.8.4.101Every discussion which is made from an egoistic standpoint is corrupted from the start and cannot yield an absolutely sure conclusion. The ego puts its own interest first and twists every argument, word, even fact to suit that interest.
6.8.4.102To describe the ego as “little” and the personality as “petty” is to look at it from outside, where it is lost among such a multitude of others; but to look at it from within the man himself is to find it vastly important, dominating his consciousness, a giant holding him down …
6.8.4.104,With one part of himself he honestly seeks truth, but with another part he tries to evade it.
6.8.4.106He tries to avoid recognizing that he is held prisoner in ignorance and in suffering by his own ego, that its condition is unhealthy and unbalanced, and that he must find some way to liberate himself from its thraldom.
6.8.4.114The ego, with its petty conceit and private desires, shuts him in on itself and cuts him off from the universal life, with its truth and reality and power.
6.8.4.119It is an old, known fact that the truth can be very disturbing and that is why it is more honoured than practised. Let us ask, To whom is it disturbing? and we shall find that the answer refers to the personal ego.
6.8.4.123Men are locked up within their little egos. They are in prison and do not know it. Consequently they do not ask, much less seek, for freedom.
6.8.4.128We have to accept the fact that most people have an immense capacity for being quite comfortable within the limits of the ego, and have no wish to get away from them to a higher level.
6.8.4.130Engrossed as they are in personal and family life, they fail to open themselves to the delicate radiation from their innermost being and live as if it were not there.
6.8.4.143It is perhaps not that the multitudes of people are evil as that they get so immersed in working for a livelihood, rearing a family, finding some pleasures, that the little ego provides their sole being. How much they lose if they attend only to this and never to the supreme question: Why am I here?
6.8.4.145If we succeed in detaching ourselves from the claims of past memories and the anticipations of future results, we succeed in detaching ourselves from the ego…
6.8.4.150,To surrender the ego is to surrender the thought of it, and this is done by stilling the mind whenever, in daily life, one becomes self-conscious. This silenced, ego vanishes… This art of effacing the ego by stilling the mind, by suddenly stopping its whirling flood of thoughts, could not be practised at will and at any time if one had not practised it previously and frequently in deliberate exercises at set times…
6.8.4.151,Until it is brought to his attention, he may not know that the idol at whose feet he is continually worshipping is the ego. If he could give to God the same amount of remembrance that he gives to his ego, he could quite soon attain, and become established in, that enlightenment to which other men devote lifetimes of arduous effort.
6.8.4.153Whatever helps to lead him out of the ego's tyranny, be it an idea or a situation, an induced mood or a particular service, is worth trying. But it will be easier, and the result more successful, to the extent that he releases himself from his past history.
6.8.4.155If he could stop being in love with his ego and start being in love with his Overself, his progress would be rapid.
6.8.4.157There is a useful technique to help attain this purpose. It is to refuse to identify oneself, one’s “I,” with the personal ego. This calls for frequent, if momentary, awareness of thoughts, emotions, and the body. It can be done at any time in any place and is not to be regarded as a meditation exercise.
6.8.4.159The more he tries to fight the ego, the more he thinks about it and concentrates on it. This keeps him still its prisoner. Better is it to turn his back on it and think about, concentrate on the higher self.
6.8.4.161A man begins to come into his own the day he rejects the ego. His rejection may not last more than a minute or two, for the false self is strong enough to reclaim its victim. But the process has started…
6.8.4.162,It is more prudent to be habitually suspicious of his own ego, and its motives, than not.
6.8.4.164The amount of energy he pours into sustaining the ego and holding to illusions to his own detriment could just as well be poured into sustaining a quest of the Overself to his own gain.
6.8.4.165If he is willing to look for them, he will find the hidden workings of the ego in the most unsuspected corners, even in the very midst of his loftiest spiritual aspirations. The ego is unwilling to die and will even welcome this large attrition of its scope if that is its only way of escape from death…
6.8.4.167,The ego has enthroned itself. It asserts its supremacy in all matters. This situation may be allowed for ordinary people in the ordinary affairs of everyday living but it cannot be allowed for truth-seeking people in the graver issues of the quest. The seeker must indeed cultivate the habit of looking on his ego as his enemy, must resist rather than flatter it.
