40~ Goodbye Ego. From Disillusionment to Hope: a Path Toward Wholeness.

The great disillusionment was the initial entry into the path. That moment when the rose-colored heart glasses shattered, and with all the pain in our soul, after seeing them in pieces on the floor, we had to throw them away. It was surely one of those major disappointments, the kind that make noise and tear down all our inner structures. Objects fall off the shelves. Sometimes the entire shelf collapses, but that gives us the chance to rearrange things in a new way, and why not, one that’s more aligned with the reality of the present moment.

Did you think that was it? That the earthquake had already passed? Earthquakes have aftershocks, adjustments, reordering. The new small letdowns are the engines that drive the necessary changes. To understand with new eyes what we once took for granted, to go just a little further, a few more steps toward awareness. Without these precise adjustments, we would walk blindly, feeding the Ego while believing we had a control we don’t actually have. That very thing we want to empty. Because yes… in the end, we know nothing, and not the other way around. And that’s the whole point. It doesn’t mean there’s less pain, of course, but there’s the expanded awareness of someone pulling a thorn from the sole of her foot that was already becoming unbearable.

At this stage, we are more aware, probably more perceptive and with a sharper sense of intuition, but even then, learning takes time, and within the flow of cosmic order, we must respect that timing, even if we don’t entirely like it. The path is to discover ourselves, in that patience and in that capacity to learn. In that eternal path—as Kaare used to say—constantly changing and constantly challenging, because if we understand that life is a learning process, then learning never ends. We are eternal students, awake enough not to aim for any final goal, but to be content with the perfection of everything in the present moment, in the best of cases, here and now.

Finding stability in movement is also an art, and perhaps the smartest and most effective thing we can do in an essentially ever-changing world.

So we walk—if we're lucky enough.

We're not trees: we can move.

What are we searching for?

If there’s nothing to attain, where are we walking toward?

Great question. A constant search that, in order not to fall again into the loop-wheel of desires, we must resolve in the present.

Peace, contentment, happiness —and fill in whatever each one needs— but here and now. Today and with this reality. That’s the secret, that’s the key. We can’t be happy in the future. The only possible happiness is here and now.

So, the contentment we talk so much about must have to do with starting to look at the reality before us in a different way, as a miracle, as something sublime, as pure magic. Which is what it actually is, right? Life ahead of us.

Only that sometimes routine takes over and we lose our spark. We go into autopilot, get lost in trivialities, and forget the miracle that lies before us. We also forget that the secret is right there.

The reality we have in front of us… Is perfect. Yes, perfect, just as it is. Exactly what we need, exactly what our soul asked for in order to learn. Probably not what we want, but surely what we need in a deeper sense.

A colleague once told me a story about squirrels. I love stories that seem to talk about one thing, but end up revealing something else entirely.

—My grandfather loved squirrels. He watched them from the window every day, doing their squirrel business in the garden, and he never stopped marveling at them. He was kind of grumpy, and that really annoyed me, so one day, just to provoke him, I said: "Grandpa, you know squirrels are malicious and harmful. They take the nuts and hide them, then never remember where they put them and end up wasting all the fruit of the tree."

—"That’s the part you see," he said—“a limited vision…Don’t you get it? That’s the universe’s way of planting nut trees.”

Damn old man, I thought. He was always right.

We’re all squirrels. Sometimes there’s no need to understand everything that happens to us, or justify it, or fall into victimhood. Sometimes the ultimate truth rests in that supreme principle: reality is perfect just as it is. We only see part of the story, but in truth, we’re part of a vast web of meanings, connections, and energies. You don’t know the impact your squirrel-actions may be having on someone else, on the universe, or even on yourself. You also don’t know the full movie—what that lesson will bring you or what it’s preparing you for. What karma you're cleansing with that, in what way, and what the next step is.

—There are three kinds of business— said Brandon, the Tantra man with the lion’s mane and the squirrel tales—The universe’s business, everyone’s business, and your own business. You can only control your own and collaborate in everyone’s. So do yours with all your being, pour your energy and awareness into them with healthy intention, and surrender to the fact that the universe will take care of everything you can’t see. The universe knows what it’s doing. Just develop trust.

Freeing, isn’t it? Just trust.

Reality is perfect just as it is, and that is the doorway to the divine. That supreme force that moves through us—whatever name we give it—manifests constantly through reality. If you pay close enough attention and know how to listen, you can see it. Signs, messages, causality, magic. Also, obstacles and missed connections.

That force is perfect, harmonious, infinite, and limitless.

We are part of it—we are naturally connected. We only need to remove the veils of the Ego to feel it again, expressing itself from within and all around us. To clean the lenses, and the crystal that we are. To see the divine again, in reality, and as a consequence, in ourselves too.

