2020: From Ego to Thy Self

Dear Reader,

No doubt, 2020 has been one of the most challenging years of the last decades for the whole globe.
Our global health has been jeopardised, the 'normality' of our lives has been interrupted, we experience restrictions in our freedoms of being, we see many people dying and many others becoming seriously ill, many people are losing their jobs or they are forced to make different work choices,  we can not hug and touch our loved ones and so on.

For some this epidemic is just something that happens every so often in humanity as we constantly live among viruses. For some others this is part of a global plan to manipulate the masses. For others, this is the consequence of humanity's arrogance who went to places that are proven threatening to its existence. 

Each one of us can give our personal explanation and meaning on the reasons why the pandemic happened and what impact its appearance and implications had on one's self.
My intention here to set a framework, a context, a spiritual perspective in what I perceive has happened this past year and continues to unfolds in front of our eyes.

Many people who are interested in the evolution of human spirit (including myself) have observed for some time now that humanity seems to be going into a new phase. Some people call it the 'era of Aquarius' with its own new characteristics.

I have extensively written in previous articles on how human spirit progressed from simple to more complex ways of being. 
For more than a century now humanity has gradually, but steadily, developed great mastery of anything material. We can change the climate of our homes, we created sophisticated tools and intelligent machines, we can even cure diseases that previously were death sentence. All these are proofs of our immense intelligence. Building on each other's knowledge and experience we continuously improve and develop our lives further and further. For this we deserve collectively to feel proud, happy and grateful.

We have grown beyond survival; we have become a creature of innovation, of constant growth and adaptation; we have become to some extent the masters of earth!
That is all so great, our father is very proud of us, but if we zoom out of this frame we will see that the frame is about anything material: our bodies, our houses, our environment.

What about our other levels of existence?
We also have thoughts, feelings and spiritual aspirations. 
When we see a mountain we can think: 'oh great, what a wonderful challenge to cut its trees and use them as paper or create a hole through it, so a road can pass through to shorten our journey to its other side'. We can also think: 'what a beautiful shape of earth, what a marvellous source of oxygen for our health, what a wise, full of life cohabitant!'

They are both thoughts who in turn provoke sentiments and feelings within us based on our values (spirit). 
In the first set of thoughts, the materialistic, our value is mainly... ourselves. How our lives are going to become better and easier, what are you going to gain from one thing or another, how useful is something or someone to us and so on.  You might start seeing now how egotistical and self centred such approach can be.
The 'all about me' mindset not only focuses on the personal gains of an interaction, but it barely sees 'the other' as a separate , autonomous, self defined being. In the twists of this mindset we can find the seed of hurtful actions against another being. 'If the other person does not exist separate from me, then I can do whatever I want to him without feeling any pain or guilt' a criminal might subconsciously think.
When the other becomes 'less than' us, then we can do to her whatever we want, can use her, let her die, give her less resources to live a happy and fulfilling life because she might be a threat to us and our special culture.

The second trail of thoughts (with subsequent feelings attached to them) is based on the value of beauty, respect, wholeness, equality, unity and peace.  The subject who thinks those thoughts somehow comprehends that lives with and due to the existence of everything else around him. A plant, an insect, an animal, another person even a virus, are all creations of divine nature and deserve to live and be respected the same as everything else. There is no arrogance in nature. Carnivore animals kill other animals to eat and survive, not to make clothes and accessories.

I do not assign any moral judgments to the above. Morality, after all, is another human construct that takes the form and shape that we give to it.
My personal morality these days instructs me to accept whatever happens within and around me as a purposeful event driven by values and to live by my own values and truth.


Ego and Thy Self

For those of you who know me (either in person or through my writings), you know that I  am nowadays not a person of separation but of unity. Is one thing to believe only in one side of the coin and another to make the effort to understand both sides and then decide the one that feels right and true to you right now. 

I do have a strong sense and feeling for what is happening and I only want to communicate this with you. What are you going to do with this information is completely your personal matter.

I feel we are evolving like we have done so many times in the past centuries. For those who believe in past lives, you most probably have experienced another shift in consciousness sometime in the past; of course, not the same one as every time we truly integrate a lesson we move to the next one. 
In every evolutionary (and change) process there is a pull from behind, from the known and safe state that we used to be and a push to the new, unknown, scary and exciting at the same time that 'calls' us forward. It is like as we were growing physically up and our clothes do not fit us anymore. We can pretend that we can still wear our favourite jumper and yet the reality is that it is too small for us now and we have to let it go...

Something similar happens with the collective and our personal egos now. It was/is part of our evolutionary journey to go through out material phase, where all material goods, including the food we eat, adopted the majority of the meaning of our lives. They became our happiness and misery, our joy and sadness, our excitement and depression, our hope and desperation, our memories and void, our identity.

Of course, they failed us, or better, our plan (the extended use of them) failed.
It is one thing to do a job that we enjoy doing and we feel it contributes to the benefit of the society we live in and it is another thing to live in order to work and accumulate wealth which we do not have time to enjoy and, in the end, we are going to leave behind when we leave this world.
It is one thing to enjoy the rejuvenating and refreshing effect of the sea on our holiday and another to use and through our plastics into the sea being indifferent on their effect on her.

No matter how many times and sizes we are going to buy the same jumper in, there will be a moment for us to admit that yes, it gives us joy to have it, and ultimately our joy is something different, bigger and wider. 
I am sorry, but I can not name that for you...
You have to search deep in your heart to find it. You have to really sit in silence and ask your true self: 'what really gives me joy?', 'what excites me and makes my heart move?', 'is there something that I can offer to the world?'.

The ego will always try to give an answer that will fill this void, this is its job, to not leave logical gaps to our understanding of the world, otherwise the world is madness. Ego functions through identification with thoughts, feelings, values: 'I am, therefore...'. etc.

What if there is a bigger truth of us, a truth that knows when we eat because we are hungry and/or because we are sad, when we buy something because we need it and/or because we are missing a hug, when we say something that we mean to say and/or we say it because it is the 'right' thing to say, when we do something because we really want to and/or because 'that is who we are'.

For me it is clear that we are entering a new era which calls for integration and balance. 
We are moving into a 'wireless', 'paperless' and remote working period, lets be mindful that it will not become emotionless, lifeless and isolating period.

Life is a process of becoming who we truly are, who we are already with our flaws, our gifts and our values...

Happy New Year, happy new you!

With love,
​Panos