6.8.4.169The actual change-over from being the ego to becoming the watcher of the ego is a sudden one.
6.8.4.172It is much easier to identify with our own ego than with the Overself. This is why incessant return to these ideas and exercises is needed.
6.8.4.175My dear Ego: ”It is obvious that in this world I cannot live without you. Your presence is overwhelming, fills every instinct, thought, feeling, and action. But it is also obvious that I cannot live with you. The time has come to adjust our relationship. So I have one request to make of you. Please get out of my way!”
6.8.4.176We cannot help living in a human ego and feeling its wishes and desires, for most of us are infatuated with it. But it can be put in its place and kept there, first through a profound understanding, next through a lofty aspiration to transcend it, and third through a following of the Quest until its very end.
6.8.4.177In analysing ourselves we are helping to crush the ego. But this is true only if analysis is unbiased and if it is balanced by the Short Path attitudes. Otherwise there is excessive and morbid preoccupation with oneself, which suits the ego very well!
6.8.4.178In all situations he must strive to distinguish and follow the lead of the Soul, subduing the clamour of the ego. The former will so guide him that all things will work out for the best in his spiritual welfare, the latter may merely make bad situations worse.
6.8.4.179What is in your heart? Ramakrishna's was full of the Divine Mother, as he called God. Before long he found her. Saint Francis of Assisi gave humility highest place in his own. He became the humblest man of his time. Fix an ideal in your heart. That is the first step to finding it.
6.8.4.180The work begins by removing whatever obstructs the mind from viewing the truth, those qualities and conditions which made it impossible to see reality as it is.
6.8.4.186Those who feel frustrated because of the absence of mystical experience in their lives, needlessly depress themselves. For their progress to higher values, their rise above egoism to principle, their choice of true well-being over mere pleasure, show their response to the Overself and mark their real advancement better than any transient emotional experience.
6.8.4.189We have to learn to recognize the individual self, the person, the ego, as a mind-made thing and therefore to withdraw from it, away from it, to put space between ourselves and it, and to detach ourselves more and more and more from it. As this process develops we come more and more into the Truth, the enlightenment.
6.8.4.190The more we try to put impersonality into our thought and life, the less we are likely to identify ourselves with the ego. This makes way, makes room, gives place for that which is behind the ego to begin to manifest itself.
6.8.4.191That Consciousness which men seek so variously in ecstasy or despair is already there but covered up, suffocated by their own little self-consciousness…
6.8.4.193,The tightness with which we hold on to the ego and thus separate ourselves from the Overself’s life and the tenseness with which we shut ourselves in the old miserably limited existence are the results of habit. If we are to escape from it into the free creativity of the greater life, we will have to break its vicious circle. This may be enforced upon us by the shock of drastic events or it may be made possible for us by the grace of an illumined man or it may be achieved by us through the determined arousal of a desperate will. Whichever way it happens, it will be the beginning of the end for the ego and the beginning of the best for ourselves.
6.8.4.194”Blessed are the poor in spirit,” said Jesus. What did he mean? To be poor in the mystical sense is to be deprived of the possession of the ego, that is, to become ego-free.
6.8.4.196It was a wise teacher who said to me: “Do not demand from human beings a selflessness they are not capable of giving; demand only that they understand this is the direction toward which the divine World-Idea is pushing them. Through one way or another, they will come in the end to suffer attrition of the ego until it is finally reduced to complete subservience to Overself.”
6.8.4.197He will advance most on the Quest who tries most to separate himself from his ego. It will be a long, slow struggle and a hard one, for the false belief that the ego is his true self grips him with hypnotic intensity. All the strength of all his being must be brought to this struggle to remove error and to establish truth, for it is an error not merely of the intellect alone but also of the emotions and of the will.
6.8.4.198When all of a man’s thoughts are put together, this total constitutes his ego. By giving them up to the Stillness, he gives up his ego, denies his self, in Jesus’ phrase.
