Self-negation / ego death / ego derealization
Pathologizing a healthy ego's needs/drives
Eckhart Tolle
Pathologizing /Guilting
"To complain is always non acceptance of what is. It invariably carries an unconscious negative charge. When you complain, you make yourself a victim. Leave the situation or accept it. All else is madness."
-The Power of Now
“Only something as insane as human being would ever ask themselves if I’m good." Adyashanti
The moment you become aware of the ego in you, it is strictly speaking no longer the ego, but just an old, conditioned mind-pattern. Ego implies unawareness. Awareness and ego cannot coexist."
-A New Earth
"All negativity is caused by an accumulation of psychological time and denial of the present. Unease, anxiety, tension, stress, worry - all forms of fear - are caused by too much future, and not enough presence. Guilt, regret, resentment, grievances, sadness, bitterness, and all forms of nonforgiveness are caused by too much past, and not enough presence."
-The Power of Now
Either/or/denying particularity
"You are not separate from the whole. You are one with the sun, the earth, the air. You don’t have a life. You are life."
-A New Earth
Pathologizing /Guilting
"To complain is always non acceptance of what is. It invariably carries an unconscious negative charge. When you complain, you make yourself a victim. Leave the situation or accept it. All else is madness."
-The Power of Now
“Only something as insane as human being would ever ask themselves if I’m good." Adyashanti
The moment you become aware of the ego in you, it is strictly speaking no longer the ego, but just an old, conditioned mind-pattern. Ego implies unawareness. Awareness and ego cannot coexist."
-A New Earth
"All negativity is caused by an accumulation of psychological time and denial of the present. Unease, anxiety, tension, stress, worry - all forms of fear - are caused by too much future, and not enough presence. Guilt, regret, resentment, grievances, sadness, bitterness, and all forms of nonforgiveness are caused by too much past, and not enough presence."
-The Power of Now
Either/or/denying particularity
"You are not separate from the whole. You are one with the sun, the earth, the air. You don’t have a life. You are life."
-A New Earth
Adyashanti
“What if there was no waiting.” (instant gratification) what if we could be patient with ourselves?
"The great, shining light of divinity is not a light you can see; it’s a light that sees.” why can't I see it?
“Our attempt to control life is the only cause of bondage." And if I was bound to an abuser? Absolutism.
“How does it feel to be the space in which your thought happens?” It feels good at first and addictive.
“Whatever the image of yourself, it’s a mask and it’s hiding emptiness.” form is emptiness - emptiness is form
“The universe’s desire to awaken to itself is what you feel as your personal desire to awaken.” - not evolutionary
“To be intimate is to feel the silence, the space that everything is happening in.” What about being intimate with sound? And with what's happening in space?
“The Buddha’s teachings can be boiled down to this: No Self-no problem.”
“True freedom comes when every speck of the known collapses into the unknown, not just for a moment but continually.”
"The absolute letting go is letting go of the one who is letting go.” abyss
"When someone says I love you, he is telling you about himself, not you."
"You must choose between your attachments and happiness."
"The biggest embrace of love you'll ever make is to embrace yourself completely. Then you'll realize you've just embraced the whole universe, and everything and everybody in it.”
“Enlightenment is a destructive process. It has nothing to do with becoming better or being happier. Enlightenment is the crumbling away of untruth. It's seeing through the facade of pretence. It's the complete eradication of everything we imagined to be true.”
“When you rest in quietness and your image of yourself fades, and your image of the world fades, and your ideas of others fade, what's left? A brightness, a radiant emptiness that is simply what you are.”
“As soon as you believe that a label you’ve put on yourself is true, you’ve limited something that is literally limitless, you’ve limited who you are into nothing but a thought.”
“Thoughts are just moving through consciousness. They have no power. Nothing has reality until you reach it, grab it, and somehow impregnate it with the power of belief.”
“The deepest feeling of a compassion that does not seek to alter anything, paradoxically, alters everything.”
“If you want to escape the confines of your inner world, you have to open to the unknown.”
“As I often tell my students, the person you’ll have the hardest time opening to and truly loving without reserve is yourself. Once you can do that, you can love the whole universe unconditionally.”
“Anything you push away keeps occurring over and over, year after year.”
“Meditation is a dress rehearsal for death.”
“Any moment of transcendence is a mortal blow to the ego. It begins the ego’s demise.”
“It is not the pursuit of greater and greater states of happiness and bliss that leads to enlightenment, but the yearning for reality and the rabid dissatisfaction with living anything less than a fully authentic life.”
