Category: Blog

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Honesty

Heart-mind joined as the loving twins,
Both married to the truth of the self from within,
Both reaching for the innocence from where they begin.
Each ventures out on their lonely path,
Both longing to return to their forgotten hearth.
Mind without heart is knowledge thus;
Heart without mind is simply lust.
When both hand in hand
On their journey go,
Mind learns to love,
And heart learns to know.
Now in their haven,
Their shelter, their home,
Past time mistakes each other forgoes.
These two long lost lovers
Reunited at last,
Each loves the other
For the Truth that they are.

AH

Often when we feel wronged by other people, we can treat them in way that is cruel and not compassionate. We deride them for bad behaviour, punish them for doing “the wrong thing” forgetting we too are not faultless and make mistakes.

Vedanta teaches us the ultimate aim is remove all separateness from all things, to see the “other” as your own, to dissolve your sense of I into to the oneness that is.

On the path, we come up against stumbling blocks to this realisation. We fight against those things by which we feel wronged, by people who  have misguided or hurt us.

Dishonesty is one of those challenges. Though honesty may be the painful choice, its wisdom ultimately liberates the teller and the told. Truth is powerful, it’s potent with the energy of change.

Truth in any form can only be given to those who have the stability and steadiness of mind to process and handle the truth in most effective manner. Those who are wise to the truth must be careful also to not throw back this charged knowledge in haste. The holder of any truth is always armed not only with liberation but the potential for destruction, so we must be wise with whom we entrust our truths.

And trust is the key component of delivering truth, trust is the hand we hold in our most vulnerable times. The one we choose to trust hovers over us like a parent. We need them to love us unconditionally, without reprimand, without judgement.

Love is the precursor to trust, and trust the precursor to honesty, therefore all honesty is given out of love.

We must avoid the temptation of being dishonest for our own gain, whether in business, relationships or anything else, because by giving someone else the privilege of truth we are in fact showing them respect, love and compassion.

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What Is The Ego?

The ego, as defined by a simple google search is “a person’s sense of self-esteem or self-importance.”
Many philosophies talk about ridding the self of ego, but to lose one’s self worth- or self esteem is not the actual intention behind that quest for removing the ego.
If we fixate ourselves on having no self-esteem or self-importance, we are still clinging to the fact that we have no self-esteem or self-importance, and that clinging is the ego.
To have or to not have is not the ultimate goal of liberating oneself of the ego, or of any other mind-matter. It is to exist with of an awareness of the ego, but not to be part of it. The Self can observe the fluctuations in ego, it can watch, as if tides of the sea coming and going. 
It can be aware, yet not take part. 
The ego is responsible for the sense of “i-ness” the thoughts that make us think we are good, bad, strong, weak, ugly, beautiful, talented, useless.
It is also responsible for a sense of guilt, that we have done something wrong. The reality of these feelings are that they exist as something we have learned, when as children we are scolded for certain behaviour, or praised for another. 

In later life if we are scolded for doing something “wrong” we are merely recoiling at the possiblity of getting hurt, either physically or emotionally.

Guilt should not be our moral compass, it just indicates what we learned to be good or bad throughout life.
We are perhaps just as damaged to go in the opposite direction, to feel a sense of vindication or guiltlessness. Again, our ego boosts us far above the reality of the situation, that we are the heroes, when in truth we are merely the observer.

So ego is neither good nor bad, it just is. We can better spend our time allowing the observation of things, and watch as the changes pass over us, and not allow them to become us.

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