The meditation on an ego practice was not my first choice of spiritual practices when I began exploring the techniques I read about in Belsebuub’s works.
But over time I began to see its true value as something radically life changing and which had just as much and perhaps even more impact on my life as learning to travel out of the body.
Information from Beyond the Mind
I remember one day I was at home doing this meditation on a source of suffering I had recently seen in myself. Through the steps of the practice I traced this suffering back to a root cause of fear; fear of dying.
This basic & raw fear, is in itself something that nearly all human beings share and while I wrestled with this and its relationship with the larger set of inner reactions I saw were connected, I was at a standstill in the practice.
I wasn’t stuck on the fear of physical pain during death, but more the great fear of losing this life and its opportunity. So relaxing as deeply as I could I gently but firmly held this conundrum in my mind and just waited and watched.
‘Why am I afraid of dying?’…. I’m not sure how long I waited, but after some time a response came to me out of the void and hit me like a psychic blow to the head.
I was so shocked I think I shook my head and opened my eyes. The response I received was nothing that I could have ever imagined. My mind could never have made this up as it was so far outside my view of life and the world. It completely turned me upside down and gave me insight into death & dying that went directly to my heart.
When this practice goes well I often finish with tears coming down my face. They can be tears of joy or tears of remorse, but in any case they are a sign of a deep understanding, a newly found humility and a gratefulness to Divinity for helping me in this process of internal transformation.
Sticks & Stones Will Break My Bones But…
On another day I had been meditating for a number of hours and IÂ ended with the meditation on the ego. The strong practices leading up to using this technique made it quite effective that day and afterwards walking through the busy city with all its noise and bustling crowded streets I felt completely free and detached from it all.
My practice that day had been partly focused on eliminating certain thoughts and feelings which made me dependent upon others for my self-value and which basically enslaved me, rather than let me see life clearly.
This was a step through non-attachment to others perception of me, but also to being able to endure negativity from others too. And this sense of peace and freedom I felt that day regardless of the world around me, has stayed in my memory since and helped me remember myself and how I can be free of the affects of others, while also being fair and kind in the world.
Just wanted to say thanks Andrew. This article played a part in kicking off daily meditation sessions again for me for the last two months or so. It’s been really useful and feels great. I’ve also been shown the importance of it, and it feels like an important thing to pair with the self-observation and studies during the day.
At times of course entropy wants to set in, yet at other times and I just want to keep going and going in the practice when I get into it. Sometimes even though it wasn’t the best practice, because of my inner state during the day or whatever, it can still feel good to do it.
One of my points that I feel I need to work on with it in general is concentration. When I concentrate well I can get so much more out of a study practice like that because I can ‘stay on the ball’ and in the sequence of events I’m studying. If I keep getting sidetracked or fascinated with thoughts then I need to come back to the practice and where I was again and again, way less effective. Also with concentration I can go a lot deeper.
I think it’s so worth getting into mode of practicing with the meditation/analysis of an ego.
Thanks for sharing this Andrew. I have had a lot of fear about death as well, so I find it really inspiring about how you were able to receive an answer like that in the meditation. It sounds like it was really powerful.
It’s been interesting to hear people’s reflections and experiences of tears in meditation and in general. I’ve doubted sometimes whether the tears were ‘OK’, as they’re often so linked to negative emotion, but they’ve just been this natural over flowing of something very different to certain kinds of crying and have only come in very powerful practises.
Hi Andrew,
Thank you very much for sharing your experience. It really helped me to read it today.
Wish you all many more revelations and deep understanding with it!
Glad it was helpful in your day Pavlin. Wishing you the best in your practices too! Peace.
Thanks for sharing your experience Andrew, your accounts of meditating on an ego sound very fruitful.
Thank you for the post Andrew. It has rekindled my interest in meditation on an ego. I like your simple explanation of ‘just watched and waited’ after posting to yourself ‘why am I afraid of dying?’. This is an approach that Fotis had mentioned to me before and is one that I would like to explore.
It also stood out to me how you described the practice as ‘facing the roots of suffering’. I have been reflecting on my dreams recently and am starting to realize that we need to suffer to want to change. I think this is related to the quote from Jesus (Mark 2:17), “They that are whole have no need of the physician, but they that are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”
Often when suffering for some reason I am drawn to pleasure in the form of a distraction or something nice to do. However pleasurable states drains my energy the same, but do not give the motivation to change as does suffering painful inner states.
Aleks, ‘just watching and waiting’ is one of my favourite ways to get that hard to reach information. If I get very relaxed, still and bring my body down close to sleep, the answers can come in images which start to form in your vision, or dreams that you can step into for a moment etc.. I quite enjoy this as you can be conscious through the whole process and it’s so rewarding to be awake and see these forms and visions appear in front of you.
I definitely need that suffering to want to change. It’s the only thing that does it. Bad medicine ;-D
What a highly inspiring account of meditating on an ego, Andrew. I am moved by your description of having tears in your eyes when the practice is done well. I’m rarely able to reach such a conscious depth and repentance in the practice, but I am really inspired to work harder now and make such progress.
I remember in the Flight of the Feathered Serpent, Judas cried, and in speaking with Armando about his tears, he explained something to the effect of tears being purifying (I don’t have the book with me so that’s from memory).
