.png)
Part 2
Be All Ears
Explains how listening to, and absorbing the “wrong” kind of knowledge, is the root cause of our confusion, problems and deep sense of alienation. Hearing and absorbing the “right” knowledge is the remedy. It is the thorn that will remove the primary thorn. If we take illusion to be Reality, there will always be new dramas and problems self-presenting.
“I came to this earth so that I could find my way back to the Beloved.” Rumi
I look at the booming market of self-improvement and self-development. Here it is assumed that the small “self”, who we think we are, is real when it is nothing but the egoic, illusory self. There are books to help us with all our problems, whether they relate to a lack of confidence and low self-esteem issues, coping with anxiety and fear, or some other apparent weakness.
We are always searching for happiness and peace from outside sources because we remain oblivious of our real identity. We are wandering, travelling, roaming here and there, trying all sorts of things that will offer us lasting happiness and peace; attempting to fill that longing within us which is always seeking to connect, share and be part of a greater whole.
Everyone is looking for ways to feel better, find happiness, develop and grow as individuals. When one wakes up from the dream and realizes that there are no separate individuals, one’s interest in improving the illusory, small self will fall away naturally.
We have been conditioned and brainwashed in many different ways. One of the biggest illusions is needing to find love and a loving partner to make us whole. What is love? Who is loving whom? This dreamy, unconscious type of love belongs to the world of duality, coming from an imaginary ‘I’ who loves an imaginary ‘you’. The true love story, the ultimate love story, is the Engagement and Marriage to our Self, minus the ego, called ‘Selfless Self’. That is true fulfilment. When one has transcended the self and the notions of romantic love, then the potential opens up for beautiful, freeing relationships based on giving rather than “getting”.
We are encouraged to “be naked!” - to remove “King Ego”, in other words, all the props, coping mechanisms and scripts we have been using to perpetuate the dream/movie. Following King Ego's abdication, the dissolution of all our anxieties and fears will vanish. We will return to our pristine, original state. When we find out what we are not and realize that we built our foundations on sand, these foundations will begin to crumble. Reality can then be established on solid ground.
The realization that there is no separate individual, entity or ego, and there never was, brings liberation from all bondage: problems, feelings, suffering, loneliness, death, etc.
"To find the Beloved, you must become the Beloved.” Rumi