Want What Is

Lately i've been on a rant about the collective ego. In all my years of awareness it suddenly became extremely obvious to me how the collective egos ban together to keep humankind asleep. We've all heard the terms "social consciousness" or "collective awareness" or the like. And while i thought i knew what these terms meant i should have known that any "thinking" about a concept regarding collective egos is like asking the fox to guard the chicken coop. Not really reliable. The problem has been that i never critically examined these concepts. I inputted the data into the mind and waited to see what it spit out and never questioned the output. I now see that i made lots of assumptions and all these assumptions are what allows the ego mind to play the equivalent of hide the pebble (reality) under the shell.

Below is a benign article that i found purporting to give us 12 steps/actions to take to make us happy. Sounds innocent enough, yes? But no. If you take a look at the article and really examine it you can see that it is a wild piece of propaganda designed to keep us looking outward so that we never discover the false existence of the ego mind. Take a look, notice what the collective egos minds want us to assume and see if you agree.


What Makes Us Happy (reprinted without permission from Prevention magazine)

1. Know What To Want

Most of us can't predict what will make us happy in the future and that inability often leads us down the wrong path. (First assumption there is a "right" path.)

The average American moves more than 11 times, changes jobs more than 10 times and marries more than once suggesting that most of us are making more than a few poor choices (Notice the second assumption. Change is bad. If you don't do it right the first time obviously you have made a bad choice), notes Harvard University psychologist Daniel Gilbert, PhD, author of Stumbling on Happiness. (here authority is cited not once--Harvard U., not twice--PhD, but three times--author. I.e. don't question authority). One reason we so often guess wrong, he argues is that we often imagine the future incorrectly. (There is a "correct" way to imagine the future--hint duality is always a sign that ego is present.) We forget how easily we adapt, even to painful circumstances. So when we picture what it would be like to be single again or to live in Seattle or to leave one job for another, we don't factor in everything else---the new friends, the newly discovered interest in Cascade Mountains wildflowers--that might also effect our emotional well-being. (Wait is he advocating change after talking about how changes are evidence of our "poor" choices?---another sign of ego--doublespeak.) Unfortunately, Gilbert says, we can't simply train ourselves to peer into the future with greater clarity. (Knowing what to expect is "good." Ego=Unsupported suppositions.) Start with the assumptions that your reactions are a lot like other people's, Gilbert says. If you want to know whether to take a job at a new company, pay attention to the people around you when you are there for an interview (look outside yourself for answers--aha, the real message.) Do they seem engaged an interested? That should count for a lot.


In one paragraph so many distractions, so many messages to look outward. Who woulda thought? And at the end of it all, if the editors really wanted to send a message about happiness the article could have been retitled "Want What Is" instead of "Know What to Want" and then the rest of the nonsense wouldn't have needed to be written.

I AM--the movie, not the truth

Last night i saw the film, "I AM," another in a recent spate of movies claiming a spiritual message. The movie starts out by asking two questions, "What is wrong with our world?" and "What can we do about it?" Right off the bat this movie has committed two grave errors. The first presumption is that there is indeed something wrong with our world. This is based on the idea that humans are somehow in charge and that we are doing something wrong. I don't deny that not providing health care, food or shelter for the needy in our communities certainly seems twisted in light of multimillion dollar bonuses for CEOs of banks, car companies, insurance companies and the like, but far to often something that seemed "wrong" or "bad" to my little ego mind turned out to be the catalyst for the next step. Observe how the years of oppression in the Middle East have coalesced into sweeping changes for countries like Egypt, Tunisia, potentially Libya and Bahrain.

The second mistake is again assuming that the answer is outside ourselves. "If you want to change the world, change yourself." J. Krishnamurti. It is easy to get distracted by the needs of others and the sense of "doing good." In fact the rest of the movie was dedicated to the two-fold message: we are all connected (yeah, duh, bravo) and doing something for others is good, it is what we are made to do ((insert several authorities and scientific experiments that "prove" this hypothesis) boo, hiss, ego.)

This is not to assert that helping others is bad. It is simply to say that until your own house is cleaned up you probably will just make a mess if you try to clean up someone else's. Once you have cleaned up your house, actions that are kind, considerate and respectful become normal. Hateful, intolerant, exclusive actions don't feel good to someone who is awake. The vibrations are just distasteful. As my teacher once said, "Why would i eat poo, when i can eat honey?"