XXVII-EGO BANISHMENT or Getting Past the Ego – The New Religion
Woman, thou art God!
This is the new religion where you discover your True Identity. But to discover it is not automatic. You might believe the statement, but you must REALIZE it as in ‘Enlightenment’ or ‘Self Realization.’ Believing something & realizing it are two different things, as in, we believe in God but we have not REALIZED Her until we attain Her in Vision, specifically Beatific Vision.
One saint saw a vision of God in a ‘burning bush,’ & asked this God, could She show Herself AS SHE IS?
God said to Moses,
“You cannot see me & live.”
What did God mean? It’s the ego, it stands between God & us. This begs the question what is God, what is ego & how do we get rid of it? And when we do, is it forever?
When a soul dies, does it automatically lose its ego? No it does not. (How do I know?–by experience & the teachings of Saint Maria of Agreda as well as other mystics, saints & spiritual intellectuals). The ego is part of what must be burned or cleansed in Purgatory. (It’s commonly called ‘attachment.’ Example: I ministered to Elvis Presley, who spent five years in Purgatory. He was filled with memories of his incredible career, he was attached to this, & it took time to remove.)
The saints who go straight to Heaven, only one such I witnessed – Saint Pope John Paul II – have lost their ego before death & so there is no impediment.
What is God? God is pure & perfect Energy or Spirit of a kind we don’t even understand, we just know some of the qualities of God (all superlatives, all Good, Truth, Beauty, Love, Power, Miracle worker, Knows all, Sees all, can do all things, etc.) what God does (Creates, gives life, takes it away, judges, decides, guides), how God behaves (shows Mercy, forgives, makes promises, reveals), what God does not do (does not make mistakes, does not repent a Gift, has no thought, sense or feeling of evil, etc.)
But exactly Who & What this Pure & Perfect God is – No one knows & perhaps we will only know Her in part when we get to Heaven, as we don’t know if there’s anything beyond that.
But the part WE DO KNOW which we can attain, that is attained by saints, is hidden to us by our SINS & our ego which now says WHAT IS EGO?
I can tell you by experience how it feels to LOSE the ego because I did it early 1982. It was FRIGHTENING.
Since those many years ago I studied with Guru Ramana Maharshi, the saint of nonduality. This was 2007 when I reached that state, (but only kept it a year because God wanted me in the world.) From Ramana I learned the OFFICIAL process of EMPTYING myself (I had done it because I saw God face to face, but I did it by accident or without knowing the official steps), Ramana teaches the official steps) which leads to no-ego, a consciousness of ‘Advaita’ (pronounced A – DOI- ta) or Nonduality.
Two days ago I decided to work on losing my ego again – ‘it’s time’ I thought. I went through the process & knew it was working because I BECAME FRIGHTENED. I meditated that night for three hours – if anyone tells you you can do it a half hour a day, they are wrong. Just getting in the mood takes a half hour, then meditation might begin after an hour or so & should continue two or three hours–if you want results. After those three hour I noticed although I have not achieved the goal yet, my dreams were more psychic than usual & I felt closer to God. Then the next night I tried again but got diverted – I will keep trying until I get to it, every day & night.
Back to 1982 when I succeeded. At this time I had been alone for over a year – not completely alone like a hermit, but alone unless I had things to do that could not be avoided. (That is all God expects of you. We can’t all be total hermits, if you do the best you can & spend all the free time available for the quest of God, it’s good enough.)
There are many ‘monastic’ style virtues you practice during times like these – times when you want to find God – really find Her like the saints did. I had taken the vow of celibacy four years prior to this. I was going to the Holy Mass every morning for years – always receiving the Blessed Sacrament, & now I resolved to practice SILENCE & SOLITUDE. I asked my closest friends & relatives who habitually spoke to me NOT TO WRITE OR CALL. (They ALL took it wrong. Each one felt it was a personal rejection. One young disciple said it almost drove him to suicide. Perhaps I did not know how to explain the state I wanted to enter – because I didn’t understand it myself. I just knew I had to be alone to do what I wanted to do – find God.)
OK the question is what did I do to lose the ego? Because after not so long a time, I saw God face to face TWICE. I did not have a formula, plan or schedule of what one does to ‘lose ego’ – I just knew I had to leave the world, people & wordly activities. I knew I had to concentrate on God every day & this was NOT A CHORE – Every fiber of my being wanted nothing but that, I did not want the world or people or it’s ‘joys.’ I found the conversation of wordly people BORING, ANNOYING, IRRITATING & worst of all, DISTRACTING from the One I loved – God. I was intimately, deeply, irresistibly & completely IN LOVE & I wanted NOTHING & NO ONE to come between myself & my Beloved. And so my activities were in no way chores, labors, forced disciplines or anything one does that hurts – these prayers, spiritual readings, going to Church, litanies, rosaries, more books on saints, were all the things I wanted to do more than anything else. Even years afterward my friend George said
“You have me in a place I really can’t converse with you at – How can I talk to you about nothing but God?”
