Fandom

A lot of people have a favorite sports team. Some go so far as to make the team part of their identity. Rather than simply enjoy watching a good game, the ego seeks to enlarge itself by latching onto a group of complete strangers in order to ride their coattails to “victory” and therefore a feeling of power and worth. This is why rabid fans feel miserable when their team loses – their egos feel diminished.

The purported reason that people associate with a particular team is usually that it “represents” the geographical area that they live or grew up in, or a school that they attend or used to attend. The real reason is that the ego is grasping for a way to feel good about itself because it cannot feel good on its own. When they root for “their” team, they are really rooting for themselves. Fans don’t personally know any of the players so they don’t care what benefits the players get from winning, nor do the fans get to share any of the money or fame. The sole benefit from having “their” team win is an ego boost.

The ego likes to affiliate with other fans of the same team, even though the basis of this relationship is merely that they sit on their backsides eating fattening food and drinking alcohol while watching other people do stuff. Cheering along with others for the same team might develop a sense of camaraderie, but a true friendship cannot be based on this alone.

If all of the players on someone’s favorite sports team were traded to other teams and replaced with new players, they would still root for this team. Why? Because it’s not about the particular players – it’s about the idea of being affiliated with a particular team. The ego cannot give up its identity as a fan of this particular team, because if it did it would be annihilated.

The choice of team is usually random. A person who grows up in Baltimore will likely become a Ravens fan. If his parents had moved to Seattle before he was born, he would have grown up there and become a Seahawks fan. This is because the ego is nothing more than an identification with something external. It clamps onto something other than the true self and says, “I am that.” The true self does not do that because it is, by definition, its own identity, so it needs no other. Therefore it does not make a particular sports team, or political idea, or religion, or skin color, or nationality, or gender, part of its identity. 

Meaning

Meaning is an idea that stems from the perceived relation of something to something else. That's all that meaning is. It is not inherent in anything, whether it be a word, an idea, a picture, an object, an event, or life itself. Something is meaningful, important, good or bad to us only because we perceive it that way, and our perception is determined by our life experiences, genetics, beliefs, attitudes, and preferences. Meaning, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. This is why different things have different meanings for different people. If meaning were inherent in something, then everyone would get the same meaning from it. But we don’t get meaning from anything – we give meaning to things.

Let’s take a cross for example. To a religious person it might have great meaning: a symbol of Christ’s dying for our sins so that we can eventually go to Heaven. To someone else it might be nothing more than two pieces of wood. The meaning that the former person sees in that cross comes from his own mind, not from the wood.

We might consider work, relationships, children, hobbies, travel, exercise, possessions, social events, etc to be meaningful, but that is merely our choice. We don’t have to do or possess any of these things. We don’t even have to live. But we choose to. This is ultimate freedom.

When we drop the false self and see that nothing in this world is inherently meaningful or necessary, we might lose interest in things that used to be important to us. Maybe we used to highly value our fine automobile or jewelry, and now consider it absurd to own them. Maybe we used to spend 3 hours each day in the gym, and now we consider it absurd to spend that much time there. Some might call this loss of interest “depression”, but only people who are still caught up in their false selves would put that label on it because they can’t understand why anyone wouldn’t find expensive possessions or body sculpting meaningful.

The false self wants its possessions and activities to be meaningful because it uses them as means to other ends or to make itself feel important. The true self can simply enjoy an activity or possession for its own sake and does not look for meaning.

If we feel depressed by thoughts of meaninglessness, it’s because of our belief that 1) we must have meaning, and/or 2) meaning is to be found outside of ourselves. Both are erroneous.

Self-created Hell

In John Milton’s poem Paradise Lost, Satan lives by the philosophy “Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven.”

Satan represents our false self, which thinks itself “too good” to serve others. It wants to create and rule its own domain. It can’t create matter, but it can create ideas such as that it is its body and possessions, and that it is “better” than others. It also creates past, future, shoulds, shouldn’ts, beliefs, judgments, and all manner of imagined calamities that haunt us, preventing experience of reality.

