- So it's welcoming the challenges, we talked about it before. Welcoming the challenges of everyday life. Without that first, you
wouldn't get a reflection of where you are at as far as your state of
consciousness is concerned. How upset do situations,
how much power do situations and other people have over you and over your state of consciousness? How often do you get upset,
irritated, reactive, and so on. That's a good reflection
of how present you are. Although that meditation
is a wonderful device, a wonderful tool, but how deep you can go when you meditate is only a small part of the
transformation of consciousness. You can't really tell your
state of consciousness unless you go into normal life and then get reflections
of yourself there. Human beings, it's not
the case that humans either have an ego or totally free of ego. The ego manifests in human
beings in varying degrees. Most humans have a lot
of ego that determines their thought processes and
the emotions, but a little bit of awareness also in-between. They may still be capable of empathy, sometimes with a limited number of people, perhaps only it's empathy
with your family members or empathy with the people who belong to your particular group, your collective. You can understand the ego more deeply if you look at the extreme
manifestations of ego that a certain percentage
of humanity suffer from, where it's actually labeled
as a mental disorder, then you see that many mental disorders actually, just a more extreme form of what is the normal egoic state. And when you see the normal egoic state and in more extreme manifestation, then you can recognize it also when it appears as a normal state. An example of that is paranoia. Paranoia is the belief
that there are people who are plotting against
you, enemies who have spent most of their life following
you or plotting against you. So it's a delusional
system that is the result of the egoic state of
fear on the one hand, because there's always
fear in the background when you live through
a false sense of self, and so the mind tries to explain the fear and then it creates a story, and then you believe in the story. Secondly, another reason why
the mind creates paranoia is to give itself a heightened
sense of significance. I am so important has an implication that the CIA has 55 people whose full-time job is try to control me. Now, I'm not saying that
CIA don't do things. They do sometimes, as you know, but I don't think they have 55 people or even one in my case, (audience laugh) that try to, who knows? I may be wrong. (audience laugh) If you work for the CIA,
please raise your hand. (audience laugh) But you can see if that is a story that your mind believes in, how important you suddenly feel? So sometimes paranoia arises
because of the ego's need to enhance its sense of existence, it's sense of significance,
it's sense of importance. And if life doesn't tell
you that you are important, then you have to create a
story that you are important. And paranoia is one
way of creating a story that gives yourself importance. The slightly less extreme forms of that are people who believe, for example, believe they are great geniuses
but they are so, so superior to everything that they
never even tried to create or do anything because
that's beneath them. Occasionally, I've met
people who say to me, "Oh, I'm a spiritual
teacher too", they tell me. Oh, I see, that's great. Have you written anything? "No, no, no, I don't write. The true teachings are all beyond words. I don't bother with that." Oh, that's fine. It gives you a sense of joy
you are actually superior to most people, all these
insignificant people who are, in their insignificance,
they have to write books. (audience laugh) Many stories that one
creates to give oneself a sense of importance, stories that have, in the more extreme case,
have little relationship with the external reality. And then there is the
talking about narcissists. There's another extreme form of ego that when you look at it, you can see that it has all the
elements of the normal ego but greatly emphasized. And that's called narcissistic
personality disorder. And people who suffer from that are totally obsessed with
themselves, with their appearance, and the way they are perceived by others. They live for that. They're totally incapable of empathy. In fact, they're hardly aware
that other humans exist. They only see other humans
through how they can help, how they can amplify their own ego. So what they want from
other humans is attention or other forms of so-called
narcissistic supply. They're always looking for,
to enhance their self image through being told that they
are awesome, they're wonderful. They believe they know everything. The moment you question their
opinion about something, they will become very
angry and aggressive. You'll see quite a few
of them on Facebook. But they're still a human being
underneath that dysfunction. It's just an extreme form of ego. Nobody knows how many people suffer from narcissistic personality disorder but the estimate is 3
to 5% of the population. Now, that means 3 to 5%
of your population suffer from this very extreme form of ego. And perhaps you've all met somebody, who can think of somebody to, "Oh, I wonder if that was my dad or that was my ex-husband or ex-wife" Hopefully not your
present husband or wife. (audience laugh) So continuous vigilance,
so that you are there in the background as the awareness. When you become aware
of your ego operating, it's not really ego anymore. The real ego exists in
complete unconsciousness, in complete identification. When you notice something
in you that's egoic with the need to be right, the need to be superior to
somebody, whatever it may be, by noticing it that means you are there as the observer, the awareness. So strictly speaking,
it's not even ego anymore. Once you notice your
ego, what you're noticing is a deep seated pattern in you. And it's only really ego if you are completely identified with it. And there's no awareness whatsoever. (light music) This mind made sense of self
is also much more focused on the negative than the positive. To be free, you awaken to who you are beyond your history and
your life situation. (light music) (water rushing)
