PEACE, EGO, AND INQUIRY
There is no such thing as peace of mind.
Mind means disturbance; restlessness itself is mind. . . .
The Self does not need to be put to rest.
It is peace itself, not at peace.
Only the mind is restless.1
NISARGADATTA MAHARAJ
INNER PEACE IS FREE OF CONDITIONS
Peace is what we deeply ARE—the peace that can embrace our troubled minds, the peace that is unceasing acceptance of all that is. It is the clarity that holds our confusion, the freedom that allows us to simply be, the love that touches all that has been unloved. This peace lies beyond the illusion of separation and is free of conditions. When we begin spiritual practices, we want to make our egoic mind peaceful, clear, accepting, free, and loving. Even with this good intention, we fail to look beyond our limited identification. We do not seek the truth of the seeker. Instead we try to remake the constructed egoic “self” we have innocently and mistakenly concluded we are.
IS PEACE BORING?
Many years ago, I was privileged to attend a retreat for psychotherapists led by Thich Nhat Hanh. This was one of the first things he said: “Peace is important, but not as important as our capacity to enjoy it. Peace is right here in the present moment, but we find it boring; so we look elsewhere—drugs, alcohol, sex, thinking, worrying.”
IS peace boring? Who would you be in the absence of conflict? Do you notice that your mind often prefers to be entertained, or even agitated, rather than to be quiet? That it continually tries to control life rather than to accept it, projecting a fearful future rather than living in the now? Even when we are touched by a deep and profound peace in the present moment, how quickly thinking wants to reassert itself in time and in identity.
We may long for peace, but only if it looks like our conditioned mind imagines it should look. How do you fill in the sentence that begins, “I will be at peace when . . .”? Can we see how the thought of “peace when” never delivers peace now—not because it is not here now, but because we want something else? We can increase our capacity to enjoy peace when we realize that this moment is the only one available for us to touch reality. Perhaps life is neither a problem to be solved nor a destination, but a creation that unfolds endlessly from moment to moment. Peace is boring only when we have not drunk deeply enough from its source.
“I CANNOT MAKE MY MIND PEACEFUL”
In facilitating meditation groups for many years, I have noticed that invariably a beginning student of meditation will report, “I must not be doing it right, because I cannot make my mind peaceful.” Indeed, as any of you know who have practiced meditation, the first thing you become aware of when you sit quietly is that the thinking mind is restless. It moves continually in all directions. It especially likes to go backward to memory or forward to planning, projecting, or worrying about the future. It likes to make judgments about everything that happens.
It is very seldom able to touch down in the present moment for more than a fraction of a second. Of course, none of us needs to sit quietly on a cushion to be aware of the thinking mind, but attempting to quiet the mind will soon reveal your number one addiction: thinking!
It is our identification with thinking that creates the apparent separation between “you” and experience, “you” and thought, “you” and feeling, “you” and the moment, “you” and your Self, “you” and the Divine. When I say this, you cannot imagine a moment without thinking, can you? You imagine you would be a vegetable. “I think, therefore I am” represents your experience. Actually, Awareness (Self, the true “I”) precedes all thought, including the thought that who you are is only your particular body-mind.
The ability to think serves a necessary purpose for the body-mind organism, its development, evolution, and survival. What we call “mind” is an incredible power within the Self, causing thoughts to arise; yet there is a greater power—that which notices thought. While it is the nature of the mind’s activity to think, it is not the nature of the mind to quiet itself, and yet without a quiet mind, we cannot consciously experience the truth of our Being.
WHAT IS EGO?
Ego is identification with the body and the thinking mind. In actuality, an ego does not exist as some separate entity. It is a movement of thought, including memory, feeling, will, resistance, wanting, grasping, and reflection. Ego is a state of consciousness caught in the trance of separation. Thoughts, feelings, sensations simply arise, but what we call “ego” is the afterthought that claims them as belonging to a separate “me.” While our mind is conditioned, operates in time, and can contemplate its own thought creations, nowhere will you find an entity called “ego.” It is the movement of thought that constructs a conceptual “self” that then claims to be the “thinker,” the “doer,” the “meditator,” the separate “me.”