6.8.4.200… Cease this identification with the personality, and you will find the Overself.
6.8.4.203,… The ego will always strive to preserve itself, using when it must the most secret ways, full of cunning and pretense, camouflage and deceit. It takes into itself genuinely spiritual procedures and perverts or misuses them for its own advantage.
6.8.4.207,… Although self-efforts are not enough of themselves to guarantee the oncoming of Grace, they are still necessary prerequisites to that oncoming. His intellectual, emotional, and moral disciplines are as needed to attract that Grace as are his aspirations, yearnings, and prayers for it …
6.8.4.210,No one else can do for a man what Nature is tutoring him to do for himself, that is, to surrender the ego to the higher self. Without such surrender no man can attain the consciousness of that higher self. It is useless to look to a master to make for him this tremendous change-over within himself. No master could do it. The proper way and the only way is to give up this pathetic clinging to his own power, to his own littleness, and to his own limitations...
6.8.4.211,”The truth shall make you free,” promised Jesus. What kind of freedom was he talking about? The answer can only be--from the ego! And this is corroborated by his own statements, uttered at other times, concerning the need to die to oneself.
6.8.4.212If he is willing to give the intuitive forces mastery within himself, then he will have to exert his will against the egoistic ones.
6.8.4.215Those who are unable or unwilling to destroy the ego's rule from within must suffer its destruction from without. But whereas the first way brings emotional suffering and mental perturbation, the second brings that along with troubles, disappointments, sicknesses, and blows in addition.
6.8.4.216Before we can cultivate the best in us, we must crucify the worst in us. The ego must be hung and nailed by degrees if the Overself is to be resurrected in our consciousness. This is why it is so important to cleanse our emotions and correct our thoughts. The desires and the negatives must be overcome to make a way for the truth, the beauty, and goodness.
6.8.4.220To die to the ego means that he will free himself from the thought-grooves that usually dominate his life.
6.8.4.222What he must do is to renounce the ego with all its pride, its greed and passion, and learn to understand his dependence on the Overself.
6.8.4.223When his own ego becomes intolerable to him with increasing frequency, he may take this as a good sign that he is moving forward on this road.
6.8.4.229The declaration of Jesus that whosoever will save his life shall lose it, is uncompromising. It is an eternal truth as well as a universal one... It means that the inexorable condition which the Overself imposes before it will reveal itself in all its beauty, its grandeur, its peace, and its power is that they should abnegate this unbalanced interest in the lower activities of this world in which they are so totally immersed...
6.8.4.230,If there is any single secret of development which the successful mystic can offer us, it is that the ego must go out of us and we must go out of it!
6.8.4.232Even when no longer afraid of others, a man should yet be afraid of himself--so one of the thinkers of old Rome advised. Until the ego is thoroughly conquered, vigilance will always be necessary.
6.8.4.235The wisdom of Psalm 46—”Be still and know that I am God”--may be tested by experiment. For in the ego's silence there will be whispered the revelation we await.
6.8.4.236… in the end, however much he polish and perfect the ego, it must give itself up to the Overself.
6.8.4.237,Give up the outer illusions and gain the inner reality. Give up considering the body as the self and gain the awareness of Overself.
6.8.4.238Once the work of purification has advanced sufficiently far, the work of divesting himself of his egoism must begin. It is to be carried on as much by reflection as during action, by meditation as through watchfulness.
6.8.4.239Every time he resists the impulse to angry action, or the urge to bitter scolding, he resists the ego. The cumulative result of many such disciplines is to thin down the ego and draw nearer the hour of its final destruction.
6.8.4.241What is the meaning of the parable of the prodigal son except that he is Man gone away from himself and feeding on the husks of earthly life when the bread of the Overself is being offered him?
6.8.4.247The pushing aggressive will of the personal ego is to be replaced by the passive surrendered will of the overruled ego.
6.8.4.251Every attempt to disassociate himself from his ego, to observe it in thought and action, to unbind himself from its desires and lusts will be successful only as it is merciless.
