At the beginning of our spirirual journey, we identify with these scenarios. The scenarios provide us with the
sense of a solid identity. The patterns of thoughts fixed in the scenarios are
manifested in various mind games during our daily life.
In the course of our journey leading to Consciousness,
our objective should not be creating a positive character, and thus a pleasant
scenario, but finding the Existence behind every scenario. The first step is examining the
scenarios, these conditioned thought-patterns, in the light of Consciousness. Let us first examine some of our most extensive
mind games that are rooted deepest.
Ambition
Ambition is perhaps the comprehensive mind game,
providing one of the deepest roots of Ego.
An elementary endeavour of every Ego is growing:
to be “more”, larger and powerful. They strive to be higher and higher in the hyerarchic
structure of the world, conquering more and more territory. The
individual’s ambitions grow and grow, reaching larger and larger areas.
With the educational means of reward and
punishment, children are conditioned to excel among their peers, to be the
best, strongest, most beautiful, etc. When the children meet the parental–and thus the
social–expectations, they are rewarded, when not, they are punished. They
therefore soon learn to be ambitious.
These ambitions, though based upon the past,
always aim at the future. All through our lives we pursue illusionary
objectives, spurred by various ambitions. Naturally, it is not impossible to satisfy an ambition,
but it is immnediately replaced by a thousand others, as there are so many
areas of life where we have not yet reached our ambitions.
That is how we chase senseless goals all through
our lives until we die, when we realize that everybody leaves this world
empty-handed, even those who lived their whole lives chasing mirages of past
and future.
Look into yourself to see what is in you now!
See what ambitions are driving you along on the sea of life and in what
direction?
Every moment spent awake we face two alternatives. A
choice is to be made between the ambitions stretching between past and future or the quiet, simple, pure emptiness of
the present moment, full of vibrating
life. It is-however-only the latter that brings the Witnessing Presence!
The Mind Game of Becoming Something
This mind game is closely associated with the
life-long pursue of ambitions, and reveals the mechanisms of ambitions.
The Ego at all times strives to achieve
something. The mind creates a mental image, an ideal about it. An ideal means
that you are still not what you are supposed to be.
The Ego
projects that idealized image into the future, and reveals the way leading to
the goal. That
image generates a permanent stress, tension and anxiety in the life of the
Wanderer. If the Wanderer achieves the desired goal, or abandons it as
unattainable, immediately finds a new one, an even more ambitious, or one that
is easier to achieve, and another one, and so it goes until death, or the moment when the Wanderer realizes the
futility of the whole process.
We are therefore constantly on the road,
straying from one mental image to the next, and identify with these images, and
derive our identity from the images.
When we
start dealing with spirituality, our mind creates an image that we
need to implement if we are determined to be successful. The image means that
we need to find Presence, through the way the mind imagines it. The essence of
this ideal is to be permanently conscious, to be Present all the time, in all
details of our life.
The Ego, is however, aware that for most people
it is an impossible venture, so the Wanderer often has a sense of
self-accusation and self-depreciation, as the ideal image is impossible to
achieve (the Wanderer is not spiritual enough). This state of mind is,
eventually, a good foundation for the mind game of guilt.
In the course of our Journey we need to realize
that we do not need to become anything, because we are already in possession of the characteristics that we have been
looking for so far, pursuing an image projected into the future. All we
need to do is shift our focus of alert and conscious attention from the edge
(Ego) to our center (witnessing Presence). The mind games impede us in that
process!
The “I Want Even More” – Mind Game
From all this it is easy to see that the
Ego-dominated mind will never be satisfied, as it longs to achieve more and
more in life. The individual wants to be rich, when they are rich, they want
power, when they have power, they want fame. When material wealth no longer
satisfies them, they begin to seek “spiritual wealth” and so forth. Once an
objective has been achieved, a sense of relative satisfaction may follow, but
sooner or later anxiety returns and the chase for more and more starts again.
This mind game takes the spiritual Seeker into a
psychological time frame, as the goal to be achieved is projected into the
future. In this way Now, the Present moment is reduced to a moment necessary
for achieving the goal, and the vividness and beauty of it is lost.
The spiritual Seeker is, however, able to suppress the
voice of the Ego: "I no longer
listen to this nonsense, your pretension! It is not an illusory Self that I
want to reach. I want to find my real Self!"
As a witnessing Presence one is able to observe these games of the mind
and is also able to overcome and laugh at it! What more does one
need than what is offered by the present moment? Once you have learnt how
to dissolve in the present moment, and you are able to enjoy it, you will have
no problem in disregarding the empty chit-chat of the Ego, the mind!
~From the book Frank M. Wanderer: The Biggest Obstacle to Enlightenment: How to Escape from the Prison of Mind Games?
~From the book Frank M. Wanderer: The Biggest Obstacle to Enlightenment: How to Escape from the Prison of Mind Games?
(C) Frank M. Wanderer, 2013-2016
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About the author:
Frank M. Wanderer Ph.D is a professor of psychology, a consciousness researcher and writer.
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Frank is also the author of the following books:
- 3 Stages in the Evolution of the Human Spirit EGO – ALERTNESS – CONSCIOUSNESS
- The Chant of the Heart: Enjoy the Nectar of Being
- The Flames of Alertness: Discover the Power of Consciousness!
- The Biggest Obstacle to Enlightenment: How to Escape from the Prison of Mind Games?
- and several other books on consciousness and enlightenment.
You can follow Frank online at:
- https://egoalertnessconsciousness.wordpress.com/
- www.fmwanderer.wordpress.com
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