“All life begins and ends in silence.” And? I screamed when I came out.
“Only something as insane as human being would ever ask themselves if I’m good. You don’t find oak trees having existential crisis. ‘I feel so rotten about myself. I don’t produce as much acorns as the one next to me.” (shame, blame, pathologize)
“The mind cannot tell you what is real.”
“We realize–often quite suddenly–that our sense of self, which has been formed and constructed out of our ideas, beliefs and images, is not really who we are. It doesn’t define us; it has no center.”
“Eternity knows no history. Eternity is the eternal presence.”
"We should come to know that there is more reality and sacredness in a blade of grass than in all of our thoughts and ideas about reality.”
“When you’ve accepted yourself as a human being you’ve accepted the whole universe.”
“Meditation shows you that the only viable option is to let go.”
“What do you know for certain? How much do you know with absolute unequivocal certainty?"
“When you realize you don’t know who’s living your life, breathing your breath or thinking your thoughts, it’s a shocking moment.”
“As long as you mistakenly look to the mind for truth, it will continue to haunt you to no end. The best course of action is to look and see for yourself that nothing in the mind is ultimately true, real or existing.”
“Because of an innocent misunderstanding you think that you are a human being in the relative world seeking the experience of oneness, but actually you are the One expressing itself as the experience of being a human being.”
“What you are is never born, never lives and never dies. Birth, life, and death happen within what you are.” (reductionism)
“Can we see without judgement, without blame, without guilt?”
“Beyond the known, as opposed to prior to it, lies a realm of being that pulls suffering out by its very roots and opens the door to a whole new way of experiencing life."
“This light that I am is no ordinary light. It does not light up anything or illuminate darkness. It is a pure and formless knowingness.”
“All of your thinking doesn’t add one iota to the reality of anything.” (except it influences our experience of reality)
“Truth comes to an innocent mind as a blessing and a sacrament. Truth is a holy thing because it liberates thought from itself." (religious/purity, is that a blanket truth about thought?)
“Look at the moment of wanting with wonderment, and it falls in upon itself.” (Does that need to happen?)
“When you let go of the egoic self what you’re getting in exchange is the whole universe.” (the whole universe became the self, is the self)
“Go to the pure I AM. Not I am this or I am that, but simply I AM. Then throw out the I, so that there is only AM. This is the stateless state, the ultimate principle, the absolute self. Everything, in essence, is this absolute principle called the self.”
“When you die before you die, it’s extraordinarily free and liberating. From that point on, there’s no more fear of death or anything at all. You see that birth and death are actually happening every instant.”
“Is this what you are, or is this an experience that you’re having?"
“The true heart of all human beings is the lover of what is.” (the ego can do that)
“Nothing about you has to change.”
“Just sit back and enjoy it. Whatever it is. The real you are quite entertained by whatever is happening.”
“If you are going to do battle with your illusions, the well-formed question is your best sword.”
“As long as you are trying to become, trying to get somewhere, trying to attain something, you are quite literally moving away from the Truth itself.”
“Do you love enough to really let go of the objects of your love?” (do you love enough to hold onto them before you let them go?)
“The wind, the sun and the water are not elements within the world around us; they are really like our blood and bones.” (why the need to deny that?)
“You must choose between your attachments and happiness.”
“What if there was no waiting.” (instant gratification) what if we could be patient with ourselves?
"The great, shining light of divinity is not a light you can see; it’s a light that sees.” why can't I see it?
“Our attempt to control life is the only cause of bondage." And if I was bound to an abuser? Absolutism.
“How does it feel to be the space in which your thought happens?” It feels good at first and addictive.
“Whatever the image of yourself, it’s a mask and it’s hiding emptiness.” form is emptiness - emptiness is form
“The universe’s desire to awaken to itself is what you feel as your personal desire to awaken.” - not evolutionary
“To be intimate is to feel the silence, the space that everything is happening in.” What about being intimate with sound? And with what's happening in space?
“The Buddha’s teachings can be boiled down to this: No Self-no problem.”
“True freedom comes when every speck of the known collapses into the unknown, not just for a moment but continually.”
"The absolute letting go is letting go of the one who is letting go.” abyss
"When someone says I love you, he is telling you about himself, not you."
"You must choose between your attachments and happiness."
"The biggest embrace of love you'll ever make is to embrace yourself completely. Then you'll realize you've just embraced the whole universe, and everything and everybody in it.”