During the solitude I did not talk to George or anyone, as I said it was later. Everything George talked about irritated me, especially when he got anywhere near sex, then I went ape-shit. I tried to be polite when he told me what kind of female body he liked, but I wanted to scream. The rest of his topics were boring & trivial to me, even though I agreed with the subjects, as he was an anti-war, anti-Patriarchy intellectual. But when a person only wants to think about God, even the important things of the world go pale.
OK, bottom line–what is ego? What do you have to give up, renounce, die to?
The ego is EVERYTHING CONNECTED TO THE WORLD – OUR SOCIETY – TO FRIENDS & FAMILY.
It is IDENTIFICATION with who we are in the FLESH, GENDER, POSITION, JOB & ACCOMPLISHMENTS (or deeds done, good or bad).
It is connection with, memories & attachments to all we have done, accomplished, all we are proud of, ashamed of – everything of the flesh.
In other words ego is EVERYTHING WE ARE CONNECTED TO IN TIME & SPACE WHICH IDENTIFIES & MEASURES US, it is everything EXCEPT WHO WE REALLY ARE, WHICH IS A CHILD & REPLICA OF GOD, A SPIRIT, AN INFINITE BEING WHO ALWAYS WAS & ALWAYS WILL BE, IT IS A GENDER-LESS, UNJUDGED, UNMEASURED CREATION OF GOD, PURE & PRISTINE IN ITS CREATION–It is a SPIRIT-SOUL–everything but that is ego.
Therefore, if you want to be in a state of SPIRITUAL PERFECTION, DEAD TO ‘SELF’ OR EGO what Christians call perfect humility, you must separate yourself from all of the above – these things are all deemed ‘attachments’ & they PREVENT THE VISION OF GOD OR SEEING GOD FACE TO FACE.
Before I go into the litany of what to give up as prayer or meditation, let me explain why I was FRIGHTENED when I succeeded in 1982, & why I got frightened again two days ago. If you are not getting this sensation of fear – & you don’t even know what or why you fear – you are not entering the ego-less state – it goes with the territory.
Your ego gives you, as a human, a creature, a sense of ‘who I am here & now’:
“I am secure knowing I am this or that. I feel connected, bonded, to things of this earth – to people, society, family. I belong here. I am also a result of my achievements & efforts – or else (sorry) a product of my failures & sins. All these connections, attachments & memories give me a sense of being here, my identity, persona or character.”
Now in those early days of February 1982 I lost all of the aforementioned concepts. I was not connected to anyone or anything. My memory was working but I wasn’t thinking of anyone, anything, like they all disappeared, & I didn’t know WHERE I WAS MENTALLY or EMOTIONALLY. It was a strange feeling of being SUSPENDED IN SPACE, not connected to the world. Yes, I remembered all the basics, like get up, go to Church but I felt so weird I went to confession & asked the priest (who knew me)
“Father, I don’t understand what’s going on, but please pray for me.”
Not being connected to the world & people put me in an area totally unfamiliar like I had a body but I was not here. This went on for THREE DAYS & then I had my first vision of SEEING GOD FACE TO FACE. In the two visions I left this world, as if I went to Heaven, but I was there IN BODY & even more ALIVE to all physical, mental, emotional sensations than on earth–in the first vision I felt the snow on the railing of the world I was in.
Both visions or experiences were as if I had WOKEN UP from a deep sleep of limitation, this world we live in being a dreamland of partial reality, while the next world is the real one, this is nothing compared to that. I also felt that if this Higher word was my reward, then the sufferings I went through to achieve it were insignificant. I could go through hundreds more years of suffering for this.
Back to the fear (which happened two days ago when I started meditating the way of losing ego.) When I began to renounce & separate myself from all the things of the world I barely got started after an hour, & I only got to the edge of the precipice of freedom – it was only looking from the edge of the cliff down to the chasm of the Grand Canyon – only that much & it was scary. I could not go on & decided to save it for another day. But the sensation of fear proved I looked into the chasm for one moment. I will try again until I succeed again.
Losing the ego is like a FREE FALL off an immense cliff & you don’t know if you’ll make it or die – you have NOTHING TO HOLD ONTO, no parachute, & all you have is your faith, hope & love of God, trust & confidence in God – nothing else. On the other side is God, you ascend into Her Holiness. Better yet, as Saint Mary of Agreda says, you cannot get there of your own will, She lifts you into Glory. Your part was the renunciation, you are capable of no more than that.
What you have to give up–where do we start? Try gender, I will say this like a prayer but it can be done any way, simply by mis-identifying yourself, forgetting your gender:
“I am not a gender, I am a Spirit made in the image & likeness of God.”
