Ann K Gryczan Who needs a pronoun? The ego. The ego needs a pronoun because then it is a something; it has a label and an identity and that means it exists. The pronoun singles out the ego and makes it feel special and not left out. It is natural to like to feel special and not left out. The thing is, that natural desire comes from the ego/mind and if we feed it too much, the desire to be acknowledged and special becomes insatiable. Then, no matter how much we give it, the ego will need more. Then, if pronouns are our chosen route to feeling valued, we have a pronoun problem – and that is an ego problem. Deep Down Deep down, the ego’s biggest fear is that it might lose its identity and melt into All That Is. Coincidentally, that is exactly what we, as students of consciousness, are trying to make happen! But that is not the ego’s goal, because then what will it be? Nothing. Everything holding the ego in place will collapse and it won’t exist anymore. This biggest fear is why the ego gets so mad about being slighted by the wrong pronoun or any of a zillion other possible slights. One slight can lead to the collapse of the ego’s whole structure. But fear is not usually the first response when the ego is afraid; anger is. It can seem easy to feel angry or insulted if someone doesn’t get the pronoun the way we like it – using a generic “he” if you are a “she,” for example. Sometimes it is important to take action to right a wrong, but feeling insulted is not one of those times. Why? Because only the ego can feel insulted – the true Self never feels insulted. So if we are fighting for the ego, we are only making it stronger. It is a lost cause anyway, because the more the ego gets the more it wants. Pretty soon, forget pronouns – they won’t be nearly enough! Just call me Most Excellent Almighty Queen of the Universe, the ego will say.
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Ann K Gryczan Hello again and welcome to the third and final installment of The Road to Happiness! In the last post we left off with the ego’s secret – the bottom-line dynamic we called ‘Me versus God.’ To be up to speed, be sure to read parts One and Two for context and to know how we arrived at the current assumptions. In the last post also, I suggested, when encountering traffic, that you practice extending (through generosity, awareness and allowance) – rather than contracting (through self- preservation and gratification). Not that there is anything wrong with those things; they just don’t work for happiness! How did it go? Notice anything? Traffic is Really a Workshop Life often feels like traffic – forcing us to make detours and blocking our way. Yet, in regular life the situations we encounter can seem so encompassing and complicated we can’t get our heads around them. We can’t figure out what the real problem is or how to solve it. But can anything be more clear than giant chunks of metal and plastic literally blocking us from getting what we want and need? This is obviously a workshop set up for our own personal growth and edification. So let’s do it. Let’s take this workshop! Ann K Gryczan
Hi again! When we left off in Part One I made a suggestion about how to get started on the road to happiness – a sort of preparatory, loosening up action to make happiness an option. It was: let other drivers in! How did it go? Did you notice anything in particular? Now let’s take the next leg of this journey… Let Us Be in the Traffic Together Here we are, all jammed up with everyone else in the traffic. All of us trying to get away and at the same time not touch each other. The other drivers are either focused and maneuvering, fighting for every inch or they’re not paying any attention at all: drifting along, not using their turn signals, looking at their phones. Ann K Gryczan Dedicated to Dawn, with love Has this ever happened to you? You have to go somewhere. You get in your car, get on the road and everyone else does too! Now we’re all here – all of us in our cars, on the same road, at the same time. Time for Traffic Practice! Traffic is the perfect practice for students of consciousness: we don’t have to go to a meeting or service, don’t have to wear anything special, assume a posture or breathe any particular way. Traffic is just here, waiting for us whenever we decide to show up. It’s good not to take the ego personally even though it seems so personal: it talks like us, thinks like us, remembers our childhood and likes us best – but the ego/mind really isn’t who we are. The ego/mind is actually an aspect of form and it has a very useful job. Its job is to stay “alive” which ensures that the body it comes with stays intact, so life can still flow through it. The ego’s sole purpose is survival and survival will do anything to win. It will claw its way to the top, take the last piece, deceive, manipulate and even kill to get its way. Isn’t that bad? Fortunately, the ego/mind is not what we are – but that can be hard to remember, especially because who is responsible for its behavior? We are. And who pays the consequences of everything it thinks and does? We do. The Inner Dog If your dog digs up the neighbor’s garden, chews up the welcome mat and terrorizes the cat, you have something to fix up with your neighbor, but you know you’re not the dog. Right? Here is another doorway to enlightenment: it is a simple practice we can do anytime – and it is a nice break from everyday noise.
Take a day or an hour and practice not saying: your opinion, your belief, what you think or how it is for you. What happens if you aren’t saying, but instead you just are? This is a simple practice and a doorway to enlightenment that stands in plain sight, yet blends into the landscape so perfectly you could walk right past and never see it.
Our progress on the inner path is gradual, usually.
We start to realize that we are not what we thought: the voice in our heads, our story, our thoughts and feelings. We start to realize we go deeper than that. Going deeper than the voice in our heads we find awareness sitting quietly, just being aware, aware of the voice in our heads, of existing, of itself. How fortunate to be born into the perfect life! First or last, loved or unloved, in a rich country or poor, with parents who stay or go away, who raise us up or seem to push us down. Perfect. But sometimes life doesn’t seem perfect at all – it seems to stand in our way or push us around, being unfair and difficult. Events of childhood can seem like immovable barriers, keeping us from fulfilling our potential and reminding us of what within us is damaged or lost. How Can Life Be Perfect When it Seems So Very Imperfect?
The world we perceive is an extension of our minds. Have you ever noticed how impossible it can seem to talk about the world with someone who doesn’t share our viewpoint?
It is as if we live in completely different worlds – and we do. |
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We may at first have thought consciousness was in the mind, or even thought it was the mind itself. That it was somehow part of our domain; our personal interface with life or our go-to source of thinking and reason.
Exploring the mind however, we discover it is not consciousness that is personal, but the mind. We discover the mind is limited and finite and that we can go beyond it — to consciousness itself. Even as a new explorer, we are aware of something here vast and whole, an infinite peace, potent and complete. And we know — as if remembering — that this is also the intrinsic, intimate truth of ourselves.
Welcome!
This is a blog for those who travel an inner path, seeking truth, beauty and the source of being.
Here are ideas and practices to help and encourage the traveler, and to address the obstacles that we, as students of consciousness, inevitably encounter. Everything you find here you can do at anytime and take as far as you want.
This is a blog for those who travel an inner path, seeking truth, beauty and the source of being.
Here are ideas and practices to help and encourage the traveler, and to address the obstacles that we, as students of consciousness, inevitably encounter. Everything you find here you can do at anytime and take as far as you want.
I invite you to use Paradigm Practice as a foundation for your practice, which you may find here, free and available for your use. Paradigm Practice is a powerful guide for bridging the gap between limitation and new awareness. Awakening into the happiness and peace of your true nature benefits all the world. May you be blessed on your journey!
Ann |
Consciousness is the ultimate teacher: it is always showing us what we are.
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