In order to rule anything, one must be separate from it, as there is a ruler and the ruled. This creates a feeling of separation and loneliness. The false self thus lives in a lonely, unhappy place of selfishness, want, scarcity, and fear. That is, it reigns in Hell. Why do we choose this? Because it gives us a (false) sense of power and righteousness, and we choose this over happiness.

When we drop the false self, we see that we are not “too good” to serve, and in fact the concept of “too good” doesn’t even exist. We no longer feel the need to be selfish. There is no longer a sense of urgency about “getting” things. We don’t feel the need to pursue power or rule anyone or anything. We are willing to accept reality as it is rather than fabricate one, and this enables us to fully experience it. We feel more connected with others, which makes us want to serve them, and since we are at peace, we serve in Heaven.

We all manipulate matter in order to take care of bodily needs: we make and/or buy shelter, food, medicine, and transportation. The false self, because it cannot accept reality, uses these things not just for their utilitarian value, but also as a distraction from reality. For example, it is not enough to have a car – it must be a certain style or color. This is why people who live via the false self are miserable no matter how comfortable they are materially: they desire to make things be a certain way in a world that is constantly changing, so they fear losing what they have. This makes them suspicious of others, quick to anger, and unfulfilled. External comforts cannot ease inner turmoil.

The true self has no sense of ownership, so it has nothing to lose. It can be neither taken away from nor added to. It just is. Nothing can be done to it, so it has nothing to fear. Our bodies and possessions can be damaged or stolen, but the less we live via the false self, the less distressful losing them is.

Choice

We make choices all the time: what food to eat, which movie to watch, who to associate with, whether to have children, where to apply for a job, and when to go to bed.

Or do we?

What makes us choose something? Our want of it. We eat whichever food we have the strongest craving for, watch whichever movie most strikes our fancy, associate with the people we find most desirable, have (or don’t have) children because we want (or don’t want) to procreate, apply for the most attractive jobs, and go to bed when we’re tired. There are other factors, such as availability and convenience, that influence our decisions, but it all boils down to choosing whatever seems optimal.

Our earthly lives are made up of many things that we have no power over, such as our age, gender, place of birth, parents, skin color, and preference for certain types of food, music, movies, sports, friends, intimate partners, and pets. We choose according to these preferences, but we cannot choose what these preferences are. So how much of what we do is freely chosen? How responsible are we for our actions? Even our thoughts are largely beyond our control, as they are shaped by these preferences, as well as our genetics and life events.

Given that we can’t change our preferences, it seems that choices are largely made for us. For example, if we have a craving for ice cream, the two flavors available are chocolate and vanilla, and we strongly prefer chocolate, is our choice of chocolate freely made? Or were we “pushed” into it by our needs and preferences? We could go against the grain and choose vanilla just to prove a point, and this might seem like a completely free choice, but perhaps we were pushed into that choice by our desire to prove a point. It’s like when we give up a bad habit such as selfing, smoking, drinking, or gambling: it might seem like a free choice, but perhaps we were pushed into that choice by our desire to stop the suffering that these habits cause. How free is that choice?

The only way a choice can be completely free is if there is no consequence for choosing one thing over another. For example, if we are taking a walk in the woods, we come to an intersection with several paths, and we have no idea where any of those paths lead, then our choice of which path to take is freely made. Of course, with no knowledge to steer us, any choice we make is meaningless and arbitrary. This can be disconcerting because if we see no value in one thing over another, then we have no power to control the quality of our lives.

When we choose something, we might be haunted by the thought that perhaps something else would have been better. The walk in the woods might be fun, but perhaps we would have had a better time riding a bicycle, or having dinner with friends, or exercising. Would we? How can we know? It seems that we should just make choices based on whatever knowledge we presently have, and feel good about those choices because we did the best that we could.

Distraction

Y’ever notice how sometimes you or someone else can’t sit still or stop talking, or has to have the television on as background noise?

The false self, because it is false, cannot stand on its own, so it needs constant upkeep. It has to be doing/talking/thinking 100% of the time (or until the body/mind is exhausted). As soon as this activity stops, the inactivity is felt as boredom, as though a drug has been taken away. This is because the false self is a mind process, and a process exists only as long as it keeps “processing”, so the cessation of activity is the equivalent of ego death.

