Do you know who the greatest con artist in the world is? It is your ego, the thinker in your mind. Here I will try to expose the ego’s modus operandi to help you understand your mind. If you are a true scientist, please try to disprove in your mind what I write and see if I am wrong.
There is a saying, “One can lead a horse to water, but one cannot force it to drink”. It applies to every individual ego that exists in the world today. From my observations, I see no one wants to find the truth about themselves. Everyone is determined to live in a world of delusions. Whatever activities we are involved in are egocentric. Everyone prefers to look outside them, not inside them. If something goes wrong, it is never you but always them. These activities are designed to boost the ego and give no insight into the mind or self-knowledge. Instead of understanding the ego, we hide behind the scientific knowledge we have acquired over the centuries and strengthen our ego. The philosophies and beliefs we have today are just exercises in delusional thinking. We have built an escapist world. As a result, we are becoming increasingly out of touch with reality, and our mental health is deteriorating. Is our civilization today any different from the past ones in their thinking?
Here I will try to give you some insight into your mind and help you understand how the ego operates. It operates basically in three modes. The first one is the thinker and the thought mode. Here the ego (thinker) is doing all the thinking and controlling. It is the active mode in which most people live all the time.
The second mode is the observer, and the observed mode. Here the ego is in a passive mode where learning and understanding occur. In this mode, you are in the present and aware of your actions and what is happening. However, because the ego is pushed into the background as an observer, it quickly reverts to the first mode, thinking actively.
In between the above two modes is the third mode, the dream mode. I call it zombie mode. In this mode, thoughts, emotions, feelings and images randomly appear out of our subconscious mind. It is our auto mode where we do things automated without much thought. But once the ego verbalizes them, the dream mode switches to the first active mode. So you are back in command. The dream mode occurs anytime during waking or sleeping hours and alternates with the first two modes.
Most people cannot stop thinking, which results in mental health problems such as insomnia, anxiety, depression etc. Shouldn’t we ask why and know why?
Do you realize your ego is a product of self-hypnosis? It means that it can only appear in our conscious mind when we use words. Without words, the ego cannot appear in the conscious mind, as it would be stuck in the present. The only way the ego can make its presence felt is by verbalizing; hence words and thinking become the lifeline of the ego. Please observe that we are living in a sea of words. When we pray to God, we use words. When we sing, we sing with lyrics, which are words. Words make us happy or sad. Words make us laugh or cry. We cannot express our emotions or communicate our real feelings without words. Words help us dream and turn our dreams into reality. And without words, we cannot travel in time. Words have a direct effect on our subconscious mind. They hypnotize us. So you see how dependent the ego is on words and the thinking process for its appearance in the conscious mind? Hence thinking in our mind becomes a habit, an obsession. It is why one feels one cannot stop thinking.
There is another reason one does not want to stop thinking. There is fear that if one stops thinking, the ego might disappear from the conscious mind. That, of course, is a false fear. Because the ego is still there, it only switches to the second observer mode or the dream mode when not thinking actively. Yet another reason to keep thinking is the thought of death. The ego does not want to die, so death becomes an anathema. Hence, the ego uses the hypnotic power of words and the imaginative power of the mind to create a world of beliefs and philosophies that we see today. These beliefs and philosophies, of course, are just a projection of our desire to live forever, creating a world of delusion.
One can see now that the ego does not disappear when one stops thinking. It just switches modes. The mind is thus never empty or blank. As constant thinking becomes torture, to help calm the turbulent mind, the clever ego has devised various forms of meditation. In my mind, they are just a form of self-hypnosis; these techniques cannot possibly lead to enlightenment or insight into one’s thinking process. They can only promote delusion.
If a person wants mental peace and harmony, you will only find it in the second mode of the observer and the observed I mentioned above. In this mode only, you will find awareness of what is happening inside and outside you. As I have mentioned in my previous articles, we live in a timeless universe. There is a timeless dimension around you that coexists with the time dimension we know in the present. When you experience the phenomenon of the observer in mind and what is being observed becoming one, you will understand the meaning of meditation. Here, the mind is fully alert and aware of what is happening inside and outside. You are not in a trance. It is a spontaneous occurrence where you realize that you and the timeless dimension are one.
From the above observations, one can see that we live in a very superficial world, drowning in a sea of words and reacting to words all the time. The negative world around us, bombarding us with negative information, is making us sick as it distorts our perceptions and negatively influences our subconscious mind.
Although our mental health is deteriorating, no one seems interested in finding a solution as everyone is in the same boat. The medical profession, which is supposed to look after our mental health, has abandoned its responsibility and suffers from a perception disorder. Doctors are identifying themselves with other bureaucratic professionals who have limited thinking. How can they improve your mental health when they become part of the problem? How can one have compassion, empathy or humanity if one goes along with any bureaucratic system? A doctor used to be a friend, philosopher and a guru, but not any more. It is because compassion and humanity are incompatible with bureaucracy. The management or rather mismanagement of the Covid pandemic worldwide is a perfect example of bureaucracy in action. Indeed, in my mind, the medical profession has lost the plot. They have become medical technocrats and need to review their perceptions and role in society. They should not be involved in any coercive or mandatory policies of any government. One cannot be a friend and a bully at the same time. One does not need to be a prophet to predict more mental illness in society as we become more bureaucratic in our approach to everything. One can only blame the government and the legal profession for turning doctors and other professionals into bureaucratic thinkers.
I trust this article will give you new insight into your mind. In the meantime, my plea to every individual is not to take their ego seriously. Please gain some self-knowledge. If you feel negative, try not to verbalize your feelings and see what happens. When you do not verbalize, you do not disappear in mind but are forced into an observer mode. When you are aware, you are doing the same thing. If you find yourself saying negative words, replace them with positive words and see what happens. Do the same things with negative thoughts. Do not verbalize and see what happens. Become aware of your thoughts and feelings and the words you are using. Words activate our thoughts, feelings and emotions. Remember, our subconscious mind reacts to words, not the meaning of words. You can manipulate it by acquiring self-knowledge this way. Learn to understand your ego and how you operate in your mind by becoming self-aware.
