Your ego is a wall to protect you from reality. It's a wall created by the concepts and rules you have created. It's a wall you hope will protect you from the real world. Unfortunately, it doesn't work very well.
It backfires on itself tremendously.
I think one of the reasons this happens is because our collective belief systems are so weird that they don't make
sense. And so, in order to fit in, we shove ourselves into hole where we don't question the things we've been told.
My teacher, Osho, once said, "I can tell you that you are beautiful over and over and over again and you will never listen. I can tell you you're ugly once, and that will hold forever."
He was talking generally, but we do that to ourselves all the time. That's an example of how we build up our defense systems. It's scary to think about dropping
these defenses.
We have whole armies of therapists who are supposed to be helping us do that. What they really do is teach us how manage our defense systems better.
Until you realize that you don't need the defense system, you're not going to be willing to get rid of it.
This is why spiritual teachers talk around and around and around in circles. We can't talk directly to your defense systems, because it's a defense system. You will
immediately throw up questions and ideas and all sorts of things to defend what you feel is a very tender thing inside, to defend a part of yourself that you think is incapable of living without rules.
So right there is the secret.
We've been told that we're incapable, but we're not. Stop for a second right now and feel your brilliance. You're a curious person.
You're curious.
You are not weak and
defenseless.
You're strong and dynamic. We were all literally born to be warriors. Right?
Our ancient, ancient ancestors lived together fairly harmoniously. But everything wasn't perfect bliss and comfort. They had to be strong. They had to fight when necessary, and they had to search every day for food. But they had each other.
Ultimately that's why it feels so scary. You think you are in this thing alone.
In many ways that's true.
We live in a society where we're not held up by the people around us.
But... we are held up by reality itself, by the earth itself. We live in a time of such amazing abundance that we can afford to be asleep. We can walk around most the time in a daze and still survive.
The opposite is also true. In all this luxury we can certainly afford to be awake.
Right here, right now, this thing we've built up to protect us is doing us a
disservice. It's not protecting us at all. It's causing pain and confusion.
That pain is caused by the confusion of who you are. The more you try to Insulate yourself from the problem, the bigger the problem gets.
It's a defense system that you don't need. You're strong.
Feel your strength. You're clear. Right this minute, feel how clear you are.
Where is the place right now where there's no fear happening? That's pure strength.
That's clarity. That's where wisdom grows.
Dropping this defense system makes everything better.
Actually, I said that wrong. As you see your defense system as fake it falls off by itself. You will no longer have the ability to cling to it. Why would you cling to something that's fake?
Off it goes. You built it up. All you have to do is stop building it all the time, and it's gone.
You don't need to defend yourself
against yourself.