6.8.4.260A time must come, whether in this birth or a later one, when the ego must give up the struggle, which is both with itself and the Higher Power at the same time.
6.8.4.261Only the deepest kind of reflection, or the most exciting kind of mystical experience, or the compelling force of a prophet’s revelation can bring a man to the great discovery that his personal ego is not the true centre of his being.
6.8.4.265… He has transferred the object of his attentions from the worldly sphere to the spiritual sphere, but the ego is still active. When his meditation comes to the threshold of Truth, he stops, terrified by the feeling that he is losing his very self. His little personal world is the subject that really interests him.
6.8.4.271,The ego offers bitter resistance all along the way, disputes every yard of his advance, and is not overcome without incessant struggle against its treacheries and deceptions.
6.8.4.284The ego is cunning, subtle, insidious. Even when the aspirant has long left a grosser kind of life behind him, it inserts itself into his prayers and meditations alike, and enters most of his inner work.
6.8.4.288If the ego cannot keep him any longer through his animal instincts, it will masquerade as his higher self, flatter him for his lofty aspirations, insert itself into his intuitions, and seek to deceive him as he bends in prayer or sits in meditation.
6.8.4.293The ego can take shelter under many lies, illusions, or pretexts, and this of a spiritual as well as worldly kind.
6.8.4.295How easily can the ego clothe itself in false altruism or hide behind high-sounding speech! How quickly can it exploit others to its own advantage! How smoothly can it lead a genuine aspiration into a side-path or, worse, a trap!
6.8.4.304The ego is sitting at his side waiting to deceive him subtly into making wrong decisions and false interpretations, if they will hinder his growth into truth and thus preserve its own life.
6.8.4.307He would be more prudent to suspect the presence of the ego even in his most spiritual aspirations, reflections, and experiences.
6.8.4.308It is to be expected that the ego will protect itself, even if that has to go so far as engagement in a quest which apparently ends in its own utter abasement.
6.8.4.309He will not escape easily from the ego. If he transfers his interests to the spiritual plane, its imagination will transfer itself there too and flatter him with psychic experiences or visions.
6.8.4.312The ego will creep even into his spiritual work or aspiration, so that he will take from the teaching only what suits his own personal ends and ignore the rest, or only what suits his own personal comfort and be averse to the rest.
6.8.4.315Although the ego claims to be engaged in a war against itself, we may be certain that it has no intention of allowing a real victory to be achieved but only a pseudo-victory...
6.8.4.316,The ego constantly invents ways and means to defeat the quest's objective. And it does this more indefatigably and more cunningly than ever when it pretends to co-operate with the quest and share its experiences.
6.8.4.317That crafty old fox, the ego, is quite capable of engaging in spiritual practices of every kind and of showing spiritual aspirations of every degree of warmth.
6.8.4.319The student is warned to be on guard against his own ego, which may feed his vanity and conceit with the false idea that he is much more advanced than he really is.
6.8.4.328The ego sits in the saddle all the time that he is travelling the Long Path.
6.8.4.335… The ego will do everything possible to preserve its existence and devise every possible means to secure its future…
6.8.4.342,When a man can forgive God all the anguish of his past calamities and when he can forgive other men and women for the wrongs they have done him, he will come to inward peace. For this is what his ego cannot do.
6.8.4.349The weariness of life which shows itself in the desire not to be born again at all, in the yearning for Nirvanic peace, may come from having endured too deep suffering. But it may also come from having saturated oneself with experiences of all kinds during a series of reincarnations far longer than the average one. It is then really a desire to extinguish the tired ego.
6.8.4.353It is both the irony and tragedy of life that we use up its strictly limited quota of years in pursuits which we come later to see as worthless and in desires which we find bring pain with their fulfilment. The dying man, who sees the cinema-film of his past flash in review before his mental eyes, discovers this irony and feels this tragedy.
6.8.4.355When he finds that he has been following his own will even at those times when he believed he was following the higher self’s will, he begins to realize the extent of the ego’s power, the length of the period required for its subdual, and what he will have to suffer before this is achieved.
