Ego and Enlightenment

Good morning.

This morning, I want to talk about ego and enlightenment. I want to at least try.

Ego is that which is the root of all of our problems, but we don't know this. This connection between ego and our problems is not visible to us. Ego is that feeling that I am the doer... I am doing this... and the judgments. I'm doing this good. I'm doing this badly.

And ego is this feeling of responsibility that I must solve these problems. If I don't do it, it will never get better.

Ego is this feeling of being the doer.

And in reality, this feeling is the root of all problems.

That's why "I" cannot solve the problems. "I" am causing them. With this "I", I mean, this feeling of I, this feeling of being the doer. Whatever happens out of this attitude is creating problems, whether we want it or not.

Enlightenment is the recognition: "Oh, there is nobody. There is nothing, nothing that I am. This 'I' doesn't exist."

And whatever happens out of this, out of this nothingness, out of this peace and void... whatever happens out of this does not create any problems, it only creates good, but we don't know who is doing it. We don't know how it is happening. It's like it is happening through us... you do the work, but there's not the feeling of ""I involved: "I am doing, I am doing this because I want that."

No. That's not the feeling. "I must do this to solve that problem or to reach this goal or to gain this benefit..." Then, things happen out of a totally different motivation. Often, we don't even know why we do things. It's just that it's obvious that this wants to happen through us now, so we do them. And later we realize: "Wow, amazing what happens out of this."

And to live without ego requires to let go of that what establishes this feeling of "I": to let go of my thoughts, my wishes, and instead, to give my attention to that what I truly am, this nobody-ness, so to speak, this what I can feel inside, this quiet, this quiet peace.

We cause all of the problems we have in our life, and we cause all of the suffering we experience in our lives, by this ego identity, by this "I" we feel inside of us. And as I said in the beginning: we don't see this connection.

And then, we start working on the problems to solve them. We are striving to get rid of the suffering, to do things which make us not suffer but which help us to be happy. But the very root of the problems, the very root of the suffering is this feeling of "I", this feeling of being the doer, and we cannot get rid of this feeling of this false identity directly. You cannot say: "Okay, thank you for this information. So, from now on, I am nobody." This doesn't work.

It happens through experience. It happens through letting go of those things which are the base of ego, and I want to describe this practically. You know, I during the last few days, I got this feeling that it's like enlightenment or Heaven or God is like gravity: it pulls us. Heaven is pulling us towards it. God's lap is pulling us into it, and the only reason that we don't just fall into peace and fall into Heaven is that we hold on. We don't allow ourselves to fall. It's like Heaven is waiting below us. God's arms are waiting below us.

All we have to do is allow ourselves to fall, but we can't. We hold on to something with all of our power. And what we are holding on to is this feeling of "I am important. I need to do this. I need to reach there. I need to avoid this. I need to make sure that this happens. I need to make sure that this does not happen. I need to solve this problem..." It's like: "I can't just let go. I'm needed here. If I don't take care of all these things, everything will get worse." That's the feeling. "I can't let go. I cannot let myself fall. I am too important."

So, all we want is to arrive. All we want is to discover our true nature. All we want is to rest in God, to reach to Heaven.

We believe we want this.

But we don't want to let go. We can't. We have never learned it. The only thing we ever learned is holding on. We have this feeling of being the doer in our life. We have the feeling: "I am doing life", and we belief that this is important. If I stop doing, something terrible will happen in my life. And we don't know that this feeling of being the doer, this what we call ego, that this is the root cause of all of our problems in our lives, in the world, and of all of our suffering.

We can learn this let go. We can learn this letting us fall, but this learning has to happen authentically, out of your own experience. It is not enough to hear it. That's why the meditation is so helpful. I frequently talk about the Samarpan Meditation, which, by the way, in India, they start calling it now the Himalaya Meditation, and I really like this this new name.

In this meditation... it's totally simple, and all we do is rest with our attention here at this spot at the top of our head. The Indians call this the crown chakra. And it's amazing... this simple exercise of resting with the attention at that spot, at the crown chakra, requires let go. I don't know why, but it is like this: when I want to rest here with my attention, I have to let go of my thoughts.

When I think, I can't be here. It's like I'm one1 or two stories lower. And then, when I want to come with my attention, with my inner awareness, all the way up to the crown, during that process, somehow, I have to let go of the thoughts, and they feel important and wise. And then I practice letting them go.

And it's like we practice this meditation for half an hour every day, and it's like during this half an hour of the day, we reserve this time for meditation so there's nothing else to do, no other responsibilities to fulfill, nothing to think, nothing to plan, so it gives us a safe space to practice this unknown act of letting go.

And there, in this practice, then you can experience... You go with your attention to the crown chakra, and then you feel your thoughts and all these urgent things which are to be done during the day, and all the problems you have to solve. All this comes to your attention as soon as you don't do anything and just sit there. And then, during the meditation, you have the opportunity and the space to ignore all this for just this half an hour.

