Ego is a function that subsists as long as the body/mind formation exists. Its existence is phenomenal. The purpose is therefore not to suppress anything. Ego is a natural expression of life, in the earthly and temporal dimensions, through aptitudes and characteristics of the body/mind.

Problems arise when the ego seeks to become the owner that expression and says: it is me, who decides and acts. The impression of an “I” or of a separate identity, which acts, comes from the identification to the body/mind, temporal expression of the true Subject. That identification creates the belief that there is someone acting, who would be the creator of thoughts and actions. It may well be so for a while, but at the end, life decides… The persistent belief in an autonomous “I” comes from the continuous flow of thoughts, emotions, experiences, that we consider ours, convinced that the “I” creates them. However, thoughts and experiences are impersonal if we do not take them as ours. The belief in someone acting comes from the identification to the body. The mind, fascinated by experiences, grasps them, consolidating the idea of an “I” who personally lives all these experiences during its existential history.

It is that idea of a separate and acting “I”, which belongs to a dualistic conception, that should be dissolved, and not the natural expression of life, reflection of the source. The attempts to suppress this expression are fear, a thought that reinforces the concept of ego and exacerbates identification. It is again the ego that rejects itself and gets stronger in that action. Life does not seek to reject its expressions. Life does not exclude anything, it encompasses all.

It is the mind, by its repetitive memories, that tends to condition and crystallize the energy of this expression of life, by manipulating the reality to make it conform to the desires projected by the ego. Fabricated desires are the attraction of the mind for the world of objects. “I” feels that it exists through attachment, possession, domination. Without this permanent grasping, the “I” is nothing. Emptiness is the nature of the manifestation. All forms are empty. As soon as it gets what it wants, the ego immediately looks for a new possession, a new attachment, carrying the memory of what it has just lost or won, with the crystallization of pleasures and sufferings. The fear to lose gives rise to inner tensions, conflicts with others, and therefore sufferings. We only consider life through this entity full of desires, fears and resentments. It greatly diminishes the potential of our life. We are not able to have a global vision of life. A strong ego, that continuously projects desires for possession, domination, is the cause of complications because it prevents us from being in harmony with the energetic flow of the universe. The current problems in the world are related to these behaviors ego strengthened.

It is our individualities who, by identifying themselves to pleasures and sorrows, attracted by some and rejecting others, obstruct the flow of life, and prevent it from deploying itself in accordance with its own intelligence. Desires created by the “I”, who believes that it is a separate actor, disturb us in this world of phenomenon and create the habit of identification with what is seen. Desire arises as soon as life does not correspond to expectations of the ego, and as long as illusion of separation with reality is there. It does not matter that the desire be high. Desire implies the presence of an “I” who expects a result, a reward, and who suffers if it does not get what it expected. The basis of the suffering is: we wish something different or something which is not there. Our suffering is proportional to our belief in the reality of a separate individual, acting, and to our attachment to it.

As soon as reality is seen as being what I am, where is desire? The change of vision is a change of perspective on oneself, a return to the deep being, to the source. To find ourselves, we have to accept to let die all the expressions of life. There is nothing to add but everything to take away. It is the desire of a permanent “I” inside the continuous movement of life that makes us suffering so much. Our suffering vanishes by itself when we know how to die every day to ourselves and to everything that comes. To live is to abandon oneself to this movement of simplification that life invites us to do to accomplish itself fully through us. The opening to the space of freedom where everything deploys itself, where life becomes aware of itself, can only arise if we die to all that is manifested, to all attachments which obstruct that space, to all that fill our ego and hide the original peace of our true being.

That simplification is unbearable for an ego fed with desires. However, as soon as the egocentric functioning has been identified, and with it, attachments, claims and demands, cease naturally egotistical projections, sources of endless desires and sufferings. All personal implications are dropped and life becomes harmonious and fluid. It is not the ego that has renounced to something. There are simply no implications anymore. Remains a pure and causeless joy, which is our natural state. We only are a channel, a way of expression of the consciousness. On that path of renunciation, we receive as much as we are able to let go of ourselves. Without seeking to impose our ego to control everything, we are guided from inside. In that acceptation, we keep a personality and characteristics, but the idea of an “I” centered on demands and desires has disappeared. We continue to function; however, we become the instrument of the intelligent energy which works through us. We become as free as this energy. Our life, then, is more dynamic, creative, inside of this wide open space. In that state, without identification to the ego, our acts are free and are the expression of joy, and not the result of a desire or an obligation. They are right because they never are in contradiction with life. Freedom, it’s to move without luggage, without attachment to “I” and to other individualities, without being dependant on experiences, results and aims. In this welcoming, resistance and tensions causing sufferings disappear.

