Letting Go of Ego
Dear Claudia,
I’m having trouble “awakening” to the present moment with my meditation and letting go of ego. I am plagued by anxiety and can’t just let go of it, even though I know that it is useless and unnecessary. Do you know why I can’t let go of this anxiety, or what I can do to be more at peace?
Michaela
Dear Michaela,
Many people forget that Eckhart Tolle awakened to his enlightened state the moment he realized he didn’t want to live. He was about to kill himself when he experienced his awakening, and the rest is history.
What this means is that for him to achieve presence with what he was feeling, he had to know what that was.
Often, there are unspoken feelings, sensations, and dynamics that we have not put our finger on. When you don’t yet know exactly what it is you’re feeling, you can’t always achieve presence with it.
Now, anxiety, psychologically speaking, is what’s known as a “secondary emotion.” That means we feel it in response to other, more primary emotions. Maybe sexual. Maybe aggressive. We don’t always know what that primary emotion is. That’s why we have anxiety.
I can’t tell you how many times I have helped people to discover their primary thoughts and feelings, only to witness their anxiety vanish.
And that’s when you can achieve presence with what you feel: when you know it.
The way to discover the thoughts and emotions that you are not knowing and experiencing in your conscious awareness is to allow your mind to wander, on a yoga mat, therapist’s office, or on a written page. Eventually ‒ and especially if you can be helped to accept your emotions ‒ you will land on thoughts and feelings that will feel like “aha” moments, things you did not realize or that may even feel like complete revelations. And when that happens, you will feel at peace.
You can’t attain sanity by just trying harder, exercising a positive outlook, letting go, forgiving or meditating. What you need for sanity, when reason fails, are emotional experiences. Not ideas. Experiences.
– Claudia Luiz, PsychD in Where’s My Sanity? Stories That Help
We are here to evolve, and enlightenment is not something you can turn on like a switch in your brain. It is something that requires continued meditation, continued deep knowledge of your “pain body” and continued practice in observing the ego. Don’t get discouraged – I admire you greatly for seeking answers to reconciling what is happening within you to what you recognize outside of yourself.
About the Author
Ancient Practice Lets You Explore Deep States of Consciousness in Your Sleep
Roughly a third of our life is spent sleeping, or at least attempting to get some rest in order to take advantage of the other two-thirds in wakeful consciousness. Ideally, this state is rejuvenating and accompanied by pleasant dreams, allowing the body to clear out all the toxins and amyloids that build up throughout the day.
But what if you could get some of that time back, or use it more productively, while also getting the regenerative benefits of deep slumber?
Don’t worry, this isn’t some new biohacking regimen with bizarre, intermittent naps, but rather a method referred to as dream yoga. Despite its name, dream yoga isn’t an attempt to perform asanas in reverie, but instead to meditatively explore the myriad levels within our minds.
A number of enlightened, spiritual masters are said to have achieved an interminable state of consciousness during their lifetime, in which they maintained awareness while they allowed their bodies to rest at night. These gurus took advantage of every minute of life to explore their inner sanctums and spelunk the deepest caves of consciousness.
Other contemporary dream state explorers, or oneironauts as they’re sometimes called, have attempted to map out the topography of the mind based on eastern philosophy, namely John C. Lily. Lily’s psychic explorations led to his development of the sensory deprivation isolation tank, in order to cultivate a dissociative state where one could detach from the body and explore the levels of satori-samadhi.
But according to Andrew Holecek, a student of Buddhist philosophy and evangelist for dream yoga, one needn’t be an ascetic or employ an expensive float tank to delve into the depths of the mind on the nightly. Instead, a little discipline and technique can allow a dreamer to travel through cosmic consciousness while still getting a good night’s rest.
Holecek says there are up to nine nocturnal states one can enter in preparation for and during dream yoga. The first of which is called “liminal dreaming,” otherwise known as hypnagogic dreaming; a state in which one is not quite awake nor asleep, but in an in-between state before dozing off.
This state is when things become blurry, but by intentionally maintaining a modicum of awareness, one is able to become active in the dream state — a practice known as lucid dreaming.
