“Recipes for a happy life don’t work in the long run.”
We hear a lot of recipes for a happy life. The recipes vary according to the values we hold and the flavors of life we want to experience. Family, friends, work, success, altruism, faith, and so on are often mentioned. All recipes have one thing in common: the satisfaction of needs. However, needs evolve just like recipes, and not all ingredients for a chosen recipe are always attainable. Concrete satisfaction is a possibility. When we close one door, we open another and can fulfill a different desire. But satisfaction is not a possibility, but a life necessity; a naturalness that constantly reminds us of itself from within.
“A person who is unstable, full of desires and contradictions is a difficult client. They cannot be satisfied in the long run.”
Inside we are full of contradictions and conflicts, i.e. unstable feelings, a multitude of desires and imaginations, contradictory thoughts, inner voices that talk and compete. Such a complex and unstable person can feel satisfaction in the short term, but cannot achieve lasting satisfaction or fulfill their potential.
In order to be satisfied and fulfill our potential, we need to clear this space full of conflicts, destruction and discrimination and transform it into understanding, creative and unifying abilities. The only one who can do this is ourselves. Only we have access to all levels of our mind.
When we sufficiently understand who we are, we get rid of the negative content and programs of our mind and their harmful inclinations. We cease to conflict with ourselves and become more whole.
True knowledge transforms, changes a person, we begin to understand that programs are acquired. We see our self-concepts, thought patterns, resistances, harmful inclinations, and shadow sides as learned mechanisms of self-defense of our ego-mind.
We gain our understanding of the mechanisms through experience and direct experience, because only such knowledge is our own and leaves no doubt.
“The ego is afraid, and that is why its place is only where it is needed to ensure physical survival. It has no place anywhere else; it is harmful and brings suffering.”
The functional ego and its animal instincts allow us to survive physically. However, these survival mechanisms have unobservedly permeated our minds, where they have no business, and have begun to govern our lives through fear of survival, (self)tyranny, self-centeredness, lust, abuse, etc.
“The mind is the king that creates everything we experience.”
In addition, the mind is a tool of creation. Whatever we want to create must be born in our mind, and it does happen, even though we overlook it and do not fully understand the process. Sometimes we are surprised by the results, because besides the conscious activity of the mind we also have the subconscious one, and both cooperate on the result, and they do not always agree.
“We cannot perceive truth and illusion at the same time. Once we stop identifying with the illusion, the truth appears and vice versa.”
Once we recognize a particular program or programs, we stop identifying with them and the world of our own nature appears. We understand that we are neither the ego nor the egoistic programs of our mind.
Suddenly a space opens up where we can lead a dialogue with life that is full of understanding, intimacy and beauty. Until then, we can only react, i.e. fight, refuse, complain or swallow with displeasure what life has prepared for us. In fact, we ordered it ourselves, or rather our ego, without even realizing it.
“It is necessary to get rid of egoism and not the ego.”
It is foolish and senseless to remove or hate our ego and mind, which has become somewhat of a trend lately. The mind needs to be cleansed of egoism in order to return to its natural state, and the ego needs to be banished to where it belongs, primarily the function of preserving physical survival.
The ego ensures survival and without it we would not survive long in this world. I would like to say here that people who talk about removing the ego and hating their mind do not have enough insight and understanding of what they are talking about. It is the same as hating the ABS or the steering wheel in your car. Yes, I am neither ABS nor the steering wheel, but when needed, the ABS prevents the wheels from locking when braking, without me having to worry about it, and the steering wheel allows me to drive my car.
“The treasure we sleep on is the natural mind, which is naturally free of egoism.”
At the beginning of the journey of personal development there are unconscious animal instincts and an egoistic mind, and at the end of the journey there are known animal instincts, a known and functional ego, and a natural mind. The essential difference is that at the beginning we are at the mercy of instincts and ego, and at the end we are free from them, they stop hindering our growth and we can control and use our purified mind for our own benefit.
It is not the whole journey of knowledge, but it is the goal that personal transformation therapy can lead us to.
