I was recently asked to comment on a document regarding the ego, to which I respond:
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I would love to reply to your request regarding the document, however to do it justice is a matter of hours of lectures. Any brief response, I feel would be a betrayal of the subtlety, depth and breadth of the knowledge of the ego, etc.
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Having said that, I will say the following: Contrary to what is popularly believed, the ego is not destroyed. It is expanded… transformed to ultimately include all that is.
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As per the Vedic tradition, one could argue that any change entails a destruction of the former, but that begs the point and I feel in this case is more misleading than enlightening.
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Admittedly, the experience does feel at times like a destruction of the self/ego. But again, that description said so briefly is really more misleading than helpful.
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There may be some articles or lectures on this website or newsletter that discuss this which you would, I believe, find interesting. If you ever come for a free lecture or a class, please do introduce yourself and feel free to ask me to talk in more depth on the subject.
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Warm Wishes,
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Michael
Dear Michael, I have a question – what aspect of the knowledge would be most helpful for a dear friend of mine, Arthur, who has been living with horrific circumstances for the past six years. His experience in a snapshot is as follows: He is a very warm open-hearted man, non-profit, public interest attorney, married with one 15 yo adopted son. Six years ago they were all in a horrendous car accident. Arthur was in a coma for 6 weeks, eventually came out of it, mental faculty intake, but he required 7 surgeries to be able to walk again with a cane. His wife had many broken bones, but nothing very serious, except when they were taking the x-rays the doctors diagnosed ovarian cancer AND when they were removing the cancerous ovary they accidentally dropped it in her abdominal cavity and since then she has been on and off chemo due to tumors developing various places because of the migration of the ovarian cancer cells being carried throughout her body in the blood stream. Arthur’s son, adopted from Russia as an infant, was hospitalized for 2 months after the accident, fractures, etc, but recovered; however, he had been diagnosed with cyctic fibrosis at age 4, had the accident at age 8, then at age 11 was diagnosed with diabetes, now his mother is facing cancer every day. During the last two years he has tried to commit suicide twice and, therefore, has been living in residential treatment centers for the last few months, although he has run away from them twice. I think you get the picture. Amazingly beautiful person experiencing unbelievably difficult pain, physically and emotionally, every day for the last six years. I know this is his journey, but what, if anything can I do to help? What aspect of your teaching would be best to help him through this quagmire? He lives in CA. I have talked with him about going to your lectures, but he has not been open to that so far. Thanks for your thoughts. Take care…. Gwen
Arthur is in a similar situation as most people in the world. He’s not open. In a situation like that there is really nothing we can do to help them in any direct sense. All we can do is strive to evolve the planet as a whole, which will in time raise the level of life for everyone. However, if he became open, the first thing I would suggest would be to learn the meditation we offer for free on this website. Beyond that there are free articles, videos, etc.
You can lead a horse to water…
Michael