"When the doors of perception are cleansed,

reality appears as it is:

Infinite." Aldous Huxley

To enjoy and walk through it—with our whole body and with as much awareness as we can—is the greatest gift we can give ourselves.

To perceive ourselves again. We are not separate, as the Ego fears. The true path is realizing the connection with the Whole. To dismantle the illusion the Ego represents and hides behind. To perceive that greater force we are part of, just like the squirrels. That divine force manifests in everything, and if we allow it, also within ourselves.

So yes, perfection exists, just as the present moment is, here and now. The perfection within imperfections. The miracle of life.

To truly understand this is an advanced task for a binary mind that classifies everything into good/bad; pleasurable/painful. Because both are expressions of the same perfection, and grasping that balance will be part of the journey. Eventually: equanimity and acceptance.

We talk all the time about going inward, about connecting with ourselves. But what is that “inward”?

What is this “ourselves”? Is it what holds us together so we don’t fall apart? The outline of our skin, the depth of our thoughts, the purity of our heart, or the volatility of our essence? The answers of our Ego?

What do we even mean here by Ego?

That illusion that keeps us from seeing our true nature, and the true nature of reality as well? That great subject. That other illusion.

That appearance, that mirage built from the belief that we are separate from the Whole—as Buddhism says—and therefore, what? Different? Superior? Important?

That insistence on trusting the outline, our senses, and a pair of limited, insufficient eyes that draw boundaries for us?

An interior that locks us inside, separating us from everything else?

Leaving us isolated, alone, divided, incomplete. Small in the face of the world. Suffering.

Is that the inside? Is that where THE answers lie?

What answers? The ones that try to complete what cannot be completed?

No bird has much of a life when trapped in a cage. Maybe it still sings, yes, but we all know that’s not really living…

So all the suffering we feel in life, doesn’t it come from feeling caged, separated, and not enough?

Constructions, illusions, thoughts.

And if we let the bird return to its natural environment, wouldn’t life be simpler for it? Ask for forgiveness for everything we caused by trying to keep it, and simply set it free. Set it free to free ourselves, because that bird is our soul.

“Surrender, surrender, surrender”—you could hear it echoing through the streets of India, until it became almost unbearable.

Surrender, yes, but to what?

To the idea that we’re in control. To the idea that we can bend reality to be what we want it to be. Surrendering to that painful, exhausting, endless struggle. Letting go of that guaranteed suffering.

Surrender: to yield, to release, to let yourself go. To stop fighting, to stop resisting. To hand over control. To surrender to a higher force. To let go of the illusion. To give ourselves to reality as it is. To trust that force behind us and feel free as part of it.

To trust, from the fullness of love, not from defeat.

—So, could the peace we’re searching for be found in that intersection where the illusory contours of the Ego dissolve?

In the Union, as the word “Yoga” represents—and as do the thousands of different spiritual traditions—with the different parts of ourselves, and also with that something greater than us. To understand that we are made up of different elements, to make peace among all of them, and in the process, with that Higher Power we are part of.

The Universe, Pachamama, Energy, Divinity, God, the Infinite—or whatever name resonates most with you. To understand that separation is not real. That we are One with the divine, with the Great Spirit. That there is something beyond the body, and that that—whatever name we give it—is what we belong to. That we are more than the flesh and bones that make us up. That there’s another world beyond this one, and perhaps, if in this world we haven’t found peace, maybe it lies in that other one.

That our original nature is perfect, and we only need to return to it, if we know how to clean the crystal that we are.

—We live in one world, but we belong to another,—the monk from Rishikesh told me the moment I arrived in India.—Our natural environment is the spiritual one.

So then… shouldn’t we reconnect with that essence we lost in the chaos of life?

And how do we clean the crystal? In many ways. But we can start here: by questioning the dust.

At times, I felt like I was in a psychoanalysis class at university. At others, in a mechanics lesson.

—We’re going to break the circuit— Goenka would say.—The seeds of the mind grow very fast, and just one seed is enough to restart the entire chain of craving. So what we were about to do was take control of our emotions, to learn how to observe ourselves with distance and perspective.

Meanwhile, I took the opportunity to keep planting my own seeds:

—I AM A STRONG WOMAN… I AM A STRONG WOMAN… I AM A STRONG WOMAN.

FEEL CONFIDENT IN YOURSELF. I CAN HANDLE THIS.

And by “this” I wasn’t referring to Vipassana or even to being here in India.I was referring to the eternal backpack I carried. To having the courage to face my ghosts and to take the reins of my life, even if that meant letting go of them completely and exploring myself from different places, from scratch, as if I were getting to know myself all over again, even though I was terrified.

I was letting the mask of my Ego fall: strong, warrior, rebellious, anxious, omnipotent, insecure, fearful, mocking.

So yes, I was getting to know myself again.

That was an essential part of my learning—or why not say, the learning itself.