Friday, January 4, 2008

"HELP! "

Spiritual practice might get any person out of overt identification with ego.

By ego I mean when the assumption of "I am" is turned outward, as a matter of speaking, and a person is focused on external appearances.

To get out of ego is to get into being spiritual, inwardly focused--which has enormous value. A person with authentic spiritual focus is more likely to openly and actively wonder about the nature of things. Nonetheless, the spiritual "I" is still "I". And in the immediacy of this that is, there is never any problem with the arising of any sort of "I" as this "I" is only another appearance.

However, for any person to follow this assumption does have an effect. It is similar to believing that your pants are on fire, even though they are not. You will run and roll around like crazy all the time and always be jumping in water for no reason. Just imagine a world where people live like that... It would be crazy!!

In certain Tibetan teachings, there is description of what is called "mirror-like primordial awareness". Primordial awareness is, of course, being-awareness. So mirror-like primordial awareness is this being-awareness seeing so many people believing that their pants are on fire. Just like in the literal situation, if you recognize that there are no flames, you will naturally feel obliged to point out their absence.

Even though you are not doing anything by pointing out that something which doesn't exist, doesn't exist, you are in fact saving a person from the completely unnecessary behavior of attempting to put out the "fire" in their pants.

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