6.8.4.356One day he will feel utterly tired of the ego, will see how cunningly and insidiously it has penetrated all his activities, how even in supposedly spiritual or altruistic activities he was merely working for the ego. In this disgust with his earthly self, he will pray for liberation from it…
6.8.4.357,All his longings to escape from the prison of the ego and to reach the I AM in himself reflect themselves in his experiments with drink, drugs, sex, adventure, or ambition.
6.8.4.360The impulse which impels men to seek truth or find God comes from something higher than their ego.
6.8.4.361His quest has reached its end when the ego, by the Overself's grace, has come at long last to desire fully and attain successfully its own extinction rather than, as before, its own aggrandizement.
6.8.4.362It is not to be expected that anyone can dissociate himself from the false identification with the ego before he has fully become convinced of the ego's unreality.
6.8.4.366”Give up thyself” is the constant injunction of all the great prophets. Before we can understand why this was their refrain, we must first understand the nature of the self about which they were talking. There is in every man a false self--the ego--and the true one--the Overself.
6.8.4.368The ego stands in the way: its own presence annuls awareness of the presence of the Overself. But this need not be so. Correct and deeper understanding of what the self is, proper adjustment between the individual and the universal in consciousness, will bring enlightenment.
6.8.4.369To know what his real I is not, is a first and most important step toward knowing what it really is. Indeed, it has a liberating effect.
6.8.4.372The ego’s rigidity must first be overcome: it shuts up consciousness within itself. If he can become aware of his imprisonment, this will be the beginning of finding freedom from the tendencies and impulses which largely compose it.
6.8.4.373He must begin by learning that the ego is very much the lesser part of himself, that it must be kept down in its place as an obedient servant, its desires scrutinized and disciplined or even negated, its illusions exposed and removed.
6.8.4.378We begin by understanding the ego--a work which requires patience because much of the ego is hidden, masked or disguised. We end by getting free from it.
6.8.4.379It is easy to recognize some of the attachments from which he must loose himself--the greeds, the lusts, and the gluttonies--but it is not so easy to recognize the subtler ones. These start with attachment to his own ideas, his own beliefs; they end with attachment to his own ego.
6.8.4.380The self-image which he holds may continue to keep him tied or help to set him free.
6.8.4.382Both Shankara and Ramana Maharshi blame identification with the body as ignorance, which the first says results in no hope of liberation and the second says is the root cause of all trouble. What they say is unquestionably so. But what else can happen in the beginning except this identification? It is the first kind of identity anyone knows. His error is that he stays at this point and makes no attempt to inquire further. If he did--in a prolonged, sustained, and continued effort--he would eventually find the truth: knowledge would replace ignorance.
6.8.4.384Charity, service, helpfulness, character-building—all such activities are good, but they take and leave the ego as a given fact. They are willing to curb, discipline, correct, reform, polish, or purify the ego, but its permanent and real existence is accepted not only as true but as a part of things as they are in nature.
6.8.4.385So long as we persist in taking the ego at its own valuation as the real Self, so long are we incapable of discovering the truth about the mind or of penetrating to its mysterious depths …
6.8.4.386,To trace the ego to its lair is to observe its open and covered manifestations, to analyse, comprehend, and note their everchanging ephemerality. Finally it too turns out to be but a thought structure--empty, and capable of dissolution like all thoughts.
6.8.4.387The ego is always in hiding and often in disguise. It is a cunning creature, never showing its own face, so that even the man who wants to destroy its rule is easily tricked into attacking everything else but the ego! Therefore, the first (as well as the final) essential piece of knowledge needed to track it down to its secret lair is how to recognize and identify it.
6.8.4.391When the great battle is over, the Overself will give him back his ego without giving him back its dominance.
6.8.4.392… there is no more effective or faster way to attain the goal than to ferret out egot’s very source and offer it to that Source, and finally by the path of affirmations and recollections unite oneself with it.