“Enlightenment is a destructive process. It has nothing to do with becoming better or being happier. Enlightenment is the crumbling away of untruth. It's seeing through the facade of pretence. It's the complete eradication of everything we imagined to be true.”
“When you rest in quietness and your image of yourself fades, and your image of the world fades, and your ideas of others fade, what's left? A brightness, a radiant emptiness that is simply what you are.”
“As soon as you believe that a label you’ve put on yourself is true, you’ve limited something that is literally limitless, you’ve limited who you are into nothing but a thought.”
“Thoughts are just moving through consciousness. They have no power. Nothing has reality until you reach it, grab it, and somehow impregnate it with the power of belief.”
“The deepest feeling of a compassion that does not seek to alter anything, paradoxically, alters everything.”
“If you want to escape the confines of your inner world, you have to open to the unknown.”
“As I often tell my students, the person you’ll have the hardest time opening to and truly loving without reserve is yourself. Once you can do that, you can love the whole universe unconditionally.”
“Anything you push away keeps occurring over and over, year after year.”
“Meditation is a dress rehearsal for death.”
“Any moment of transcendence is a mortal blow to the ego. It begins the ego’s demise.”
“It is not the pursuit of greater and greater states of happiness and bliss that leads to enlightenment, but the yearning for reality and the rabid dissatisfaction with living anything less than a fully authentic life.”
“All life begins and ends in silence.” And? I screamed when I came out.
“Only something as insane as human being would ever ask themselves if I’m good. You don’t find oak trees having existential crisis. ‘I feel so rotten about myself. I don’t produce as much acorns as the one next to me.” (shame, blame, pathologize)
“The mind cannot tell you what is real.”
“We realize–often quite suddenly–that our sense of self, which has been formed and constructed out of our ideas, beliefs and images, is not really who we are. It doesn’t define us; it has no center.”
“Eternity knows no history. Eternity is the eternal presence.”
"We should come to know that there is more reality and sacredness in a blade of grass than in all of our thoughts and ideas about reality.”
“When you’ve accepted yourself as a human being you’ve accepted the whole universe.”
“Meditation shows you that the only viable option is to let go.”
“What do you know for certain? How much do you know with absolute unequivocal certainty?"
“When you realize you don’t know who’s living your life, breathing your breath or thinking your thoughts, it’s a shocking moment.”
“As long as you mistakenly look to the mind for truth, it will continue to haunt you to no end. The best course of action is to look and see for yourself that nothing in the mind is ultimately true, real or existing.”
“Because of an innocent misunderstanding you think that you are a human being in the relative world seeking the experience of oneness, but actually you are the One expressing itself as the experience of being a human being.”
“What you are is never born, never lives and never dies. Birth, life, and death happen within what you are.” (reductionism)
“Can we see without judgement, without blame, without guilt?”
“Beyond the known, as opposed to prior to it, lies a realm of being that pulls suffering out by its very roots and opens the door to a whole new way of experiencing life."
“This light that I am is no ordinary light. It does not light up anything or illuminate darkness. It is a pure and formless knowingness.”
“All of your thinking doesn’t add one iota to the reality of anything.” (except it influences our experience of reality)
“Truth comes to an innocent mind as a blessing and a sacrament. Truth is a holy thing because it liberates thought from itself." (religious/purity, is that a blanket truth about thought?)
“Look at the moment of wanting with wonderment, and it falls in upon itself.” (Does that need to happen?)
“When you let go of the egoic self what you’re getting in exchange is the whole universe.” (the whole universe became the self, is the self)
“Go to the pure I AM. Not I am this or I am that, but simply I AM. Then throw out the I, so that there is only AM. This is the stateless state, the ultimate principle, the absolute self. Everything, in essence, is this absolute principle called the self.”
“When you die before you die, it’s extraordinarily free and liberating. From that point on, there’s no more fear of death or anything at all. You see that birth and death are actually happening every instant.”
“Is this what you are, or is this an experience that you’re having?"
“The true heart of all human beings is the lover of what is.” (the ego can do that)
“Nothing about you has to change.”
“Just sit back and enjoy it. Whatever it is. The real you are quite entertained by whatever is happening.”
“If you are going to do battle with your illusions, the well-formed question is your best sword.”
“As long as you are trying to become, trying to get somewhere, trying to attain something, you are quite literally moving away from the Truth itself.”
“Do you love enough to really let go of the objects of your love?” (do you love enough to hold onto them before you let them go?)
“The wind, the sun and the water are not elements within the world around us; they are really like our blood and bones.” (why the need to deny that?)
“You must choose between your attachments and happiness.”