And then you can practice this: letting this go, and just let yourself fall. And then, you fall into your soul. You fall into your crown chakra. You fall into God's arms, into Heaven. And sometimes, for brief moments, you experience a new kind of peace, a new kind of space, a space where there are no problems, no worries, no pain, no suffering.

And during these 30 minutes of your daily meditation, you begin to experience what happens when you dare to let yourself fall.

And then, slowly slowly, this will spread into your everyday life, into your day. Normally, your whole day is one long chain of things which are important, which need to be done. You are important. You are required everywhere. But then, once you have a little bit of practice being nobody in the meditation, then you will start experiencing moments during your day where you spontaneously do this as well. And then you begin to have experiences what happens in your practical, everyday life when you do this.

And then you notice how... it's like your eyes open. You begin to see how life really functions.

And you begin to experience in your everyday life how your problems dissolve when you do things out of this let go. Ordinarily, we think: "Well, if I don't act, if I don't take care of everything, if I stop taking all these things important and serious, nothing will happen."

We believe, when we don't take our wishes and our goals and our responsibilities and all this so important, when I stop believing that I am important, I will just sit around in a corner doing nothing all day long, and I will be a burden for the world and for the family and for everybody else.

But the opposite is true. It's just the opposite, but we have to discover this for ourselves, each and every one of us. You have to discover this for yourself.

And then you begin to experience: whenever you dare to let go, whenever you dare to let yourself fall, and just float with the energy of the moment, so to speak, how all of your problems magically disappear. And not only do you not sit around in a corner being a burden for everybody else, no: it's like once you let go, it's like the river can flow. More things happen, better things, and you don't even know how this is possible. You don't even know who is doing them. You don't know where all this energy comes from, and all this wisdom controlling it.

But you have to discover this for yourself.

Just the last few days, I spent time at the Place of Meditation near Frankfurt here in Germany, and I was spending the weekend with a group of other people who are very close to the meditation too, very close to their own soul, who live that what we practice in meditation. They're very close to my Guru, Swamiji, who brings the Samarpan Meditation, the Himalaya Meditation, into society.

And spending time with these people made it even easier for me to be in this let go, to be in this falling, to rest in Heaven and in my soul. And what I experienced then is days of amazing activity, efficiency. So many things happen as if by themselves, without effort, without stress, without creating problems, it it's just amazing.

So, the root cause of all of your problems and the root cause of all of your suffering is that you think: "I am important, I am needed, I should know. I should do. I shouldn't do this or that. I must be this way. I must do that..." These feelings poison everything we do. And we don't know how it happens. We think we do something good. We are not bad people. We think we do something good. All of our instincts say: this is the right way.

But the saints, the wise men, the wise people, the wise women, they always told us the opposite. They say: "Let go, and everything will happen by itself."

Jesus said: "Put God first." When he says this, he means: give up the responsibility. You say: "Your will be done, God, or life", if you don't like the word God... "I'm not important. I let go." Jesus says: "Put God first, and everything will follow." And what he means is: when you let go of this ego, when you let go of all the things the ego is made up of, the feeling of responsibility, the feeling of importance, the feeling of being good or being bad, then everything happens by itself. Everything follows out of this let go, and this is my experience.

It's like learning a new habit.

We are totally convinced that knowing what I should do, having goals, having wishes and dreams and visions is important.

It's like we have the habit of holding on to this "I", to this ego, and we cannot imagine that not holding on to this could be something good. And then, we learn a new habit. We learn the habit of letting go. This habit we do practice in meditation. This is what we learn during Samarpan Meditation.

And as this new habit gets more natural, as we have our first little experience, first during meditation and then in practical life, in everyday life... as this new habit starts to become stronger, the old habit of holding on gets weaker and disappears, and with this, our entire life changes. All the problems disappear, and all the suffering disappears. It's a totally different way of living. And then, it's like we not only fall into Heaven, we just live in Heaven. We live an enlightened life.

And I just said: it's like a new habit. And in each moment of our life, we have to decide again: "Okay. Do I want to hold on, or do I want to let go, let myself fall, surrender?"

It's not a one-time decision, it needs to become a habit, a way of living, a way of being.

And it is possible to live a life which is full of amazing activities without having the feeling of being the doer, and then you are free. There's no burden, no fear, no stress, no effort.

Things just happen. You have no idea how it's possible.

And it's my experience. The more I worry about things, the more I think: "Oh, this is important", and the more I think I know what needs to happen and what should happen, what I should do, the more I am in my own way, It's like I waist so much energy with this, and I am so slow. And the more I let go, the more "I" disappear, the more happens. It's not only that the problems get solved.

It's not only that the suffering disappears. It's like... then life really starts. You become successful. You become happy. You become rich. I mean, not only rich in money, but rich in in experience. And life gets alive, and it's like a river flowing, very alive with speed and energy, without having any stress, without having any exhaustion, without any effort.

This is the possibility. And this all happens out of this new habit of letting go, resting in yourself all the time, in the beginning, first, in meditation, and then more and more in every moment of life. It's like meditation becomes a way of living.

