Sailor Bob Adamson
THE EGO IS A FICTION
Our problems arise from the idea of a separate entity, a me that we learn at about the
age of about two or two-and-a-half years old. What can you do with the word, me or
I? You can’t do much with it. So what we do is add events, experiences and
conditioning – the things that have happened to us. The energy of belief goes into that
and it seemingly concrete-ises. It seems to become real. And that’s what we call the
self-centre or the ego. It becomes the reference point that I believe myself to be.
Something comes up and I like it. How would I know I liked it? Well if something’s
happened previously and I'm relating it to a past image, I say, “This is good.”
Then what happens when the good things tend to move away after a while, and I don’t
want them to go? When I really like them, what do I do? I try to resist them from
going, and what is resistance? Resistance is conflict, and conflict is dis-ease. If you're
in conflict, you're uneasy – not at ease. That’s disease. If something comes up and I
don’t like it, I’m referring to this me of memory again, and if I don’t like it, what do I
do? I try to push it away and get rid of it. Again, there is resistance, conflict and disease.
In nature, the pairs of opposites are constantly functioning and there couldn’t be any
dualism without that constant functioning of the opposites. These opposites are not in
conflict with one another. There is nothing taking a stance against the other. If it is
spring now, soon it will be summer. Spring’s not saying, “I wish it were summer.” It
moves on naturally, without any conflict. The incoming tide doesn’t fight the
outgoing tide. A storm will come through and blow things apart. After a while it
dissipates and nature gradually renews itself. The pairs of opposites are constantly
there, but there is no conflict.
With us, the pairs of opposites are constantly in conflict because we're constantly
relating or referring to this mental image of the way we think or believe things should
be; not leaving things as they are, but wanting them to be the way we think they
should be. So, all our problems are really problems of relationship - not just the malefemale
relationship. Problems are problems of relationship – relative to, and it’s
always relative to this self-image we've got. When you see it’s a fictitious image
based on past events and past experience, you see the trap we put ourselves in.
And you'll hear that in the great traditions, too. They’ll tell you the same thing.
It’s selfishness, selfâ€�centredness and selfâ€�will that is the problem. They say you
have to sublimate this ego and destroy it. You have to do all sorts of things with it
and in that struggle to do that, what happens? What are you doing it with? It’s
the ego fighting against the ego. Have a look at it closely and you’ll see that the
ego is a fiction. It never existed. It never could.
It can be pointed out quite simply right now. Everybody is seeing right now. You’re
seeing quite effortlessly. The seeing is going on. Everybody is also hearing right now.
The seeing is happening, the hearing is happening. Ask yourself, “Is my eye telling
me I see?” Well my eye is not saying, “Look at this, Bob, or look at that.” The seeing
is happening through the eye, but it’s translated by the thought, I see; I see this, I see
that.
The hearing is happening through the ear. The ear is not telling me, I hear. Again it’s
translated by the thought, I hear. So the eye is not telling me I see and the ear is not
telling me I hear, but the thought comes up and translates it. Now ask yourself this:
Can the thought, I see actually see? Look closely and you'll realise that the thought is
not seeing. Can the thought, I hear, actually do the hearing? All the thought is doing
is translating. This ego is thought up and has no power to see, to hear or to be aware.
The thought, I choose can’t choose. The thought, I'm aware is not your awareness.
So this fictitious ego is an idea to which we have been in bondage for all these
years. The belief that it is an entity that can choose, has self�will, self�awareness,
is having a bad trot, etc. is just a thought. In seeing it’s a fiction, what’s going to
happen then? Isn’t the natural livingness going to carry on the way it’s been
carrying on any way. It’s breathing you, it’s beating your heart, it’s growing your
hair and fingernails, digesting your food, replacing cells, causing the thinking,
feelings, emotions and everything to happen quite effortlessly.
If all of the functioning is not being related to a me, then what’s the problem? Is good
or bad a problem unless it’s related to an entity that thinks it should be some other
way? It doesn’t mean to say problems won’t come up. They’ll come up, sure, because
as in nature, the pairs of opposites are constantly functioning, but when they are
coming up, they are seen for what they are. With un-fixated awareness, they move on.
When we're fixating on something, clinging to something, attaching to something, it
keeps it there. There’s a resistance going on and it’s not free to move.
That’s why we say that all our problems come from the belief in a separate
entity. See that it was never real and you realise things have just happened that
way.
Questioner: The ego seems to be an extraordinary construction – a notion, a kind of
bundle of ideas?
Bob: It’s uncreated. It’s all so-called mind stuff. And all ‘mind’ is, is thought. The
Buddhists call it all minds. They’re not discriminating between mind and awareness.
It’s all mind in their point of view – all consciousness. That natural innate knowingness
is there – it’s not born, doesn’t have any beginning, doesn’t have any end. It’s
not bound by time and it can’t be grasped from any point because there’s no point, no
centre and no circumference to it. It just is.
Questioner: You link thoughts, feelings and emotion together and say they are the
same thing?