The more we remain in that welcoming, in the attention deprived of intentions, in the observation without conceptualization, and the less we conceive ourselves as a separate actor. In the observation, we are not involved anymore. We are in the spontaneity, in the first instant of pure perception, in perfect harmony with that which is. If we can stay there in full awareness, without seeing ourselves as an “I” facing a non “I”, thoughts and acts respond to situations as they are, without anyone to own them. In the attention, the body and mind function in a relaxed manner, the conditionings of the ego are not kept up. Therefore, they dissolve naturally. The “I” is not fed, and it vanishes in the silence. The ultimate Subject is silence.

Simply observe the movements of the personality, that are a mere reflection of what we are. Through neutral observation, we are truly ourselves. As long as we consider ourselves as a separate entity, we live in the superficiality of our true being, in a reflection of it. And we live in the suffering of this feeling of separation. In that feeling, there are seeds of conflicts, violence and wars. The obstacle to love is that concept of a separate entity. There is no other obstacle.

As long as the ego is at work, it creates problems that it then tries to solve. That is endless. Trapped in the dead-end of egocentrism, we have no other solution than to look inwards, to go beyond oppositions “I”/others, subject/object, to find our center, that cosmic “I”. In reality, we always reside in that center, but, caught by the flow of experiences, we reside there without our knowledge, agitated and worried, without awareness. We let that “I” guides us, and we therefore live mentally, at the periphery of our true being. We believe we are separated from the whole, and we only see reality as multiple limited fragments. We do not see the unique substratum, the consciousness. All along our existence, we let our consciousness functioning as a conditioned entity by all it manifests. At each experience, this space of perception identifies itself to the body/mind and gives raise to the feeling of a separate self. That individuality, which is only an expression of pure consciousness, is so fascinated by the experiences that it forgets the source. However, all that arises is life offering itself to us through consciousness. All is an offering of a boundless intelligence at work in each event. That intelligence is the cosmic energy, the boundless and creative movement of the universe which reveals itself in each circumstance through beings, without any involvement of an “I”.

Everything flows when our ego no longer wants, but when the forces of life that are acting through us and are leading us where they wish. All that is proposed to us is fair because it is the intelligence at the heart of life that proposes it to us. It is only “I” who believes that it is hurted by life. We all are able to live as peaceful observers, whose acts are deprived of agitation and pretention. We thus remain in the silence of our eternal part. It is in that silent space that the “I” vanishes. We are that empty space. We surrender to the flow of the universe with the humble disappearance of an “I” centered on its pretentions. We have to learn to withdraw from the daily activities in order to perceive the silent space. Love and peace are its substance. That space is the essence of our consciousness, that encompasses everything. When we let it be present in each action of our daily life, joy is continuous because it is no more related to the intentions of the ego. We cease considering life as something which deploys itself from a personal entity. We are then fully in the life. We do not act depending on this entity and its desires, but we simply use it and let it return to its source without attachment.

“I” is only the ephemeral expression of that source eternally flowing, and in that earthly play of the consciousness, “I” is an object of knowledge and observation. Therefore, it cannot be the ultimate Subject. We confuse this expression and its source. We confuse life, one and eternal, and its multiple and ephemeral expressions, which are reflections of life. Reverse our attention; remain where life and its manifestations arise. Observe all from this immutable place, and not from the manifestation and then the ephemeral.

“I”, with the mind as support, always projects itself outside, pursuing desires, distracted and fascinated by all experiences that it takes as its own, whereas experiences are only life which is being lived through us.

With the vanishing of the concept of an “I” acting, the feeling of separation also disappears. The mind, which is not divided, rests, and can faithfully express, through the “I”, the continuous flow that emerges from the silent origin. “I” finally reflects what it was conceived for: the life. “I” is to be seen as an expression of what is containing it. It expresses life and the intelligence in the heart of life. Our true nature is life, both at its source and in its expression. Accept the “I” as an expression of what we are, not as we are. Do not confuse the expression and the source. Do not get concerned by what that expression expresses, by thoughts and acts. Do not get attached to the expression when it doesn’t need any longer to manifest itself. The idea of a separate “I” will then naturally disappear.

Let ego be the spontaneous expression of the energy of life. Block the flow of energy is a mental process. Pure perception, which is energy flowing out of the Heart, is usually transformed mentally according to the desires of the ego. That blocking creates suffering. As soon as there is welcoming, ego leaves off its demands. It vanishes in that neutral attention.

We are much better than a little “I”. We are what is containing it.