Ego is another word for you might call it "lower self." "Lower self" is really ego. Its where we're dealing with more of the base instincts of self. These are what we think of as egoic instincts; for control, for power, for dominance, for...all the traits that ego's tend to involve themselves in. The wanting for attention, the tendency to get stuck in a blaming energy, a condemning energy, the identification with being victim. I think of you really look at the nature of ego within yourself, you could come up with your own ideas, your own experience, and more important, of the way ego moves within you. Generally ego is that which is grasping and pushing away. So the underlying structure of ego is, is really a type of will, underlying ego is a type of will. I want and I don't want. So attachment and aversion, these are easy words to use, but what is attachment and aversion really like inside and inside its a movement of will. Its a movement towards or away. This constructs or is the foundation of ego in the context that I am using it in.
Spirituality is as I have said, all of the various teachings, are different means, are different approaches of surrendering self. There's a tremendous amount of confusion about what 'surrendering self' means. And this is something that is important to have some clarity about what does it mean to surrender self cause alot of people will engage in a sort of false surrender. A false surrender is a kind of surrender we do in order to not have to take responsibility for ourselves, for how we feel, for what we think, for our lives in general and its a false surrender. It's sort of like this way of copping out. Its a way of trying to let ourselves off the hook. But that's not a real surrender. That's a way of dealing with the problem of ego by denying it. A real surrender is really seeing each way that we hold on, that we grasp, that we try to control, that we try to dominate, in very overt ways and very, very subtle ways. And its the intention to let that go, to let go, to surrender. Now very few people can actually surrender, mostly we surrender when we are in a deep enough state of suffering. So the teachings are ways or tools to help engender surrender. The surrender of self. The surrender of self. That is what spirituality is all about. That's the whole orientation. And the reason I'm talking about this orientation sort of after I have presented some of the teachings is because its so important that I wanted to put it at the end rather than the beginning as in the beginning by the time you listen to the various aspects of the teaching you forget the orientation, you forget the atmosphere in which the whole teaching exists. My hope is that talking about this after I have presented the basics, the fundamentals of the teaching is that it won't be forgotten, is that what all the teachings are about are ways to surrender self.
Adyashanti
Basic Teachings 3
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