Consciousness, awareness, & the ego
Consciousness as a Three-layered Cake
The journey from asleep to awake, from unconscious to conscious, can be described using a metaphor of a three-layered cake:
First Layer: “Surface consciousness”, or ordinary waking reality.
Second Layer: “The subconscious/unconscious”, or intermediate realms of consciousness between the Surface & the Source. There is confusion in this layer.
Third Layer: “The Source”, or the core of consciousness (God, Nature, Nature of Nature, Brahma, Tao, True Self, the No Self). To have direct contact, we have to go there.
When embarking on a spiritual path, in those intermediate realms of consciousness (the second layer), one may experience various unusual, difficult, or distracting phenomena. For example, some people talk about encountering spirit beings/entities, or the impression that they have psychic powers. Some talk about out of body or near death experiences. Some feel as though they have the ability to heal others, or know what is going to happen. Can we really do these things in the objective world? I have no idea. But the impression can be extremely vivid and strong, and therefore it is significant.
My point is, while traveling from ordinary life, towards the “Source”, some people have uncomfortable experiences (see Shadow Work below), and others have visionary/entertaining/empowering experiences. Sometimes it’s a mixture of both. But there is a risk of getting caught up in the distractions, and staying in this second layer for a very long time, saying “This is so cool. I want to learn all about this” and start exploring the interesting world of special phenomena like kundalini energy, psychic powers, wizardry etc., etc. You cold call an extreme of this distraction something like ‘New Age Spiritual Materialism’. You think you’re making progress, because the vocabulary is spiritual, and the experiences are mystical, but you may actually just be swimming around in the second layer of consciousness, and not really touching the source. Some people get ‘addicted’ to the interesting, even blissful, experiences, and seek them out over and over, not going any deeper towards the True Self.
Sigmund Freud, psychoanalyst, spoke of the unconscious as a dark cellar, where all the ghosts, demons, cobwebs and snakes are hiding -- the repressed pain of unresolved past experiences & conflicts. This stuff can be an impediment, preventing surface ordinary awareness from touching the Source of consciousness.
Swiss Psychiatrist, Carl Jung, viewed the each of us has having a psyche, made of the persona (the image of ourselves we present to the world), and the shadow (hidden anxieties, repressed thoughts). In addition to a personal unconscious, Jung also described a collective unconscious -- a set of memories, ideas and shared concepts known as archetypes, that emerge as common themes/characters/myths through the ages. He felt that disconnection between the conscious persona and the personal subconscious would create inner conflict, resulting in anxiety/distress, and that these could be resolved by shadow work -- allowing repressed ideas to emerge into the conscious realm and accommodating them, rather than denying them or destroying them.
From these perspectives, the path (Shadow Work, as Jung called it) is a cleaning out of the intervening material, so that surface and Source come together.
First, you ‘shine’ the light of awareness to this layer (i.e. take a slice of cake and look at it from another perspective to see that this layer exists).
Then you pour the water of equanimity into these areas where the blockages are, and things get clarified and even dissolved. The surface gets closer and closer to the Source, and eventually they touch (your first moment of enlightenment). From that time on, you’re always aware of the existence of the spiritual source of all things.
Awareness of Awareness
Awareness is the power that is concealed within the present moment.
“Even a stone, and more easily a flower or a bird, could show you the way back to God, to the Source, to yourself. When you look at it or hold it & let it be without imposing a word of mental label on it, a sense of awe, of wonder, arises within you. Its essence silently communicates itself to you and reflects your own essence back to you.” ~Eckhart Tolle
The Ego: What is it? Is it Necessary? How much Ego do we need?
The ego is your self-image; your sense of self. It’s not your true self, it’s the self that is camouflaged by labels, judgements, evaluations, preconceived notion. It’s an identity we’ve created based on the good and bad opinions that have been layered upon us by the world. It’s not arrogance, although that could be a part of it. The ego wants to stand out, to be “special”, to be in control. The ego might crave power, attention -- with a hidden agenda of always feeling “not enough”. It’s identification with your thoughts, your narrative. It’s a sense of self that comes from our pre-programmed, conditioned, deeply ingrained beliefs. The underlying emotion governing the ego is fear. Fear of being nobody, fear of nonexistence, fear of death, fear of change, fear of not being in control. It’s the deeper I. It’s the You with a capital “Y”. It’s consciousness. We still have opinions and viewpoints, we just don’t get caught up in them, or easily offended You are consciousness. You are separate from your thoughts. You are what you love, not what loves you.