6.8.4.393,Each person's life is coloured by his individual attitude. This is shaped by the ego and limits both his experience and his understanding of life …
6.8.4.396,Being what it is, a compound of higher and lower attributes which are perpetually in conflict, the ego has no assured future other than that of total collapse. The Bible sentence, A Kingdom divided against itself cannot stand, is very applicable to it: this is why the aspirant must take heart that one day his goal will be reached, even if there were no law of evolution to confirm it--as there is.
6.8.4.397In this strange experience when his life passes before his mind’s eye like a pageant but he does not feel that the figure he is watching is really himself, he learns the truth—or rather has the possibility of learning it—that even the personal ego is also a changing transitory appearance.
6.8.4.398… the cosmic law dooms all egos to eventual merger in their higher source, a merger which must be preceded by their dissolution …
6.8.4.406,All those thoughts and memories which now compose the pattern of his life have to be put aside if he is to deny himself.
6.8.4.408So long as these varied thoughts hold together, so long is the sense of a separate personality created in the mind. That this is so is shown by mystical experience, wherein the thoughts disappear and the ego with them, yet the true being behind them continues to live.
6.8.4.410The subjugation of his ego is a Grace to be bestowed on him, not an act which can be done by him.
6.8.4.413In that last battle when he comes face to face with the ego, when it has to put off all its protective disguises and expose its vulnerability, he must call upon the help of Grace. He cannot possibly win it by his own powers.
6.8.4.414Each person is stuck in his own ego until the idea of liberation dawns on him and he sets to work on himself and eventually grace manifests and puts him on the Short Path.
6.8.4.415There would be no hope of ever getting out of this ego-centered position if we did not know these three things. First, the ego is only an accumulation of memories and a series of cravings, that is, thought; it is a fictitious entity. Second, the thinking activity can come to an end in stillness. Third, Grace, the radiation of the Power beyond man, is ever-shining and ever-present. If we let the mind become deeply still and deeply observant of the ego's self-preserving instinct, we open the door to Grace, which then lovingly swallows us.
6.8.4.417The senses which tempt him to go astray from his chosen path of conduct may be subjugated in time by right thoughts. The thoughts which distract him from his chosen path of meditation may be subjugated by persistent effort. But the ego which bars his entry into the kingdom of heaven refuses, and only pretends, to subjugate itself.
6.8.4.418That which keeps us busy with one kind of activity after another--mental as well as physical--until we fall asleep tired, is nothing other than the ego. In that way it diverts one's attention from the need of engaging in the supremely important activity--the struggle with and destruction of the ego itself.
6.8.4.421This whittling away of the ego may occupy the entire lifetime and not seem very successful even then, yet it is of the highest value as a preparatory process for the full renunciation of the ego when--by Grace--it suddenly rises up in the heart.
6.8.4.422… all that the aspirant can hope to do is to thin down the volume of the ego's operations and to weaken the strength of the ego itself; but to get rid of the ego entirely is something beyond his own capacity. Consequently, an outside power must be called in. There is only one such power available to him … and that is the power of Grace …
6.8.4.424,The ego may have to be broken to bits, if necessary, to let the Grace enter in, to open a way through passivity replacing arrogance.
6.8.4.425Virtue and compassion thin down the ego but do not confer enlightenment.
6.8.4.426The destruction of our egoism must come from the outside if we will not voluntarily bring it about from the inside. But in the former case it will come relentlessly and crushingly.
6.8.4.427When the ego is brought to its knees in the dust, humiliated in its own eyes, however esteemed or feared, envied or respected in other men's eyes, the way is opened for Grace's influx. Be assured that this complete humbling of the inner man will happen again and again until he is purified of all pride.
6.8.4.430What or who is seeking enlightenment? It cannot be the higher Self, for that is itself of the nature of Light. There then only remains the ego! This ego, the object of so many denunciations and denigrations, is the being that, transformed, will win truth and find Reality even though it must surrender itself utterly in the end as the price to be paid.
6.8.4.435The attrition of the ego will come out of this incessant struggle against it, but the atrophy of the ego will not. For who is the struggler? It is the ego himself. He will not willingly commit suicide, although he will deceptively allow a steady grinding-down of his more obvious aspects.
