In the previous post, I noted that whenever we feel pain, whenever we suffer, it is a cry for help from our soul, our heart. Our soul yearns for peace, love, happiness.
If our soul yearns for something seemingly so simple and straightforward, why is it that our ego-mind takes us in such diametrically opposed directions that bring us nothing but suffering? (As a reminder, I always refer to “ego-mind” rather than “mind” to differentiate it from our unborn Buddha mind.)
The reason is that our ego-mind cannot comprehend the heart. It cannot comprehend faith, trust, love. Instead, the ego-mind’s world revolves around fear, envy, and mistrust.
That statement should not really surprise knowing that the ego is formed by our learned experience. And that experience, from infancy through our formative years and beyond, are a succession of experiences that are often negative and create our deep sense of insecurity … hence fear, envy, and mistrust. Of course we have positive experiences as well, hopefully, but the overwhelming experience given the world we live in, including our families, is usually a negative one.
So why then don’t we follow out heart rather than our ego-mind? As explained in many posts, because our ego-mind is so strong and aggressive, because it’s all we’ve known and related to our entire lives until we started walking the path, it overwhelms the soft quiet voice we may be hearing from our heart.
And so the ego-mind distorts the soul’s yearning. When the soul yearns for peace or happiness, the ego-mind thinks that the only way to achieve that is to obtain things or to become someone we are not. And when we experience something that triggers the emotions or judgment of the ego-mind, and our soul cries out for help, instead of responding through our heart we fall into that hole and are pulled into its vortex.
Unless we are sufficiently aware to sense what is happening as it happens, stop, and reject the guidance of the ego-mind and then seek guidance instead from our heart. (See my post, “Test the Wisdom of What You’re Doing or Thinking of Doing.”)
If our soul yearns for something seemingly so simple and straightforward, why is it that our ego-mind takes us in such diametrically opposed directions that bring us nothing but suffering? (As a reminder, I always refer to “ego-mind” rather than “mind” to differentiate it from our unborn Buddha mind.)
The reason is that our ego-mind cannot comprehend the heart. It cannot comprehend faith, trust, love. Instead, the ego-mind’s world revolves around fear, envy, and mistrust.
That statement should not really surprise knowing that the ego is formed by our learned experience. And that experience, from infancy through our formative years and beyond, are a succession of experiences that are often negative and create our deep sense of insecurity … hence fear, envy, and mistrust. Of course we have positive experiences as well, hopefully, but the overwhelming experience given the world we live in, including our families, is usually a negative one.
So why then don’t we follow out heart rather than our ego-mind? As explained in many posts, because our ego-mind is so strong and aggressive, because it’s all we’ve known and related to our entire lives until we started walking the path, it overwhelms the soft quiet voice we may be hearing from our heart.
And so the ego-mind distorts the soul’s yearning. When the soul yearns for peace or happiness, the ego-mind thinks that the only way to achieve that is to obtain things or to become someone we are not. And when we experience something that triggers the emotions or judgment of the ego-mind, and our soul cries out for help, instead of responding through our heart we fall into that hole and are pulled into its vortex.
Unless we are sufficiently aware to sense what is happening as it happens, stop, and reject the guidance of the ego-mind and then seek guidance instead from our heart. (See my post, “Test the Wisdom of What You’re Doing or Thinking of Doing.”)
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