Chapter two is about ego -- and its content and structure. While I have a general understanding of ego and its role in basically ruining our lives, I have been questioning it the past few weeks. Like is any type of want bad? Are there any situations where one can think something or someone is bad or wrong or right even? It made me angry to think that here I was controlled by this ego-maniac (me) and yet, if I removed this ego-maniac (me) then who the hell am I?
And then again, have I not been asking this question since I was a child? Why didn't someone just hand me this book then? Why did I have to spend years in egoic delusion? And no one thinks everything isn't a conspiracy. HA!
One thing we know for sure is that the ego is never satisfied. And the basis of our world economy relies on ego -- the more one wants, the more one spends, the more one spends, the more stuff can be generated to meet the never-ending demands of the ego. Yikes!
And that I can see clearly. For example, I walked into the store one day to accompany my father and sister who were both looking for laptops. I had already ordered myself a new desktop and had no wants or needs -- I'd custom-designed the perfect system for myself. But then I went by the biggest, honking, most beautiful screen I'd ever seen and I stopped and said ... "I must have that."
Well, I know when I utter those words it's a done deal, as do my sister and father, and they both looked at me in confusion. Were we not in this very store to buy THEM computers? Sure, yeah, fine, but it was clear to me that I could not live another day on this planet without being in possession of that iMac. With its 24" screen and the fact that it was comprised solely of the monitor itself -- no big box to kick on the floor -- well, we both knew we were in love. I helped them look at laptops, but I kept drifting back to the iMac to run my hand lovingly across its sleek, white smoothness. Ahhhhhhhhh.
My sister knew I was distracted and she looked at the computer, but she didn't want a desktop. She wanted a laptop. So I pointed out the Mac laptops -- just the clarity in the images were to die for. But they were ... more expensive. Unlike me, who would never let a price tag make a decision about something that I will spend more time with than anyone or anything else on this planet ... my sister is quite taken by cost. She bought a cheaper PC laptop and I made sure I could cancel the PC I'd already ordered and paid for and then welcomed my new family member with loving arms.
And it was perfect. Is perfect ... except that it's not new anymore. And the new ones have really necessary improvements like different colors and sleeker software that everyone complains doesn't really work but still ... they have it and I don't.
It's RIDICULOUS! There is nothing wrong with this iMac -- it is as fast and beautiful as the day I brought it home ... but the marketplace is geared toward making me feel bad -- making me feel as though others have something I should probably have. Because ... I deserve. Right? The ego is NEVER satisfied. It identifies with the past and the future -- the past was when I had the best darn iMac on the market, and the future is when I realize I can't live without the more bestest darn IMac on the market.
What the ego does not engage in is the here and now. The ego overlooks the now, and the secret to all is that ... there is no life apart from now.
Wow! Got it? So if I don't go into the past and recall the salad days of new computer ownership, and I don't look into the future and wonder if life will be much better if I have a pink computer, but instead just say RIGHT NOW I have this computer and it is perfect and it does EVERYTHING I need it to do, and more ... then I am one hundred percent enlightened.
Hot damn!
Ahhh, but here is the rub. If I think that I am superior, then that is my ego talking. So do I believe that I am superior because right this very second I am wallowing in the fact that I am being present and enjoying my computer for what it is, not what it was or will be?
Guilty as charged. I do! I am sitting here with a little grin on my face and hopping up and down in my chair and thinking I AM BETTER THAN YOU ARE! I swear to God. (And quite frankly, it is actually even possible that **I** am better than you are. I mean, it's possible, right?)
So ultimately I will reach my inner peace (I will be awakened, though obviously it is apparent to all reading this that I am WIDE awake!) before you all, and then I will have to dissolve the egoic rantings that I am better than everyone (we are talking about a person who referred to herself as Lisa The Great into the 80's) and move into a space where I am forever in the present -- which will then in turn be the foundation for the rest of my life.
The ultimate goal is internal alignment with the present moment.
Accepting is ness.
Have I mentioned we're only on Chapter two?
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