And, normally, we cannot imagine this. What's helpful to learn this are two things. The one is the meditation, because this is our practice ground. There, we experience in ourselves in this safe space, in this safe time of meditation. There, we experience what it can do, for moments, again and again. And what's also very helpful is to spend time with people who do the same.

I just mentioned that I spent the weekend in the company of people who live in the same spirit, who are very connected to meditation, to the same Guru in this case, but this is not the important thing... who also let go as well as they can in every moment and to flow with life. And when you spend time with this kind of people, then naturally, automatically, it becomes easier for you. It becomes normal.

It's like it is just happening for you effortlessly. And when you spend time with people who do not know anything about letting go, who do not know anything about meditation, then the way those people think and feel becomes normal and effortless for you. Then you forget about letting go. You forget about meditation, and holding on, feeling important, feeling urgency becomes normal and natural.

So, the company you are in influences the way you feel and you behave. Whether you want it or not, it is happening. And that's why it's helpful to choose the company you want when you have the choice. Often during the day, you don't have a choice. You go to work, and there, the people are the way they are. But often, you have the choice. And whenever you have the choice, you can choose what you want to support the new habit or the old habit.

Sometimes I catch myself spending some time flipping through Facebook, for instance, and there I read all kinds of interesting things, but, ultimately, this leads me away from myself. Ultimately, it leads me into the old energy.

When I instead open a book from an enlightened person, reading a few lines, I'm just pulled into this let-go. I'm just pulled into this silence, and then, this habit of letting go is being reinforced. So, it's my decision in each and every moment of my day.

So, it's not a one-time decision: "Do I want ego, or do I want enlightenment?" It's something... it's like driving a car on the road. In each moment, I have to watch that I'm going into the direction I want to drive. If I get unattentive, the car will go off the road to the right or to the left. And in each moment of the drive, I have to look where am I going. And that's how it is for us with our consciousness too.

And it's easy. You can just, in each and every moment, notice: "Ah, do I let go right now, or do I hold on? Is my ego growing right now, or is my enlightenment growing right now?"

And this is all very practical for me. Sometimes I get letters from people who are in a difficult situation. Just now, a woman wrote to me again. She is in a situation which is very difficult for her, and she has no idea what she should do. She has no place to live, so she lives at her parents', and it's very difficult for her. And it's very difficult for the parents, and they let her feel that it's difficult for them, that they don't like her to be there, but she doesn't know what to do.

And in such a situation, it's very easy to feel: "I have a problem. I must find a flat", but you don't know how. "I must find a job", but you don't know how.

"I must get my life under control", but you don't know how, and you feel pressure. And all you want is arrive in God's lap. All you want is arrive at your place in life where you don't have any problems and where everything feels natural and right.

And I said earlier: all of your problems and all of your suffering come out of yourself. They come out of this feeling of "I", out of this feeling of "I am the doer in this life, I must do it". And in the situation you are in right now, you experience: "I'm powerless. I can't do it."

And then, in such a situation, to let go inside, to let yourself fall, and to trust: "Okay, here I am. Here I stay, in myself", and to not believe all the thoughts, to not believe all the feelings.

And then you just do the simple, practical things.

When you stop doing, when you stop being busy with getting your life in order, when you stop solving big problems, then you can just start doing the little, obvious things. Then you are free. Then you have time. You let go, and then you're jobless, so to speak, inside. And then you just look: "Okay. What can I do? What is practical right now?" Maybe what's practical is to look for a job. Maybe what's practical is doing the dishes, cleaning the house.

Maybe what's practical is making the life of those people who you are a burden to right now... to make their life easier by doing the shopping, by cleaning the house, whatever. I don't know. You will find out. When you let go inside, then you're free, then you have time, then you have energy, and then you can let this happen what wants to happen naturally, out of the situation where you are in right now... little things, easy things, natural things.

Accept your situation. Love yourself. Love the people around you.

Don't be a burden to others. Don't be a burden to yourself. Let go and meditate. And out of this, you do things, and you don't even understand why.

Often, it's like this that we get the feeling: "Oh, I should do this. I should do that." All the important things. You know?

"I should develop my life vision. I should know where my life wants to go. I should know where I want to live", all these things. But this is all ego.

And then you just let go. Just be enlightened for a moment, okay? Just be enlightened for a moment and let go, and then you open your eyes and you do the obvious: "Oh, it's dirty here. I should clean. Oh, I'm hungry. I should eat. Oh, the fridge is empty. I should take care of that. Oh, it's dinner time. Let's cook for everybody." And out of these seemingly unimportant things, out of these things where the ego has no investment in, the ego can't feel good about it... all these mundane, simple, easy, everyday things... out of them grow amazing things.

Just be enlightened for a moment, and then you open your eyes, there's nobody who needs something, nobody wants something, but things happen, and then you watch your life develop. That's how I live. It's a good way to live.

It's like I live in Heaven, and you can do too.

Thank you for being here.

I love you.