Ego Destruction

Before one starts working fundamentally over oneself, that’s to destroy ego, one needs to be sure about the basic concepts of personality and ego.

How is it possible to destroy ego without defining what it is and where it comes from?

How is it possible to accumulate personal strength if one has no precise concept what personality is?

Let’s define it otherwise we can destroy rudiments of personality instead of destroying ego, just as what happens to many “spiritual fanatics”.

Personality is a system of conditional reflexes, developed as a result of person’s overcoming the situations which are connected with his survival in the society, and which are based on the self-preservation instinct. The prevailing energy orientation is desire to control a situation with the purpose of one’s safety. Let's call it the way # 1.

Ego is a system of conditional reflexes, developed as a result of person’s overcoming the situations which are connected with his survival in the society and which are based on an reproductive instinct. The prevailing energy orientation is the desire to please others. Let's call it the way # 2.

As the conditional reflexes of a human being which are unlike the conditional reflexes of an animal are constantly supported by inner dialogue, these reflexes become people’s images which people carry along through all their life.

Animals’ conditional reflexes, if they are not supported by anything, disappear in a month.

There are two more ways of overcoming discomfort because of obstacles which arise during living in the society. This is the way of a drug-adicted person and the way of a drunkard.

The way of a drug-adict is outside of the self-preservation instincts and reproductive instincts and it is based on pleasure which comes as a result of expansion of perception borders because of drug taking. But as such rapid artificial extension of borders of internal spaces is not counterbalanced by extension of external spaces, such way leads to nowhere initially.

That’s why inside taking of drugs which moves apart a setting point is possible to use only as a window sight and no more than once per a year and also under supervision of a Master.

The way of a drunkard has the opposite orientation - pleasure because of narrowing the borders of perception. The relaxation owing to alcohol taking occurs by energy release from the channel which controls one’s self-image.

We know that personality strength is shown in its self-sufficiency and self-confidence. And the self-sufficiency can be only based on the self-preservation instinct which is especially individual.

By the way, it is time to define the concept “the self-preservation instinct”. It’s a motivation which comes as a result of fear for one's life This feeling can appear as a result of real-life situations and also through the images of strategic and tactical character, simulated in consciousness. What do we mean?

Strategic images: when one percieves oneself a grain in the infinite space and feels fugacity of one’s existence (or similar).

Tactical images: someone can attack, rob one’s apartment, kill, one can fall ill, have caries if one doesn’t clean one’s teeth, etc.

People do not like to build such predictions first of all because such predictions do not bring energy. And if one is too weak to realize them, then such predictions bring an energy wastage.

Therefore there is a safety precautions regulation when switching on such predictions:

The prediction of probable pressure from the outside should be counterbalanced by the prediction of probable answer-back action from within (of an action).

To put it easier, a prediction should be counterbalanced by an action: theory - practice. Only then it is possible to remain in balance and not to indulge.

1. A person thinks a lot but does little, wastes time and suffers from inner dialogue (introverts).

2. A person does a lot but thinks little, suffers from mistakes and traumas (extraverts).

The self-preservation instinct is a feeling of strategic character, and as all strategic things it should work as a leading light. To live by constantly looking at the leading light only is not only absurd but also is practically impossible. They throw only glimpses on the leading light. While you’re sitting there at your computer, try to cause feeling of fear for your life right now and you will understand that it is not so easy to do it.

Besides you know that dosing fear makes a adrenalin level in blood higher and it is even used in various amusements. Another thing is chronic fear, it is already a mental illness.

Men love to identify themselves with wolves. There are sites devoted to wolves, and also books and Visotsky’s songs. In wolves they like their fury in the struggle for their life and the image of a wolf becomes in some way an example for imitation.

At the same time nobody identifies oneself with pets in which there is no the self-preservation instinct.

But almost all our people are like pets, so where can they find the self-preservation instinct?

Certainly, the self-preservation instinct is prevailing in wild animals but it doesn’t mean they have strong personality. It’s replaced by the intention to survive.

Almost all veterans of the World War II remember military times as the best part of their lives. Soldiers had no infectious diseases during the war. The life on the limit of physical abilities had increased their immunity. The amount of impressions per unit of time was maximal.

After war it was impossible to not create such life intensity artificially any more. There was only memory left.

In peace time people seek such activities which let them squeeze out themselves up to the limits of their abilities and to feel “as on war”: it is mountain climbing, parachute jumps, surfing and other extreme types of sports which switch on the self-preservation instinct in a person. But unlike real military actions here there is only 50 % of the reproductive instinct: a man not just survives but he also asserts himself.

