SEVEN STEPS TO CONTROL THE EGO - 1

By Lucya Janeth Vervloet

These are suggestions on how to overcome and control deep rooted ego pride. It was written with the objective of preventing us from falsely identifying with our naturally proud ego. We are presenting a series of articles detailing this in seven easy steps.

1. Stop feeling easily offended.

Other people’s behaviour is not a good reason to make you feel immobilized and offended. Offense only exists if you let go of your own power and thus feel weak. If you look for situations which bother you, you will certainly find them around every corner. Ego is in charge trying to convince you that the world is all wrong. But it is possible for us to become life observant and tune in with the spirit of creation. We do not connect with our inner power or reach a peaceful state when we feel offended. Be at peace and remember you are part of the Creator, and the Creator is peace. To feel offended generates destructive energy and hurt, it leads to aggression, and ultimately to war.

"READY MADE"

Not being religious, I have always preferred to use my own words when addressing divinity. Although as a child I was encouraged to memorize most of the usual prayers and to recite them like a parrot, soon this felt very impersonal and I gave it up as a bad job.
It always reminded me of “fast food”…”fast praying”….”ready made”…
Despite that, I can not fail to recognize the beauty and wisdom woven in certain prayers, and I did hold on to some old favourites.
For instance:

The Serenity Prayer

God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference

EFFORT

I read somewhere: “I am happy purely out of laziness. To be unhappy requires a hell of a lot of an effort”. This is not just a cute sentence but a very deep truth.

Most people work from the concept that to do something well is hard work, to get higher school marks requires more effort and that in order to be happy in life it requires a great struggle.

It is true that to get the best marks at school you need to make an effort. But it is less of an effort than not to learn…

It is true that to do something well you need to make an effort. But it is less of an effort than to something in a shoddy way.

It is true we need to make an effort to be happy. But it is less of an effort than it would take to be unhappy.

Life flows and it has its own logic. We spend more energy trying to block that flow than what we need to spend to just flow with it.

We can think of the tree analogy (eg: a fruit tree). In order to grow and bear fruit this tree needs to make an effort to get its nutrients. If it doesn’t want to grow and bear fruits it will have to make double the effort to block its own nature, suffer by lacking nutrients in order to make itself weak. This means that the tree will have to waste much of its time and energy and go through much suffering all with the purpose of not growing and not bearing fruit…

Similar to what happens with humans. Imagine someone goes into a shop and it is badly attended to. Probably, this person will spend quite sometime thinking about the unpleasant circumstances, creating tension, generating fantasies and feeling irritated. What does this person achieve? Nothing. Is it enjoyable? No

The least effort is in doing things well. The least effort is in developing our capacities and gifts, and above all, to apply minimum effort means to flow in tune with Life

OM THE SOUND OF THE UNIVERSE

OM is depicted in Sanskrit – the Hindu ancient language.

This symbol when visualized and verbalized brings us the universal energy in its purest form: The union between heavens and earth, harmony between masculine and feminine, active and passive, the polarity that generates perfect equilibrium, of which a good example is nature…

Sit comfortably and visualize OM (you are welcome to use the picture herewith).
Tune in and take a deep breath feeling the air freshness while you breathe in and out. Do this three times.

Go back to breathing normally all the while feeling the air going in and out.

When you feel really relaxed, close your eyes, take a slow deep breath, filling your stomach with air and storing it there, start verbalizing the sound ommmmmmmmmmmmmmm while slowly empting the air from your stomach through your mouth. Stay with the sound until you feel the air is all out.

Repeat this process three times and then slowly and in your own time, open your eyes and feel the lightness of your body and the release of pain and tiredness.

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

Hello Luisa

Would this Autumn be the right time to initiate a new career?

Thank you
Sherley





Hi Sherley
Yes, without a doubt.
All the best
Luisa

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

Hi Di
Will I meet my next love in 2011?
Thank you very much
Blessings
Liza





Hi Liza
There is a great chance that you do, but it also depends on how soon you heal from your past relationship and manage to overcome your own fears.
Love & Light
Di

EMOTIONAL ATTACHMENTS

Attachments are sources of unavoidable suffering and emotional pain. The more we get attached to situations, things and people the more vulnerable we become.
The essence of life is impermanence, once we want to eternally own that which we love we become lost in illusion.
Meanwhile, very few of us are prepared to exist without attachments.

Experiencing loss is a reminder (often in a painful way) of how much we need to learn to accept this reality.
To accept, means above else, not to resist loss when it does happen.

To develop an inner resistance to loss only prolongs the duration and the depth of the pain and anguish we might be feeling. The sooner we learn to handle acceptance, the sooner we become immune to fear of rejection, fear of lacking and fear of loneliness.

Although this is one of the main learning curves in life, no one teaches us to nurture this attitude of acceptance and detachment. On the contrary we are trained not to share, but to depend on  another as if our own individuality were something devoid of value.

Re-learning to be free and to stop depending on conditions in order to be happy, that is the only sensible life path that enables us to escape once and for all the prison of attachments.