“One thing we do know: Life will give you whatever experience is most helpful for the evolution of your consciousness. How do you know this is the experience you need? Because this is the experience you are having at this moment.” ~ Eckhart Tolle
Happy Sunday!
There is a committee that I have been on for the last year.  It seems from my review of the upcoming meeting agenda that I have not been re-appointed for this year. I knew that this was possible leading up to the New Year so I am mostly OK with it.
BUT … there is a part of me that is bothered and keeps pulling my thoughts back to the situation. My ego is making problems where there are none.
My ego mind keeps pulling my thoughts into questions to understand what they thought of me. Did they not care for my alternate perspectives? Did I not fit into their cliques? Maybe I just didn’t come off as friendly.
None of this really matters. I wouldn’t change anything as I handled myself authentically. I know the ramblings of my mind are just my ego formulating a problem and trying to solve it.
Joel’s message this morning was for me.  He spoke about letting go of and leaving behind grievances.  He spoke about how we feel insulted.  Yes! That is the word for what my ego is feeling.  I realize that only an ego can feel insulted – your true Self cannot feel that way.
There are hurts that others can cause us such a betrayal and physical trauma; mindfulness and forgiveness are the tools you need to go deep to release internal hurt. But an insult is just on the surface. It pokes into the role of the character we have created, the personality we present to others. Accepting something as an insult is a choice, and a very easy one to avoid taking on.
I want to understand why ego works so hard to protect the personality?
Are they the same thing?
Michael Singer, in his Youtube video on mindfulness, explained that the mind is a tool, like a computer, that stores all of our experiences and just problem solves every past, present, and future situation for the purpose of making us feel OK.  Are mind and ego the same?
Personality, mind, and ego, what are they?
I accept Micky’s explanation of the mind as a database of experiences with the addition of a constantly running program called ‘see problem – find solution’.
To me personality seems to be the persona we build based on our preferences, things we like and dislike. Some of these preferences seem to be innate coming from the talents and desires that make us (our soul) happy.  And, other preferences are formed from the experiences of our past – what we will let happen again and what we will not.

So what is ego?
Micky said we are all just trying to be OK. Through our childhood and youth we took on a series of beliefs that we thought would protect us.
Is ego the solution of the mind’s computer program that has run amuck?
Let’s think through this idea … as children we are not yet socialized.  We feel free to express our true selves but our peers or grown-ups berate us for not fitting in with social norms.  Our mind processes the experience and comes up with a solution so the hurt doesn’t happen again.  We form solutions that become beliefs: if I become aloof, if I become aggressive, if I become accommodating, if I become arrogant, then I will be protected from others attacking me.
As I more and more identify with my spiritual Self the purpose of the ego program becomes unnecessary.  I am OK.  My eternal Self resides in a place of well-being.
Earlier today I chose to look at my time on the committee from another perspective. What if it was here for a season just to teach me something. I did learn a lot on this committee about subject matters that are new for me.  What if the Universe is just setting me up for something new, that the things I learned this past year will be of service to!
Joel said this morning to let God be the vindicator. I took that advice from him back in September and ‘oh-boy’ did Jesus come through for me!  It’s time for me to drop it, leave it, and move on.
There was another thing Joel said that really felt good to me.  He said we should all have a file in our minds labeled ‘don’t need to understand’. I love that – it is so freeing!
I don’t have to understand everything (even though I desire to). One thing that makes the spiritual journey AWESOME, in my experience, is that God gives you the understanding of things when you least expect it.
I love those A-HA moments!
All is well.
I feel good.
Namaste’
“There is a poem by the great Persian poet Iraqi in which he tells, ‘When I went to the gate of the divine Beloved and knocked at the door, a voice came and said – Who art thou?’ When he had told, ‘I am so and so’, the answer came, ‘There is no place for anyone else in this abode. Go back to whence thou hast come’. He turned back and then, after a long time, after having gone through the process of the cross and of crucifixion, he again went there – with the spirit of selflessness. He knocked at the door; the word came, ‘Who art thou?’, and he said, ‘Thyself alone, for no one else exists save Thee’. And God said, ‘Enter into this abode for now it belongs to thee’. It is such selflessness, to the extent that the thought of self is not there, it is being dead to the self, which is the recognition of God.” ~ Bowl of Saki, 1-9-16, Hazrat Inayat Khan