Chapter 16 Phantom of Ego
Look at yourself… I have never found a greater obstacle than you. You are blocking your own path, and unless you understand this, your inner self cannot grow. If someone blocks your way, you can eliminate them or run away. But the obstacle is yourself—you cannot remove yourself, you cannot escape; you are with you, like a shadow. You must deeply understand how obstacles arise. Is it because your ego has built a solid cage, preventing you from flying into the open sky of love and prayer? How does the shell of ego arise? If you know, you will understand how to remove it.
The dog is dying of thirst, but it cannot overcome its fear. You cannot cast aside fear and choose the unknown. Fear seems more important than thirst. Many of you have reached that point of meditation, and you must jump into that river, but fear arises. You are thirsty, but you cannot overcome the fear. Meditation is like death; you will only jump in recklessly if you are unbearably thirsty. The Master must make you thirstier and more aware of your thirst—this is the only way. When thirst burns in your heart, you will also cast aside fear and jump in. It is said that the Buddha once said, "You say you cannot teach the truth, but you can be taught how to be aware of your thirst. It has always been there; you are just suppressing it." Because of fear, you suppress thirst. You constantly suppress it, a deep dissatisfaction, a divine dissatisfaction.
"...It wanted to drink water by the water's edge, but every time it saw its own reflection, it became frightened and retreated, thinking it was another dog." "Finally, because of its need..."
Remember these words: You cannot jump into the unknown unless you truly need it.
"It overcame its fear, jumped into the water, and the reflection immediately disappeared..."
When you jump into the river, it ceases to be a mirror; the reflection disappears. Hebrew, watching the dog by the water's edge, saw his own fear and hesitation. The dog's obstacle was itself; there was no other dog blocking its way. It was itself the obstacle between water and thirst, the barrier between satisfaction and dissatisfaction, the obstacle between its search and its goal. The obstacle wasn't someone else, but its own reflection. You are the seed, you are the flower; no one creates the obstacles to your blooming. Don't blame others, stop comforting yourself, stop feeling sorry for yourself. Look deeply, and you will find your reflection everywhere.
The self is born from reflection. You see your reflection in the eyes and descriptions of others, constantly accumulating these reflections because you don't know who you are; you must seek validation. A child is born not knowing what he/she is. He/she must know who he/she is, otherwise he/she cannot live in the world. Only when he/she begins to feel who he/she is can he/she truly enter this world.
Therefore, you don't remember many childhood events. You might remember things from when you were three or four years old, but you have no impression of anything before that. In fact, the first two or three years after a child is born are the most vulnerable time for imprinting, but why do they have no memories? Because their sense of self is not yet mature, they don't have the core of memories to carry, they haven't yet recognized who they are, and they don't yet have a sense of identity.
He sees himself in his mother's smiling eyes, and he accumulates those impressions: "I must be beautiful, lovely, and valuable. My mother becomes so happy when she's near me, and she loves to kiss me so much." His father plays with him in his hands, and the child observes; his parents are his mirrors, as are the neighbors who come to visit him, and he constantly fills his mind with images of himself.
Therefore, a child raised without a mother will lose their self-identity. They don't love themselves because no one gives them the most basic impression of love. They are always frightened and lack confidence because their mother didn't give them confidence—that they are loved, that they have value, and that they make people happy. External things are their mirrors.
Of course, he quickly distinguishes between the impressions that fill him. He likes those who love him and dislikes those who hate him. Negative impressions of himself are relegated to the bottom of his rational mind, into his unconscious. For example, if someone hits him, someone says he's ugly, or a teacher says he's stupid, the distinction begins.
When you differentiate things in your mind, you place the impressions of beauty in your consciousness and the ugly and disliked in your unconscious. This is the source of mental splitting. If you go to the extreme, you will be split into two personalities.
When you're angry, your repressed personality emerges and takes over. An angry person's eyes, face, and behavior change. Suddenly, they are no longer the same person; it's as if someone has taken over their body, and they will do things they never expected. People can kill in anger, but they don't understand why this is happening. Many murderers plead in court that they didn't kill anyone; they weren't lying because at that moment they didn't realize that something had taken over their reason.
When a person falls in love, their eyes will change; their eyes will shine, their expression will be so gentle, and they will feel lightheaded. In the depths of their heart, the dawn will illuminate the darkness, and birds will sing and flowers will bloom.
People are completely different in love and in anger. These are two separate personalities, two extremes. When in love, you identify with what you love; when angry, your repressed unconscious emerges.
Human beings all possess these two poles. Unless this division disappears, you will not become whole, and you will not know who you are. Your consciousness and unconsciousness are equally false, because they are merely reflections gathered from others. You have not yet truly met yourself, but only through others; some mirrors make you look beautiful, some make you look ugly, some make you look sacred, and some make you look like a beast.
This is my observation: no matter how well you identify with yourself, deep down you remain confused—because the part of you that feels condemned is still there, causing you confusion and making you easily swayed. If someone were to actually ask you, "Who are you?" you wouldn't have an answer; you wouldn't know.
St. Austin said, "When no one asks me what time is, I know what time is; but if someone asks me what time is, I don't know." The same is true of the self; when no one asks, you know it; when someone asks, it disappears.
Therefore, asking "Who are you?" is impolite. You can only determine who you are superficially; you only collect reflections. How can you be sure who you are? And these reflections are often contradictory and chaotic. You are in chaos, and your self is just a little trick hidden in that chaos, a blank word. Your inner self is insane.
No one can truly know themselves in a mirror. A mirror only shows its reaction to you. When a mother smiles, she's not speaking to you; she's speaking to herself, finding joy in motherhood. Even if a mother gives birth to an unattractive child, she will still smile. Every mother imagines her ordinary child will grow up to be Alexander the Great or Napoleon. When a child smiles, the mother is also gathering her own image. When a child smiles, she believes the child is trying to make her smile.
Everyone is in the same boat, all the same. A child's laughter isn't speaking to his mother; he laughs at her because she is the source of food and love, and a smile is a form of diplomacy to obtain love and nourishment. A child is a politician; he knows when to laugh, he knows how to reward and punish. If he's unhappy with his mother, he won't laugh or look at her. She will come to coax him.
Children are simply expressing themselves, and so are mothers. When you look in a mirror, the mirror is simply reflecting itself. If your face looks beautiful in the mirror, it just means the mirror did a good job; it's just reacting!
Everyone around you is just a mirror. They're not talking about you; they're talking about their own reactions. How can they judge you? You don't even understand yourself, how can they? They don't even understand themselves, how can they understand you?
The self is the accumulation of impressions, a shadow, a reflection. Living with the self is like living in hell. If you don't get rid of the self, the gates of heaven will always be closed.