Ego - Join the FIGHT CLUB?

There are things that can trigger insecurities within us, be they external or internal. I found myself stumbling, not tripping on my shoe laces this time, but struck to inner grounds by faults. Sometimes we look for excuses as to why we should sink so low beneath us. We ought to stand up for our choices instead even when we have wronged. Accept the trespass. Ok. That's all right, we might be wrong. Our faults are not a part of our identity.

For the most part when we feel sorry or guilty it means that we got a conscience (or it is echoes of a past etched into our behaviour). A healthy conscience a beautiful mechanism to make us aware of the path we want to go and warn us when we start to stray from it. The reminders can be painful, but when you fall you have the chance to get up and do things a little differently. You don't stay down for days, weeks or even longer when you trip in the real world to wallow in pity and curse yourself. That's only what we might do in our heads and hearts from time to time. How strange that would be if our physical self would do exactly the same as our mental self. Just imagine... what kind of fight club scenes would become a regular part of our everyday life?

 No fear. No distractions. The ability 

to let all that which does not matter slide. 

So what am I beating myself up about? To not get into a specific situation, I got a nasty greed in my heart... It eats the good things and it always craves more. The thing about greed is you can never satisfy it. Atleast not for long. My greed likes to win, get attention, own and get the sensation of new materialistic belongings. Greed likes to think it needs to be heard all the time. Greed thinks the universe revolves around it. Greed is childish, irrational and a goddamned baby that will tear down everything to get it's attention and toys. We must recognize that this destructive habit is a monster which we can choose to adopt but we can also choose to feed it or not. It's not a cute pet, actually it's more of a parasite of the mind. Manipulative and dangerous as it can disguise itself in our voice repeating the disempowering mantras I, I, I, I, I, and me, me, me, me, me.

"Most people do not listen with the intent to understand;

they listen with the intent to reply." - Stephen R Covey (author)

What to do? 
- Notice when the ego and greed is at work. Study it. Take note of what makes it grow.
- When you know what makes it grow try to strangle the source. Either cut down gradually or it off completely. I find Maun Vrat (see earlier post) to be an efficient way of silencing the ego and land in the moment. Of course it can in our society be hard to engage in complete silence but you can choose to try and only say the absolute necessities for a while.
- Meditate on gratitude and the moment.
- Reconnect with your true self. Now you don't have rush off on a quest to know who you are. If you feel you don't know, just know that you are complete in this moment exactly as you are. The basic things are all you really need. Everything else is excess.
- Step out of the self by listening to your surroundings or by keeping your physical or mental training steadily moving forward.
- Discipline is a great tool for mastering the ego. Moderation, self-control and keeping promises and plans. Be honest when you can't follow through. Keep your goals realistic.
- Try to be as humble as you can by admitting your mistakes, practise acceptance, forgivness but above all love.

A time to contemplate.

Photography by Malin Sandhu.

Stop fighting yourself.
Master your mind and you won't have to smack yourself in the face every time to wake up to the actual situation. It is with a gratitude I receive this lesson, although somewhat resisting it at first. I hope that by sharing this I might help fellow souls on their journey.

I might be a bit quiet for a while now. All the best.

It's comic, but not haha funny.

Vanity is certainly not a new thing, but with social media, selfies and the chronic show off syndrome (even in the yogic field) I sometimes feel great concern for future generations and how they look upon themselves. 

It's kind of creepy. 

The picture? How we behave? 

I leave it up to you to decide. 

This well articulated illustration from Johanna Rubin Dranger's comic Miss Remarkable and her career (original title: Fröken Märkvärdig och Karriären, 2010) demonstrates a real issue we're facing here, in double sense. It's comic, but not haha funny. We've become brilliant multitaskers, kind of watching ourselves in all we do, not truly experiencing, not really there. We're only getting a close up of ourselves as we think about what other's think or what we think they're thinking. They're probably not even thinking about you. They're most likely thinking that you're thinking something about them. I do this sometimes too and can assure you that this behavior gives a very one sided, incomplete picture of ourselves and reality. 

Can't we find and eliminate the root of the problems instead getting caught in an endless treating of symptoms? Most of the things that we're trying to not even remove but smooth out are emotional issues, physical pain, appearance related issues... all of which commonly can be traced back to the stress that we're under, which often is of a vain character. Even on holiday. Look your best. Beach 2015. Show off the coolest things you've done, the nicest things you've bought. The expensive food and drinks. Wow! WOW! Look at you! 

Remind yourself that what you see around you is manmade. It's great magic tricks to make you doubt yourself and believe in their spells. You don't need anything of it. You need only remind yourself of what's really important. Remind yourself why you're doing things. If you're not liking your reasons... change them or what you do! It's up to you to actually live the life you want, not just looking like you live the life you think others want.