The well-known examples are when the people took part in the Afghani War or the Chechen War but they couldn’t adapt for conditions of peaceful life. The life without a habitual level of danger seems too idle and stale, and they had only one thing to do: either to become gangsters or to serve in police or else to commit suicide.

A weak personality (strong ego) is geared to the desire to appeal others and it is based on the reproduction instinct. This instinct is not individual but public.

What is the reproductive instinct? It’s a motivation which results from the feeling of attraction to an opposite sex person as a result of modeling images or in reality.

Why does a man unconsciously master his life way using the reproductive instinct? Everything is simple. When there is a choice between the stick and the carrot, a man always chooses the carrot voluntary.

The property of sexual energy is to become free as soon as possible The sense of safety (the consequence of the self-preservation instinct) does not carry such potential of energy as sexual excitation does (the consequence of the reproductive instinct).

All of us know that it is easier for a beautiful woman to make her career than for an ugly one. Men aspire to appeal women, they compete to other men developing in themselves the qualities which women like. For example: if a man is a rich catch he is a success with women. This forces him to make career and this will be his way of survival in the society. (The approval-disapproval channel is on.)

After understanding what a personality is and what ego is and how our main instincts influence the personalty and ego formation, it is possible at last to begin the next phase of ego destruction - ask yourself: whether do you need it?

If the basic orientation is the reproductive instinct maybe it is better to stop playing spiritual seeking and to start living like all normal people - to make career and to bring up children.

There are very many people with such orientation who have terrible fate because after they tried to displace a setting point as a result of intensive trainings and to visit other worlds, they could not adapt normally to the society and to a family any more. All the time they have split personality. They have achieved nothing in their material life as well as at their spiritual level. Their life is endless indulging in the wasted opportunity.

Only the one can destroy ego who has weak ego initially, i.e. the one who has the self-preservation instinct prevailing.

Poeple who have the reproductive instinct prevailing can never destroy their ego independently, and the attempts to do it through various trainings, spiritual practices, meditation, psychodelics, make a man only more weaker. Why?

Personality occupies a small area of internal space in such people, and ego occupies the main part. At the same time, ego is the basic source of energy. People feel taste of life through self-asertion, competing, jealousy, envy. And if they begin to destroy the basic source of energy without another, we can imagine what can happen: mental self-defense works out and everything returns to its place. Or another variant is a nuthouse.

So think and ponder a good deal– maybe it’s better for you to have business instead of spiritual seeking?

Jealousy

If you have made up your mind and have decided to destroy your ego, let's begin one thing after another.

One of the first emotions which begin in a child during the first years of his life is jealousy.

All of us know what children's jealousy is and how children react to his brother’s or sister’s birth painfully. Once Freid tried to research similar jealousy displays in girls directed on their mothers because of their fathers and in boys directed on their fathers because of their mothers, he named it Edip’s complex and Elektra’s complex. These Freid’s complexes of sexual nature begin at the age of 5-10 but children's jealousy about which we told, is based on main connection with a mother.

A mother is a first living being whose image is printed in subconsciousness and stays there for ever as a reserve energy source.

Children's jealousy is quite justified. A small child requires care, protection and he needs less parent care in the process of his development.

If a teenager begins transition from a family egregor into the social one at any development stage, i.e. he gets into street groups or school groups or criminal ones etc., in this case the release from parental attention and care is achieved not by growing up one’s personal strength but by the change of one energy source by another. And the jealousy problems are still within such a person but now in relation to other people whose energy he needs.

Probably all known how a weak person displays his dependence. He gazes toadily into poeple’s eyes expecting attention and approval. Accordingly, such people will be maximum jealous and more often infant.

And vice versa. A strong person needs very little attention in relation to himself and estimation of others.

If a person has higher personality growth then he depends on attention and estimation of others less and, as the consequence, his jealousy displays are less shown.

Similar thing is with the sexual plan. On the one hand, there’s smaller sexual cjncern because the energy of other plan (for example - creative activity) is enough.

On the other hand, an advanced person easily finds his sexual partner being adequate, understanding others, being free in communication and without fear of people

3. There should be no struggle with displays of one’s own jealousy. They must be used as the indicators of one’s development level and as the motivation for further work over oneself.

4.Jealousy, like other forms of indulging, disappears in the process of personal strenthg growth.

Observation: if your girl-friend is very jealous and she shows it at any occasion she is going to stop being your truelove soon.