While there is a functional necessity for a sense of self, distinct from others, what I mean by “ego” is our sense of separateness from What Is, from the Self, from one another, from the rest of the universe. This sense of separateness from our wholeness is experienced as an energetic field of resistance whose inner narrator continually chats to itself and holds itself the arbiter of what should or should not be happening in reality.
When ego is seen as simply a movement of thought, and not as a separate entity, we discover that it is Consciousness that makes our identification with form and ever-changing experience feel so real. We become emotionally attached to our egoic “separate” identity, not realizing that Consciousness itself has identified with its own form. No one is to blame; there is only an invitation to inquire, to see deeply. Who is the one I have taken myself to be?
SEPARATION DOES NOT TAKE US TO WHOLENESS
The seeker thinks a separate “self” will be the agent of awakening and blames or praises itself for its perceived failure or success. The sincere impulse to awaken that arose from deep within becomes co-opted by our mind in the form of spiritual ambition, the desire or demand to “achieve” or to “get” something for the “me.” Many seekers simply desire another experience, another hit of bliss, to be used as one might use a drug. Experiences may come, but one will not be liberated by them for long, for all experiences come and go, the best ones and the worst ones. Our freedom lies in discovering what is ever present regardless of changing experiences.
No matter how earnest, eager, or desperate your mind may be to awaken, separation does not take us to wholeness. Yet every day in countless ways, the spiritual seeker is convinced his or her ego is the vehicle of choice for the spiritual search. You think you are in charge of the search and that your lack of progress betrays a lack of effort, worth, or grace on your part. You try harder and harder, become more and more frustrated; or perhaps just the opposite, you are sure you see signs of your spiritual progress everywhere. Why, just last week, “you” rested in pure Awareness, in utter peace. If only “you” could find a way to return there and to stay in that awareness!
WAR WITH EGO IS BOUND TO FAIL
Many spiritual writings and practices take aim at the ego and treat it as an enemy rather than seeing it for what it is—a movement of thought, mixed with pure Consciousness, carrying the scent of both Consciousness and identity, creating the idea of a separate someone. Ego is not an entity with an independent existence. It is the Self with limitations, Consciousness imagining itself bound to a body. When we look for an ego, we cannot find one apart from our identification with our thought of an “I” limited to a body.
If we do not know our true nature, we may begin a war with our ego, a war that is bound to fail. How can you have a war with an illusion? Simply investigate, see it for what it is, and it becomes more and more transparent. The only thing that wants to kill an ego is ego. From the perspective of Totality, ego does not exist as anything other than a movement of thought connected with the sense of “I.”
But we rarely see through our ego, and so we treat it as a separate body-mind, as a personal identity that needs continual protection and continual improvement. If we have decided ego is an enemy to defeat, then we imagine we are taking up arms against it. But who is trying to destroy the ego? Ego! The thief is pretending to be the police officer, attempting to catch the thief. Often the “spiritual” ego is battling the “worldly” ego and violently judging itself.
Ego is like a shadow, a pale reflection, a false and limited version of the true Self, and of itself it has no separate agency. No one wants to imagine that his or her ego could be rather irrelevant in terms of Truth, in terms of how life moves, in terms of who/what seems to be the mover of this being we have taken ourselves to be. So we try to polish our ego, punish it, dress it up in camouflage clothing, pamper it, abuse it, pursue a better version of it. We want it to be a better master when it is actually here as a servant.
SELF-INQUIRY SEARCHES FOR THE EGO’S SOURCE
However, all is not lost in using the so-called ego for the spiritual quest. The method of Self-inquiry, as taught by Ramana Maharshi, is based on the ego’s searching, not for enlightenment but for its Source. What is the Source of the bundle of thoughts, memories, stories, and experiences that you imagine is yourself?
