Working With the Ego and Your True Self

It is natural in human life to love your children, to love your family, to love your friends, and to feel attachment. It is natural to want the welfare of those that you’re close to. This is instinctual to human existence.

It is the natural tendency of people. To deny these tendencies to love, to care for, and to become attached to others is to deny your humanity.

But to remain in the sphere of attachment and repulsion is to be immersed in your humanity to the degree that the divinity that is within all becomes evasive. To have that divinity near to you, it requires both opening your heart in love with those around you, but having discrimination, discriminating the real from the unreal.

This material world and forms in it seem to be the most solid. Yet their existence is the most qualified, the most ephemeral. Beneath this exterior of body-mind identity and the separation of you and others is a deeper self. And in that deeper self-there is no difference between you and those you love. Even those you may dislike, there is no difference.

For you are all part of one integral, interwoven whole. The plants, the animals, the earth, the cosmos, you and those you love are all part of a unitary whole, an essence of being that gives you a wholeness that does not originate in the body-mind, but is a part of something vast, something great.

Your body-mind identity, your ego identity, is a part of this integrated, interwoven whole of being, is a part of this endless love which is the nature of that cosmic essence. It is the milieu in which you have been born, live, and die. But when your consciousness becomes simply immersed in the identity of individuality, identity with the body and the mind and the ego, the personal self, you open yourself to great pain because there is not only love in this world, but there is also loss.

But the pain that you experience is based in Maya; it’s based in illusion, the assumption that there is something to gain and something to lose; the assumption that you are separate and that you must acquire to be safe, to be happy; and that you must fend off all those things that might interrupt this happiness. But if you gain that mystical connection to the divinity within you, to the love that always is, you realize that the human love that flows through you, that makes you desire connection with others and feeds you in that connection, is that same love which abides everywhere and simply is.

It can never be taken from you. It can’t be acquired, and it can’t be lost. It is your very nature. It is the truth of who you are. For within your personal individual self lies the vast ocean of divinity, the incredible substance in which all this dream of creation abides. That is your home.

When you search for the love you have with family, with children, with friends, you search for that moment, that incident where you feel true deep connectedness. That is that moment where the superficial falls away and that divine connection is felt in your connections with others.

But it is also within you in meditation, in deep communion. That connection is there because it is the connectedness you have to the one eternal being. And that being often manifests in a congenial form as your Guru, as the one to whom you feel unbounded love, and from which you feel unconditional love. That one never dies. Eternal Self, the deep Self, never dies. It is that which always is.

So, the Guru always is. The Guru never passes from this world. Forms come and go but the Guru remains always. The Guru can be found within you and around you.
Difficulties in this life come and go. Love and good fortune come and go. That is the nature of human life. But the eternal remains always, the eternal Self never changes. The beloved Satguru is always with you, never leaves you, may take different forms at different times.

And for one whose eyes are truly open, the Guru comes in the form of a bird, a butterfly. The Guru comes in a babbling brook to speak to you, for the Guru’s voice is always there because the Guru is in all that is. The true Guru is the infinite one, and that Guru is always with you.

So, you may find an outer form that Guru has manifest to guide you, to direct you. And there may be an inner form within you that the Guru manifests to be your guide, to take you to truth. And when you abide near truth, the forest speaks to you; the trees speak to you; the snow speaks to you; the rain speaks to you. Love speaks with many voices.

This world of form is always changing. There will always be struggles, some of them very difficult, some of them only partly difficult. That struggle will remain with you. But the true Self is there always, guiding you, loving you, caring for you. The Guru is always there for you.

So, when the difficulties come, turn and take that shelter. And when joy and happiness come in life, turn and realize it is the blessing, it is the grace of that infinite one. That one always is there with you. Only you turn away and you become lost in forms, your awareness lost in forms. You forget the Guru.

But when you come back and you remember, “Ah, that blessed one. The infinite one is there with me, taking a congenial form that I might know that beloved, and my heart might be opened, and my mind, and I live with that presence.”

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So, I ask that you do a small exercise, and that is to throughout the day, remember, think, “My beloved is just there with me, just next to me, just touching me. That one is walking my life with me, guiding my every step. I am in the care of my Gurudev.” Just become aware of that presence as you go through your day, as you meet the various challenges of the day.

​ Feel that one just with you, guiding you, loving you, just there, touching you, being with you, flowing through you into the world in your words, in all that you think, in the visions that you see, in your eyes, in your hearing.

That one abides everywhere. Let yourself be in the presence of that one. And then offer, surrender, your every footstep, your every action, your every word, surrender it to the Guru within.

Any fears that arise, surrender them. Let them be held by the infinite one. In that one’s care you are always safe; you are always cared for. You are one with that infinite one. There is no separation. Let yourself feel that one enfolding you and an infinite awareness and presence that you might be so close to that infinite being that you might never know separation. Let that one be the polestar of your existence.

There are many changes ahead on this earth. But you need never fear; you need never worry. For you are held in the arms of the infinite. You are held by the Guru. And it is my firm conviction that humanity will go forward, and the future of humanity is very bright.

So do not worry about these predictions. Do not let them cloud your mind. Do your duty. Remember always your Guru is there with you every moment. And look on the bright side always.
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