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Embrace Your Ego, How the Ego Surrenders! Part 3

Leonard Jacobson is a modern master, who started out as an atheist attorney! His awakening began in 1984 and he seems to have a specialty of helping us get in “right relationship with the ego”, as he calls it.

In this video, Leonard shares his simple teaching of how judgement keeps the ego in control and how you can start the ego’s surrender by being in presence.

Transcript:

“When the ego starts to relax and realize it’s not the evil one: it is not going to be punished; it’s not going to be condemned, and it starts to feel the flowering of presence within you, and it starts to trust the flowering of presence within you and it will gradually begin to relax and allow you more and more fully into presence. Until one day, you’re fundamentally established in presence and the ego is your friend. Your ego is in service, within the world of time. It’s no longer trying to be enlightened, it realizes that’s not its role in your life. It no longer needs to protect you, it realizes that when you’re present, there’s nothing to protect against.

Everything relaxes, but the ego has to see through it’s own dilemma. And it’s going to be reluctant to do that. It won’t do that, it will not surrender. The ego will not surrender until it trusts the flowering of presence within you.

And it will test you. it will test you over and over again until you pass the test. And the test is: the test of judgement. If it can get you involved in the energy of judgement. If it can get you to identify with the energy of judgement of yourself, of others, or of life – any aspect of life, any event in life – you’re not the true master.

Deep, deep down at the deepest core of itself, the ego knows that the true master is without judgement. The ego knows that. Even though it’s forgotten that, it knows that. But deep down, it knows that. And it knows to test you. And for the most part, we all fail the test. We don’t realize that judgement is just an energy passing through us. Let it pass through you. Express it, just don’t believe in it. Allow it, don’t be “for it” or “against it”; it’s just an energy, let it pass through you. Own it, acknowledge it, confess it, but don’t believe in it.

The problem that the ego has in all of this, is that it can’t trust you until there is a certain level of presence awake in you. But it’s the ego preventing you from being present in the first place. So there has to be that sort of cooperation that I arranged with David’s ego that it would permit him to be present, to test the water.

You cannot defeat the ego. No one has ever defeated the ego. The only thing that can occur, is that the ego, with all the right conditions, will voluntarily, and with honor, surrender. With beautiful grace, it will surrender. It will surrender unto the true master arising from within. And the true master is you, in presence.

Who is the true master? I am.

Who is I am? I am.

Where do you go from there? Just silence, presence. I am that… I am.

The I am of you, the I am presence is filled with silence and all around it is endless silence and you are that, too. There’s no limit to you: pure consciousness, perfect presence.”

Find more of Leonard’s videos at LeonardJacobson.com.

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Embrace Your Ego: What is the Ego? Part 2

In our journey towards Awakening, it is helpful to understand what the ego is. There seem to be many conflicting explanations for what the ego is and what we are supposed to do with it! Such as: kill it, love it, make friends with it, shred it, annihilate it!

Thankfully, Leonard Jacobson explains the ego in simple, understandable terms. Nearly every teaching of his addresses the ego. In this short clip, he explains what the ego is and how to begin to deal with it.

To understand the ego, it helps to understand first, explains Leonard, that Oneness is our natural state. What took us out of our natural state, truth and the natural world? How did that occur?

“Everything else on the planet is simply here, in its fullness and its isness. We’re the only ones that escaped “the world of here” and entered “the world of not here”.”

Entering the world of illusion, took us out of the present moment. And the way we did that was to think, says Leonard.

“The only way you can leave the present moment, is think yourself out of the present moment; there’s no other way, it’s impossible, ” says Leonard. “. . . And if you think your way out of the present moment, where do you go? You go into the past or future, or into the world of the mind.”

How do we imprison ourselves in the world of the mind? Belief. “We imprison ourselves there when we believe in our thoughts.”

“Once you have abandoned the present moment, and become absorbed into the world of the mind: the past and future, the world of thought, idea, concept, opinion, etc.. Once that’s occurred, and you’re functioning as an ego and you’re basically ruled and dominated by the ego.”

Leonard describes two dimensions of the ego:

    1. “The little ‘e’, you functioning in the world as an ego, lost in the world of separation, believing in that as the truth of life; functioning as “Me, me, me”.”
    2. “Then there’s the Ego, with a capital “E”. That’s another level of the ego, that’s “the Custodian”, that’s independent of you and that’s what prevails in the world of separation, the world of illusion.”

“In order to free ourselves, we have to bring to consciousness all the ways we’re functioning as ego in a world of separation and illusion, believing in our thoughts and ideas. Even to believe in your memories is a form of illusion.”

“So we have to own and acknowledge and confess how we’re functioning as egos, lost in separation, always wanting more, never satisfied.”

“There’s no judgement in this, judgement would be of the ego also. This is just observation, witnessing who you have become.”

“Then there’s that other level of the Ego that you cannot defeat. Even God cannot defeat the capital “E”, Ego. And in order to Awaken, you have to really come to a deep, deep knowing, a realization, a recognition, a witnessing of: who and what the Ego is; why it is, how it functions and what will it take for the Ego to release you.”

“And the answer is: the only thing that will bring the Ego to a place of relaxation and surrender – the only thing –  is the energy of love and acceptance, and allowing. And that is only possible from Presence. That is why Presence is so fundamentally important here.”

“And just to hear the truth: The truth is alive and awake in every one of us. When you hear the truth, if you’re open and you’re responsive and you’re not listening with your mind, you can actually feel the settling into Presence that occurs; the opening into Oneness, just hearing the truth.”

“The truth shall set you free.”

“And the truth abides in each one of us, equally. You cannot get the truth from outside of you. You can hear it from outside of you, but  you can only know it from within.”

Leonard’s core teaching is two-part and simple:

    1. To be in Presence and
    2. From Presence, to observe the “ego” and “Ego” and become aware of its actions.

One way I have found to apply this teaching of Leonard’s, is to be fully Present when listening to or watching an Awakened or Enlightened person teaching or speaking and when participating in a Oneness Meditation or a Braco gaze. From Presence, you can feel the truth of a teaching, or the Presence or silence, more fully. And I am sure that every time that I do this, it is relaxing my beloved ego, just a little bit more.

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Embrace Your Ego: Don’t Shred it or Kill it! Part 1

“The Ego is your Friend.” Those words are fighting words to most self help and spiritual teachers. So many teachers tell you your ego is your ENEMY. How can a part of you be your enemy? That just doesn’t make sense to me. Because I had this question, the answers have been coming the past few weeks.

In this interview with Lilou, Panache Desai tells us that “When you can start embracing your ego, and accepting your ego, and understanding that that allows you to individually be [you] in this infinite ocean of oneness; it’s your ego that allows you to express yourself uniquely. How brilliant is that? So when you start embracing your ego and understanding its function, it becomes your friend and then it works with you and for you, in your life, instead of against you.”