It is not possible for the I-thought (ego) to take you to “enlightenment,” yet it is possible to follow the ego toward its Source. At some point, you will reach “I don’t know.” At this point, rather than imagining you have failed in your endeavor, remain at the gate of the unknown. Effort will take us only to the edge. But when identified mind comes close enough to the Source, the same grace that took you to the edge of the unknown may deliver a deeper gift. You will not find an ego, nor will your mind find the Source, but separation may dissolve along the way.
The very purpose of Self-inquiry is to focus the entire mind at its Source.
It is not, therefore, the case of one “I” searching for another “I.” . . .
Self-inquiry is the one infallible means, the only direct one, to realize
the unconditioned, absolute Being that you really are.2
RAMANA MAHARSHI
Ramana Maharshi was not interested in helping seekers develop yogic powers (siddhis), powers of mind or of body. His method of Self-inquiry was for those interested in finding out who or what they are beyond their thoughts. You could have many powers but still feel separate. You could sit in samadhi (absorption) for long periods of time, but when you come out of such a state you could still return to the mind’s separate identity. Self-inquiry is an invitation to focus the mind at its Source, which naturally stills the mind. A still mind is open to receive the truth about its Being. If you are drawn to powers of the mind, feel free to explore them. But if you are interested in the truth of who you are, taste your stillness. Silence is drawing you to itself.
While Self-inquiry is not the only spiritual practice that is used to quiet the mind and deliver it to the unconditioned, it is quite effective in addressing the illusion of a separate self. Many practices can help quiet the mind, but when the seeker gets up from the meditation cushion, he or she resumes the identity of doer, thinker, and identified ego. Self-inquiry seeks to cut that illusion at its source.
In my years of being a spiritual teacher, it has become clear to me that many, many folks have a sense of vastness, silent Presence, or the Divine when sitting quietly in meditation or prayer or even simply STOPPING for a moment, but the one who has stopped continues to retain a separate identity as ego. And this does not bring more than a momentary sense of peace or freedom. So the search continues. Self-inquiry does not deliver blissful experience, but rather results in the disappearance of the separate seeker/experiencer.
NO SEPARATE ONE TO ENLIGHTEN
In the sudden, intuitive moment when what you are seeking appears itself as who/what you are, the search is over. There is no more doubt. A knowing arises that you have always been what you have been seeking, that what you truly are was the agent of your seeking, present from the beginning, moving life and moving you as an expression of itself. You will know that there is simply no separate one to enlighten!
Each wave that arises in the limitless Ocean of Awareness is revealed to be none other than the ocean itself. And in its still depths, there is peace regardless of changing conditions or manifestations. We discover in the very heart of the human being the infinite Heart of Awareness.
NETI, NETI
Sometimes the jnana path begins with exploring what I am not (neti, neti), in which the seeker is invited to both discover and disidentify with all the things he has previously identified as himself. “I am not my thoughts; I am not my feelings; I am not my body; I am not my perception. All these come and go. What does not?” The task is to remove the veils of illusion. There is an ancient and well-known Advaita saying:
The world is illusion;
Brahman alone is Real.
The world is Brahman.
Now the strict Advaitin (nondualist) often seems focused on the first two lines and misses the important third line, which sees God and world as one. When we take a path whose goal seems to remain only in an absolute view, then our bodies, our lives, our world can seem illusory, which in the absolute sense they are; but it can lead to a disengagement and an impersonal, unconnected stance toward one’s embodied life. We remain divided from our wholeness, which includes every dimension of experience. We lack heartful and compassionate intimacy with our humanness.
To come into embodied existence, whether as an ordinary being or as a sage, we will inevitably feel the pain and pleasure, joy and sorrow of human life. Are we to believe that the task of the spiritually adept is to divorce her self from the world, from others, from the play of existence? Wisdom without love is incomplete. It is through form that compassion can express itself. Completion does not come in neti, neti, but in realizing that the no-thingness and the everythingness of our Being are not separate.
