"A: Yes. By commitment to inner honesty, it will
become apparent that the underpinning of the ego's
responses is the pleasure that is derived from them.
There is an inner satisfaction that is the payoff
of self-pity, anger, rage, hate, pride, guilt, fear, etc.
This inner pleasure, as morbid as it may sound,
energizes and propagates all these emotions. To
undo their influence, it is merely necessary to be
willing to forego and surrender these questionable,
inner secret pleasures to God and look only to God
for joy, pleasure, and happiness.
"Although the mind will at first deny that it gets
secret pleasure from suffering, it will reveal upon
rigorous self-examination that the reason it clings
to its content is for the 'juice' it gets out of its
positionalities. With even a little self-honesty, this
is a rather easy fact to discover.
"Everyone gets a secret pleasure from resentments,
from being the martyr or the victim, and from feeling
misunderstood, unappreciated, etc. Society and the
law even reinforce these benefits with legal and
monetary rewards so that one can be compensated
for 'having their feelings hurt', for being 'slighted'
on the job, for enduring 'stress', for 'feeling
uncomfortable', etc.
"When the payoff is no longer valued, these feelings
disappear. They persist only so long as they serve a
purpose. When this 'ego juice' is abandoned, it is
replaced with inner peace.
"One will also notice that there is a secret vanity
associated with this ego game. It is as if the ego
is reinforced by proclaiming how much it suffers and
how it is such a pitiful victim of injustice and unfairness.
Actually, the ego secretly celebrates travail through
this secret self-dramatization and its personal and
social payoffs. The ego feeds itself and becomes
self-propagating to its inner dialogue.
"To undo the ego, one must be willing to abandon
this payoff game, with its grandstanding of emotions
and repetitive rehashing of data and stories to justify
its positions. One will note that the ego milks every
wrong and that it has no greater pleasure than to
indulge in 'righteous indignation.' It just 'loves' that
juicy positionality which has such a great payoff.
"A secondary gain to the ego from taking the position
of the injured party is that it now has justification for
any actions, no matter how extreme. The ego is sly.
It thrives on pain and suffering and all negative emotions.
However, one consequence it pays for all this inner,
nonintegrous secret gain is an overall sense of guilt, shame,
and low self-esteem.
"Note the tenacity with which people routinely refuse
to take positive action. They 'stubbornly' resist all
efforts to help them, even though such help is free
of charge and widely available. The most common
defense is lame excuses. When the problem is severe,
that resistance focuses the family or society to intervene
with 'tough love' confrontations.
"The ego's addiction and survival are based on the secret
pleasure of negativity, which cannot be abandoned until
it is first recognized, identified, and owned without shame
or guilt. One has to see that that is just how the ego--which
everyone inherits--operates, and recognize that it is not
really personal at all.
"Q: Why would such motivations become so tenacious?
"A: It is because it is a distorted substitute for real love
and a substitute for God. When viewed for what it really
is, this self-reward system is actually a narcissistic,
circular self-lovingness; however, it is nonintegrous
because it precludes taking the responsibility of admitting
the authorship. Even though the ego is not 'me', it
nevertheless belongs to one.
"This ego game, as played out in society, depends
on an arbitrary, movable dividing line that separates
all relationships into perpetrator and victim. Actually,
this game originates on the playground of childhood
but becomes current by popularization and media
amplification, along with the desire for financial gain.
"Q: The examples make the point clear.
"A: They are purposely detailed simply to reveal the
mechanism that is self-defeating in the end. Although
the ego gets a temporary inflation, it loses integrity
and therefore power. It is playing the game from
weakness. The confrontational 'look what you did to me'
game is supposed to reestablish self-esteem but fails
to do so for it is subverted by the 'get even' motive.
From a higher perspective, the whole game is merely
a 'So what?'
"Q: Why are these self-defeating behaviors so persistent?
"A: The ego responds with anger if its secret sources of
self-feeding are exposed. It can even react with rage
or homicidal fury toward any threat to its dominion.
It has thrived on a secret substitute for God and survived
by short-circuiting love. The ego is therefore unwilling to
give up its surreptitious feeding on itself, as forlorn as
that may sound. Although the ego outwardly protests
suffering, inwardly, it gladly welcomes it.
"Q: This is the sacrifice that one must make in order to
realize the Self?
"A: To the ego, abandoning the self-reward dynamism
is looked upon as a loss. The ego does not trust God
and thereby thinks it has only itself to turn to for
sustenance, survival and pleasure. The ego has faith
in its own mechanisms and not in God. It should not
be faulted for this error because it has no experiential
basis for comparison. Its only way out is by faith that
there is a better way. It hears a spiritual truth and
begins to search for it when the mind becomes
disillusioned with its own fallacies and failure to achieve
happiness. It finally realizes that the grim satisfaction
it squeezes out of pain is a poor substitute for joy.
"Q: Then occurs what is called the ripeness for spiritual
interest?
"A: In the due course of life's events, this becomes the
turning point. Even though it may take many lifetimes,
this represents both the 'hitting bottom' of despair and
defeat, and the inner light that leads one out of
hopelessness. Once that point is reached, the ego's days
are numbered.
"Q: What sacrifice is required?
"A: The major step is the realization that there is a
source of joy and happiness which is outside and beyond
the ego. Then arise curiosity and an interest in how to
reach spiritual goals. Belief arises which is then bolstered
by faith and eventually by experience. Next follows the
acquisition of instruction, information, and the practice
of what has been learned. By invitation, the spiritual
energy increases, followed by dedication and the
willingness to surrender all obstacles. Even the decision
to turn one's life over to God brings joy and gives life a
whole new meaning. It becomes uplifting, and the greater
context gives life more significance and reward. One
eventually becomes unwilling to support negativity,
within or without. This is not because it is wrong but
merely futile.
"Although the journey to God begins with failure and
doubt, it progresses into certainty.
"The way is really quite simple."
This text was quoted from . . .
"I: Reality and Subjectivity"
by Dr. David Hawkins
(p. 310)
cited on www.besubtle.blogspot.com
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