What is Ego? - is often one of the key-questions around which spiritual paths and practices revolve. In my humble opinion, there have been many misleading teachings about the ego.

Though most of them are well-intended, they create unnecessary hardship for those who are listening with diligence and dedication to what such a teacher has to say. Even many of the masters who could be considered truly free men, have expressed the ego in terms that make the listener miss something obvious. By doing so, they (unknowingly) deny the practitioner a much more open, loving and free atmosphere to start practicing with.

Ego is often described as some sub-entity within yourself that is the root of all misery. While I do not disagree with the fact that what they refer to with ego is the source of all misery, I must say that I very much disagree with the part that claims the ego to be an entity or even a sub-entity within oneself.

To me the Ego is no such thing. In fact, the ego - as a thing, substance or entity - simply does not even exist in my experience. For what would it imply if the ego would be an entity, substance, thing? It would imply several things:
1) That it is always there as something solid which evolves.
2) That it is there even when not active and when consciousness is not aware of it.
3) That it truly exists as something that has characteristics and qualities of its own.
4) That it exists as having an independent nature or substance.

Allow what follows next to take you on a meditative/contemplative discovery to see directly for yourself right here and now - through and with clarity - what is ego truly? And be free.

Ego is simply a Position - The Position of Interpreting

Ego, in my experience, is not so much an actual thing or entity that we need to expel or conquer, but more like a position we can take on (and leave again) to see things from.

Imagine endless, pure space. Within that pure space, there are many places one can choose look from. From each angle things look different. Once we take on such a position by believing in our beliefs, ideas, emotions etc., we experience life from the position of being an interpreter of Life. We literally interpret - explain, translate, describe, label, define, separate, distinguish - whatever we perceive pretty much every moment of our lives.

Just take a look at your own life as I will use some examples to induce direct realization of what I am talking about...

Let's take an example most of us will know, in which we are more conscious of us interpreting and describing what we perceive: Holidays!

Whenever we go on a holiday, or to any new area we have never been before - especially when the area is considered to be awe-some or beautiful - we describe everything we see: "wow-look at these mountains, they are huge!" and "Ohh how beautiful that waterfall, look at that!"

What happens in these straight-forward examples, is that life as we perceive it, is not left as it is; we do not take life as it is, but we interpret the perceptions that we have by translating it, by describing it, by using ideas to define the perception. But could it be that this is what we do all the time? Could it be that living life through the interpreter is all that we do?

In a more challenging, let's say, emotional situation, we do the exact same thing. Whenever we feel sad for example, we will not be at one with that experience, we will not be the perception, we will not be innocent and without judgment, we will instead separate ourselves as we take on that position of being the interpreter that is looking at our life from a distance, or from a certain point of view, judging.

If you take a closer look at your life, you can feel that there has always been this separation between the observer and the objects of life that are observed. Even as we speak right now, you can be aware of the fact that you are aware of the situation as if there is a separation between you as the witness and life as the witnessed. It's like there are always two things that make up your experience:
1) You (the observer)
2) Life (the observed)

It is my experience, that the seeming separation we feel between these two, can dissolve immediately (immediate, spontaneous liberation), at least for a little time at first, into the object-less sense of unified Beingness.

Here is how:

Be Innocent, be as the situation as it is, drop the position of the interpreter, since it is merely a position you can take and leave just as easily. Simply stop objectifying your experience by describing what you perceive. Don't explain anything!!! Drop ALL explanations for just 5 seconds and you will see what liberation truly entails! It is not attained through defining, describing your reality. It is not attained through applying your best knowledge to every perception. No. Enlightenment means to be completely foolish, at one with the moment, without choice or reason. Just to be without opinion as life arises spontaneously.

A newly born or even a very young child, is not yet a judge of his own experience. He does not yet take on the position of interpreting what he sees. He is foolish we might say. "They still have so much to learn!" - We think. Ha! If we only knew...

Babies and very young children simply are whatever they experience. They do not have a separation, no intervention, no interpreter, no time-frame, between Life and themselves as the observer. They simply are immediately and spontaneously free as Life takes shape in that moment. They don't position themselves anywhere outside of the experience. They don't try to maintain a witnessing perception either. However they might feel, that is what is the case without further thinking about it. There is no analyzing, no judgment whether or not it is right or wrong to feel hoe they do, it is simply so, without knowledge. They have not yet eaten the apple of the tree of knowledge.