If your beloved woman (or man) walked out on you, first of all, if you decided to work over yourself, it is necessary to admit that you have proved to be a weak person and she didn’t like your energy or another man has proved to be more strong in some way, even if it cannot be noticed from the first sight. And, how much insulted you may feel, you should not kill her or him but to use the energy of jealousy for your own development. (we shall speak later how to do it.)

Another variant - if you have personality advanced enough but your beloved woman went away to a less advanced man. Here it is necessary to look closely at the personality of your truelove, urealizing that she could understand you only at the level of her personality and, hence, she was not able to understand all your subtle soul essentially, so let her go voluntary, you should cease to be jealous and bless her.

The following variant is a problem of misunderstanding at the level of the psychotypes.

1. The right internals – their basic orientation is to preserve property and stability but with the external stability both partners are not satisfied internally (there’s a base but there’s no building);

2. The left externals – their basic orientation is idleness and search for external entertainments, lack of internal support, suspiciousness (there’s a roof but there’s building and base under it).

If I’m weak - let them abandon and betray me, only this position allows constantly to store personal strength so that it would not happen. Would you live with a person who does not give you energy? But you want it from others.

A weak person takes another position - I won’t let you go, thus blocking his own development and the development of his partner.

If you are really sure in her strength, it is necessary to give your partner a free choice.

Here we approach the first task on the way of ego destruction: to tet others go . Or, in other words, to take the world as it is.

In the Christian religion it is called humility, living in the world with balance.

Here we can remember Castaneda, he wrote somewhere how the humility of a warrior differs from the humility of a beggar. I do not want to quote him here.

But as all of us seek to have military humility, like warriors, we’ll continue to store personal strength and to make personality transitions to a realized personality.

Now can you already define whether jealousy is a the display of ego or not? You see, the struggle for energy takes place in all the living world, even plants compete to each other for a place in the sun. Jealousy with animals is an everyday phenomenon.

Only at a human level living beings got the opportunity to manage their jealousy through understanding. Though there is also an opposite possibility simultaneously, i.e. to encrease immeasurably and to add energy to one’s jealousy because of nothing, only through predicting and modeling in consciousness of images of presumable treason.

It is possible to denote such displays of jealousy, using Castaneda’s terms, as indulging in jealousy.

So, as you can see, jealousy in its pure display is a normal life phenomenon allowing to gather intention and which has nothing to do with ego.

As we already mentioned - life is a struggle for energy and in order to understand oneself and others, one should learn to perceive all from a energy position.

It is easier to trace behaviour of any person and including yourself, to predict, to redirect it, if you can see how the search for energy goes on in a situation, which channels are open in a person and are ready to receive energy and which are closed.

There is the phrase: “Chercher la femme”. In a wider sense it means - search for shakti or for energy or in other words, search for benefit.

Benefit or energy is different at each level of personality development. But at the same time, the energy for an infant person can be energy outflow for an integrated person.

The matter is in his attitude to the world, to a situation, to pressure. A developing person perceives any pressure, though it may be painful, with fear but also with determination and with gratitude and uses it for his own development. A weak person perceives pressure with anger, with hatred for the one who has created pressure and as a whole, pressure is perceived as something undesirable and unwanted in his life.

In the life of any person there comes the moment when he/she reaches the mode of utmost pressure and, as a rule, these moments make a person: he comes to pieces and becomes weaker or bears this pressure with dignity, he becomes stronger and he is only grateful to the situation in spite of his feelings and the fact that he was suffering.

And this pressure is not only at a level of actions. It is also at the level of theories and thinking.

If a person cannot understand or accept the position of another person, if he has any rigid and unambiguous view of the situation, if he does not accept point of view of others, it means it’s the limit of his development.

Many people understand this rule very formally, somewhat at the levellike this: one should do only what one wants to do and to move in the direction which is set by feelings.

For an infant person such formulation would give the right to lumber another person.

By the way, the revolution in1917 was of success because of this principle: Lenin encouraged the infant masses of people to overthrow the intelligency, the more advanced and richer part of the population, which was naturally much less in number and that’s why they had done it.

In a developing man the motto “to live obeying your feelings” causes mess in his head: there are still too much trashy feelings, though they are under control already they are still there.

Every level of personality development has its own interpretation of the sensual data.

