Cracked Pot Meditations – Ego Reduction

Meditation for January 9th

Ego Reduction

For most of the life of religion and spiritual practices, the aim has been to reduce the human ego so that one may be humbled in the face of the gods. To meet God, you have to be nothing.

Christians have used self-flagellation to punish themselves for even daring to think about sin or themselves. (I would like to have sexual intercourse with that person). Christians even fully believed in the torture and ego banishing of others who dared to worship the wrong god or the right god wrong -see the Spanish Inquisition.

The Shi’a Muslims march around while hitting themselves to commemorate the sacrifice and martyrdom of Hussein. Other sects of Islam believe in martyring themselves for their religion as a whole, and one would need to banish all ego to achieve that kind of sacrifice. Muslims weren’t the only ones to sacrifice themselves; Christians and Jews have also used martyrdom as a method of proving their faith in their higher power.

The entire teaching of Buddhism is the banishment of the ego. One must get rid of identity, personality, and ego to achieve enlightenment. We must take everything away until we are the hole in the donut of attaining spiritual nirvana. Some take it to the point that only physical death can rid a man of his ego.

Hinduism also has cases where humiliation and self-harm are used to try to reduce the ego. Fasting, walking backwards for miles, and cutting off one’s own nose are all methods used. Life is pain, so things that can give us comfort are in the way of the gods and us.

Other religions use complex rituals, lifestyle sacrifices, and adherence to religious law to keep the ego in check.

Even in the 20th century, people have tried to find ways to rid themselves of themselves by adapting ancient rites and hallucinogens, as well as modern psychological techniques.

Now, this need to rid oneself of the ego is disappearing. Modern Christianity has become a prosperity church where god supposedly wants to bless those who worship him with wealth and power. They went from the ego-bashing desert fathers to the money lenders that Jesus despised.

Social media is a platform that is all me, me, me, me, me, me, me, and here are some pictures of me. Getting a like on one of your posts stirs up dopamine, the same brain chemical that comes up in alcohol consumption, cocaine, gambling, and sex. Ego is getting us high.

Most of the messages we receive as children are that we are special and unique. We are having our egos inflated. We need to be told ‘good job’ at work, even when we are doing our job. We want A-grade comments for a C-grade performance.

When people reach out for ancient religions, they are finding ways to make themselves more unique and therefore keep more ego. No one is willing to undergo the ego-deflating sacrifices that most of these old practices require. Yoga has just become an exercise practice, and the ‘spiritual’ feeling is just endorphins.

The ego is everything that has made Culture bland and mediocre. Capitalism is making them narrow themselves, requiring a lot of ego, so that the system can sell to you. We have swung from using religion to rid ourselves of ego to embracing ego as self-esteem.

We have created ego-stroking, even if that stroking is negative, so that all people do is love or hate a thing. Ego can grow from negativity, too. Our ego can make us feel worthless due to low self-esteem. “I’m not much, but I’m all I think about”.

If you want truth, freedom, and peace, give up everything you have, including your identity, and fool yourself silly for a god. To be spiritual, you have to be nothing.

Prayer

This will not be a prayer. Some say God is dead. Some say he died to create the universe, and others know that he never got up from his rest. In the darkness of the most painful experiences on earth, man has raised their hands to the heavens and pleaded for a sign, pleaded for salvation from the pain and destruction we put on each other, and the sky remained deaf to our screams.

There is no god with a purpose. God isn’t choosing someone to find a twenty-dollar bill and then cutting down another person’s child with a disease because a lesson needs to be taught, a purpose to be created.

And why are you so scared of a godless universe? Why do you plead for a deeper meaning than what already exists for us? Why do you need comfort from the cold, dead arms of a deceased deity?

Nietzsche supposedly said God is dead, but no one knows what he meant, since he wrote all his work in German, a long-dead language.

Craft

How do we unburden ourselves from what blocks us from the sunlight of the Spirit?

1. Don’t know anything.
2. Don’t even think about the outcome. The outcome is death, and the journey there is life.
3. Stop talking and thinking, do.
4. Humble yourself. You are nothing. You are not special. You are small & insignificant.
5. Choose purpose over passion. Religion & Spirituality is about purpose, not giving in to passion.
6. Stop thinking your life is a narrative. You aren’t in a story.
7. Do the next right thing, no matter how small.
8. Know your purpose and say no to anything that isn’t that.
9. Become anonymous. Don’t take credit for anything.
10. Walk around in nature. Civilization is sin.
11. Fill your dead time with knowledge gathering.
12. Get out of your head. Help others. Sacrifice yourself for others.
13. Don’t try to control anything.
14. Put the community ahead of yourself.
15. You can stop anytime you want. You don’t have to keep digging yourself into a deeper hole of selfishness.
16. Remember the temptations of Christ? Don’t be tempted by those either. If you forget it’s turning stone into bread, and if I know my bible, which I do, it is a hat tip to the Moses shit. But also, remember, spirituality isn’t comfort. It’s also the temptation of the pinnacle of the temple, and here it is just about having dominion over the angels, and if you want the translation of what that means now, it means stop playing god. The third temptation is the mountain, where one could have dominion over all of man and their petty kingdoms, but we don’t want power if we want a relationship with god.
17. You are entitled to nothing. If you are, cast it away, for it will be in the way of you and god.
18. Love, even if it hurts.
19. Only pursue being a master of the craft god granted to you as a gift.
20. Only keep a scorecard on yourself. Always try to beat your score.
21. Stop letting FearFear you. Some say hate is from the devil, but it is actually fear. Fear everything is going to be okay, and it’s probably already okay.
22. While you strive to be a master of your craft, remain teachable.
23. It’s none of your business what other people think of you.
24. Stop worrying about looking good. Again, you are small and insignificant.

Goal

Smash your ego. Cast aside pride. Do away with self-pity and low self-esteem. Be nothing, and you will see everything.