That part of the Flight of the Feathered Serpent also stayed with me, he said tears purify the blood, I believe.
Yes, that part of the book stayed with me too. I felt like he used the word ‘cathartic’ or that’s what stayed with me.. Nowadays I end up crying somewhat easily. It could be triggered by something very sad and painful which I hear about going on in the world, or it could be something very inspiring; a story of human trial and perseverance. But when it happens now I’m OK with not feeling like I have to hide it, but try to just let it be expressed and keep watching my centers.
Thank you Andrew – it’s really timely for me to read this, as I reassess my personal practises and conclude I need to work more with MOE. It’s something for me that can so easily start to slip …
I can relate to what you say about the practise being a ‘slow burner’. It was also something I had a resistance to for a while when I was exploring Belsebuub’s work, but after a few profound practises, where I also ended up with tears gently streaming down my face and feeling like something had lifted from me, I started to realise its worth.
Facing death is such a massive topic; it takes a big amount of courage to even look at. It’s encouraging that you were given such an insight through this practise and has inspired me to delve into the practise again. The reminder that a huge amount of this work is about extracting our reliance on others opinions of us for our self-worth is also appreciated.
Wishing you more practises like this one!
Very inspiring Andrew! And yes, what a freedom it is to be able to shed even just one layer of the onion of the egos that keep us trapped in their low energies and dictates our responses to life. And with each layer, a new understanding of its many facets is uncovered.
I really liked how you were able to describe that genuine need of separation from the ego, to be able to see and realize that they are not ‘us’ is also something I’ve found key to being able to get rid of them, that I can truly eliminate it – as I don’t have any ‘interest’ in it anymore – I see it for what it is, and I want it gone.
Very helpful experience, I’m glad you’ve shared it.
Geraldine, Yes the necessity for separation from the ego state has been pretty important to me working on egos which have been around my entire life. In these cases I honestly don’t know what life is like without them. And so experiences in dreams or Out of the Body have been precious gifts to help me ‘feel’ what it’s like to be without them, or to observe them clearly as separate entities in order to distinguish them from myself. Thank goodness.
Reading your article is inspiring Andrew. At the same time it also confronts me with the fact that I haven’t been getting to that in-depth meditation experience for quite a while. Hearing you describe the benefits helps me to remember my own experiences with it and compels me to build up momentum with this practice once again. There was a time where I’d do it everyday and something felt very right about it, like I was going to the school of life properly, doing my homework, extracting the learning from each day and being on top of what is happening in my own psychology. When the proper practising of this exercise is not there it can feel much more like I’m just passing time though life, definitely not extracting all that can be learned from each day. And not being on top of the underlying drives, which because I don’t see them properly or not take the time to see them, actually can start to take one off track. Prioritizing secondary things instead of my main focus.
I also like the specifics of the experiences you describe. To free oneself of some of the dependency on how others think and behave towards us… Sounds so wonderful indeed.
I hope each meditation is a step lighter and closer for you towards your goal. Thanks Andrew.
Good points Karim – the resistance that I experience with this practise is quite quickly over when I use it regularly. The practise itself makes my mind more flexible and trains the ability to focus and reach that powerful place of peaceful concentration and spiritual inquiry. Then the effect of looking at what’s going on internally on a daily basis means I feel much more ‘up to date on current news’ and can just look at the updates rather than revise all the back-story, so to speak. So actually the practise becomes quicker and more powerful, and has a cumulative effect.
I remember a period when I was in the routine of doing this practise in the mornings every day. I felt like I was heading in to the day spiritually prepared, rather than in a psychic jumble. My memory had sharpened through all the retrospection and I could recall dreams much better and glean the teachings from them. I felt like this effort of mine, of being a ‘good student’ was rewarded with extra teachings.
OK, I’ve convinced myself I need to start with this practise intensively again …. 🙂
Me too! I’ve planned to get back into them again. Every day and at a set time.
Yes that improved ability to recall dreams is something really clearly noticeable.
“Then the effect of looking at what’s going on internally on a daily basis means I feel much more ‘up to date on current news’ and can just look at the updates rather than revise all the back-story, so to speak. So actually the practise becomes quicker and more powerful, and has a cumulative effect.”
Well put Ella. I can identify with this completely, it’s much easier keeping up to date on things than finding yourself behind the eight ball of a big ego wreaking havoc in your life.
Hi Karim, I know just what you mean and I’ve felt that ’emptiness’ of something missing when I haven’t been practicing the meditation on an ego regularly and I’m letting inner states get by me without being diligent in the work to understand them. It’s almost never a bad time for this practice, but its sometimes hard to remember that or make ourselves get down to business.
I know that feeling of just passing time through life too, I don’t like it one bit!
It’s almost never a good time too 😉
With the opportunity for renewal that New Year brings, I’ve started doing this practise again in the evenings, and in the mornings having a shorter version – looking over my dreams, seeing any egos pointed out but also remembering my focus and praying for help to have the strength to go against it during the day. I also find myself during the day saying “will I remember this” … something that I’ve found regular retrospection creates and helps to focus the mind on awareness during the day.
Wishing much New-Year-fresh-inspiration to you!