Be innocent like children and fools. Innocence simply means that you have no demands, you have no opinion about however your present moment comes to light, you have no opinions about what you should be or how you should appear to be or how life should treat you or how spiritual awakening is achieved. No demands and opinions at all! There is no insecurity about life, simply courageous foolishness to be life as it comes. You simply are foolish, unknowing, without clinging to your knowledge to describe or categorize and objectify (separate) your experience/perceptions.

Unity is already the case! It's only through the eyes of interpreting that you experience duality/separation because the very act of thinking about something, the very act of judging something is in itself the sense of separation! There is only one expression and it is Now. Be that expression without any intervention of time/thought/explanation/judgment. Witness the interpreter as it interprets your life and be one with that too. Through being your experience, there is the immediate resolve of all experience into knowledge-ness innocence.

Drop this pretending of having to figure out yourself and trying to practice awareness. Forget about all meditation techniques and simply drop the interpreter and your insecurity through which you belief you have to analyze whatever you perceive in order to judge of things are right or wrong. Be a complete fool and you'll drop the interpreter naturally! This is foolish-wisdom and it is The Way.

There are not many ways. Period! There is only one way and it is the way you are taking already. Drop all ways, they simply do not exist but in your thinking about them. You have the choice to drop all knowledge right now and be free for as long as you decide to be without interpretation. Suffering is the intervention of knowledge in any given moment. Liberation is to be spontaneously free as you are at one with life without any discrimination.

Ego, in my seeing, is a myth. It simply does not exist. It's simply a position we seem to take on, but the position itself is nothing but open freedom either. Even when you are interpreting and explaining your reality through the intervention of knowledge, that too happens as a completely hollow, empty, open expression of nothing but pure Beingness/Awareness. Be simple, foolish, pure and innocent as you are without any demands and opinions about your present perception/experience.

Ego is described by many to be something solid, something that actually exists in and of itself as an independent entity having a will of its own. The connotation that comes with such an explanation of the term Ego, can be highly misleading and make someone belief that it has this solid 'thing' inside himself that needs to be banished or conquered in some way and that true freedom is depending on this act of exorcising the ego. The general belief is that as long as we have an ego, we are not free, and that it is only once the ego is completely destroyed, that one achieves liberation like some sort of attainment; a result from your efforts as an ego-exorcist.

But the biggest joke in spiritual history, is also the biggest and most potent secret in spiritual history: By trying to achieve spiritual enlightenment and by trying to analyze and resolve the ego, that very act of trying and believing in the ideas we have, we are positioning ourselves in the shoes of the interpreter! By believing in the existence of an ego, we as the believer of these ideas, are ego. How can this ever lead to the complete resolution of moment-by-moment experience into Oneness/Beingness/Awareness? The very act of believing in the concepts you think about, is a perpetuation of interpreting your reality. Ego exists only in your thinking about an ego. Outside of your thoughts there is nothing but pure perfection naturally, moment-by-moment, effortlessly. If you try to analyze, explain and understand your experience, then there is 'you' intervening with Life and thus creating a seemingly existent separation and time-frame between the observer and the world. Be the world, drop the search, drop all knowledge and don't explain your present moment.

Enlightenment is nothing we can ever understand or think our way into, so drop the idea that you need to figure out anything and be simple, as you are without further seeking. Light shines through my window on my typing hands right now without any effort and demands at all, it's utterly simply yet free and beautiful as it is, without me having to explain that it is beautiful. It already knows it is utterly beautiful without any intervention or need for concepts. It does not need anything in order to shine. It shines already. You shine already too! By the very fact that you exist, you are perfect. That's the only rule of the universe.

Drop being the interpreter of your experience and be without demands at one with the experience without explaining any feelings, thoughts and situations. From simple demand-less being, arises foolish-wisdom spontaneously. There are no limits now to how you may respond, but you will find that as you respond to situations from foolish-wisdom, from being without interpretation and filtering your experience, that you always have the best answers available without any fear getting its grips on you.

Simply Being. It's the only doorway to freedom and it's your choice to make right now. Once the choice is made, forget about having to choose as well, just be what you experience without demanding enlightenment or freedom and see what happens all by itself.

Love & Simplicity,
The Fool.

"Bentinho Massaro's message is simply this: That which we truly are is already perfectly free and fulfilled. He effectively shares how to effortlessly recognize this Perfect Presence in our direct experience and in our daily lives. This simple recognition of free Awareness results in a profound discovery of Ultimate Freedom and Self Awareness as being naturally present right now. Nothing ever leaves this freedom, all appears and disappears within it."  www.yoga-mind-control.com