A SHIFT FROM RELATIVE TO ABSOLUTE IS STILL NOT COMPLETE
To awaken to the absolute is a dramatic, liberating, and incredibly important first step, but we may discover it is possible to become stuck in the other side of duality. It can become a beautiful, free, and safe place for the spiritual ego to hide. Awakening is incomplete.
Can we come to discover that what is awake does not identify with either absolute or relative? It claims no identity at all and yet is present in all voices, all languages, and all moments. It will shed its light on any manifestation, whether that expression appears limited or unlimited. It will illuminate any role, any identity, and any aspect of its own Being. How freely it gives itself to life!
AWAKENING OF HEAD, HEART, AND HARA
Awakening, which might be described as the opening of one’s eyes to our inherent nature, is always the same understanding wherever it appears, although different traditions might use different language to attempt to describe the experience. To use the words of the Christian mystic Meister Eckhart: “The eye through which I see God is the same eye through which God sees me; my eye and God’s eye are one eye, one seeing, one knowing, one love.”3
The moment of awakening is a sudden, intuitive understanding—not originating in the intellect—that all there is is Consciousness, or God, and “I am That.” But this “I” is no separate “I”; it is not a personal pronoun, but an impersonal one. Later, we may come to understand that the “I” that is That is the same essence that is this—this moment, this experience. However, the clarity of knowing is free from any acquired answers or doctrine. It appears from beyond the finite mind. The moment of awakening can be dramatic or quiet; there may have been many tastes before it occurs; and some beings seem to come into their incarnation consciously “remembering.” But an authentic awakening always carries with it a shift in identity.
Awakening occurs in different ways and at different levels of experience. There is an awakening of the head, out of egoic identity into the absolute dimension, into emptiness, awareness, openness. This is a profound awakening, an awakening to the transcendent, but is still only a partial one. There is an awakening of the heart to Oneness, to unity, and the causeless love, intimacy, and compassion that moves from the true Heart of Awareness. There is an awakening of the hara, a dissolving of the existential knot of separation in our gut, a knot that generally continues to be present experientially even after authentic awakenings to emptiness and oneness have occurred.
For those unfamiliar with the term hara, it is considered the seat of energy and balance in the body-mind, located below the navel in the area of the lower belly. It can be felt as a place of an invisible strength when we put our attention there in meditation or in the practice of martial arts. But in deep spiritual awakening, this area of the gut is where we feel the existential grip of ego’s deepest and most primitive instinct to survive. It is a contracted state of consciousness that is at the very root of the ego structure—beyond thoughts or images of a “self” that we carry in our mind and beyond the familiar feeling states identified with a “me.” These may have been transcended or made transparent in the awakenings of head and heart, but the gut-level existential knot remains.
To come upon this existential knot of consciousness is to come into the space where ego fears its annihilation, its nonbeing. If we bump up against this prerational dimension of fear holding up our separate identity, it can feel like we are having a nightmare but in our waking hours. Nothing external is fearful, and yet we may experience terror. When we are ready, we face into this fear, but it is only when something deeper than our instinct to survive has revealed itself. When this contraction releases, there is a sense of falling into that which has no name. In Zen, it has been called “going through the gateless gate” or “having the bottom fall out of the bucket.” There is no way to force letting go on this level, and it is unwise to try. It may also be the case that life does not move to release in this dimension. Either way, we can trust the wisdom of Spirit’s unfolding. In the Heart of Awareness, we are no more and no less what we truly ARE regardless of the depth of our realization or experience.
With awakening to the truth of our transcendent nature comes an end to seeking, an end to the illusion of the ego’s separate existence, an end to the illusion of “doership,” and, depending on the depth of seeing, an end to fear. The separate “I” or ego disappears in such an understanding (although it often returns as it continues to be melted time and again back into its Source). The life of the individual continues on being whatever it is. The transformation is a shift of perspective, not of personality. Ordinary life continues, yet it is no longer seen as one’s own. Something shines right out of our eyes and right out of ordinary moments. There is a new way of seeing the particularity and infinite beauty of each thing, each being.
