The will, and addiction of the ego

Ralph,

It sounds like you have had some good realizations, and that you are enjoying good results.

I just want to say (and this is not to criticize what you wrote in any way, just an observation about how we describe things) that I have never been too comfortable with explanations of personal growth that delve into the nature of the ego (although this is almost always done elsewhere), and certainly not of "submitting your will to the mantra," which sounds like letting ourselves be controlled by some force outside of ourselves.

If this were our only approach, we might mislead people that our technique is based on philosophy rather than experience. We would end up like everybody else, talking about the importance of living in the moment (the eternal now), not letting our ego get the best of us, submitting our will to the Omnipresent Universal Being, being good to all creatures, etc.

These are all symptoms of enlightenment, not a means to make it a reality.

I think a more direct and simple approach to is to blame stress (definition: damage to the nervous system causing reduced functioning and caused by sensory or cognitive overload) for problems in achieving spiritual growth.

We have seen over and over again how bad experiences during meditation clear up with the passage of time, as the deep rest heals the nervous system and lets it repair itself. From our side, all we have to do is meditate correctly, and although that initially requires a certain amount of instruction, all that is needed in practice over the long haul is regularity of innocent, effortless practice.

I hope you won't mind that I took your posting as an excuse to go off on a tangent to explain some of these points.

David Spector
Natural Stress Relief/USA