Do you feel like talking about the ego a little bit?

The ego? What’s that? The problem is that there are quite a lot of pretenders to the crown of ego. Freud means one thing, Chogyam Trungpa means another, the man on the street another six or seven. So when the man in the street says, ‘so and so’s got a big ego, they use the word very differently from how Freud might use it or how Chogyam Trungpa might use it. Then two men in the street can use it and mean it in completely different ways. Whereas usually they both use it in different ways at different times. The whole thing is a minefield of confusion.

To me the terminology itself, the labelling, is not so important. I think the question really is ‘what are the subtleties of psychological experience that need to be sorted out into ‘inevitable’ or ‘organic’ and ‘neurotic’, or ‘artificial’’ Can we make a useful distinction between thoughts, feelings and actions that we cannot avoid, and those that we can. Now, making this distinction in no way implies that we have control over our minds. Its simply an extension of the recognition that all phenomena are conditioned: and that enquiry and awareness deeply condition our thoughts, beliefs, feelings, actions and behaviour. Though we have no gaurantee that they will do so in the way that we would like.

So, lets take Imma going out the door. We have no idea of the totality of what went on in her. We do know that some organic impulse arose. But it is quite possible that she left the room without a thought. It is possible for us to respond to an organic impulse without thought. When we are really relaxed and comfortable we just do things. More likely though in this case is that some thought arose like ‘yeah I’ll go to the bathroom now.’

Now its quite possible that another kind of thought may have arisen before she finally got up to go. “Perhaps I’ll wait, I don’t want to disturb everyone,” or ‘Oh I’m not going to go, I don’t want people to think…’ or whatever. So we’re heading out three or four layers from the basic organic impulse. We have made a quick transit from what you could call organic thinking to neurotic thinking: to being concerned about what somebody else might think about you getting up in the middle of a talk and leaving the room.

When that kind of thinking is going on it involves the sense of self. It involves a compartmentalising of what is actually happening into ‘what’s happening here’ and ‘how that will be seen on the outside, how that will be taken on the outside’. So it’s making a division inside that which is actually happening, which is an indivisible and organic whole itself. Yet the mind is making within it a division and that division is always ‘self and other’. This is the sense of self, and to this can be applied the word ‘ego’. Many people do use the word like this: to refer to the sense of self.

This impression of the self arises within the recogntion of a barrier, that makes a definitive distinction. This barrier being the skin. But the key is not the barrier but the sense that within that boundary there is a controller, a doer. That there is a self rather than just a set of organic and neurotic programmes being run by life. We tend not to see what it is that’s running these programmes. So we think that there is a programme runner inside. This some call ego.

What is actually running these programmes is the life force, sometimes called prana; or consciousness; or spirit: or even sometimes called God. Whether we call it prana, lifeforce, consciousness or God it has no overt characteristics or qualities to its presence. So we tend not to recognise its significance. We just notice what shows up in its light: phenomena; perceptions; things. And in counterpoint to these that we can call “other” we assume, or project, a “self”.

This sense of self is the impression that there is a controller, a doer, a thinker making these thoughts, actions, events materialise. Of course, it is not really like that as we know. Whereas ego is the localisation of consciousness into a particular body, which has an identifier, a name label. I have been named Godfrey so therefore if I hear the word Godfrey I’m going to turn around and say ‘yes.’ So then ego and the sense of self are separate things. Sense of self can evaporate. Ego cannot. Although you can of course try to pretend that it has: so when somebody comes into the room and says ‘Lily’ you just sit there - ‘I am pure consciousness.’ So technically there’s no problem with ego, it can’t be avoided. The sense of self comes when you use the word I to imply individuation, to imply autonomy, to imply volition, to imply control.

There’s a very famous story, about Abraham, Big Daddy Abraham. Abraham was deeply in love with God and God was deeply in love with Abraham. They had this intense passionate love affair. But God being a jealous kind of a God began to get doubts about the depths of Abraham’s love. And so he said to Abraham, ‘it’s sacrifice time…come up my mountain and deliver unto me a sacrifice”. And Abraham said, ‘I don’t have a lamb.’ God said ‘take your son, Isaac. He’ll do.’ So up the mountain Abraham went with his son Isaac. Of course Isaac was just playing happily amongst the rocks wondering when they were going to find the lamb but trusting his daddy totally just as Abraham was trying to find out if he trusted his Daddy totally as he went up the mountain going, ‘what the fuck am I going to do now? I’ve got to kill little Isaac, they’ll be no more Monopoly around the fire on a Saturday night.’ He’s having this battle ‘God wants me to kill my son. I don’t want to lose my son but God wants me to kill my son.’ This is going on all the way up the mountain. Finally making the sacrificial pyre, putting the wood up and Isaac is going, ‘where’s the lamb?’ and Abraham’s going, ‘don’t worry, God will provide!’ So Isaac trusting his daddy doesn’t understand what his daddy’s saying. Daddy still going, ‘I don’t want to fucking kill my son,’ and finally he goes, ‘OK, Thy Will Be Done.’ And then God says, ‘cool, there’s a lamb round that rock.’ So Isaac goes and gets the lamb and everything’s cool.

