So, your ego is torturing you with visions of the future and whipping you with memories from the past (all distorted, naturally). It is monstrous, and, at last, you see it for what it is. You turn away, deciding to practise the presence of God, turning your attention to your connection with Him and to how best to perform His work well in your immediate life, totally dedicated to abandoning self, once and for all. And, immediately, God starts coming through on His side of the deal. Marvellous.
Then you hear a little voice. Sounds like a baby crying. Then you realise it's yours. It's your ego. It has morphed from an ogre, a ghoul, a wraith, into a helpless infant. This is its latest attempt to win you back: fear that, if you do not pay constant attention to your life, your needs, your wants, how people treat you, what people think of you, what you are becoming, disaster will befall you. Or, rather, it. And it will be YOUR fault.
But leave it to die on the hillside. This is just the ego's last-ditch illusion and attempt to hold onto you. Withstand the crying as it becomes fainter, but do not tend to it, do not nurture it, do not feed it, do not rock it gently to sleep, even merely to pacify it, because it will merely grow stronger.
Go against your natural instincts and abandon it once and for all.
"If I am for me, who am I? If I am not for me, who is? If not now, when?"
Then you hear a little voice. Sounds like a baby crying. Then you realise it's yours. It's your ego. It has morphed from an ogre, a ghoul, a wraith, into a helpless infant. This is its latest attempt to win you back: fear that, if you do not pay constant attention to your life, your needs, your wants, how people treat you, what people think of you, what you are becoming, disaster will befall you. Or, rather, it. And it will be YOUR fault.
But leave it to die on the hillside. This is just the ego's last-ditch illusion and attempt to hold onto you. Withstand the crying as it becomes fainter, but do not tend to it, do not nurture it, do not feed it, do not rock it gently to sleep, even merely to pacify it, because it will merely grow stronger.
Go against your natural instincts and abandon it once and for all.
"If I am for me, who am I? If I am not for me, who is? If not now, when?"