Life as it is is seen to be sacred and impersonal, yet it is seen with great intimacy and love. Separation ceases, although it often returns grossly or with great subtlety, only to be seen again. While the initial awakening tends to be up and out of identification with form into that which transcends the body, awakening is not an experience that confers specialness, for we see that the infinite ground of Being, the Heart of Awareness, is shared by all. We awaken to our No-thingness and our Everythingness, our emptiness and our oneness. These awakenings can occur simultaneously or at separate times.
INQUIRY CAN BE USED TO EXPLORE MAN Y QUESTIONS
Self-inquiry is not the only way inquiry may be used. We can use inquiry to explore other questions that arise. What is Truth? What is death? What is love? What is rest? What is Being? What is peace? What does awakeness or openness feel like in my mind, in my heart, in my body? “What” questions are much more helpful and effective in the spiritual search than “how” or “why” questions. The latter engage the intellect.
In each of us, there is a deep well of inner wisdom, an inner teacher. We can drop a sincere question into this interior silence and stillness, remaining open and receptive. The answer may or may not come immediately and often comes not as something spoken in our mind, but as an experience, an intuitive understanding, a felt sense. For example, in this moment, ask your Self, “What does awakeness feel like in my feet right now?” Almost immediately, you may feel a sense of energy waking up in your feet. When we have a sense of what it is to engage with or sit as silence and stillness, we can inquire about many things.
ENLIGHTENMENT IS A CONCEPT BORN OF IGNORANCE
The understanding called “enlightenment” is never achieved by an ego, by a mind that takes itself to have a separate identity. Enlightenment, in fact, is only a concept born of ignorance. When the realization dawns that that which one is seeking is that which one is, the question of enlightenment for a “me” disappears. There is simply no “one” to become enlightened! All the efforts, hopes, and fantasies one had about the great achievement come to an end when there is no one left to achieve anything, no separate one to enjoy the great dessert of spiritual longing, fasting, or gorging! A spiritual ego may feel disappointed when this realization dawns, but one soon is grateful for the sense of underlying peace that is present and palpable.
True understanding, when it is authentic, is not met with any sense of personal achievement or reward for one’s spiritual ambition, but rather with gratitude and a sense of reverence and awe for the Mystery. The revelation is always a moment of grace, but we may not understand that an ocean of grace is always present.
The very awakeness we hope to find is what is looking—looking for itself, as if it were somewhere else! Looking for true nature outside of your own awareness is a bit like looking for your glasses when they are on top of your head. They are nowhere else than where you are, but you are frantically looking through drawers, pockets, and rooms, trying so hard to remember what happened to them.
“I GOT IT; I LOST IT”
A common experience of seekers is to equate a particular experience of openness, peace, joy, clarity, or love with true nature and then, when experience or attention shifts, to imagine that what they seemed to possess at one point they have now lost.
Anything that you can get, you can also lose, but what you most deeply are cannot be gained or lost. The spiritual ego imagines it is either failing or progressing on the path—“I got it; I lost it” or “I saw light, heard bells, had visions, dissolved in awareness; I’m really getting somewhere now!” One of the last vestiges of separateness to go is the sense that a separate “I” had the experience! Experience happens indeed, but what is the knowing of it? What is illuminating experience? What is constant regardless of ever-changing experiences? What are you, what is your sense of “I am” if you do not go to a single thought to answer?
QUESTION THE QUESTIONER; DOUBT THE DOUBTER; LOOK FOR THE SEER
Do not be too hard on yourself. All of your attempts to shame, degrade, renounce, reject, or beat your ego into submission only serve to strengthen your belief in its separate existence, which is actually an illusion. You might as well allow yourself into your heart. Love is the great dissolver of separation. Yet from the Heart that accepts all and sees with both clarity and love, you are invited to question the questioner; doubt the doubter; look for the seer.