by Donna Quesada: One of my beloved spiritual teachers, Guru Singh,
once described spiritual awakening in terms of layers, which get peeled away to reveal our true selves. To better visualize these layers, I created an illustration, which shows the four layers, with the Self in the middle… representing our core and most authentic part of who we are.
One of the most interesting parts of this outline is that you can quickly tell where a person is coming from… and with some honesty, where you, yourself, are coming from. This knowledge, in turn, enables better understanding and forgiveness within relationships.
THE EGO—
Our outermost layer is THE EGO, which is always the source of our troubles. Ego is sly… we don’t often recognize it in ourselves, but it’s everywhere… It’s the obnoxious relative that monopolizes gatherings. It’s that one friend that dominates every conversation at get-togethers. It’s the screaming diva that wants it now. It’s the competitive coworker that claims others’ ideas as her own. It’s the insecure bully who taunts others for attention. It’s the tyrant who lies his way to power. It’s the overly controlling parent. It’s all of us to varying degrees, and at varying times in our lives.
On a deeper level of understanding, it’s the veil that separates us from the rest of the world, and which casts others as adversaries. And when ego consciousness takes over a group, it’s what creates prejudice and bigotry. Ego deceives us into a disjointed view of the world, in which others are “the enemy.”
But as we begin to see beyond the mask of the ego, the division between us and “others” begins to dissolve, and we come to see that we are all connected by our shared needs and humanity.
The process of awakening gives rise to a change in perspective that liberates us from our youthful attachments to image and identity, as well as our need to prove ourselves as “different” and “better” than others. We come to see that that obsession with image and recognition is the preoccupation of the ego
The ego is like a mask, which, once peeled away, reveals more deeper and more profound concerns.
*How to quickly tell when a person is coming from The Ego: Reactivity, jealousy, self-importance and defensiveness.
HUMAN-NESS—
When my teacher outlined the quality of HUMAN-NESS, he was alluding to what Jungian psychologists call the “inner child.” The inner child is a kind of hard-drive that stores all of the experiences that impacted us during our developing years and which now shapes our reactions to events, as adults. While the inner child is often associated with hardships and traumas, it also connects us with our youthful triumphs.
To put it differently, it is that part of our psyche that holds emotions and memories from the past, along with all the hopes and dreams we used to have for the future. It all sounds fine, except for when it isn’t… for example, when traumatic events, like being bullied at school, leave us with scars and insecurities that we never dealt with.
This is the part of us that is carrying a bag of pain and embarrassment from the past. As a result, that part of us doesn’t quite know how to deal with it when those old traumas are “triggered.” So, we often react in maladaptive ways, in an effort to simply cope. For example, we might get defensive, yell, or shut ourselves down.
But the maladaptive coping behaviors don’t really reflect our true character. It’s not who we are.
This is the part of us that feels scared, unworthy, and insecure. And it’s not bad to feel those things. In fact, feeling those emotions, with the willingness to connect to our inner child, is part of the healing process. It is through the willingness to feel, that we ultimately come to see that life is different now, and the trauma is over.
*How to quickly tell when a person is coming from Human-ness: Vulnerability, emotionality, honest communication.
PRESENCE—
Living in a state of PRESENCE enables us to experience things directly rather than through the filter of a million muddled worries, regrets, fantasies, and judgments. Presence is about entering into the immediacy of whatever this moment brings, without agenda-driven conditions, and without the story line we keep coming back to, out of habit.
When we are truly present, we allow ourselves to break from the hold that past conditioning has on us. Here we find true stillness… which isn’t necessarily synonymous with quiet. Stillness is the complete lack of resistance within.
When you split the word presence into its components, PRE-SENSE, a deeper meaning reveals itself: Before the senses… before the dominance of our sensory input system. Our senses feed us with messages about the world as soon as we open our eyes for the day…It’s too hot, too cold, too bright, too windy, too bitter, too this and too that. And all of these messages are endlessly relayed into our brain, and create what we call in Zen “The picking and choosing mind,” which is the part of us that is never satisfied… always picking things apart.
To be clear, this is not to say there’s no place for discernment. Liberating ourselves from the enslavement of our thoughts doesn’t mean we should adopt a laissez-faire attitude, in which anything goes. It just means that we are able to drop down into a place of wordless quietude where our presumptions loosen their grip on us. In this state of pure presence, we can see possibilities that we were unable to see before.
And this is what the Zen masters mean when they say, “When action is necessary, you’ll know what to do.”
*How to quickly tell when a person is coming from Presence: Awareness of one’s words and actions, awareness of others’ words and actions, deep listening, conscious communication.
THE SELF—
The SELF is our true, authentic identity. It’s our spirit. This is not the usual way that we think of identity… for example, we are accustomed to defining ourselves in terms of labels denoting what we do… I’m a teacher, or I’m a doctor, etc. Similarly, we use labels to say what we are… I’m a mother, or I’m a woman, etc. But these are temporary marks of identity, which will dissolve as our soul carries on. The true Self is the formless, unchanging, and divine essence of who we really are.
The noise, expectations, and conflicts of the world make it challenging to get to know who we really are and even more challenging… to reside here. That’s why monks, Yogis and seers of time immemorial retreat to caves and mountaintops, far away from the rest of humanity, to meditate and reach this place… where we are one with God.
When we are connected with our true self, we are wholly aware. We are in complete acceptance of what is and who we are. We are able to be honest, with ourselves and with others. We are in alignment with our beliefs, and we are without doubts and confusion. This clarity arises when we are no longer subject to others’ endorsements andapprovals.
Compassion and good-will replace envy and jealousy because there is no longer any fear of lack. We know that there is enough for everyone and everyone has their own unique purpose. In a state of oneness, there is no longer any other to be jealous of.
The Self is simple and free. Ego’s mask has long been peeled away. Contentment and ease has taken the place of insecurities.
*How to quickly tell when a person is coming from The Self: Knowing replaces all doubt. Comfort in silence. The need for words falls away. Feeling of connection replaces animosity. Empathy for all creatures.