The true self is not a process. It is a noun, not a verb. It does not need to “process” in order to be. It simply is, regardless of what it does. It enjoys being. It is a bundle of blissful energy.

The false self needs to experience external things in order to feel good, and indeed, to exist. Its default state is lack and unhappiness, so any form of enjoyment must come from somewhere else. This is why it desperately needs to involve itself with the world: it must accomplish, obtain possessions, and have particular types of experiences.

The true self can choose to involve itself with the world, but it does not need to because it exists without them. It enjoys doing things but does not need to impress anyone, enjoys possessions but feels fine if it does not get them, and enjoys certain experiences but also enjoys just sitting quietly.

This is not to say that living via the false self can never be enjoyable. Distractions can be fun. But underneath there will be a constant state of agitation, of concern that the next distraction won’t be obtained or enjoyed, and if it isn’t, anger or frustration. The true self remains at peace regardless of external situations. 

When we stop selfing, the need for distraction ceases, and we then become aware of the bliss that naturally accompanies being. We do not need to meditate on a mountaintop or give up all our possessions in order to achieve bliss. In fact, bliss cannot be “achieved”, for that would imply that we must do something in order to get it. The way to experience bliss is to not do something, and that something is selfing. When we drop that ignorant and destructive activity, we get out of our own way.
 

"Disaster"

Sometimes a calamitous event can be the best thing that ever happened to us.

When we live via the false self, life is a constant struggle to manipulate things and people in order to achieve our little goals. We have frequent pains such as stress, worry, anger, and regret, but the pain is not great enough to make us stop selfing because the “rewards” we get outweigh the pain. At least that’s what we believe.

Then something huge happens. A long-term relationship ends. We get cancer. Our house burns down. A loved one dies. We lose our job. Now we sit in a situation that we have always feared and maybe tried to prevent. There is no getting out of it. It has happened. We are helpless.

Now we see that the false self isn’t the provider and protector we thought it was. It has failed. Miserably.

This is a great opportunity to assess our outlook. Is jumping through all our daily hoops really the best way to live? Are we getting a good return on our investment? Has it prevented this calamity? Maybe our life will be just as good or better if we stop this silly game of trading our freedom and dignity for small desires. Maybe those little things we thought we wanted or needed aren’t important after all.

We won’t necessarily see things this way. We might cling to our old ways and be frustrated because this event “shouldn’t have happened”. If so then we will have learned nothing.

But we might see this event as a revelation. It might show us the folly of the false self. We might see that difficult situations are not obstacles on our path, but that they are the path – the path to self-discovery and growth – because losing something we used to cling to can release us from the burden of maintaining and worrying about losing it. If so then this “disaster” will have helped us wake up. Had it not happened, we would have continued believing that the best way to live is via selfishness and fear. We can now step out of the dream, drop the burden of ego, and live as the free spirits we are.

Online resources

Here are a few resources that can help you strip away what’s false.

Books:
Being Zen: Bringing Meditation to Life by Ezra Bayda
The Best Thing That Never Happened by Joey Lott
The Book of Not Knowing by Peter Ralston
The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are by Alan Watts
The Deepest Acceptance by Jeff Foster
The Ease of Being by Jean Klein 
The Ecology of Consciousness by Jon Bernie
Gifts With No Giver by Nirmala 
I Am by Jean Klein
I Am That by Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj 
Liberation from the Lie  by Eric Gross
Living from the Heart by Nirmala
Living Realization: A Simple, Plain-English Guide to Non-Duality by Scott Kiloby
A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle
Nothing Personal by Nirmala
The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle 
Radiance by Gina Lake
Radiant Mind: Awakening Unconditioned Awareness by Peter Fenner
Soul Without Shame: A Guide to Liberating Yourself from the Judge Within by Byron Brown
Take Me to Truth: Undoing the Ego by Nouk Sanchez and Tomas Vieira
That is That by Nirmala

Writings:
Adyashanti 
Awake!
Scott Kiloby

Audio:
Paul Hedderman
Adyashanti 

Video:
Alan Watts
Eckhart Tolle
Paul Hedderman
Adyashanti
Conscious.TV