Family: (this will be a biggie to many. Some won’t be able to do this, that is why Jesus stated it emphatically like you EVEN have to give up family to be God’s disciple–
“I have no earthly family. I distance myself from all of them, my only family is the Heavenly one.” (Mind you, if any of them is Heavenly, then you can be One with them. When Jesus said, ‘Who is my Mother, who are my brothers? Whoever obeys God etc. he knew darn well His Holy Mother was the top follower of God, He was not denying Her Her privilege with Him! So said Anne Catherine Emmerich.)
My position in the world, good or bad:
“Who I am in society’s eyes does not matter. If they applaud or praise me it is without meaning–I am just an actor playing my part, they don’t even know who I am. I am not there, I’m a celestial being. If they despise me, jeer at me & spit on me it also doesn’t matter, as I’m not there, that’s just an actor in the theater of life, I am a celestial being created by God – they don’t even see the Real Me. I renounce praise, consolation, fake human love, I also renounce the hate, anger, revenge they feel toward me. They don’t see me, they see the actor doing things they don’t approve, I feel nothing to their reaction as I’m not there.”
My accomplishments, failures & sins: “I do not hold onto my accomplishments, successes – they were done by the Grace of God, I was lucky God helped me, I let them go, I do not think about them, & my failures it’s ‘better luck next time,’ I let that go also, it doesn’t matter if I felt ashamed or inferior, I am now indifferent & move on. As far as sins, I am deeply sorry & have repented to God totally & trust that God has forgiven me–God is merciful, I do not harbor guilt or fear any more, I let my sins go, the Lord has taken care of them.” (Whoever The Lord is to you, could be Jesus, Mother God, Allah, whatever way you believe.)
About sins, this is IMPORTANT: Before one even BEGINS to go on this path of perfection, all sins, big & small, must be repented & paid for with penance. Penance could be any sort of effort in prayer, charity, voluntary suffering. Don’t even THINK of embarking on this road with sins on your soul, it won’t work. That is a given I forgot to mention in the beginning. Perfection is a step beyond being a sinner, it’s the way of the saint far from sin. Of course, I am not judging anyone – God alone is the judge. Attachment to the world, people & family ARE NOT SINS but they block the vision of God, they mar the path to perfection, they must be removed. Next step:
Ambition, strong desires, wanting to be important or being loved by the world & people: “I do NOT want people to look up to me, if they love me or hate me it doesn’t matter. All that matters is eternal life, my soul being with God, I leave all earthy love, admiration, or other emotions of humans behind. I am not attached to any reaction of people to me, I let it all go.
I let go all desires of the world & people, no ambition. I let go of wanting fame & fortune. I let go of my flesh, wanting pleasure & comfort. I will take whatever God gives me & am grateful. I just want the Will of God. If She wants to give me some pleasure, some comfort, some anything, I accept it with gratitude. I want nothing of my will, with Jesus I say, ‘Not my will, Thy Will be done.’ ”
Are you getting the idea my friends? You can think of a hundred ways to renounce the world, the flesh, the devil, people & family. First, make a decision to do so. Then start working on it. Use your own words. Remember, don’t be afraid. If there are things God wants you to have, you will have them. Trust in God. God is usually not mean, although it does seem that way when people get accidents, traumas, diseases, deaths, heartbreaks & the like. Those things happen. Sometimes it’s just life, sometimes it’s karma bringing people closer to God the hard way, purifying them. Your desire must be not in getting ‘well fed,’ consoled, in the flesh & earthly life, but in the Joy of Eternity above all else. Let me part with this, which I used to pray, I think it covers all bases, the Catholic Church gave us –
The LITANY OF HUMILITY:
Deliver me, Jesus.
From the desire of being loved…
From the desire of being extolled …
From the desire of being honored …
From the desire of being praised …
From the desire of being preferred to others…
From the desire of being consulted …
From the desire of being approved …
From the fear of being humiliated …
From the fear of being despised…
From the fear of suffering rebukes …
From the fear of being calumniated …
From the fear of being forgotten …
From the fear of being ridiculed …
From the fear of being wronged …
From the fear of being suspected …
That others may be loved more than I,
Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.
That others may be esteemed more than I …
That, in the opinion of the world,
others may increase and I may decrease …
That others may be chosen and I set aside …
That others may be praised and I unnoticed …
That others may be preferred to me in everything…
That others may become holier than I, provided that I may become as holy as I should…
Woman thou art God! You can do this! God be with you!
Last item: Do you have to be in this state of perfection all your life? No, it’s impossible as far as I know. My life has gone through many stages, perfect & imperfect. I believe God will give you credit for the highest Peak you reached when you die, even after you slip down. I sure hope so! I went way down recently because God ordered me back in the world, so I was in obedience to Her, so I don’t think She will mark me down when I die.
To be continued Rasa Von Werder 10-20-19