But what is this thing ‘Thy Will Be Done?’ This is Abraham we’re talking about and Abraham was no pussy. Abraham is the father of Judaism, Abraham is a prophet, a great prophet, recognised by Mohammed also. Christianity would be nothing without Abraham. This is a heavy dude. This is not Puff Daddy, this is a serious Daddy. He wasn’t going up the mountain negotiating with God. He was in love with God. He wasn’t negotiating, he wasn’t like ‘alright, I give in, you can have your way.’ What was happening was that Abraham went up the mountain and he finally became totally free. He was already pretty much there, he just needed a last dip in the fire. He was the patriarch, the one to whom the others went to for advice. But he was not yet free. And as he was going up the mountain he could finally see that there was no such thing as a choice between his will and the Will of God: that there was only one will. Thy Will Be Done. This means Abraham is saying, ‘I recognise, I finally see that there is only what happens and that what happens is the Will of God and there is nothing other than what happens and there is nothing other than the Will of God. Thy Will Be Done. This is the end of the sense of self, but not ego. When Abraham went down the mountain he still responded to the calling of his name.

How can you ‘be yourself’ if there is no self?

What there is in there is a programme configuration. ‘Laura’ is a programme configuration, with a a particular shape and style of presentation. Within that configuration there are organic and artificial programmes. You can’t get rid of the organic programmes but the artificial programmes you possibly can. That doesn’t mean you will. Your part in the unfolding of the matrix might be to remain locked in artificial programmes. In any given moment your programme configuration is what you call ‘yourself’. So when you say: ‘be yourself’, it means ‘Be your programmes without resistance’. Stop telling yourself that you shouldn’t be that programme that’s running even if it’s an artificial programme. Of course it’s another artificial programme that’s telling yourself that you shouldn’t be that artificial programme that’s running.

You have to be able to handle these loops as these loops are there. Those kinds of loops are looping out in the mirror of the self. Two mirrors going out forever looping nowhere, it’s all an illusion. But when you see that programme loop really clearly, you see that it comes from that fundamental artificial meta-programme of the self. You see that it’s just an impression. It’s not an organic programme: there’s no organic trace of the self. When you see that totally clearly beyond any doubt, it totally disarms all of your artificial programmes so that they stop. Your organic programmes are still going to run: so you’re still being yourself in the conventional sense even though you’ve seen that there’s no self!

I happened to be lying over a chair earlier on listening to Ramesh talking to Olivia. Olivia asked: ‘well if we’re not the body and if we’re not the mind what are we then?’ Ramesh goes: ‘Olivia is nothing but a robot.’ This is a slightly distasteful word to apply to a human being. Its not exactly a compliment to be told that you are nothing but a robot. But she wasn’t told that. What he said was: ‘Olivia is nothing but a robot.’

A robot which has no control over its programming and therefore has no control over its thoughts, no control over its actions and no control over their consequences. Ramesh is what you could call a hard core, no prisoners taken teacher. Yet he is a soft little sweetie pie. Some spiritual teachers hand out sweeties. Ramesh never hands out sweeties. Now I do find that interesting. I trust his judgement, I trust the facility of whatever it is that’s functioning through him. He could easily have said to Olivia: ‘Olivia is nothing but a robot but you are not Olivia,’ and handed her a little sweetie, so that she could relax about being a robot. But the point is, you have to not relax about being a robot, you have to be willing to stare it in the face without any sugary coating. To see that you have absolutely no control over anything at all which is so obvious if you’re paying attention.

But the reason why we don’t pay attention is that the idea of being totally out of control is so unpleasant. But to not be in control does not mean that you are out of control. What it means is that there is no controller. It also means there is no non-controller, or out-of-controller. There is no-one in control and there is no-one not in control. If you look closely it’s very easy to see that you’re not in control. But it’s not so easy to see that there is no you that’s not in control: because it feels like there is. Because there is no you, because there is no doer, because there is no person inside the bodimind controlling the bodimind, there is no issue about control or no control, about organic or artificial. This is only an issue to the ‘me,’ to the ‘you.’ So you could say artificial thinking, organic thinking, in control or not in control, free will or whatever, this is all a false dichotomy that rests upon a false premise: the premise of the self. Exactly the same false dichotomy is enlightened/deluded, good/bad, right/wrong. Things are just happening.

But in meditation when you’re noticing the neurotic thinking coming up are you just noticing it without trying to do anything?

Yes if you see its artificiality really clearly then it tends not to be able to withstand the clarity of such a gaze, and dissolves in embarassment. This dissolution may even reach the root of the underlying programme if the relaxation is deep enough. Whereas organic programming is undeterred by anything, it’s just there. Artificial programming has been created by not paying deep enough attention. So when you pay attention it can’t sustain itself within that: so there’s nothing you need do about it, there’s nothing you can do about it other than play out your programme. You have right now a programme configuration which will demand that you respond exactly as you respond to whatever programme you become aware of being run by. So there’s no escape from this robotic nature. If there’s any thought: ‘ah but if I just see the true nature of the self then I’ll stop being a robot…’ No: you’ll just be running organic programmes rather than organic and artificial programmes.

