Human birth into society is the first trauma that all homo sapiens experience. And the creation of an ego identity is the primary trauma response that most people cling to.
The ego serves as the first real act of dissociation from the Self that members of our species experience and most people never recover from this neurosis during their lifetime.
Most people spend their entire lives shapeshifting and being reborn into new lower expressions through overidentification with their past, name, body, jobs, relationships, religion or “guru” (which has, too often, historically led to greater separation and abandonment of the Self for millions due to the over-glorification of other ego-driven human-beings/organizations, in addition to leading to countless cases of sexual abuse/misconduct, and deeper levels of trauma/spiritual wounding) etc. This over-identification makes it so that many will die without ever connecting with the unchanging truth of who they really are.
The goal of Yoga, as a scientific and free solution to this problem, is to connect humans with their True, untainted and undistorted, Self, free from the trauma of human birth into society and the delusion that is caused by the development of, and overidentification with, the fluctuating ego identity.
Your experiences, DNA, history, and so forth may have shaped who you think you are in relationship to others in the seemly concrete reality that is fabricated by ego-overidentification, but who you are cannot be defined by these things (nor by anyone else).
Today, I invite you to make it a point to practice (through conscious intention, or just in your imagination) “washing off” these distortions of your ego from your True Self in the shower or during an allocated time set aside for meditation. As you participate in this exercise, feel and see the illusions that you have picked up from living life in society, fall off of your energetic body and dissolve into nothingness so that you can stand in the truth as your Realized Self.
Just for a moment, drop word, sound, smell, and form associations and just be yourself.
What do you notice is present once you let go of your false associations and stories?
For a more advanced version of this exercise, simply drop your mind in addition to everything else, and then, just be and observe.
What do you notice is present once you let go in this way?
Always remember, please, that even your mind is an instrument and a tool.
Use your mind to the best of your abilities since using it well is a great way to gain self-control and mastery and to transition to more advanced forms of concentration and states of consciousness (notice how the Eightfold Path moves you from sense/perception control/Pratyahara, to Dharana to Dhyana, and then to Samadhi, for example), but do not overidentify with your mind since it is not the true you.
The true “you” is free from all mental modifications.
Thank you for reading.
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