Let the Chapterhouse say Aum Aun one time!!!

Fred, I soooo resonate with your sentiments. I used to rush home and hang on my wall of Ego, every, Diploma, Certificate, License, Award, Celebrity Photo, I received. I eventually wound up with 3 walls in my den covered with frames and plaques. I had 2 display cases for trophies. I belonged to the most erudite and infandous of Procrustean Captatiocracies, soley for the fastuous tetricity inveighed by membership within. My Ego was swollen but my Spirit was fustigated by the mephitic procacity of it.

I also felt that any concept that was not already within the tenure of my mentation was unimportant and irrelevant. I believed that my nativistic superiority in all matters cerebal, provided me with a guarantee that my outcomes would always be congruent with my Ego's projections. It sure is funny how the Universe will slap that silly shit out of you. I was given a wonderful scholarship to the Universe's Survival School. In it I learned that those who cannot separate themselves from their misconceved notions, will drown when immersed in reality. LOL Of course this is a good thing since those of us who have learned this lesson; get to enjoy all of their goodies when they wash up on shore. He he he.

I sure don't see either of us as victims giving "white folks all the power!!" Of course that is a verrryy facile judgement to make, when one lacks the insight and context of having been sorely tried by life and survived. We are of course both at the age of tolerance, which we have achieved through agonies and grieving. Nothing else will ever teach it to you. That is why so many people like G.W. Bush lack it and will never have it. Their lives have been shielded and sheltered from any pain or regret.

As I approach 60 I get more and more insight into the human condition and the subset of that condition which we as Diasporic Africans have experienced. I have learned some thing about the Ego that I wish to share. Of course some people who are fully vested in their egos will fail to learn from these aphorism, and will instead see this as an attack on their perceptions. Such unfortunately is the condition of Youth. It is a wonderful thing, though that Youth is a self-correcting condition.

Please reflect upon these:

Lao Tzu has said in the Hua Hu Ching:

Section 9: "He who desires the admiration of the world will do well to amass a great fortune and then give it away. The world will respond with admiration in proportion to the size of his treasure. Of course, this is meaningless. Stop striving after admiration. Place your esteem on the Tao. Live in accord with it, share with others the teachings that lead to it, and you will be immersed in the blessings that flow from it."

And also in Section 10: " The ego is a monkey catapulting through the jungle: Totally fascinated by the realm of the senses, it swings from one desire to the next, one conflict to the next, one self-centered idea to the next. If you threaten it, it actually fears for its life. Let this monkey go. Let the senses go. Let desires go. Let conflicts go. Let ideas go. Let the fiction of life and death go. Just remain in the center, watching. And then forget that you are there."

Hazrat Inayat Khan (the Father of Sufiism) said, "There is one Truth the true knowledge of our being, within and without, which is the essence of Wisdom." He also said, "There is one Path; the effacement of the limited self in the Unlimited, which raises the mortal to immortality, in which resides all Perfection."

Finally Lao Tzu (among other Ascended Masters) gives the curative for Ego, " Can you dissolve your ego? Can you abandon the idea of self and other? Can you relinquish the notions of male and female, short and long, life and death? Can you let go of all these dualities and embrace the Tao without skepticism or panic? If so, you can reach the heart of the Integral Oneness. Along the way, avoid thinking of the Oneness as unusual, exalted, sublime, transcendental. Because it is the Oneness, it is beyond all that. It is simply the direct, essential, and complete truth." He also gives a formula for living with other beings, which will enlighten any who pursue it, "To the ordinary being, others often require tolerance. To the mature being, there is no such thing as tolerance, because there is no such thing as other. She has given up all ideas of individuality and extended her goodwill without prejudice in every direction. Never hating, never resisting, never contesting, she is simply always learning and being. Loving, hating, having expectations: all these are attachments. Attachment prevents the growth of one's true being. Therefore the integral being is attached to nothing and can relate to everyone with an unstructured attitude. Because of this, her very existence benefits all things. You see, that which has form is equal to that which is without form, and that which is alive is equal to that which rests. This is the subtle truth, not a religious invention, but only those who are already mature will understand this. "