So you save energy that way.

Yeah you save a lot of energy. It’s the same with the stillness. You feel energy when you’re meditating because you’re no longer dissipating energy into action and thought. So in the programme model you’re no longer having to sustain certain programmes with energy so there’s more energy for whatever. Your organic programmes don’t need more energy, they’ve got all they need so what does your energy go into? Your awareness. You’re more aware and you enjoy that more, because awareness is inherently pleasant, and satisfying. More aware does not mean you’re more conscious of lots of details. It means your awareness, or your presence, is more full and more satisfying. This actually makes it less concerned with any particular detail, so it doesn’t bother with them. Its more open, spacious and inclusive than awareness thats locked into recognising, categorising, analysing, evaluating, or whatever the departments of knowing may be.

More awake?

You could say that. It’s a dangerous word though. When I was obsessed with that word as a spiritual credential I became unable to sleep because of an unconscious association that if I’m supposed to be awakened I’m supposed not to sleep.

I think robot is quite a hard word to get your head round.

It is a hard word to get your head around because we’re so deeply required by convention to assume otherwise. We are supposed to take responsibility for our actions, to have a reason for every mistake we’ve ever made. That perspective, that conditioning is so deep. That’s what makes it difficult: the prior programming. The prior programming that there is such a thing as free will, is so strong. The belief that you can and you should. Not just in conventional culture but in yoga culture to.o We only have to open yoga journal at random and its there. This is deep, this is everywhere: even in the name of yoga. ‘Come to my yoga workshop, come to my boot camp and learn how to empower yourself, take control of your life and get the results that you want!’ There’s virtually no escape from this conditioning but when you do find it then it takes you towards the pleasure end of the spectrum: relief, relaxation.

I like the idea that you can un-programme and re-programme…

Just hold onto that idea and you're well fucked. You are being re-programmed, right now.

OK that’s what I meant!

OK, you cannot re-programme yourself.

Do you think that language is…

Yes, It’s inherently delusional….

Because of the ‘I’ and the ‘you’ and the ‘me’ - if we’d been taught a different language…

The far Oriental languages were fairly non-dualistic. In Chinese and Vietnamese they had the same word for good and bad: they just say them differently. In Vietnam they sing when they speak. They all have perfect pitch the Vietnamese, they sing the words. So let’s say the word is ‘woh’ so if it’s good it’s ‘woh’ and if it’s bad it’s ‘woh’. Theres a little duality in there but behind that duality is a non-duality. Our mode of speech, our culture has become the dominant one. It is necessary to recognise that the multiplistic perspective of duality, of volition, of self and other is very, very deeply programmed. It is not going to de-programme itself just like that: unless it’s already actually falling apart.

Very often programme structures do fall apart quite unexpectedly. You hear stories about people walking through the market place and hearing a word, a sentence or a sutra and bang, it happens. They were not even aware how ripe they were: that everything was already falling apart. Or maybe nothing had ever really coalesced. A deed is not done by a doer. A deed is just an event in the fabric of space time. It is an impersonal event taking place through the interaction of instruments or agents that take themselves to be other than robots. In that taking things get fucked up.

But obviously that’s inevitable if that happens. You could say necessary if it happens. You could even say: ‘supposed to happen,’ although that’s very dangerous phraseology because it implies a supposer, it implies an architect. There is nobody going: “and over here on the 12th of October 2005 we’ll place eleven people in the room and have a whole bunch of nonsense spouted”. It’s not actually like that. There is no supposer, there is no doer, there is no chooser, there is no decider. There is none. That doesn’t just mean that you’re not one, there is none. God is just a concept, it’s a very handy and powerful concept but also a very dangerous one. It is just a concept. ‘Being:’ it’s just a concept. ‘Nothing:’ it’s just a concept. ‘The Source’: it’s just a concept. ‘Freedom:’ it’s just a concept. “Self” is just a concept. “Supreme Self” is just a concept. But life takes place in experience: hot, cold, pain, pleasure, like it, don’t like it. These are not concepts. You could say when you say: ‘God is a concept,’ it’s artificial. Pain is not a concept, it’s organic. Pain is more real than God. Confusion is more real than God, God is just a concept.

Pain is a concept really…

Bollocks, pain is something that you’re about to fucking feel when I hit you with this. You might conceptualise about it but it’s based on a direct experience. That is something that is indubitously painful under all circumstances for all organisms that experience the same thing in the same way. Whereas if you’re sitting meditating and you haven’t moved and you haven’t thought, there’s been this amazing accumulation of energy, you could say: ‘that’s God.’ It’s just a concept. It’s an accumulation of energy and you conceptualise it as God or whatever. So you say: ‘I’m enlightened.’ That’s just a concept. ‘I am free:’ that’s just a concept. Actual freedom, behavioural pontaneity, absence of resistance is something that happens. It might start happening to you!

 

La Croce, Toscana 2005