6.8.4.437The deep realization of the unreality of ego leads at once to sudden enlightenment. But only if this realization is maintained can the enlightenment become more than a glimpse.
6.8.4.442Although the price of attainment, which is the gradual giving up of the lower self, is agonizing because the lower one is the only self we know ordinarily, there is for every such surrender a compensation equal in value at least to what is given up, and actually of more surpassing worth. This compensation is not only a theoretical one, it is a real experience; and at the last, when the whole of the lesser self is surrendered, the only description of it which mere words can give is blissful peace. Since agony of mind cannot coexist with peace, the agony falls away and only the peace remains. The warning must be given, however, that the Higher Self never yields its compensations until the requisite surrender is made. If this is done little by little, which is usually the only way it can be done, then the lovely compensation will follow also little by little.
6.8.4.443,When the ego has dwindled away into nothingness, the Overself takes over.
6.8.4.446Not until the ego is completely deflated and falls into the Void will he know, feel, and fully realize the blissfulness of salvation.
6.8.4.447As a highly personal “I” competing against other “I”s, there can be only endless friction and intermittent anxiety. As impersonal I-ness, dwelling in the eternal Now, there are none to compete against and nothing even to compete for.
6.8.4.448The selfish interests, which prompt man's action or guide his reflections, are destroyed root and branch in this vast transformation which attends entry into the Overself's life.
6.8.4.449The degree of ego-attachment which you will find at the centre of a man’s consciousness is a fairly reliable index to the degree of his spiritual evolution.
6.8.4.452The egoistic way of viewing life is a narrowing one. It keeps him from what is best, holds him down to what is base, and prevents him from working with the miraculous forces of the Overself. The farther he moves himself away from it and the nearer he moves into the impersonal and cosmic way, the sooner will he receive the benediction of more wisdom, better health, smoother relationships, and grander character.
6.8.4.454When he can look at his life-experience as something that seems to happen to somebody else, he will have a sure sign of detachment.
6.8.4.456When he can release himself from the ego's tyranny and relate himself to the Overself's guidance, an entirely new life will open up for him.
6.8.4.457Everything seems lost to a man when he surrenders his own personal will deep in his heart to the higher self, when he abandons his personal aims, wishes, and purposes at its bidding. Yet the truth is that only then is everything gained.
6.8.4.458To nullify the ego is the only way to perceive and identify his real being.
6.8.4.461The unawakened ego submits passively to the lower influences which come to it out of the shadows of its own long past and to the sense-stirring suggestions which come to it out of the surroundings in which it moves. But when it has found and surrendered to the Overself in the heart, this blind, mechanical responsiveness comes to an end and an aroused, enlightened, fully aware, inner rulership replaces it.
6.8.4.463Remove the concept of the ego from a man and you remove the solid ground from beneath his feet. A yawning abyss seems to open up under him. It gives the greatest fright of his life, accompanied by feelings of utter isolation and dreadful insecurity. He will then clamour urgently for the return of his beloved ego and return to safety once more--unless his determination to attain truth is so strong and so exigent that he can endure the ordeal, survive the test, and hold on until the Overself's light irradiates the abyss.
6.8.4.465The illusion of the ego stands behind all other illusions. If it is removed, they too will be removed.
6.8.4.466Only when a man is dispossessed of his ego's rule and repossessed by the Overself's can he really attain that goodness about which he may have dreamed often but reflected seldom.
6.8.4.468The test of spirituality is not to be found in how long a man can sit still in meditation, but in how well he has denied his ego.
6.8.4.469In the hour when the ego falls away from us, there is a feeling of a heavy burden being dropped, a sense of release from a condition now seen to be undesirable. This is naturally followed by a quiet satisfying joy.
0.8.4.471To the degree that we loose ourselves from the ego's grip, to that degree we loose ourselves from its mental anxieties and emotional agitations. As its power wanes, our care-free peace waxes.
6.8.4.475When we are wholly absorbed in watching a cinema picture to the extent that we forget ourself and our personal affairs, the ego temporarily disappears and ceases to exist for us. This too means, if it means anything at all, that the ego exists only by virtue of its existence in our consciousness. If we exercise ourself in withdrawing attention from the ego, not to bestow it upon a cinema picture but to bestow it upon our own inner being, we may succeed in getting behind the ego and discovering the Witness-self.