To be free would mean for an infant person to have easy free-of-charge access to the sources of energy: once a crane is opened and energy begins to flow. But as it does not happen, in an infant person’s predictions who has stopped to develop it means to be free through living at the expense of someone else. To stick to, to lumber, to have power over someone, etc. (you can remember Sharikov in Dog’s Heart by Bulgakov).

Freedom is defined as an opportunity of creativity for a developing person, freedom to invest his energy. An advanced man understands that things don’t come for nothing, it is necessary to pay for everything and he is initially ready to risk and to invest energy.

- for another person freedom is an opportunity to give back, to invest energy in somebody or in something.

Though, in fact freedom which all seek unconsciously, is the freedom from inner dialogue.

All people have generical and physiological orientation on development. The development is always a process which is directed on accumulation of personal strength.

In life we often have to choose: to pity ourselves and to choose a weak variant or not to pity ourselves and to choose a strong variant directed on development.

Everyone knows what we are speaking about. Choosing a weak variant many people justified themselves by various rules and norms of ethics, by call of duty, by responsibilities before the society or relatives. Many people get used to choose a weak variant so much, pitying themselves that they do not notice any more how they betray themselves. It becomes a life norm, children are brought up according to this principle.

Though, somewhere deep inside everyone knows that such life is a self-treachery.

Any developing person have to meet similar problems. Each transition to a new, higher level is accompanied by breaks, crises, when it is necessary to break down old view of the world, to destroy the old description appropriate to this level, because there is a feeling that one cannot further live with these norms and foundations any more, otherwise there’s constantly a feeling of self-treachery and one has to apply the blind eye in oder not to collapse.

What to do in a situation like this? Here everyone should make his own decision. The worst thing here is hesitancy.

Transitions like these are almost always accompanied by breaks with close people, breaks with beloved ones, relatives, because they were also at the previous level and unconsciously did not allow you to develop. Frequently in situations like these one have to change a residence, job or in general to reconsider the way one earns money. And each such transition compels to look for friends again and each time it is more difficult to do it, since when approaching the level of the integrated personality, there are less people who can understand you. And those who don’t understand you are not interesting for you.

Certainly, not everyone will have enough strength to make the following escape from the paws of a previous egregor, which returns you back again as if you are attached to an elastic.

Indulging

Probably, all of you met this term in books by Castaneda many times Let's define this concept completely.

In the example with jealousy the distinction between jealousy and indulging in jealousy was already shown. Similarly in cases with other human needs which we tansform in mind into desires and begin indulging. How does it happen?

People, as well as all living things, have many needs, for example: sleep, food, breath, sex, self-assertion, secretion, etc.

The satisfaction of needs is incorporated by a nature as the process causing pleasant sensations. A man, unlike an animal, can increase the amount of pleasure, as well as suffering naturally with the help of his mind.

So, we refer to indulging the process of transformation of a natural need into a desire with the help of mind and modeling the images of satisfaction of these desires in consciousness and receiving pleasure or pain because of the impossibility to satisfy them.

For example, hunger is only sensation which can soon pass away. But if it is filled with images of meal, the process of eating, if there is also no opportunity to have a meal – then all this results in suffering, which we’ll name indulging.

Not absence of a leg (with an disabled person) but indulging in its absence is terrible,

Here everything depends on the task which was set: a short-term contact, for which it is enough to have prestigious appearance and to be able to show oneself as a superman or a long-term contact for which time, work and patience are necessary.

The important thing is not to replace one thing by another, i.e. not to try with the help of some stories about your advantages to earn someone’s trust for yourself.

If a person doesn’t indulge in desire to appeal he does simply his work as much effectively as possible, becomes stronger and, as a consequence the people around start to love and appreciate him. Indulging takes a lot of energy away and then it’s not enough for actions. A person still more indulges because of this. We get a closed circle.

Though the chapter is named Ego Destruction, we need to understand that the very formulation and problem setting are absolutely wrong. The more actively we destroy ego, the faster it grows.

Therefore the sequence of actions, with which the dissolution of ego is possible, is like this:

1. To stop all kinds of indulging.

2. To make a review of one’slife. (About the review we’ll talk later.)

Here the basic internal work begins. Now you should make effort not to understand but to notice the displays of indulging within yourself and to stop this process through understanding of what is happening.

The most important thing is to get rid of conditional reflexes, developed during many years.

Even if there is a understanding and intention, it’s not enough. The regular practice of tracing for six months or for about a year is also necessary, till this process will calm down and you will feel freedom in this part of the internal space.

Practical Evolution of Consciousness

Ego Destruction

Personality and Ego

Jealousy

Indulging


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