The Thing We All Do That Prevents Us From Letting Go of Our Egos
And the simple solution.
If I was back in my Hollywood screenwriting days and was writing this article as a movie, I’d title it: “Letting Go of the Ego 14: Resistance Kills.”
Why fourteen? Let’s face it, I’ve written a lot about letting go of the ego, something I have zero misgivings about. It’s foundational to our well-being.
We’ve all accumulated and stored all sorts of egoic gunk throughout our lives and unless we do the work of letting it go, it just sits there. Doing what? Running, and often ruining, our lives.
Meditation won’t get you there
I don’t care if you meditate five hours a day, unless you let go of that baggage (called Samskaras in Sanskrit), it’s not going anywhere. Scars from parents’ divorces, bad break-ups, pressure to “succeed” heaped on you by overbearing parents, siblings and friends…
It all has to go.
We’ve attacked the “how” to let go from several vantage points in previous articles. Today’s teaching is, like the others, simple and invaluable.
As is the case with so many of the teachings I have learned from the likes of Ram Dass, Michael Singer and Eckhart Tolle, the key to this one is awareness.
As Tolle eloquently put it:
“Awareness is the greatest agent for change.”
I’ll keep using that quote until my fingers turn blue from typing it.
Awareness is essential
Why is awareness so central to spiritual growth? Because unless we’re aware that something we’re doing is harmful to us, we’ll never do anything to correct it.
Such is the case when our emotional/egoic baggage is poked. How so?
Let’s take a simple example. Your dysfunctional parents drilled into you from day one that you were not the sharpest tool in the shed.