6.8.4.476If he will have the courage to let the ego-illusion die out, a new and real life will come to birth within his being.
6.8.4.478The automatic, constant, and undisciplined thought-movement comes at last to an end. It is the central part of the ego which has surrendered.
6.8.4.481… After all, the personality is only a series of continuous thoughts, strongly held and centered around a particular body. He who can win the power to free himself from all thoughts, wins the power to free himself from the personal I-thoughts. Only such a man has really obeyed Jesus' injunction to lose his life…
6.8.4.483,… when the thoughts lapse and the finited personality goes, will the man be bereft of all consciousness? No--he will still possess pure consciousness, the deeper life that supports the finited self and sustains its very thoughts.
6.8.4.483,
20 5 2021
10 2 2016
21 11 2012
21 3 2015
29 7 2012
16 2 2025
22 12 2019
26 9 2016
6 7 2022
23 12 2017
11 8 2017
8 7 2018
18 7 2018
15 4 2023
14 6 2011
26 3 2025
19 11 2021
28 2 2018
26 8 2017
25 11 2014
29 11 2018
28 7 2018
1 11 2018
6 3 2021
2 2 2021
26 1 2013
9 10 2013
17 7 2016
19 11 2022
8 6 2017
23 7 2016
4 9 2021
15 6 2024
1 5 2018
9 3 2023
17 3 2018
30 3 2018
10 6 2014
23 4 2022
21 1 2022
22 9 2013
28 6 2013
6 12 2017
10 11 2010
2 2 2011
25 9 2013
11 6 2022
13 7 2011
23 11 2018
14 6 2017
10 6 2021
30 11 2019
30 3 2022
8 3 2025
22 11 2020
31 10 2014
7 10 2014
26 4 2020
21 8 2020
18 3 2017
1 8 2020
5 7 2021
24 4 2017
3 5 2013
20 4 2020
18 3 2022
21 10 2016
31 7 2021
19 3 2012
27 3 2022
23 9 2023
31 5 2020
18 9 2023
22 3 2011
30 1 2011
13 5 2022
2 2 2016
10 8 2019
23 12 2012
21 5 2020
16 2 2015
12 7 2016
16 9 2022
30 8 2020
9 11 2016
30 12 2022
29 11 2016
8 2 2013
20 10 2019
28 10 2016
14 12 2021
5 11 2022
10 2 2023
14 7 2022
21 4 2018
25 10 2022
23 10 2022
18 9 2022
28 6 2022
13 1 2023
25 10 2017
4 1 2023
6 1 2018
29 12 2022
7 6 2023
15 8 2016
19 6 2018
7 9 2021
20 8 2021
24 5 2015
8 3 2018
30 10 2012
31 8 2021
10 7 2012
8 12 2024
6 10 2015
7 3 2016
12 3 2019
6 4 2019
22 5 2016
26 1 2019
26 7 2016
11 6 2013
19 11 2024
13 11 2023
25 2 2019
26 4 2019
14 12 2024
22 4 2017
13 8 2023
24 3 2024
26 2 2019
13 9 2020
28 2 2023
5 11 2021
2 9 2020
16 2 2019
29 11 2024
31 10 2021
8 5 2021
4 3 2020
11 4 2018
15 8 2012
12 11 2014
14 1 2011
27 5 2019
6 1 2020
19 5 2019
26 3 2021
12 3 2018
30 10 2023
25 9 2024
31 8 2016
30 3 2013
1 4 2021
3 8 2011
5 3 2013
24 4 2018
30 12 2023
4 4 2023
30 3 2020
6 2 2023
21 12 2010
15 1 2016
19 7 2011
27 3 2016
18 2 2023
9 12 2011
15 12 2018
19 4 2021
16 10 2018
29 10 2018
1 12 2015
28 8 2021
8 3 2024
5 1 2018
31 3 2025
16 4 2018
13 8 2020
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