Bob: And what’s emotion about? Isn’t it about the image being affected by the
thought? If thought hangs around long enough it becomes feeling. Then if feeling
hangs around, it becomes emotion. It moves from subtle thought into feeling then
emotion. It’s one and the same thing really – it stirs up this body pattern which is just
another form of energy. To a certain extent, you need the thoughts, feelings and
emotions to function. But when we’re bound into them so that we believe it, then it
becomes self destructive. That’s all time - mind is the past, mind is time. Mind is all
these things. It’s all mind stuff. ……
Questioner: What you seem to say is that when you understand that the construction,
the reference point, identity, ego – call it what you like – is not real, then a dissolution
happens and you fall into the seeing.
Bob: It’s un-fixated awareness, where it’s not fixating on the no-thing or anything
else. It’s just free in the immediacy of the moment to go whichever way it goes. And
if it latches onto something, that’s not fixated on either. If it goes back in the other
direction, it’s not fixated on either.
Questioner: If you were to summarise the core of what you are on about, how would
you express that?
Bob: I suppose you could call it wakefulness … just like daylight. Space-like
awareness-like space. It’s seemingly light now, but is space light? It isn’t. Is space
dark? The light comes, the light recedes and darkness comes. Clouds come and
clouds go, and they’re appearing in that light. In the dark night you don’t see the
clouds.
Questioner: So you say that reference points come and reference points go.
Bob: Everything comes and everything goes. Choices are made - no choice maker.
No reference point holder. The preferences may come up - no preference holder.
These labels could all come up, you know. So it’s all there and it’s really always free
to move in whatever direction it likes.
Questioner: So it dissipates because it’s seen for what it is?
Bob: Yes, it’s recognised again for what it is. It’s the thinking or conceptualizing that
is the only problem we've ever had. But it needn’t be a problem if it’s understood.
And that’s what the ancients point out. There is nothing either good or bad, but the
thinking makes it so…. and nothing can trouble you except your own imagination.
Questioner: There seems to be an expectation that stopping the thinking would halt
the pain?
Bob: Nothing wrong with thinking. But if it is divided into a thinker and a thought,
then it’s problematic. There’s nothing wrong with experiencing. When it’s divided into an
experience – this experience and that experience, it becomes a problem. It’s the mental
division that causes the problem. There is nothing wrong with seeing. In the seer and the
seen, the division is only conceptual. It’s just made up of concepts, thoughts and ideas. I
see this, that and the other, whatever you're seeing – is a label you've got for what you're
seeing. And so it’s a thought always in conflict with a thought … and there’s resistance to
it all. If it’s understood that the two are both ends of the same stick, then it really doesn’t
matter.
Following from different author. http://justperception.net
Just Perception
One of the difficulties that comes about in attempting to convey truth is the oft discussed nature of language, and the inherent qualities therein which work to splinter and slice. Perhaps the most obvious and long observed tenets of this situation is the very use of pronouns – which I am not going to revisit here, except to say that reverting to “I” statements, or even a third-person stance, is simply the way it appears language must unfold, even in attempts to get across the ineffable. This is being brought up simply because it appears that, even with such disclaimers, room is still left wide open for the inevitable trap of latching onto any sense of ownership.
For example, the way truth is most often put in these writings is through the application of the term ‘perception’. Just perception. If this term is placed into sentences attempting to illuminate truth with only slight modifications, the snares of dualistic language become obvious. If the statement given is “I perceive”, then there is an “owner” conveying that ownership (which is faulty), and that “owner” is implied in the basic subjective stance. In other words, there is an “I” that is privy to the perception. This is false. There is no “I” – be it a relative “I” or even an absolute “I” to “take in” this perception. Both are fiction. If the term perception in another case is being used as the supposed ‘object beholden unto the subject’ – i.e., the field of perception, as in “I perceive”, this is still not truth. The “I”, it has already been determined, does not exist. So through linguistics there is now a shifting of the burden of ownership right onto perception, as well as to supposedly “what arise within” perception. Or even more cunningly, this stance allows for the claiming of ownership and identity to be merged with the very supposed “ground”, “space”, or “field” into which it is “felt and believed” by the “I” that perception “occurs”. This is a total misidentification. One which can be so subtly introduced and harbored that its eradication is essential, and can not be stressed enough. There is to be no ownership at all. Even the tenses of the word ‘perception’ work toward perpetuating this ownership: ”perceiving” – an implied “I” in the act, taken by the action, actively “doing” what needs to be “done”; ”perceived” – an implied “I” which in “the past” was in the act, was taken by the action, was actively “doing” what needed to be “done”, etc.
In mystical literature this is heightened by descriptions of the nature of union, or the unitive state – these words in themselves implying the sense of “two” having been fused together. A union which, of course, some writings then report later meld into what is typically referred to as nondualty, or oneness. Yet even here, before either is “experienced” (and perhaps even arising as thought or misunderstanding afterward) it may appear from reading such texts that there are still “I”s in union; I-i, or I-I, or what have you. Or perhaps even in the case of nonduality, a oneness between an absolute “I” and all form. Misidentity, misownership, and misrepresentation – mostly the fault of the language mechanism – can therefore still occur. In both cases, the result is that, potentially, an identity might even be “projected” onto the absolute – which is totally transcendent of any such labeling, identification, or “I”-ness whatsoever. What enlightenment reveals is perception. Just perception. Not any perceiver hither or yonder, not even any object of perception. Just perception. The dissolving (and not by anyone – there is no “one” to “do” the dissolving) of all attempts, or modes, or habitual and conditioned moves toward ownership of any kind, in any form, brings clarity to truth.