I have already referred to the
"I", ego, or consciousness. Have you ever looked into a mirror and
wondered what is this person looking back at you? It is in early childhood that
awareness begins to articulate itself into consciousness as the ego, but after
however many years you like, the ego is still not able to answer that
questioning in front of a mirror. It answers any question in terms of labels,
as if names contained meaning. It thinks in terms of ownership as if naming
something gives you power over it. It operates in terms of control and
ownership; it fears and envies that which it doesn't "own." Do you
see from where come the less attractive aspects of human society? The truth is
the ego cannot own the awareness which you truly are, it would destroy it if it
could, and since it can't it suppresses it.
What we know of ego comes from Psychology. Psychology believes in 'norms' and abnormal psychology is seen as bad, indeed, 'Abnormal Psychology' and 'Psychopathology' are interchangeable terms. 'Pathology' is defined as anything the ego sees as different and so psychologists become the great conformists, ironic really, since the greatest psychologists have all been eccentric to say the least.
Throughout history religious practice has aimed at taming the ego, curbing its will to a greater purpose. The evidence is, this has only rarely succeeded. In modern times we have been left with the absurdity of the rational mind relying entirely on the ego to uncover what the ego itself suppresses. That immense progress has been made in uncovering the material World shows the bargain the ego makes to keep spirit supressed. That any progress has been made with Spirit shows ego's weakness, that its iron rule can, at least, be reduced.
Ego may not be the only reason for forgetfulness. We come into the World as babies with our minds wiped clean. We have to struggle to learn the most rudimentary things; you can see the frustration of it written all over many a baby's face. But imagine how it would be if we came back to life with the knowledge, skills, personality, the ego we had before.
The whole point of death is that the preceding life has come to an end; it would be absurd if that life were simply to be continued in a new body. There are rare, perhaps accidental, exceptions; and there is the Dalai Lama. For most people forgetfulness is life long, maybe we should ask what it is which has been forgotten.
The answer to that may be the skills and experiences learned by the now dead ego, not whatever may have been learned by the spirit’s true self.
The reason for the preceding comments on ego is to highlight the following: ego is a construct, not our true selves, it has some not very nice attributes – and in light of these we can imagine that any personality, past or present, is in the nature of an experiment by the true self. By playing this role or that role, led by the ego, the true self can see what works, what it likes, and what is not so good. It may be an idea to give this true self a name, let’s call it soul.
The soul may wish a ‘pure’ experiment, a life in which the ego never learns about the past (or its own nature) – as my wife hinted on the main page. I am certain that will not be the case for anyone reading these words, if it were true of you, you simply would not be reading them. There may be many more lives where the ego will become ‘stuck’ without assistance, or needs some specific memory, or just that half hidden memory causes distress –these are cases for the hypnotherapist. It may be humanity now just needs greater memory to cope with the rate of change that is now called for.
If our past lives were full of joy and success, for one thing they wouldn't have taught us much, and for another we might much more easily gain access to them - their memory would hold no fears for us. The truth is past lives, like present lives, can have a fair load of pain and suffering and error. Other people's errors may cause us pain, but our own errors cause us guilt and it is the guilt, more than anything else, we have to deal with and dispel. It could be we do not want to look at past lives because of pain and guilt, but they will not go away simply by being ignored. If we really want to get rid of this hidden burden then we have to find it and come to terms with it.
For most of my life I suffered a pain in my side, it seemed to have no cause and did not greatly inconvenience my life, I ignored it. In learning the story of Edward I came across the cause of it; I can say it was the cause because when I went through the memory of Edward receiving a sword wound to his side the pain went away and has never come back.
What we know of ego comes from Psychology. Psychology believes in 'norms' and abnormal psychology is seen as bad, indeed, 'Abnormal Psychology' and 'Psychopathology' are interchangeable terms. 'Pathology' is defined as anything the ego sees as different and so psychologists become the great conformists, ironic really, since the greatest psychologists have all been eccentric to say the least.
Throughout history religious practice has aimed at taming the ego, curbing its will to a greater purpose. The evidence is, this has only rarely succeeded. In modern times we have been left with the absurdity of the rational mind relying entirely on the ego to uncover what the ego itself suppresses. That immense progress has been made in uncovering the material World shows the bargain the ego makes to keep spirit supressed. That any progress has been made with Spirit shows ego's weakness, that its iron rule can, at least, be reduced.
Ego may not be the only reason for forgetfulness. We come into the World as babies with our minds wiped clean. We have to struggle to learn the most rudimentary things; you can see the frustration of it written all over many a baby's face. But imagine how it would be if we came back to life with the knowledge, skills, personality, the ego we had before.
The whole point of death is that the preceding life has come to an end; it would be absurd if that life were simply to be continued in a new body. There are rare, perhaps accidental, exceptions; and there is the Dalai Lama. For most people forgetfulness is life long, maybe we should ask what it is which has been forgotten.
The answer to that may be the skills and experiences learned by the now dead ego, not whatever may have been learned by the spirit’s true self.
The reason for the preceding comments on ego is to highlight the following: ego is a construct, not our true selves, it has some not very nice attributes – and in light of these we can imagine that any personality, past or present, is in the nature of an experiment by the true self. By playing this role or that role, led by the ego, the true self can see what works, what it likes, and what is not so good. It may be an idea to give this true self a name, let’s call it soul.
The soul may wish a ‘pure’ experiment, a life in which the ego never learns about the past (or its own nature) – as my wife hinted on the main page. I am certain that will not be the case for anyone reading these words, if it were true of you, you simply would not be reading them. There may be many more lives where the ego will become ‘stuck’ without assistance, or needs some specific memory, or just that half hidden memory causes distress –these are cases for the hypnotherapist. It may be humanity now just needs greater memory to cope with the rate of change that is now called for.
If our past lives were full of joy and success, for one thing they wouldn't have taught us much, and for another we might much more easily gain access to them - their memory would hold no fears for us. The truth is past lives, like present lives, can have a fair load of pain and suffering and error. Other people's errors may cause us pain, but our own errors cause us guilt and it is the guilt, more than anything else, we have to deal with and dispel. It could be we do not want to look at past lives because of pain and guilt, but they will not go away simply by being ignored. If we really want to get rid of this hidden burden then we have to find it and come to terms with it.
For most of my life I suffered a pain in my side, it seemed to have no cause and did not greatly inconvenience my life, I ignored it. In learning the story of Edward I came across the cause of it; I can say it was the cause because when I went through the memory of Edward receiving a sword wound to his side the pain went away and has never come back.