I'm not sure if you've seen this article before, but I think reading it will help.
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What your ego is and how to stop it from obscuring your inner peace and unconditional love | Personal Development - UrbanMonk.Net
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Nearly everybody lives in ego mode. Their entire self image is based off of external things that happen, and typing that out now made a part of my mind wonder "Wait, do people really do that?". I guess it's been so long since I was that way I kind of forgot what it was like...
Anyway, since they live their lives in that mode, their goals become all the more important. They've invested their personal selves into it. That's why people are always telling you to follow your dreams. It's a way to be happy. The funny thing is that if you've invested your "self" into it ( and you think you have a personal stake in your happiness) you're in for a lot more pain before you finally reach your goal.
Reaching your goal finally after a long time can feel very good. But you'll soon realize that after you've attained your goal, you feel like you don't want it anymore. It's not as awesome as you thought it would be (that's almost always the case too when your goal is to fulfill a sort of selfish desire). The reason you can't just enjoy your reward is because the mind found an identity in the struggle to achieve your goal. While you receive momentary relief from all the stress you endured, and maybe an intense feeling of happiness (most people can't feel its' shallowness because they're drenched in stress all the time) your mind will soon ask the question "Well, now what?"
The mind can do all sorts of things to solve this problem, like purposely create more problems. Having problems to solve is the mind's identity when you're constantly in ego mode.
Such is the reason most people seek material success. First they want money. After that they want power. Then "love". Then big houses and big cars and so on and so forth.
People don't have a choice in this because they don't realize there is one. So then your social culture starts to think that success and happiness lies in power and money. It can propagate a mindset of WANT WANT WANT and a ton of people can get caught in this snare. For them, it's merely a way to get by. If they don't have something to keep striving for, then for them they think all that's left to do is die. They don't want that burden in their minds. If someone thinks they have nothing going for them that's their chance to a.) become enlightened and become in touch with their nature or b.) create suffering for themselves
It all stems from a fear of death. People are scared, so they distract themselves with these things.
When you are in touch with your nature, you can enjoy the material world even more because you know it can't bring any lasting happiness and you don't depend on it. You can value it for what it's worth, a bunch of shiny things! It's fun, but not all there is to life.
Think about it, people put so much importance on finding a good job, so they can get money, and continue to survive. But they want their jobs to be high paying so they can buy nice things. That's their sense of fulfillment, to be able to buy nice things in life. People can do this for various reasons, most of which you can figure out.
A lot of people can live life seeing through this dysfunction. There are lots of people who can be grounded without meditation or delving in the area of self-improvement. These people live life true to their intentions.
And that's what it's all about in living in the physical world. Your intentions. Are your intentions with reaching a goal to feel better about yourself? Are your intentions for becoming a doctor or something to make as much money as you can? Or do you truly feel like your purpose for this is in helping people?
Not all religious people think selfishly. Some of the nicest most genuine people in the world i've met are people who have devoted their lives to their idea of God.
But i'd say a large majority of them believe in a god and preach so much because they find it comforting that death will not be non-existence. Now, I KNOW for myself that death is not the end, but people only believe (identification with a thought) in a God so they don't have to worry about what happens after death. But that's only because they're not grounded in their nature. I've even heard it for myself. There was a person in a class of mine who said that he believed in God because "it makes life easier to believe that there is something after life". I thought this was disheartening because God is just an idea he likes to think about, nothing real for him. And second because he doesn't truly enjoy life.
But since people don't TRULY know God, they continue to be stuck in the egoic mode of their mind...and to shorten it, it all comes from a fear of death.
I know it can be irritating to know that people parade around the supposed word of God and then continue to act selfishly, but know that it is a defense mechanism. It all comes down to fear.
I want you to understand this, so you can let go of hating the materialistic world and see it for what it is. Not all in life is vanity, and not all people live life selfishly. I used to believe that everybody is basically selfish, but I experienced another side of life for myself. Of course, this is all my own perspective, so take whatever you want from it. There's so much more to be said, but I feel i've covered what's relevant. Good day to you
Which path is right and provides you more bliss?
Linear Mode
